The Waking Dreamer: Suffering

Showing posts with label Suffering. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 13, 2026

Doing Good

1 Peter 2:13-25[1]

Many of us know the Scripture verse that says, “Vengeance is mine, says the Lord” (Rom 12:19). But I would say that we can be obsessed with taking our own vengeance. In some segments of our society, “getting even” is just what you do. If you doubt that revenge is something that infects our culture, I would challenge you to take a look at how many of the most popular movies are based on the premise of someone taking revenge. It’s always justified, of course, but it’s still revenge. And do we enjoy watching those movies because we like to see the “bad guys” get what’s coming to them at the hands of the “good guys” who’ve been wronged. Somehow it reinforces our ideas about the way life “ought” to be.

But life doesn’t always work the way it “ought” to. There are all kinds of ways in which we can find ourselves wronged. More than that, in our violent world, there is no shortage of harm that gets inflicted on people who don’t deserve it. But revenge never solves anything. Those movies we like to watch always end with the one who is wronged walking away from vengeance that’s completed. And that’s the end of the story. All’s right with the world again, supposedly. But what they don’t show is what happens in real life. Revenge, especially when it involves violence, only breeds more violence. Revenge only leads to more revenge. As many have said it, “An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind”!

In our Scripture lesson for today, Peter calls believers to “follow Christ” by enduring the wrongful suffering they may have to face in the same way that Jesus did. Peter calls them to entrust their lives to God’s care. He says it this way: “For God called you to do good, even if it means suffering, just as Christ suffered for you. He is your example, and you must follow in his steps” (1 Pet 1:21, NLT). And Peter illustrates what that looks like, especially when someone does you wrong, by the way Jesus responded when he was wronged. He says that Jesus “did not retaliate when he was insulted, nor threaten revenge when he suffered. He left his case in the hands of God, who always judges fairly” (1 Pet 1:22, NLT).

Now, there are some other things Peter says in this Scripture lesson that may sound confusing to us. He talks about submitting to “human authority” in a way that may not work for us. We know that we’re all responsible to obey the rule of law, but in a Democracy we all have the privilege and the responsibility of voicing our disagreement with the authorities when their actions seem unjust. Perhaps more troubling is the way Peter talks about slaves obeying their masters even if those masters are “cruel,” even if they’re beaten by their masters! I would say that we believe it’s never acceptable for anyone to undergo mistreatment for any reason. And we certainly don’t believe people should be “beaten for doing wrong.” So some of Peter’s language may sound confusing, if not offensive.

What we have to remember is that there really was no such thing as “human rights” in those days. Those first Christians lived in an empire, not a democracy. They were subject to the “powers that be”, and those powers exercised their rule absolutely and with violence. The believers Peter was addressing really had no choice but to submit to those who held power over them. That applies even and especially to those who were slaves. Slavery was a long-established feature of the ancient world. Many have wondered why Jesus and the early Christian leaders like Peter didn’t do more to overturn slavery. But we have to remember that the church was a fledgling movement on the margins of society. Their power to effect that kind of social change was limited.

Rather than risk the violence that would be the inevitable response of any empire to those who resisted, apostles like Peter encouraged Christians to endure whatever mistreatment they had to face with patience, looking to Jesus’ example. That brings us back to our focal verse for today: “God called you to do good, even if it means suffering, just as Christ suffered for you. He is your example, and you must follow in his steps” (1 Pet 2:21, NLT). And Peter specifically refers to the example Jesus set by dying for us on the cross! When Jesus bore that undeserved suffering, he did it because that’s the way God brings wholeness and new life to this world. And so the cross was not just Jesus’ path; it’s the path that he marked out for all of us. When we respond to the wrongs and hardships of our lives with patience, our suffering “joins with and continues the sufferings of Christ” (Col 1:24). Our willingness to follow Jesus’ example and suffer patiently without taking revenge contributes to the healing work God is doing in the whole world to this day!

