Victory sideways
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:date: 2012-01-22T11:00:00
:category: faith
:tags: sermon, english, Bible

Victory sideways: How a Communist Writer Changed My Life Through
a Bible While I Was Still an Unbeliever

Last time I gave you a lesson in a Czech language, this time we
turn to the Czech literature. There was an interesting movement
among Czech writers (mostly quite lefty ones) in the beginning of
the German occupation of the Protectorat Böhmen und Mähren to
publish books which were seemingly innocent and censors couldn’t
object against them, but in fact they were helping to support
Czech nationalism and resistance to the occupation. Some
classical Czech books were then written or republished (e. g.,
Czech Fairy Tales by Horák, Images from the Czech history by
Vančura and many others).

One of the writers participating in this movement was a Czech
Communist writer Ivan Olbracht. Before the war he fell in love
with the people of Podkarpatská Rus and wrote plenty of books
about them (who were then mostly Rusyns (Ruthenians) and Hasidim
Jews from Galicia). So, it is no surprise that when Germans
occupied what remained from Czechoslovakia he wrote a paraphrase
of The Old Testament called “Biblické příběhy” (Biblical
stories/tales?) to show beauty and glory of Jews. Illustrated
with dramatic Doré’s engravings it was a nice introduction to the
Biblical world for me (then very early teenager). Although I was
then an unbeliever, one story somehow touched me deeply and
changed my worldview and led me to some rather countercultural
ways (1Sa 9.1-10.1) [#]_:

   Now there was a man of Benjamin whose name was Kish the son of
   Abiel, the son of Zeror, the son of Becorath, the son of
   Aphiah, the son of a Benjamite, a mighty man of valor. He had
   a son whose name was Saul, a choice and handsome man, and
   there was not a more handsome person than he among the sons of
   Israel; from his shoulders and up he was taller than any of
   the people. Now the donkeys of Kish, Saul’s father, were lost.
   So Kish said to his son Saul, “Take now with you one of the
   servants, and arise, go search for the donkeys.” He passed
   through the hill country of Ephraim and passed through the
   land of Shalishah, but they did not find them. Then they
   passed through the land of Shaalim, but they were not there.
   Then he passed through the land of the Benjamites, but they
   did not find them. When they came to the land of Zuph, Saul
   said to his servant who was with him, “Come, and let us
   return, or else my father will cease to be concerned about the
   donkeys and will become anxious for us.” He said to him,
   “Behold now, there is a man of God in this city, and the man
   is held in honor; all that he says surely comes true. Now let
   us go there, perhaps he can tell us about our journey on which
   we have set out.” Then Saul said to his servant, “But behold,
   if we go, what shall we bring the man? For the bread is gone
   from our sack and there is no present to bring to the man of
   God. What do we have?” The servant answered Saul again and
   said, “Behold, I have in my hand a fourth of a shekel of
   silver; I will give it to the man of God and he will tell us
   our way.” […] Then Saul said to his servant, “Well said; come,
   let us go.” […] As they came into the city, behold, Samuel was
   coming out toward them to go up to the high place. Now a day
   before Saul’s coming, the Lord had revealed this to Samuel
   saying, “About this time tomorrow I will send you a man from
   the land of Benjamin, and you shall anoint him to be prince
   over My people Israel; and he will deliver My people from the
   hand of the Philistines. For I have regarded My people,
   because their cry has come to Me.” When Samuel saw Saul, the
   Lord said to him, “Behold, the man of whom I spoke to you!
   This one shall rule over My people.” Then Saul approached
   Samuel in the gate and said, “Please tell me where the seer’s
   house is.” Samuel answered Saul and said, “I am the seer. Go
   up before me to the high place, for you shall eat with me
   today; and in the morning I will let you go, and will tell you
   all that is on your mind. As for your donkeys which were lost
   three days ago, do not set your mind on them, for they have
   been found.” […] And they arose early; and at daybreak Samuel
   called to Saul on the roof, saying, “Get up, that I may send
   you away.” So Saul arose, and both he and Samuel went out into
   the street. As they were going down to the edge of the city,
   Samuel said to Saul, “Say to the servant that he might go
   ahead of us and pass on, but you remain standing now, that
   I may proclaim the word of God to you.” Then Samuel took the
   flask of oil, poured it on his head, kissed him and said, “Has
   not the Lord anointed you a ruler over His inheritance?

