I remember one day when I was going to make some hospital calls in my Omaha church and I was running past the x-ray room in a hospital. As I passed the x-ray room, I noticed on the door a little statement from Shakespeare. It was the part of the play, Hamlet, taken from that part of the play where Shakespeare writes about Hamlet as he has already convicted his mother for her complicity in his father’s murder. Hamlet takes his mother, knowing she is guilty (and she knows it), and he shoves her down in a chair. And then he says this: "Come, come. Sit you down. You budge not. You go not hence ‘til I set up a glass where we may see the inmost part of you." That’s a good sign for an x-ray room! But it’s also a good sign to explain how God feels about us because he wants to know us deep down inside. God’s everyday activity, I suspect, is setting up a glass where he can see the inmost part of who we are. When we experience who God is, we begin to look in more critical ways for him to impact our lives and to change us.

There is a wonderful verse of Scripture in I Corinthians 2, verse 9, that says: "Eye has not seen, ear has not heard, nor has mind conceived what God has prepared for those who enter into his presence. But these things," says I Corinthians 2:10, "are reserved for the deep things of God." I’ll explore the word deep with you in just a moment. But what is it that people expect when they anticipate God’s coming into their life in a strong reality? What do they need when they come to church? What are their problems?

One of my very favorite writers is Frederick Buechner. He tells the story of seeing his daughter get up one morning. She runs down the stairs in their home, runs over to the icebox, and opens the door. She reaches in and she gets a glass of water and a carrot stick. She was 15 years old. He thought that when she had this very ordinary, or sub-ordinary, teenage breakfast, it was because she was a teenager. But three years later, Buechner confesses, she was in a hospital with a tube in her stomach and they were force feeding her to keep her alive because of severe anorexia. These were dark days for their family. They would go to church in those days expecting to hear something that would be helpful, but so often when they were really hurting and really needed God, they would hear a preacher preach some three point sermon and close it with a poem; or they’d hear Hebrew words and Greek words come and go. What they really wanted was a pastor who would stand up there and bleed with them because they hurt so badly.

What do people want in church? I think they want a minister who experiences the depths of God, who understands what it’s like to love God deep inside, and who can show them the way to focus on the love of God deep, deep down inside.

I know a wonderful little story that I love. It concerns a cobbler, a cobbler who fixes shoes, and a king who would often wander through his little kingdom searching for people he could relate to. He concealed his identity. He disguised who he really was. One night as he was going through the village, passing all the little houses, he passed one house where there was a man sitting at a table singing in a rather loud voice. He was singing so loudly that it was almost embarrassing in its volume. It was then that the cobbler turned to the window to see the king, whom he doesn’t recognize because the king is disguised. And the king said to him something like this: "Is a guest welcome here?"

And the cobbler said, "A guest is a gift of God! Of course, you are welcome. Come on in. Eat with me." And the king and the cobbler sat down at the little table and they began to eat together.

As they were enjoying the meal, the king finally said to the cobbler, "What do you do for a trade?" So far he hasn’t asked. The cobbler confesses that he is a cobbler. And the king said, "Where did you get the meal?"

He said, "Well, I fix shoes and people give me pennies. I take my whole day’s wages into the market place and I buy bread. I spend all that I have and buy my meal for the night. And this is it! Let us eat."

And the king said, "You spend all? What if tomorrow you cannot mend shoes? What will you do then?"

The cobbler said, "Ah, tomorrow is in the hands of God, my friend. He will be faithful and we will praise him together."

The next night, the king returns back to the same village. As he goes into the village again he goes right back to the same little cobbler. And this night he is bound to test the cobbler out, so early in the morning he has passed an edict making it illegal to repair shoes without a permit. But when he gets back to the cobbler’s house that night, he finds him singing robustly just as he usually does. And as he sings, the kings interrupts him and says, "What about the edict? How did you get the money to buy your meal?"

The cobbler said, "Well, when I heard our gracious king’s edict, that I could no longer repair shoes, I simply carried water from the well. People gave me pennies at their home. I spent them all and bought this meal. Come, let us eat!"

The king said, "You spent all? What if tomorrow you cannot spend and you cannot carry water, what will you do then?"

The cobbler, turned water bearer, said, "Well, tomorrow is in the hands of God. He will provide and I will praise him day by day."

The next night the king passed another edict making it illegal for one person to carry water for another. When he came to the cobbler’s, turned water bearer’s house, he found him singing and eating as usual. And then he said to the cobbler, "Where did you get the money for the meal tonight?

The cobbler said, "When I heard the king’s gracious edict making it illegal for one person to draw water for another, I simply began to chop wood. When I had a bundle I sold it from house to house. I spent the money. Spent it all and here we are. A meal! Come let us eat."

The cobbler and the king sat down again and the king said, "But what if tomorrow you cannot chop wood? What will you do then?"

The cobbler said, "Ah! Tomorrow is in the hands of God, my friend. He will provide and we will praise him day by day."

The king could think of no more logical way to test the poor cobbler again, so the next day he passed an edict making it mandatory that all woodcutters be inducted automatically into the king’s army. The cobbler showed up at the palace and began to train. He trained all day long in military matters. Finally when night time came, he was ready to go home. They gave him no money and he had nothing to buy his evening meal with. But they did allow him to keep his sword. And so he took the sword home and on the way home he stopped at a pawn shop, sold the blade and bought his evening meal. He fashioned another blade out of wood, hooked onto the hilt and stuck it back in his scabbard. That night when the king came and found him singing, the king was puzzled as to where he had gotten the meal. The cobbler, turned wood cutter, turned soldier, said, "Well, I pawned the blade."