But equally, how we respond when someone provokes us or attacks us unjustly also shapes who we are. When we take revenge on others in any form, the bitterness that drives that act takes root in our lives. Taking revenge by attacking someone verbally is especially challenging. Especially when we’re talking about others behind their backs. In all too many cases, we can do it and get away with it without any apparent consequences. But when we give in to the impulse to take revenge in that way, we’re not only harming the one we’re attacking. We’re also harming those who hear and ourselves as well. That’s because we’re reinforcing the pattern of getting even as a habit, both in our lives and in the lives of those who hear us. It just makes revenge and bitterness take root more deeply in our lives. And we’re all more likely to continue taking revenge in that way.

But our Scripture lesson calls us to a different way. It calls us to follow Jesus’ example and to obey God’s call to “do good” and not do harm. When we do that, we not only contribute to the fulfillment of God’s work in the world. We also learn what it means to truly entrust our lives to God’s care. When our lives are in God’s care, we don’t have to take revenge! We show that faith when we learn be grateful for all that we may have to undergo in this life. As one of my heroes in the faith, Henri Nouwen, puts it, when we can “look at everything that has brought us to where we are now and trust that we will soon see in it the guiding hand of a loving God,” then we can find the gift in every experience of our lives.[2]

I know that may sound crazy. How can some of the things we have had to endure ever be a “gift”? It comes back to truly entrusting our lives to Gods’ care, the way Jesus did. When we do that, we can affirm that somehow, someway God takes everything that happens to us and uses it for good in our lives. That can be especially hard when we might believe we’ve been “wronged.” That kind of faith is what gives us the strength to respond to everything in this life, even and especially when we may be wronged in a way we don’t deserve, the way Jesus did. We can not only refrain from taking revenge, which can be so easy and so habitual for us, but maybe we can take a step further and actually learn to forgive as Jesus did. Jesus forgave those who crucified him. That’s a high level of faith. I don’t think we’re going to learn that easily or quickly. But our Scripture lesson calls us to follow Jesus’ example. By entrusting our lives to God’s care we develop the strength to do just that, to “follow in Jesus’ steps” and obey God’s calling to “do good” and not harm in this world.

[1] © Alan Brehm 2026. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 4/26/2026 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

[2] Henri J.M. Nouwen, Bread for the Journey: A Daybook of Wisdom and Faith, January 12: "The Spiritual Work of Gratitude."

Saturday, May 09, 2026

The True Meaning of Obedience

Isaiah 53:1-12[1]

One of the greatest challenges we may face in this life is undeserved suffering. It’s not hard to find plenty of examples. Especially with all the pain and suffering in this world inflicted by violence! In fact, if we pay close enough attention, we might be overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of people who live with suffering that they didn’t do a thing to deserve. This can call into question our faith in God’s grace and mercy and love at its very core. We see that innocent people who put their faith in God the most are often the ones who suffer the most, and it’s a hard pill to swallow. And unfortunately, many good people lose their faith in a loving God because it’s all so overwhelming.

Our lesson from Isaiah is perhaps one of the best-known descriptions of undeserved suffering in the Bible. It’s one of several “Servant Songs” in Isaiah, where the prophet proclaims the role of the “Servant of the Lord” in carrying out God’s purposes. The “Servant” is the one who will set things right for those who have been oppressed (Isa. 42:1-4). The “Servant” will bring “light” to restore Israel, but also to grant the “nations” salvation as well (Isa. 49:1-6). In this chapter, the “Servant” takes the sufferings of “the many” on himself to fulfill God’s purpose to bless us all with salvation.

The “Servant of the Lord” in this passage willingly offers himself to endure undeserved mistreatment for the sake of others. As the Scripture puts it, “He was painfully abused, but he did not complain. He was silent like a lamb being led to the butcher, as quiet as a sheep having its wool cut off” (Isa 53:7, CEV). Unfortunately, for all his pain and suffering, he was despised by the very people for whom he was suffering. Again, the Scripture puts it this way, “He was hated and rejected; his life was filled with sorrow and terrible suffering. No one wanted to look at him. We despised him and said, ‘He is a nobody!’” (Isa 53:3, CEV).

