FOLLOW THE GOD WHO
FAILED
April 2007
for the Collect, publication for St. Thomas Episcopal Church,
Medina, WA
From the Baptismal Covenant:
Mother Teresa once said, “God doesn’t call me to be successful; God calls me to be faithful.” It’s one of those ideas in Christianity that turns our dominant culture on its ear. Why should I have faith in God if God won’t assure my success? Why even try?
I think it comes down to the question of how we define success. In everything that we undertake, we have at least a vague sense of how things should turn out. Indeed, if we never have expectations, we’ll never begin to do anything at all.
But God is beyond all our expectations or measures of success. The Easter story is the most obvious example: The Savior of the world was rejected and executed. How could this happen? Did God fail? It’s hard to deny that the crucifixion of Jesus represents a failure of some sort. But what is failure?
I’ve always been pretty afraid of failure. In fact, I’ve often been guilty of undertaking only those things that I feel relatively sure will succeed – on my own terms. In recent years, I’ve gotten more adventurous, and I’m pleased that I’ve found success in trying new things. But this won’t last forever. Sooner or later, some big effort of mine, something that I feel has ramifications for my entire life, will crash and burn. Maybe this has happened to you – a failed job, a failed investment, a failed business, a failed marriage, or a child who consistently disappoints you. We all have regrets, some deeper than others. The Good News is that failure is never the end of the story.
Lent is our time in the desert. If there’s any time to examine our failures, this is it. But as Lent draws to a close, we come to the water. We gear up for the Good News that saves us all: The story isn’t over. I’ve written before that there’s no place in your life too impure for God to tread. Our failures are great examples.
Jesus Christ is the Good News. Through him comes our salvation: the end of fear, the end of loneliness, the end of loss. Jesus is the Word of God. When they killed him, he didn’t just appear to be dead … he wasn’t mostly dead. As we sing in our weekly setting of the Creed, “True life there had truly died.”
Yes, everything dies … but that’s not the end of the story. Join us at the Easter Vigil on April 7 at 9:00 pm to find out just how successful a failure can be. As we sit in the darkness that follows the crucifixion, we’ll share the primary stories of our faith. In all of these stories, new life comes from the death of the old ways. And then, we’ll use the sacrament of baptism to show how resurrection is still happening today – right in our midst, in the people we know and love.
In the baptismal promises, we remind each other to live faithfully, not successfully. Come follow the God who failed – because failure ain’t what it used to be.