"The One"
#92-01Presented on The Lutheran Hour on September 1, 2024
By Rev. Dr. Michael Zeigler, Lutheran Hour Speaker
Copyright 2024 Lutheran Hour Ministries
No bonus material MP3
Text: Genesis 24:14
"You see, kids, the universe has a plan." That's what the narrator says in an episode of the popular TV sitcom, How I Met Your Mother. The sitcom's narration is set in the year 2030. The narrator, a 50-year-old father of two teenage children, who's named Ted, is telling a story. It's a long, complicated story. It's the story of how he met his soulmate, the love of his life, the one, the mother, who, later we learn—spoiler alert—recently died of a rare disease.
One effect of listening to such a long story is that you really get to know Ted. You learn that Ted is a hopeless romantic. He truly believes, most days, that that special someone is out there, his soulmate, the one who will complete him. We also learn along the way that Ted did a lot of dumb stuff with his friends when they were in their twenties and thirties living in New York City. Yet through the story, we also get to know Ted, even to love him. Though he can be overly intellectual, idealistic—not to mention fickle, critical, childish, skeptical—but also deeply religious, with his abiding faith in the universe.
Faith in the universe is a recurring theme in this not-so-long-ago primetime sitcom. In the 200 episodes of the show, by one count, there are over 60 references to the universe. There are prayers to the universe, supposed signs and punishments from the universe, praises and laments about the universe. The universe is hailed as mysterious and awesome, yet also inscrutable, vindictive, funny, and sometimes too busy to care. Faith in the universe is invoked and revoked, criticized, and ridiculed. Renounced and reborn. And in the year 2030, 50-year-old Ted is depicted as still holding on to his faith. He tells his children, "Kids, I've been telling you the story of how I met your mother. And while there are many things to learn from this story, this may be the biggest. You see, kids, the universe has a plan, and that plan is always in motion. All these little parts of the machine constantly working, making sure you end up exactly where you're supposed to be, exactly when you're supposed to be there, the right place at the right time."
The sitcom, How I Met Your Mother, is a thought-provoking example of our enduring religiousness. People still believe that the universe is a hopeful place for us. Perhaps the universe even has a plan for us. And maybe everything will turn out all right. But we also know that things go wrong. Real life doesn't reflect our sitcoms.
Craig Thomas was one of the two original writers for the show, How I Met Your Mother. The behind-the-scenes matchmakers who made sure Ted found his soulmate. When the show took off, Craig was a Hollywood writer in his early thirties. It's 2007. His show is a hit. He's successful, making it big, and then Craig's son is born with a rare genetic syndrome, a chromosomal deletion that entails open-heart surgery, a multitude of health issues, and lifelong learning disabilities. Fifteen years later, just under 50, Craig wrote an essay about his family's experience. Unlike his character, Ted, it wasn't faith in the universe Craig was confessing, but ignorance. The one thing he finally realized he did know, he says, is just how much he doesn't know.
What we are confessing on this program is different. It's different from Ted's sitcom faith and different from Craig's humble admission of ignorance, but not entirely different. Like Ted, we believe there is a plan, but not from the universe, but for it and for us, from our Creator. And like Craig, we confess just how much we don't know.
And while that's a good start, it's not the end, because we are confessing knowledge—knowledge of and faith in a Person, the Person who has made the Creator known for us: Jesus of Nazareth, the guy who rose from the dead, the Son of God and the Savior of the universe. This program exists to share that saving knowledge of Jesus the Messiah.
But it's not knowledge for control. It's not knowledge I can use to make my life more like a sitcom. It's not knowledge you can use to narrate the story of how you found yourself. It's not that kind of knowledge. It's relational knowledge. Knowledge that leads you and me to knowing our Creator personally and trusting Him through His Word made flesh, Jesus Christ. We trust Him because we've gotten to know Him through hearing His story in the Bible.
See, listening to the Bible, you really get to know God, even to fear Him, love Him, and trust Him, though we cannot fathom Him. So, like Craig, we do confess just how much we don't know. In Jesus we know God's heart and His ultimate plan, but we don't know the answers to questions like "Why do some mothers get to be around to tell stories to their children, but others don't?" or "Why are some babies born healthy and others with chromosomal deletions?"
Faced with these and other unanswered questions that we put to God, we could dismiss faith in Him. We could become His critics. Craig Thomas, that sitcom writer I mentioned, recently wrote a humor piece titled "Bad Reviews of Beloved Classics." Craig writes, "As the saying goes, 'Everyone's a critic.' But what happens when the critics get it wrong?" Then he imagines some scathing reviews from long ago, reviews that got it wrong.