As I’ve mentioned many times, in those days anyone who suffered was thought to have done something to deserve it. The idea was that if you obey God, you’ll be “blessed.” But if you’re suffering in any way, you must have done something wrong. But our lesson from Isaiah shows us that sometimes people suffer unjustly, like the “Servant of the Lord.” And all too often when they do so, those who benefit from their suffering may misjudge them. Isaiah puts it this way: “He suffered and endured great pain for us, but we thought his suffering was punishment from God” (Isa 53:4, CEV). And it also says, “Others thought he was a sinner, but he suffered for our sins and asked God to forgive us” (Isa 53:12, CEV). All too often, those who suffer for the sake of others are judged harshly for it!

One of the challenges this passage presents is the idea that somehow an “angry God” made Jesus suffer in this way to satisfy a need to punish us for our sins. But the image of God as a punishing God is a scary one in a world where there’s so much abuse and violence. If God is angry and punishing, perhaps he’s not much different from someone who’s violent and abusive. Simply put, I don’t think that’s the point of Isaiah 53. I think the point is that God’s “Servant” is called to suffer on behalf of others because that’s what God does. God suffers for us! The God who never quits loving us is a God who suffers for us and with us. That’s what our Study Catechism says: “In Jesus Christ God suffers with us, knowing all our sorrows. In raising him from the dead, God gives new hope to the world. Our Lord Jesus Christ, crucified and risen, is himself God’s promise that suffering will come to an end, that death shall be no more, and that all things will be made new.”[2] The idea is that it’s precisely through his suffering on the cross that Jesus accomplished all of this. And it was all what God desired for us all.

What we see when we look at Jesus on that cross is God’s love poured out for us, taking on all the pain and suffering of the world. God takes that suffering on himself precisely because it’s the only way to truly set things right in a world of violence and injustice. And the reason for it was that we might find God right in the middle of it all, using the undeserved suffering of the one who served him best to create new life. It’s one of the great mysteries of our faith. We see in Jesus a “suffering servant” who is willing to fulfill God’s love for us even when it leads him to a humiliating death on a cross.

I think that puts the undeserved suffering in our world in a whole different light. Our Scripture lesson speaks of the “Servant’s” willingness to suffer for others what he didn’t deserve. It says it this way in the Contemporary English Version: “By suffering, the servant will learn the true meaning of obeying the LORD” (Isa 53:11, CEV). The prophet Isaiah tells us that the experience of the “Servant of the Lord” who suffered for the benefit of others without deserving it was “the true meaning of obeying the LORD”! Instead of expecting obedience to lead us to God’s “blessing,” in the example of Jesus, we see “the true meaning of obedience”: the willingness to fulfill God’s purpose even and especially when it leads to undeserved suffering.

That can turn our whole approach faith upside-down. I’ve never been in the military, and I’ve never been in combat. I have a son who was in combat in Iraq. I had a friend in college who had been in combat in Vietnam. What I know from talking to my friend and talking to my son is that those who have gone to war were giving their lives for their friends. They were “suffering,” they were making at times great sacrifices for the sake of their friends. There are all kinds of political interpretations of the wars we get into as a country, but when it comes right down to it, soldiers in combat are fighting for the lives of their friends. I think that’s a great illustration of this very idea of the undeserved suffering that some take on themselves for the sake of others.

Most of us practice our faith for the reward we’ll get from it. But Jesus calls us all to take up our cross and follow him. I think that means that if we’re truly going to obey God, we may very well find ourselves undergoing undeserved suffering of our own for the sake of others. Instead of expecting to be rewarded for our efforts to obey God, Jesus’ example points us in a very different direction. His example shows us that the “true meaning of obedience” is to carry out God’s purposes in this world, no matter what it may cost us. That may not be what we want to hear. It’s a tall order for us to fulfill. But it seems to me that when we read this passage from the prophet Isaiah through the lens of Jesus’ death on the cross, we can rest assured that if our obedience to God leads us to undeserved suffering for the sake of others, we can do so in the assurance that we’re taking part in God’s work of renewing and restoring and redeeming this world and all of us in it. It doesn’t make it any easier. But our Scripture lesson reminds us that when we do suffer in this way, there’s a meaning and a purpose to it. There’s something greater that we’re giving our lives for. Our lesson for today suggests that’s the true meaning of obedience. Not obeying for the sake of a reward, but obeying for the sake of fulfilling God’s purpose for all people in this world.

