"Singing Our Faith: Lead Me, Guide Me" - Sermon for the Seventh Sunday after Pentecost

Singing Our Faith: Lead Me, Guide Me
Pentecost 7
July 12, 2015
Grace Mankato, MN
Luke 4.1-13

When the devil saw a seeker enter the house of the Master, he was determined to turn him from his quest for Truth. The devil subjected the poor man to every temptation, but the seeker was far too experienced in matters of spirituality to succumb. When the seeker got into the Master’s presence he was shocked to see him sitting in a comfortable chair with his followers at his feet, the clothes he was wearing, and that he paid no attention to him. The seeker became disillusioned and left. The Master, who had seen the devil sitting in the corner, said to him, “You need not have worried, Tempter. He was yours from the very first, you know.”

This fable from Anthony de Mello’s book, Taking Flight, illustrates some of the difficulties we encounter when we seek God’s guidance, not the least of which is our very selves. Our focus hymn for today, Lead Me, Guide Me, was suggested by Judy Rotering and Karen Zingmark, who notes the theme of guidance. The song “is an earnest plea for an intimate walk with God,” who we ask to lead, guide and protect us. It emphasizes our spiritual weakness, blindness and the work of the devil.

The song was written and composed by Doris Akers, an African American who was a prodigious writer in the Southern Gospel tradition.  Born in 1922 in Brookfield, MO, Akers was also something of a prodigy. She learned to play the piano by ear at age 6 and wrote her first song at 10. Since then she has composed more than 300 gospel songs and hymns. Her fresh, modern arrangements of traditional Negro spirituals drew large crowds and she had an active career as a singer, choir director and songwriter. Believe it or not, Lead Me, Guide Me was recorded by Elvis Presley and sung in his last movie, “Elvis on Tour” in 1972. Akers died in Minneapolis from spinal cancer in 1995. She was posthumously inducted into both the Gospel Music Hall of Fame and the Southern Gospel Music Hall of Fame.

I’ve put Lead Me, Guide Me in conversation with the temptation of Jesus story in Luke 4. Though a full-blown exposition of the devil isn’t possible, we need to acknowledge our ambivalence toward him. On the one hand, some people blame Satan for everything that goes wrong in the world and find the devil’s work everywhere. On the other, we tame the devil or dismiss him as antiquated. We do this by dressing him in funny costumes and joke about him. Flip Wilson’s “the devil made me do it” is a good example. Either way, we distance the devil from our lives. However you fall, I think it’s important to recognize there are forces in this world that are standing against God and God’s purposes.

As last week, rather than tell you how we should seek God’s guidance, I have a few propositions to offer. First, I think the real work of the devil is to disrupt relationships between us and God and between us and other people. As we see in Luke 4, Satan often does that by offering us good things for the wrong reasons. Money, responsibility, sports, family, technology, etc. are all good things that can go wrong if we put them first in our lives.

Second, as the fable implies, very often it is our own preconceived ideas that get in the way of receiving God’s guidance. As the cartoon character Pogo has said, “We have met the enemy and he is us.” I think that we have a hard time receiving guidance from God because we’ve decided the answer we want and just ask God to bless it. So, as the Holy Spirit leads Jesus into the wilderness so sometimes God leads us there, too. Now, the wilderness is not always a scary, wild place; it can also be a place of renewal where we can hear God’s voice more clearly. When we ask for God’s guidance, it would help for us to be open to what God has to say to us. The wilderness is often that place. For, it’s in the wilderness places and times that our faith often takes shape.

Third, as Luke 4 intimates, the Bible is neither an answer book nor is God a cosmic dispenser of goodies. Rather, the reading of scripture is designed to open us up to trusting God and his provision for us. I think it’s here that we get particularly stuck because the battle with the tempter is against insecurity and mistrust. The devil’s work is in the breakdown of relationships and these are fueled by insecurity and mistrust.

Now, I know that it is not particularly helpful for me to say, “All you have to do is trust God!” That’s just what we often have a hard time doing. David Lose, former Luther Seminary professor of preaching and now President of our seminary in Philadelphia has suggested a little exercise to help. Take out the slip of paper and write the word trust on one side. Then write down something important that you totally trust God with. This should not be a “given,” but something you really do trust God with. On the other side, write “mistrust” and something you are having a hard time giving over to God. These can be something to do with work, family, school, church or anything else.

Now, compare the two things. Why is it easier to trust God for one and not the other? Are they different in some way? Last, I’d invite you to do one of two things. You can either put them in the offering plate and I promise to pray for these this next week or you can take them home with you. If you take them home, give thanks for what you trust God for and pray over what is hard to trust God.

Trust is at the heart of our relationship with God and it’s not always easy. But if we want God to “lead us and guide us along life’s way” we need the support of one another. We need to be reminded that we are not to live in an atmosphere of fear and scarcity but rather of courage and abundance. Indeed, “lead us and guide us along the way,” O Lord. Amen.