“A RAINY-DAY THEOLOGY”
“For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. Then you will live in the land I gave your ancestors; you will be my people, and I will be your God. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.”
– Ezekiel 36:24-27
There was a lot of rain around these parts last week. Not that we’re accustomed to sunny days every day… but you know how people drive when the roads are wet… how they get a little down in the dumps and get to the office grumpy and late and have every excuse under the heavens except the one that counts… so give me blue skies and 70 degrees in January in Texas any day …
Thinking back to my days in the parish… during the dry, hot summer people used to say, ‘hey, pastor… can we pray for rain? We need the rain.” To which I’d often reply. “Well, it would be easier to pray for rain, if folks brought their umbrellas to worship on Sunday.”
No one ever asks for this in January… and in case you haven’t looked at your weather app lately… over the next 10 days it’s supposed to rain only on Saturday… when no one gets to the office late due to the crazy traffic… but will provide moms and dads opportunity to be on the lookout for soggy shoe footprints on the floor from the front door to the stairs or at least the kitchen pantry as that’s where the snacks are…
Do you have a ‘rainy-day’ theology? It’s not a big ask but it’s a worthy one. How do you and God get along when the rains come pouring down? “Theology”… in case that’s a foreign word to you is simply… ‘the study of God’ and where I come from this is a worthy task no matter what your vocation… butcher or baker or candlestick maker or even a baseball player… and we all do it one way or another even unless not at all. Faith matters! It does. Even on rainy days!
Lance Berkman was once asked, “Does God care about baseball?’ And do you know what he said? “No,” he responded. “God doesn’t care about baseball.” Then a pause… and the old Astros 1st baseman concluded… “But God cares about baseball players and their families…” and that’s a good theology on game day or any day of the week as God always delights when we raise our hands and lift our voices to the Lord’s almighty and eternal power… just like we do… if not better than… when we witness the Astros win in the bottom of the ninth … down by three… with bases loaded and two outs… with a 3-2 count and we all watch that little white dot land in the Crawford boxes for the win… people from all over… sharing in the moment… and I think that’s how God must feel when we all show up for church.
I really do like this passage from Ezekiel… his name is a theology of its own… meaning “God’s strength” and he was a powerful voice to the Hebrew nation… and still his words are strong for us even today… as many people seek God’s ways trying to do their best to love God with all their heart and strength and mind and even to love their neighbor as much as they love themselves… yet there are others who care little of the ways of God and would prefer making up the rules as they go which often leads to breaking their own rules which didn’t work out and then needing to make some new ones to keep going… yet ‘I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean…’ God said… and so the next time it rains, and we all hunker down… remember God is giving us the shower we all really need…
The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Gigee is a long-time resident of Pearland, having pastored four churches over the last four decades in Texas and Louisiana. Read more following Brian’s blog ‘murmurings’ at https://briangigee.wordpress.com/. Send comments and/or questions to godworks247365@gmail.com.