[1] © Alan Brehm 2026. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 4/2/2026 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

[2] Cf. “The Study Catechism,” 1998, q. 14.

Tuesday, May 05, 2026

Looking for What God is Doing

John 9:1-7, 13-41[1]

We turn to faith for comfort. That’s one of the main roles faith plays in our lives. It offers us comfort when the realities of life can feel like they’re too much to bear. That’s why we love Scripture passages like Psalm 23. It’s a beautiful expression of the comfort our faith offers us. But when we only look to faith for comfort, it’s too easy to focus only our ourselves, and lose sight of those around us. That’s why our faith also challenges us. Faith that’s worth its salt not only offers us comfort, it also challenges us to see the suffering of our sisters and brothers in the human family. Especially those who suffer the most in this world, the very ones we may prefer not to see. When we let our faith turn in on itself, it becomes too easy to convince ourselves that their suffering is somehow their own fault. Instead of seeing them as beloved children of God who are suffering in the same way we all can suffer, which can be a scary thought, we convince ourselves that they must have done something to bring it on themselves. The idea that they must have done something to deserve their suffering somehow assures us that it won’t happen to us. But in the process, we let our desire for comfort and safety blind us to the compassion God wants us to give to the people who suffer the most in this world.

Our Gospel lesson for today addresses this issue. It’s the story about Jesus’ encounter with a man who had been born blind. But the irony is that it turns the tables on how we might expect the story to go. In this story, the “religious” people who claimed that they could see were in fact blind. They were blind to the compassion of God, they were blind to truth that Jesus restored this man’s sight. But it was a man who was despised as an ignorant vagrant was the one who was able to see what they couldn’t or wouldn’t see. The narrator emphasizes this irony by calling the one Jesus healed “the man who had formerly been blind.” But irony is that in this story, he was the one who was able to see the truth about Jesus. On the other hand, the “religious” people were blinded because of their assumptions.

The basic assumption in this story that blinded the “religious” people is that anyone who is suffering must have done something to deserve it. That’s an assumption that we still make. In the Gospel story, it was Jesus’ own disciples who voiced this assumption, asking, “who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (John 9:2). The very fact that he had been born blind meant that someone had to have done something wrong to cause his suffering. But Jesus exploded the centuries-old myth that suffering comes from sin. I like the way Gene Peterson translates Jesus’ response in The Message: “You’re asking the wrong question. You're looking for someone to blame. There is no such cause-effect here. Look instead for what God can do” (John 9:3, MSG).

The hard truth is that we live in a world where any kind of suffering can affect anyone at any time. And we tend to use rationalizations like “they must have brought it on themselves” to assure ourselves that we won’t have to suffer the same pain! But Jesus turns all that on its head. He says that the suffering people experience in this world isn’t about blaming or shaming. Rather, it’s an opportunity for those of us who claim to follow him to demonstrate “the works of God” (John 9:4): kindness, compassion, and mercy! The suffering that people endure is an opportunity for us to “look instead for what God can do” (John 9:3, MSG), even and especially in the worst of the pain people can suffer!

