The long-time actress and comedienne or Gracie Allen, of Burns and Allen fame, once received a small live alligator as a joke gift. Not knowing what to do with it, Gracie placed it in the bath tub and then left for an appointment. When she returned home, she found this note from her maid: "Dear Miss Allen, Sorry, but I have to quit. I don't work in houses where there is an alligator. I would have told you this when I took the position, but I never thought it would come up."

How many times have we felt that way about life. We would have turned it down if we had only known what was going to come up. Especially if we had known all the big-mouth, big-teeth scaly alligators that we would have to deal with it.

I wonder how many of the people listed in the 11th chapter of Hebrews considered turning down life a time or two.

The 11th chapter of Hebrews is one of the more famous chapters of the Bible. It is often referred to as the "faith" chapter. It begins with the verse: "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen". And then it continues with stories of the wonderful men and women of faith of the Bible. The author recounts the stories of the great women and men of faith in Hebrew history: Enoch, Noah and his family, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Leah and Rachel, Moses and the children of Israel crossing the Red Sea.

Then after having related to us story after story about these people of faith, the writer decides it is taking too long to list them all, so just lists several others by name and then summarises their accomplishments, beginning in verse 3:

"Who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned into strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies. Women received back their dead, raised to life again."

What wonderful stories of faith and the mighty miracles and wonders that followed: battles won, kingdoms conquered, justice administered, lions mouths shut, fires walked through, and the dead that were raised.

But wait. That's not all of the stories of faith. Verse 35 continues:

"Others were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection. Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. They were stoned; they were sawn in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goat skins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated - the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground."

Then the writer summarises with a statement about all of these saints:

"These were all commended for their faith…"

Now wait a minute. Why did some of these get to experience great victories while others suffered from many trials?

Why did some get to win great battles, walk unscathed through a den of lions, stand unhindered by the flames of the fiery furnace, see justice administered, and have their loved ones raised from the dead; while others were tortured, flogged, chained and put in prison, stoned, sawn in two and put to death by the sword, and others wandered in the wilderness destitute, persecuted and mistreated?

A few years ago, a couple of gay men in the state of Indiana in the USA were attempting to adopt a little girl. When the girl's foster parents, a straight couple, learned of the impending adoption, they took it to court. Challenging the adoption on the grounds that the home of two gay men would not be a suitable environment for the little girl, her foster parents won the court case and they were appointed as the young child's adopted parents. A few years later, the girl's straight adopted father was arrested and charged with molesting the girl for several years.

We look to God and we ask, "Why?" Why are some children molested, or starving, or physically abused, while others are raised in loving caring homes? Why are some people imprisoned for their sexual orientation, or their religion, or their race or ethnicity, in some nations around the world, while others have the freedom to live as they are? Why are some children accepted in their families, no matter who they are, while others are rejected and even kicked out to live in the streets? Why do some people live lives struggling with addictions to alcohol, drugs, sex, or overeating? Why do some women lose their breasts to cancer? Why does an HIV-positive man have to struggle with the feelings of guilt each time he has sex, because he worries he might infect his negative partner, the person he loves most in the world?

The late Jack Benny, upon receiving an award, once remarked, "I really don't deserve this. But I have arthritis, and I don't deserve that either." Do we really deserve all the bad things that happen to us in life? Do we really deserve all the good things that happen to us in life? Life is full of perplexing circumstances. Why do bad things happen to people? Why do good things happen to people? Why do some seemingly evil people seem to get by unscathed, while other innocent ones suffer unspeakable atrocities? Jesus taught us in the Gospel of Matthew that "God causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous".

Several centuries ago, a curious but deadly plague appeared in a small village in Lithuania. What was curious about this disease was its grip on its victim; as soon as a person contracted it, they would go into a very deep almost death like coma. Most individuals would die within just 24 hours, but occasionally a hardy soul would make it through the illness and back to health. The problem was that early 18th century medical technology was not very advanced, and they had quite a difficult time telling whether a victim was dead or still alive but comatose.

One day it was discovered that someone in the town had indeed been buried alive. This, understandably, alarmed the townspeople, so they called a town meeting to decide what should be done to prevent such a situation from happening again. After much discussion, most people agreed on the following solution. They decided to put food and water in every casket next to the body. They would even put an air hole up from the casket to the earth's surface. These procedures would be expensive, but they would be more than worthwhile if they saved some people's lives.