For example, from an early review of clouds. "Picture a pristine morning sky, bright, azure, full of possibility. Now add some obese floating sheep. Oh, I'm sorry, did I spoil the mood? Ladies and gentlemen, meet clouds, amateurish puffs of mediocrity better suited for a child's scribblings than for our heavenly firmament. And did I mention that clouds are from whence come rain, thunder, lightning? That's right, folks, these flying sheep can kill you! This critic prefers his flocks where they belong, back on the ground. Zero stars for clouds."
Craig goes on with wrong-headed reviews of dogs, friends, and books, then rounds it out with one on death. It goes like this: "God created all life, so varied, so rich, so diverse. But how does all life end? Spoilers, death. Yes, all living things meet the exact same end. Isn't that a bit one-note? Cookie-cutter? Phoned in? Couldn't there be a selection process, merit-based, whereby some are chosen to walk on earth for eternity? Suggestion, considering their vital role in helping humanity comprehend life itself, perhaps critics would be good candidates for immortality. One critic's prediction: God will finally wise up and replace this drab, formulaic, punctuation mark to existence with something more interesting within the decade."
Over the next several weeks on this program, we are going to be listening to the Bible's book of Genesis, the account about from whence came clouds, dogs, friends, books, and death. Craig's critic got it right. Death is God's punctuation mark. Death ends the stories that we try to write without God at the center. And even if we think it's formulaic, Genesis never panders to the critics. And whereas all critics meet the same end, the book of Genesis, the Bible, God's book, has endured. It's outlasted empires, kingdoms, and critics.
So maybe you're tired of playing the critic. Maybe you're realizing just how much you don't know. And though that's not much, it's a start. But what's next? Why don't you try listening to the book of Genesis with us. Back in the fall of 2019 on this program, we started at the beginning of Genesis. You can find those programs in our archives online. But since we had skipped the big part in the middle, we're coming back to that middle part now. Here's a quick recap of the beginning: God created the universe. And Adam, the first man. From Adam, Eve. All was at peace in Eden. Man, woman, harmony. "Thanks a lot, serpent," says the critic. But we have ourselves to blame. Blamed and damned though we be, God's punctuation mark of death isn't a period, full stop, but an ellipsis...three dots indicating more to come. And I don't mean a ghostly afterlife, but a full-scale reversal of death.
See, in Genesis, God makes a promise to Eve, the mother of all the living. God said her seed, a Son, a Messiah born from her body, would come one day to crush the serpent, to renovate the universe, to reverse death. The rest of Genesis traces the promised seed through one man's family, Abraham. And why it's Abraham who was chosen with his son and grandson and great-grandson, Isaac, Jacob, and Judah, God only knows. Yet through the account of Abraham's family, God reveals His character, often unfathomable, but also good, wise, and ultimately trustworthy. So give it a listen, this part from Genesis 24, the account of how Jacob's father met his mother, a mother who would carry the seed of the Messiah.
So Abraham was old, well advanced in years, and the Lord, the one true God, had blessed him in every way. And Abraham said to his chief servant, the one in charge of all that he had, he said to him, "Put your hand under my thigh. I want you to swear an oath by the Lord, the God of the heavens and the God of earth that you will not get a wife for my son from among the daughters of the people of Canaan where I am now living, but that you will go back to my country, to my relatives, to find a wife for my son, Isaac."
But the servant said, "What if the woman is unwilling to come back with me to this land? Should I take your son back to the country from which you came?" Abraham answered, "Make sure you do not take my son back there. The Lord, the God of heaven, who brought me out from my father's household, out from my native land, who spoke to me and promised me with an oath saying, 'To your seed, I will give this land.' The Lord, He will send His angel ahead of you, so that you can find a wife for my son from there. If the woman is not willing to come with you, then you will be released from this oath of mine, only do not bring my son back there." So the servant put his hand under the thigh of his master, under the seat of procreative power, and swore an oath concerning this matter.
Now the servant took ten of Abraham's camels and left. Taking along a good many things from his master, he set out and made his way to the town where Abraham's brother, Nahor, lived.
Outside the town, he had the camels kneel down by the well. It was toward evening, the time when the women would come out to draw water from the well. And Abraham's servant prayed. He said, "Oh, Lord, God of my master, Abraham, give me success today and show love and kindness to my master Abraham. Look, I am here next to this well, and the daughters of the townspeople are coming out to draw water. May it be that when I say to a girl, 'Would you please let down your jar and give me a drink?' And she says to me, 'Drink, and I will draw some water for your camels' to let her be the one whom you have chosen for your servant Isaac. By this, I will know that you have shown loving kindness to my master, Abraham."