The king said, "Ah! That was foolish. What if tomorrow there is a sword inspection?"

You know the reply by now. The cobbler, turned wood cutter, turned soldier, said, "Tomorrow is in the hands of God, my friend. He will provide and I will praise him day by day."

The next day as he went for training in the army, they gave him a prisoner and told him that he was to serve as the executioner for the day. Now his mind is abuzz. It seems he can hardly stand the pressure that is put upon him because they bring him a prisoner who kneels before him. The king tells him, "You are to be the executioner. You are to execute this man before you."

The cobbler protests. He said, "I have always been a gentle man. I have never hurt another soul in 
my life."

The king said, "Ah! But you are the executioner today."

The poor cobbler, turned wood cutter, turned soldier, didn’t know what to do and he raised his hand in the air and said, "Oh, Lord God, if this man before me is guilty, may my arm be swift and my sword be made of steel. But if he is innocent, let my hand be swift and my sword be made of wood." He drew the sword from the scabbard and all the people were amazed to see that it was wood. The king was amazed at how wise he had been at the occasion and came up to him and told him at last who he really was. Then he said to the cobbler, "Listen to me." he said. "You are to come from now on and eat at my palace. What do you say to that?"

The cobbler, turned wood cutter, turned soldier, said, "I’d say tomorrow is in the hands of God, my friend. He will provide and we will praise him day by day."

I am confident that people really want to know and find out about how to have a confident, praising life where God lives on the inside of them and they live in terms of the depths of all God is. And out of this depth comes a song.

One of my very favorite writers is Francis de Sales who went to Geneva in 1597. He went to Geneva as a priest to try to win back all the Catholics who had become Calvinists in Geneva during those days. When he got to Geneva, he found that people were often not glad to see him. It was very hard for him to do anything specific to lead them in a relationship to God. In fact, they were often brutal to him. But he wrote some wonderful words I cannot get out of my mind and these are they. He said if a statue was placed in a niche and was asked why are you there, the statue would say, "Because my master has placed me here. It is not for my profit that I am here. I am here to serve and obey the will of my master." All said, it means that when God fills us from the inside out, truly we are his, lost in the depths of God, and we can say, "Yes, he will provide and we will praise him day by day."

Interview with Calvin Miller
Interviewed by Lydia Talbot

Lydia Talbot: Dr. Miller, a wonderful message. You began with the question of why people go to church. They are hurting and they want to feel some words of comfort.

Calvin Miller: I am convinced that people are hurting. Almost all of us, if we get really honest, have "blah" days. We all get up and we don’t feel like the world’s really been all that great to us. But there are other times, and many times, we go to church and we go out into the world and are just torn apart on the inside. Sometimes there are things we can’t tell other people. We can’t discuss it. What do you do with that? I believe people want a place where they can go, where at least the proposition that God loves them is welcome.

Talbot: Then how do we move into the next step of being concerned with the suffering of others, the reduction of human suffering around the world?

Miller: Madeleine L’Engle is a really good friend of mine. She says there is only one miracle and it’s the Incarnation: the idea that God would become a human being. And I truly believe, Lydia, the same thing is true of us, that perhaps the great miracle is when someone who loves Christ enough wants to be Christ for someone else. When you really can’t get someone else together with God, if you can just play like God, you can be like God in touching them or curing them.

Talbot: Now discern the difference for us, this "feel good" spirituality that pervades so much of our congregational life these days. How can we see through that to a faithful and authentic understanding of Christ’s mandate?

Miller: I think it begins as something as simple as the amount of time we spend with Christ. I often have the feeling that this "feel good" religion comes from a kind of mood that we talk ourselves into. Maybe we go to church and everybody is "Rah, rah, rah, Jesus!", so we talk ourselves into that. And I don’t think that is very lasting. I think it’s very fleeting. But I think the person who tries to get into the depths of God hungers to know Christ in a better relationship. The few times I have been separated from my wife for any length of time, I have an immense desire to see her again. I think there is something like that that operates about Jesus. We love him a lot and because we are not able to see him physically, we have this immense hunger. And it’s that hunger that produces the reality that causes us to care.

Talbot: You have said that your primary rule for life is that "time is a gift." I was wondering how in your amazingly busy life and career as a writer, poet, pastor, seminary professor, you have been able to find time in your life for your family and children?

Miller: What really helped me with this was Ann Morrow Lindbergh’s book. She said that when she and Charles Lindbergh were going to fly across the Pacific, and in those days planes were very small and the Pacific is very wide, they had to sort through what they could take on the flight. She said that she spent her days sorting through things, throwing out things that were heavy and unimportant and keeping the things that were light and necessary. And I think that’s what most people do. I think as a pastor and professor I want to love my students and help them, so I have to sort and I have to prioritize what gets my time because time truly is a gift.

Talbot: The title of your new book is the same as today’s sermon, Into the Depths of God. Tell us about it.

Miller: I didn’t really get to explain this during my message, but it all came about in Australia when I was at the Great Barrier Reef and I saw the ocean as very, very broad. But I actually had to come to the place when I realized that while the Great Barrier Reef is very beautiful, the ocean is not deep enough there for ships. Ships have to have a little depth to float and so do our lives.

Talbot: A wonderful metaphor! Calvin Miller, you also are interested in medieval mystic writers as food for thought, with the mind of a poet yourself. Tell us about those names.

Miller: There are some wonderful names, but my favorite is probably Julian of Norwich.