Because Jesus healed “the man who had formerly been blind” on the Sabbath day, the religious people believed he had “broken” the Sabbath and therefore he must have been a “sinner” (John 9:16). They believed that following their “rules” about the Sabbath carefully and completely would act as a kind of magical protection from the suffering in the world. Because Jesus didn’t follow their rules about how to observe the Sabbath, he called into question their assumptions about God and the world. To keep their assurances intact they concluded that he must have been a sinner! Only if Jesus was a sinner could they keep their assumptions intact, assumptions that gave them false and shallow assurances that they would never have to deal with that kind of suffering. We still do that: we tell ourselves that if we follow all the rules, we’ll be spared from the worst hardships of life. And we reinforce that line of thinking by assuming those who suffer the worst must have “broken the rules,” and therefore they must be “sinners.” I would think that most of us have had enough experience with life to know that’s not the way life works. We can follow all the rules and still be hit with some of the worst kinds of suffering.

Again, in the Gospel story it was “the man who had formerly been blind” who exposed all these false assumptions. The religious leaders kept pressing him, trying to find a way to avoid the obvious conclusion that Jesus restored his sight. Finally, in exasperation they said, “Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner” (John 9:24). And an unlearned, marginalized, ragged, and dirty man, who just that morning had been living on the street, showed a depth of insight beyond all that they possessed. He said simply, “I do not know whether he is a sinner” (Jn 9:25). There’s probably a lot of wisdom in that when it comes to using the word “sinner” about someone else. But he said, “One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see” (Jn 9:25).

This man who had been blind was able to see the truth about Jesus. Those who claimed to see and know God’s truth were blinded by their false assumptions. That’s what the story is about. We see it in the end when Jesus makes an ironic and somewhat confusing statement about enabling those who are blind to see and making those who can see blind. The Message translation puts it this way, “I came into the world … , so that those who have never seen will see, and those who have made a great pretense of seeing will be exposed as blind” (John 9:39, MSG). I don’t think Jesus ever meant to keep anyone from seeing the truth about God, the truth about themselves, or the truth about life. I think what he was trying to do was to expose those who “make a great pretense of seeing” as people who can actually be blind. The story is about bringing to light something that happens all too often: those of us who think we see the truth about God and therefore view ourselves as “holier” than others are the ones who can at times be the most blind to God’s grace and mercy and compassion!

The hard truth about life is that we never know what we may have to go through. There are times when suffering just happens, not because of what we have done, but in spite of all we may have done. It’s natural in those times for us to look to our faith for comfort. But when we take that to an extreme and try to use our faith as an assurance that it won’t happen to us, we’ve missed something. Jesus made it clear that we’ve missed something when we use our “faith” to brand those who are suffering as “sinners” as a way of reassuring ourselves that we won’t have to suffer like them. What that really boils down to is an elaborate means of making ourselves feeling better at the expense of others. But Jesus framed the suffering people experience in this world entirely differently. He framed it as an opportunity for us to “look instead for what God can do” (John 9:3, MSG).

The Bible says that “nothing will be impossible for God.” We oftentimes think that some people may be beyond hope. And we tend to point the finger at them and assume that they must have done something to deserve it. It’s their fault somehow. But we really don’t know what life experiences have brought people to where they are. We really don’t know the burdens that people are carrying. I think that’s why Jesus taught his disciples and us to look at the suffering people experience not as a reason to point the finger and blame but as an opportunity to “look instead for what God can do.” Instead of shaming people, he challenged us to look for the good that God can do even and especially in the worst of human pain. After all, God raise Jesus from the dead after his suffering on the cross. If that’s true, what experience in this life is there that God can’t bring good from? And when look for what God can do when someone is suffering, not only does it change our whole perspective, but it also helps us to see that we have the opportunity to share God’s mercy and compassion with them. Maybe that’s what God “wants” to do. Maybe God wants to open our hearts to show kindness, compassion, and care, especially toward those whose suffering challenges us. I think Jesus challenges us to find the faith to look at the sufferings of this life and trust God enough to look for what God can do in any situation, come what may, and then try to join him in doing that.

[1] © Alan Brehm 2026. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 3/15/2026 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

Wednesday, April 30, 2025

Forsaken?