Before he had finished praying, look, Rebecca came carrying her water jar on her shoulder. Rebecca, the daughter of Abraham's nephew, Bethuel. Bethuel, whose mother and father were Milcah and Nahor, Abraham's brother. Now Rebecca was beautiful, a maiden; no man had known her. And she went down to the well to fill her jar, and she came back up again. The servant hurried over to meet her. He said to her, "Would you please give me a drink from your jar?" And she said, "Drink, sir." And she lowered the jar from her shoulder to her hands and gave him a drink. And after she'd given him a drink, she said, "I'll draw some water for your camels, too." And quickly, she poured her jar into the trough and ran back and forth to the well to draw more water until there was enough for all the camels.
Without saying a word, the man watched her closely to learn if the Lord had given him success. After the camels had finished drinking, he said to her, "Whose daughter are you? Would you tell me, please? And is there room in your father's house for us to come and stay with you this night?" She answered, "I'm the daughter of Bethuel, Bethuel, the son of Milcah and Nahor, and we have plenty. Plenty of straw and fodder for your camels, and room for you all to stay the night." At this, the man bowed down and worshiped the Lord and said, "Blessed be the Lord, the God of my master Abraham. He has not abandoned His loving kindness and faithfulness to Abraham, my master. As for me, the Lord has led me on the way to the relatives of my master."
Now there is more to the account. You can read the rest in Genesis 24. Abraham's servant meets Rebecca's family, tells them about the oath, about his journey, and how Rebecca was the answer to his prayer. And with her family's consent, Rebecca volunteers to go back with him, and she and Isaac met.
But what does it mean for us today? To answer that, first we need to acknowledge what might be a cultural hangup. Set aside for now that an arranged marriage between second cousins might sound odd to us, because we've got our own issues. We can take this story the wrong way if we filter it through our culture's myth of the soulmate, the idea that there's this one, the one romantic interest out there who will complete you, and to find him or her you need to cycle through any number of others, using them in the interim for short-term, self-fulfillment.
That's not what's happening here in Genesis 24. It's not a sitcom about the universe's plan to bring two soulmates together so they can complete each other. No, it's the account of how God is working to complete us because we've been trying to do life without Him, and it's killing us. And God isn't happy about it.
But not unhappy like a critic. See, God isn't ultimately a critic. He's a Creator. And before that, a loving Father, and He loves what He created. So He sent His Son to be born into the family of Isaac and Rebecca, to be that promised Seed, the sign of God's love and kindness toward us.
When Jesus was crucified on the cross, He not only crushed the serpent, He put the punctuation mark on our separation from God. And He rose from the dead to start a new sentence, to write a new story. This story includes and redeems romance and the lifelong union of one man and one woman, and with them, children and family and home and country, because these are God's gifts to us. But they can't complete us. Only Jesus can do that. Genesis and the rest of the Old Testament is the story of how, how the Messiah made His way to us through one human family. Our story, today, our story is of how the Messiah makes a way to all families.
Craig Thomas, that sitcom writer who also authored that essay about his son who was born with a disability, in that essay he describes how life with his son is teaching him to step outside of himself. Craig had become a successful Hollywood writer, so he tried to share his newfound sense of mission within that profession. He started writing stories about families often overlooked by Hollywood, specifically, families learning how to welcome children with disabilities. He wrote scripts for a sitcom, a musical, and a mini-series, but none of them sold. So instead, he wrote that essay about his son, and published it—hoping, dreaming, maybe even praying that his words would find someone who needs them. In that small act, Craig was pointing to something greater. Even if he didn't know it, he was pointing to Someone greater: the God of Genesis, the God and Father of Jesus.
See kids, the universe does not have a plan, but God does. And God knows in advance the families we will come from and continue. He knows where we will live and what we will do and say and suffer. But our self-fulfillment stories are not the goal. God is the goal, and He orders all things that we might seek Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us.
As a writer sends his words and the patriarch sent his servant, God sent His Word to become flesh to find us. God doesn't give answers to all our questions or comebacks to our criticisms, but He does give Himself. Jesus met us in a death like ours to end one story and start another. So live in Him, not as a critic, but as a servant. You get to be the matchmaker led by God to bring one more into the Messiah's family, so that they would know that God is the One, the only One. Amen? Amen!
Reflections for September 1, 2024
Title: The One
No QA segment this week.
Music Selections for this program:
"A Mighty Fortress" arr. Peter Prochnow. Used by permission.
"Father Most Holy" arr. Peter Prochnow. From The Hymnal Project of the Michigan District, The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. Used by permission.
"Crucifer" by Sydney H. Nicholson, arr. Peter Prochnow. Used by permission.