Another group came up with a second, less expensive answer. They proposed implanting a 12 inch long stake in every coffin lid directly over where the victim's heart would be. Then whatever doubts there were about whether the person was dead or alive would be eliminated as soon as the coffin lid was closed.

One situation, but two different outlooks. What was important was the question each group asked. The first group asked, "What should we do if by chance we bury somebody alive?" But the second group wondered, "How can we make sure everyone we bury is dead?"

What's important is the outlook we have and the questions we ask. Ambiguities, uncertainties - life is full of them. And it is often unfair when the seemingly unjust ones get the goods, while the innocent seem to receive undue punishment.

So what do we do now? Ah, there's the question to ask. What now? It's time we stopped fighting with "why?" And begin asking "what now? What will we do now? In the midst of the craziness of the world, in the midst of our own craziness, with our lives, broken, messed up, confusing, often as a result of the actions of others, sometimes as a result of things we didn't do all ask for, sometimes as a result of our own poor choices.

What now? Where will you go? What will you do?

Pride is about taking back that which was stolen from its - our dignity, our pride and our self-worth. Do we become an LGBT victim or an LGBT victor? Life may have given you a bad hand; it may have handed you a bunch of lemons. Well it's time to start making lemonade. You can be pitiful, or you can be powerful, but you can't be both. Stop whingeing. Stop whining. Let your suffering make you stronger. Your suffering might not be for you at all; it might be for someone else.

When is it in life at that we learn that we are limited? By our struggles, problems, by our age, size, social class, race, sexual orientation, education, experience?

'The things that are possible in life don't require God. So if we avoid the impossible, then we also avoid allowing God to work through us.'

So many times we spend our lives trying to understand, trying to figure out the questions - asking 'why'. It's not that asking 'why' is bad. Asking 'why' can be good and healthy. But when we get stuck on asking 'why', we make the problem the centre of our lives and we run into a dead-end that can leave life unfulfilled. Instead we must look at our lives and ask 'what now?' What am I going to do with the cards life has dealt me? Or more importantly, what am I going to allow God to do with my life the way it is?

Many times our error is that we try to figure it out on our own, with our human understanding. We write God out of both the question and the answer. We blame God for the problems, pains, and failures of our lives. And therefore we assume that God can't have the answers. And so we shut down our lives. We begin to just live from day to day. We begin to see our priorities in the things we can use to fill up our lives: work, holidays, a new car or a new home, shopping, sex, a new girlfriend or boyfriend - and the list goes on and on.

God calls us to a life of abundance; but not an abundance of things. Give your life to God, with its brokenness and confusion and questions, and let God do that which only God can do.

Is there an alligator in your life this afternoon? Are you ready to resign life, wishing you had never signed up? It might be something that has occurred in the last 24 hours, or the past week, or month. It might be something that happened years ago. It might be something that you had no control over and should never have happened; it is completely unfair and unjust, but you're stuck with the consequences.

Or maybe you roped the alligator, put it on a leash, and led it into the house yourself. You played with it, you fed it, and even gave it a bed to sleep in. It's all your fault. You made the bad decisions, you made the wrong choices. And now you're stuck with the consequences.

Grace doesn't care. God's mercy is not contingent on the source of the misery. God's grace and mercy are concerned with the healing.

So, have you now, or will you, resign the job of your life and, by filling your life with all sorts of things and relationships, try to cover-up the pain? Or will you, like the saints of the book of Hebrews, put your faith in God, and begin asking 'What now?' - living your life in the faith that God can, and will, give you a future full of abundant living?

You see, faith in God is persistence. It is 'hanging in there' in spite of the circumstances. For faith is the recognition of our dependence on God. That's not easy. It's not easy to give up and say we can't do it by ourselves: that we don't have the answers. And it's not easy to put our trust, our faith, in someone we don't understand. But then that's faith - trusting in what we hope for and what we cannot see.

Then we can truly be proud of our future.

Amen.

(Rev Dwayne Morgan)

This sermon was first preached in the Metropolitan Community Church of Manchester. Click here for further information.