Psalm 22[1]

On Sunday we talked about the prayer that Luke’s Gospel places on Jesus’ lips as he was dying: “into your hands I commend my spirit” (Ps 31:5). I mentioned how hard it is for us to understand that as a prayer entrusting all of life into God’s hands because it has become associated with Jesus’ death. Our Psalm for this evening, Psalm 22, is equally difficult for us to hear for the same reason. Matthew and Mark recount Jesus’ final cry with the words of Psalm 22: “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mt 26:6; Mk 15:34). They actually report variations of the Aramaic words Jesus used: “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” But because Matthew and Mark associated those words with Jesus’ death, we tend to hear them as a cry of desperation, not a cry of faith.

I’ve chosen this as the final Psalm in our series on “Faith in the Psalms” for this very reason. Because while the cry, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me” in Psalm 22 clearly express the anguish of the psalm-singer, it is not a cry of desperation, but most definitely one of faith. The same person who asks at the outset, “why have you forsaken me?” can also affirm that God “has not forgotten those who are hurting. He has not turned away from their suffering. He has not turned his face away from them. He has listened to their cry for help” (adapted from Ps 22:24, NIRV). And yet, I think that initial cry, “why have you forsaken me?” haunts us all at times. We wonder whether God might actually abandon us in our time of greatest need.

Again, I would say that fear is actually engendered by the way we’ve heard Jesus’ cry from the cross. The prospect that God abandoned Jesus at the moment when he fulfilled his commitment to God’s purpose most completely is hard for us to process. I think Jesus knew he had to give up his life. And yet he cried out “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me.” I think Jesus trusted that God would raise him from the dead. And yet he cried out “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me.” What troubles us about all this is the question where God was while Jesus was hanging on the cross and crying out in anguish.

I know the standard response: “God had to turn away because Jesus took all the sin of the world on himself, and God cannot look upon sin.” That just doesn’t cut it. It never has for me. How can we find any meaning in the promise elsewhere in Scripture that “I will never abandon you” (Dt 31:6; Josh 1:5; Heb 13:5) if God abandoned Jesus on the cross? And yet the question still haunts us: where was God during the awful silence that followed Jesus’ prayer, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me”? It is a prayer after all, addressed to God. Jesus wasn’t just acting out some sort of elaborate play. This was the real thing. And when the agony of the cross overwhelmed him, Jesus cried out one of the most heartbreaking prayers of the Bible. And God’s response was … ? Actually that’s precisely the question. What was God’s response? Did God really forsake Jesus on the cross?

Maybe we’ve been looking at this in the wrong way all along. We tend to equate silence with abandonment. But maybe that’s not what’s going on at all. Sometimes we’re silent with those who are suffering because we’re suffering with them. I believe that’s where God was; rather than abandoning Jesus, God was right there, experiencing all the anguish that heartbreaking prayer expresses.[2] God was silent because God was suffering with Jesus. To some of us it might seem even more deeply unsettling that God would allow himself to become so apparently powerless and weak.

Again, I think it depends on how we look at it. The Scriptures tell the story of how, time and again, God reveals his power in precisely in weakness.[3] This is a mystery as deep and as hard to explain as any in the Bible. In the moment when Jesus uttered that heart-rending cry, God made it clear once and for all that his suffering has become our redemption, that his apparent weakness was actually his powerful love transforming all creation. Yet it also communicates the absolutely essential truth that God suffers with us. Especially when God is silent. Especially when we may think God has abandoned us! In fact, I would say that’s one of the lessons of Psalm 22: God is with all who suffer. He never abandons anyone. And his presence with us, his support for us is so real that God actually suffers with us when we’re suffering. I think that’s what Jesus’ cry on the cross teaches us. I think that’s also what Psalm 22 teaches us.

I think it’s also important, however, to notice that the psalm-singer expresses his faith in God in the form of a question. And it’s certainly not a question we might use in prayer to God! It has an edge on it: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer; and by night, but find no rest” (Ps. 22:1-2). That’s quite a question to put to God in prayer! Most of us probably wouldn’t feel comfortable being that “in your face” with God. But not only did the psalm-singer ask that question, so did Jesus! And they’re not the only ones. Prophets and sages and spiritual guides from Bible times to the present day have expressed their faith in God by asking what we might consider to be “impolite” or maybe even “irreverent” questions. It might seem like “expressing faith” and asking “irreverent” questions of God couldn’t possibly go together. But I think that’s one of the lessons of Psalm 22: when we feel abandoned by God and we wonder where God is, it doesn’t threaten God at all to be that honest with him in our suffering!

