Our Misplaced God
by Bill Levering
October, 2006

Job is in trouble. His fortune, his health, and most of his family are lost. Much like the mayor of New Orleans, he sits on a pile of rubble and gets bad advice. Job's biggest problem is that he has misplaced God. 'Oh, that I knew where I might find him.'

Now, it's not unusual for people to misplace important things. Key, wallets, glasses. But misplacing God? This morning I'd like to look at our experience of misplacing things and see how it might help us in our relationship with God. We’ll look first at the misplacing and then at the finding.

Misplacing things is a maddening experience. First comes annoyance, then frustration, then anger at ourselves for being so stupid or so disorganized or so undisciplined. The meeting is starting in 15 minutes and I can't find the keys. I've looked everywhere once and most places twice. I've wracked my brains. I was in a hurry before any of this started, now it's an absolute panic. It's not that the important things in our lives get completely lost. We know they are around here someplace. Someplace. Some wrong place.

Most of the important things in our lives have a particular place where they belong. The remote control goes on top of the TV. We all know that. What happens to make the totems of our life mysteriously slip into inappropriate hiding places? Here’s what happens: we get distracted or we get lazy and put the remote down in the first place that is handy.

Just as we certainly don’t intend to put our glasses in the wrong spot, we don’t intend to misplace God, but it ends up happening. We have placed what should be at the center at the periphery. We have placed God under our needs for comfort and security. We have placed God in the freezer when God should always be next to our hearts.

Remember the pearl of great price? Jesus tells of a man who finds an incredibly valuable pearl and sells all that he has to invest in it. Imagine now that this man goes home and hides it someplace so well that he can’t remember where it is.

We have done this as a culture. We have placed subordinate values of punishment and security above Godly notions of forgiveness and redemption. As a nation established for freedom, we have forgotten where we put that basic idea now.

As individuals we have misplaced God. We keep the divine as a charming subset of our busy lives, an enrichment to the real curriculum of reading the trends, writing the checks and the rithmetic of greed.


The Problem of the Misplaced God

Important things misplaced become a crisis when they are needed. The keys can stay in the freezer for all we care until we need them to get to the meeting. God can stay in the wrong place until we suddenly realize we have put the divine in the wrong spot. Psalm 77 says, “In the day of my trouble I seek the Lord; in the night my hand is stretched out without wearying.”

It may seem for a bit that this is not our fault. I distinctly remember putting the keys on the dining room table. Who moved them? “My God My God, why have you lost track of me?” “Are you paying attention here?”

There are times when God seems to have misplaced us, but of course, we have misplaced God. When God is misplaced, we try to go it alone, to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps, to tough it out.

But just as the misplaced keys bring on a sense of anxiety and anger, so putting God out of sight and out of mind gives us only a sense of a “God shaped hole” as Salman Rushdie wrote: the central place that God is meant to occupy. When we lose important things we get a little disoriented, the rest of our life limps along, we are distracted and worried about the missing elements.

Perhaps you have not lost touch with God however. That’s great. Just take notes on the sermon for someone else in your family because most of us have had the experience of estrangement from the really good stuff, gradually losing track of what is most important.

In order to have billfold when you need it. In order to have God at hand when the problem or the joy arrives, we need to keep track of God.


How do we find God?

Let’s pound this analogy into the ground, shall we? How can the way we find our misplaced passport help us find our God?

Just as people loved to give Job advice, folks love to give advice to people who misplace things. Let’s look as some of it.

Where was the last place you had it? How many times have we retraced our steps, run through our actions in our head? So retrace your steps. When was he last time you felt close to God? Singing a hymn? Sing more hymns. In yoga class? Take more yoga. In conversations of faith? Talk more about God. Were you last closest to God in the middle of the night in a desperate prayer? Um. Buy a bigger car? No. Pray more.

Who else can help? I know that when I have put my cell phone in the wrong place, after about five minutes of looking, or after about 5 seconds of looking, I might shout “Abby! Have you seen my palm pilot?” There is something about a search that invites another perspective. “I think I saw it on the dryer!” She might shout. When we lose track of the divine, perhaps we should ask around. “Have you seen God lately?” Church is a good place to do this.

Where is it supposed to be? Wikihow is a website with short articles that tell you how to do everything imaginable. On their site they have several suggestions on how to find lost objects. One of them is, “Look for the missing object where it is supposed to be, or where it can usually be found.”

Hmm. Where is God supposed to be, or usually found. Isaiah says “Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near.” (55:6) If there is a place that God is supposed to be, I suppose that just might be worship. If God seems far off, trying visit the holy house more. It sounds like a joke, but I bet you know someone who misplaced their glasses right on top of their head. God is like that. Right where you might expect the divine to be. Waiting for us to sheepishly look in place that God has always been: everywhere.


The Finding is Worth the Looking

In the book of Jeremiah, God addresses the pain of people who have been moved en masse to Babylon. He tells people the pain of the Babylonian exile will not be for much longer. Jeremiah reports God’s benevolent availability: “For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you," declares the LORD” (29:11-14)

Sometime in the next few weeks you will lose something important. You will misplace keys, glasses, remote control, or something. As you are frantically looking about, stop for just a moment and consider if there is something bigger you should be looking for as well.

"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.

Seek ye first the kingdom of God and it’s righteousness. And all these things will be added unto you. Allelu Alleluia.

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