It is a lovely story in itself, but for me it was in that moment
much more. Somehow, the part of the story which grew upon me was
how Saul was being faithful in what he was supposed to do and he
got not only what he was after but also a kingdom on the top of
it. There was no way how he could try to be a king (for one,
there were no kings in Israel at all then), there was no way how
he could plan and scheme how to became a king. He was just doing
faithfully what he was supposed to do, going through a long way
to find those donkeys and in the end asking for help a prophet.
And that prophet not only gave him what he asked him for
(information about donkeys), but en passant he made him a king as
well.

I suddenly saw a God given principle of achieving impossible.
**When we hope for more than we can achieve, when we hope for
something which requires extraordinary God’s blessing or even
a miracle, we cannot “go for the thing” directly.** We have to
just wait and pray for the thing, and hope that God gives us this
thing somehow on the top of everything else.

This is deeply in the opposition to the thinking of this world.
Post-Enlightenment world (although here probably Protestantism is
the one to be blamed, I am afraid) is rational and
**purpose-driven**. We set our goals, decide about steps to get
there, and do it (in the ideal case). This is not biblical way of
thinking. There is something which Christians of the previous
generations knew better. Mother Theresa stated that the goal of
her mission was “do something beautiful for God”. Her original
job description was to “hug the most poor in the slums of
Calcutta”). Also, this is about the worship (and art generally),
which is deeply purposeless, which leads to what we are doing
right now. [#]_

I was then a teenager so of course the first place where
I applied this principle was dealing with being without a girl.
I just knew (and I think I remember it till this day) that
getting the right wife is a miracle, which we cannot do on our
own. I don’t remember how exactly I expected miracles to happen
when I denied the very existence of God, but I somehow knew that.
And when my classmates boasted with their adventures with girls,
I had a fight with my own feelings of inferiority by hope that
what I am really looking for is a deep friendship for life, and
the whole sex thing is something I can just hope to get on the
top for free. I was just not willing to settle for less, because
of the hope this story somehow gave me. And I am really thankful
to God for that.

Now, we have been married with Markéta for fifteen years (this
coming summer sixteen), and so couple of single people asked me
during those years was asking about finding a girl, with kind of
“You have managed to do it, so you now know the way how to do it,
right?”. And I don’t have the answer for them. It somehow
happened to us. Actually, when I asked couple of married couples
myself about this question, they usually give me a good story
about some rainy day when she needed to carry an umbrella, and he
who was there for some other purpose helped her, and then ... or
some other story which has nothing to do with a purpose-driven
life. I have never heard a story about a man who decided to marry
the best girl possible, so he made a scientific poll, measured
all possible girls by some predetermined set of criteria and then
worked hard his way to marry the one which won the poll.

We were members of the Vineyard Christian Fellowship of
Cambridge. Cambridge is a city with an average church attendance
4 % down from the national average of around 40 %. There are
endless numbers of failed Church missions all around the Boston
area, so much so that in the missionary circles it is considered
“The Cold Spot of the America” or “The missions graveyard”. And
yes, our church grew in seven years from zero to around one
thousand average weekly attendance, which was considered by many
quite an extraordinary success. When asked people involved in the
leadership of the church how they achieved such a success I heard
a lot about hard work, sacrifices and effort, but everybody
always emphasized that they were all quite surprised by the
success they were given and without any false humbleness they
ascribed the growth to special God’s blessing on top of their
hard work (“I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the
growth.” 1.Co 3.6).

