God of the Gaps: Spiritual Orienteering

A couple of weeks ago, I preached on the 1st half of Matthew 16—the Pharisees’ and Sadducees’ demand for a sign and Jesus’ warning to beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees (“God of the Gaps: WYSIWYG”). I said that WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) applies to our spirituality as follows:

What we see with the eyes of our heart determines the type of peace, or shalom, we are prepared to receive.

The Pharisees and Sadducees were looking for God’s blessing in one part of their lives, while God was at work elsewhere in their lives and they missed it. We need to have the eyes to see; even so, we still need to look in the right place to see God at work. Looking in the wrong place leads us to conclude that God wants nothing to do with us. Hasidic Judaism tells a story of two young boys playing hide & seek:

[One] hid himself for some time, but his playmate did not look for him. Little Yechiel ran to Rabbi Baruch and said amid tears: “He did not look for me!”

The Rabbi said: “This is also God’s complaint, that we seek Him not.”

(The Spirituality of Imperfection, p 107)

God gives us the ability to see him; however, we seek him not, or seek him in the wrong place.

Matthew 16:13-28

Commentary

After the obstinate refusal of the Pharisees & Sadducees to see Jesus for who he is, Jesus asks his own disciples, “Who do you say I am?”

v16,18 You are the Christ ... you are Peter. Two revelations occur here: the spiritual truth of Jesus, and the spiritual truth of Peter. When we come to a new awareness of God, frequently there is a corresponding awareness of ourselves. Given all that we read about Simon Peter in the NT, Simon appeared rash, an “act first, think later” personality, yet Jesus calls him “Peter” (“The Rock”, or better yet, “Rocky”). The second half of v18 is a pun on Peter’s new name and a vision for Peter of his calling. There will be times later when Peter will need to remind himself of the confidence Jesus had in him.

v23 Satan! A third revelation: in a split-second, The Rock can become evil; the sure foundation perilous. All it takes is for Simon to lose focus.

things of God ... things of man. Simon’s vision went awry, because he was reading the wrong blueprint, the wrong playbook, the wrong map.

v28 see the Son of Man coming. Is this referring to the Transfiguration (next chapter), the resurrection, the Second Coming, or something else? When the disciples started to die, their understanding of this prophecy needed reevaluation!

Application

In Boy Scouts, orienteering is the ability to navigate across the countryside using only a compass and a topographic map—no GPS, no Garmin, no signposts. Real hardcore types learn to navigate without even a compass, relying only on the changing position of the sun to indicate north, east, etc. An orienteering competition between scout troops might involve a long series of directions like:

From the starting point, go 600 yards on bearing 15 degrees to the next flag; from that flag, go 2,000 yards on bearing 150 degrees to the next flag; from that flag, go 1,000 yards on bearing 270 degrees; etc.

Each flag has an ID, and one records the ID of each flag visited. Many counterfeit flags are set up as well in the vicinity of the correct flags. If one is off a degree or two, or a few feet each 100 yards, one may well reach one of the counterfeit flags, and thus record the wrong ID. Worse yet, once a counterfeit flag is reached, since it’s in the wrong position, the chance of reaching the correct flag on the next leg is not good. Typically, once one is off the mark, eventually one ends up someplace where there is no flag at all—correct or counterfeit. At that point one must begin backtracking to ascertain where one went astray.

In our lives we go orienteering spiritually. We have a spiritual compass—God—and a spiritual map:

Using this map gives some sense of place, of how things are located and how they fit; and this flows into a developing sense of how we fit, of self as “fitting” ... fitting into some meaningful whole. That “meaningful whole” is twofold: It involves first our relationships, for that is one name for our “fittings,” but it also involves and, indeed, is our very identity—who we are. In a very real sense, we are defined by our relationships, our connections with all reality ...

(The Spirituality of Imperfection, p 115)

Psychologists call the maps we use to orient ourselves “framing stories.” Framing stories are the stories we tell, and re-tell, to interpret our lives and to guide us forward through life. Sometimes our framing stories are useful and help us find that next flag: That time I got sued, I prayed and felt that God was telling me to pray for the person suing me; it was completely illogical, but I knew it was exactly what Jesus would have done, so I did it! Sometimes our framing stories are not useful and need to be replaced: I was minding my own business driving down the road, and some jerk from out of state cut me off; it took me 10 minutes to find a break in traffic, but I floored it to 90 mph, got ahead of the jerk, and hit the brakes hard, because nobody gets away with cutting me off!

When Jesus calls Simon “Satan”, Simon has just revealed one of the framing stories that runs his life: I keep my head down; I stay below the radar and out of trouble; I might not agree with what the government wants me to do, but I know enough to not draw attention to myself, because that’s what gets you killed.

Simon knows that there’s more to life than staying out of trouble—after all, he keeps asking Jesus when God is going to sweep through the nation and remove all of the Romans. He knows enough to say that Jesus is God’s pick to get things done (“Christ” meaning “the anointed one”). And God is at work giving Simon a new map, a new framing story: a story full of grace; a story full of improbable heroes and villains; a story that proclaims a different way of getting from where we are to where we want to be; a story with a surprise new identity for Simon (now aka “The Rock”) with a new destiny that would have been impossible to imagine the way that Simon, now Peter, used to live.

Peter’s problem is that he has not fully bought into this new way of living. As much as he wants to live by a new map, a new framing story we call the gospel, he reverts back to using the old map with disastrous results. Playing it safe when God calls us to follow into danger is more perilous than the danger itself!

There are at least 4 major airports into the Los Angeles area: LAX, Burbank, Ontario, and Orange County. I once had the misfortune to fly into one, rent a car, and fly out of another a few days later. Did you know that rental car agencies only give you a map that shows how to get back to the rental car agency at the airport you flew into? Having a map for the first agency was of no use whatsoever in getting to the second. What are your stories about when you tried to use the wrong map?

Like Peter, although God calls us to a new way of living (i.e., having in mind the things of God) we frequently revert back to our old habits (having in mind the things of man). We cannot pick and choose from moment to moment which way of living to follow and expect to get anywhere. That won’t work any better than using one airport map for a while and then using the map for the other airport.

Points to Ponder

The Discipline of Repentance:
Following a Better Map

Frequently repentance is described as changing one’s mind, or turning around 180 degrees. However, frequently the way we practice repentance is little more than remorse; if there is no change in action behind the change of heart, there is no real
repentance.

Picture repentance as the act of putting down your old map of how to get what you want in life and picking up a new map, for where you end up in life depends on several things:

which destination you choose: You might not achieve everything you want in life, but it’s a fair bet that you get more of those things that you pursue than those you don’t.

which map you use: The New Testament is full stories that speak about a different way to live and a different destination to achieve, e.g.: turn the other cheek (Matt. 5:39); life does not consist of the abundance of one’s possessions (Luke 12:15); frequently the first end up last (Matt. 19:28-30).

how well you learn to read it: The best map is worthless if you don’t read it, or read it poorly. You can know all of the Bible stories, but if you do not apply them to your life, the stories cannot save you. You need a map the most when the way is uncertain; but even when you know the way by heart, a map is still valuable when unfamiliar situations arise.

persistence in following directions: The more you are confused about where you are, the more you rely on your map, right? Repentance means sticking with the new map under stress.

learning to backtrack when you get lost: If part of repentance is turning around, then your job is to go back to the last place where you knew where you were and figure out where you took a wrong turn.

In v23, Jesus tells Peter, “You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.” In the next three verses, what examples of God’s framing stories and men’s framing stories does Jesus give?

Here are some examples of framing stories that we use to get what we want in life:

she kissed a frog, he turned into a prince, and they lived happily ever after;

he who dies with the most toys wins;

the worst day fishing beats the best day working;

hard work never hurt anybody, but why take the chance?

What are some of the stories you have used to get what you want in life?

The best map in the world won’t help you if it doesn’t include the destination you’re interested in getting to. What if some of our frustration with God, church, religion, and our spiritual growth is due to trying to use God’s map, but we haven’t wholly bought into God as our ultimate destination? If you still have in mind “the things of men” do you think trying to follow Jesus will really make you happy?

From how I wrote this sermon, do you think I have a GPS navigation system in my truck? What additional illustrations could I have made using a GPS?

End Notes
1 - I wondered if should talk about GPS systems, and I decided that enough people are still just using maps, and I didn’t think GPS systems invalidated the points in this sermon, so I left them out. (No, I don’t have a GPS in any of my vehicles. I resist having a machine tell me what to do, and I take pride in figuring my way around. Yes, that pride has occasionally gotten me lost and into trouble, but it has also taught me the value of backtracking and figuring out where I went wrong.)