I could give many more examples both from my life and from the
miracles I have observed around me, but I see this principle
again and again.

It certainly doesn’t mean that we should give up our hope, or
that we should somehow hide our desires from the Lord. That would
be nonsense, “for your Father knows what you need before you ask
Him” (Ma 6:8) and he seeks those who “worship [Him] in spirit and
truth,” (John 4:23) not a pretense. Let me put here a couple of
practical points how I think we should apply this principle to
our life:

1. **Submit your desires!** We are not Buddhists, so we are not
   asked to minimize our desires, just opposite, not only that
   God hates our hearts of stone with suppressed desires, but He
   Himself promises us living “heart of flesh” (Ez 11:19, 36:26).
   However, we are called to submit our desires to His will.
   I believe in every big desire we hope for we have to come to
   our Mount Olives and confess from depth of our heart “not My
   will, but Yours be done” (L 22:42).

2. **Ask others for help!** It is no good for us to be alone. God
   in the Holy Trinity constitutes a fellowship, we are made into
   his image, so we need fellowship as well. Talk with others
   about your struggles. Certainly small groups are the best
   place for you to start, but if you find somebody who would be
   willing to talk with you and pray with you about this desire
   for a long run, even better! Trusted wise brother/sister can
   help you to see what is really behind your desire, can tell
   what’s wrong with it (if anything), can help you to persevere
   on your path.

3. **Humble yourself!** It is slightly the same as the first
   point, but it deserves repeating. We submit our ideas about
   fulfillment of our desires to God, not only for his need to be
   in control, or to satisfy his sadistic desires, but because we
   know he loves us and he knows better than we do what is the
   best for us. And this is true of our goals, what we expect
   will give us satisfaction, but also (or especially?) about the
   strategy to achieve such goal. Not in boasting and persuading
   others about our superiority, but “In repentance and rest you
   will be saved, [i]n quietness and trust is your strength.”
   (Isa 30:15) [#]_ .

4. **Be faithful in what you do!** And now we return back to our
   original story of Saul. The most important part of being
   content in waiting on God to fulfill our desires is that we
   are free to stay and persevere in being where God put us
   already and to be faithful there. And I believe that quite
   often when we are on our way to find lost donkeys (or souls)
   of Our Father, we may from time to time meet a seer with
   a bottle of oil who will turn us to paths we couldn’t even
   imagine.

5. **Be ready for a sudden change of the path!** We should keep
   our path a bit in the parenthesis, because we never know when
   God calls us to something overwhelmingly crazily different,
   from looking for asses to being a king or a queen.

Be it so for all of us! Amen.

.. [#] After I wrote this sermon, just before leaving to the
   church I found the actual book in our library, and found to my
   biggest surprise that actually this story about boy Saul
   looking for donkeys and finding a kingship is not in the book.
   I have to probably read it in some other biblical stories
   collection, although I don’t remember which one. It was too
   late for me to change the sermon, so I just left it there.

.. [#] I didn’t have time to mention it in the sermon, but here
   should be included a brief thought on missing Protestant art.
   There are Protestants who were great statesman, generals,
   missionaries, scientists, but there are almost no deeply
   believing Protestants who would be first class artists (two
   questionable exceptions being Johann Sebastian Bach and John
   Milton, but the first did most of his great work for Catholic
   customers, and Paradise Lost is half way towards tract
   anyway). Some (including my Cantabrigian pastor) blame missing
   understanding of life as a sacrifice (i.e., without direct
   purpose) as a cause of it.

.. [#] I tried to avoid in this sermon a religious slang, so this
   somehow meant to include also worship despite our
   circumstances, but I didn’t know how to say it. After my
   sermon, other elder of the church stood up and she had on the
   spot a terrific brief word about thanksgiving and worship
   (“[T]he Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took
   bread; and when He had given thanks, […]” It wasn’t exactly
   most pleasant night in his life, and yet he gave thanks.).
   Thank you.