But the psalm-singer discovered what Jesus knew when he made that cry: God is with all who suffer. Prophets and sages and spiritual guides throughout the ages have discovered the same truth: God is the one who’s on the side of those who suffer, all who suffer. Again, the psalm-singer says it this way: God “has not forgotten those who are hurting. He has not turned away from their suffering. He has not turned his face away from them. He has listened to their cry for help” (Ps 22:24).[4] I particularly like the way Gene Peterson puts it in The Message: “He has never let you down, never looked the other way when you were being kicked around. He has never wandered off to do his own thing; he has been right there, listening.” And I would add: “and suffering every bit as much as you, maybe even more”!

As we bring our discussion of “Faith in the Psalms” to a conclusion, it seems to me one of the most important lessons for us to learn is that God is always “God-who-is-with-us.” Most particularly when we are suffering. God is always the one who is giving us the strength to go on, always the one who is comforting us in our sorrows, always the one who raises us up when we fall, always the one who hears our every cry for help. That is the lesson of the Psalms. God is the one who never abandons us, even and especially in the worst of the pain we may have to undergo in this life. And his presence with us, his support for us is so real that God actually suffers with us. The lesson of the cry that opens this Psalm, the lesson of Jesus’ cry from the cross, is that we are never, ever forsaken by God!

[2] In several of Jürgen Moltmann’s works he holds in tension the idea that Jesus died a “God-forsaken” death together with the idea that Jesus was never more closely aligned with God’s will than when he died on the cross. He resolves this tension in different ways in several of his works, but in The Way of Jesus Christ, 173, he says that far from being unconcerned about what was happening, far from abandoning his Son, “in the surrender of the Son the Father surrenders himself too.”

[3] Cf. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics IV:244-48. Cf. also Jürgen Moltmann, The Crucified God, 205: “God is not greater that he is in this humiliation. God is not more glorious than he is in this self-surrender. God is not more powerful than he is in this helplessness. God is not more divine than he is in this humanity.”

[4] Cf. J. Clinton McCann, Jr., “The Book of Psalms,” New Interpreters Bible IV: 764: “The affliction is still very real, but the affliction itself has somehow become an answer (v. 21b). What the psalmist now affirms is that God is present with the afflicted.”

Wednesday, April 09, 2025

Tears and Joy

Psalm 126[1]

Like many of you, I grew up in the days of the “Jesus movement.” Preachers like Billy Graham were taking advantage of the still relatively new technology of Television to preach the gospel to huge audiences. They called people to faith in Jesus in order to be “born again” and to receive “abundant life.” Of course, that language was taken straight from the Bible. But while the promise of “abundant life” here and now is true to the Bible, the way it was presented didn’t always take into consideration the realities of life. I wrestled for years trying to understand what “abundant life” was supposed to mean for people who carried deep and very real scars from the wounds that had been inflicted on them, sometimes in early childhood. The “reality” just didn’t seem to live up to the “hype.”

I think what I’ve learned over the years is that a lot of people got caught up in the enthusiasm of the time. Musicals like “Godspell” presented faith as something mainly positive. New songs (which are now “old favorites”) called people to follow Christ with joy. It was all very upbeat. But even the relatively upbeat “Godspell” had some features that were meant to call attention to the tensions of faith. Jesus’ followers are meant to be dressed like clowns at the beginning of the play. Over the course of the story, they eventually trade their “false” costumes for a more realistic appearance. It’s meant to symbolize the fact that the changes Jesus calls us to make in order to follow him don’t always come easily, and they can take time.

We’re decades removed from the “Jesus movement.” But there are still plenty of people who present the change of life that faith in Jesus calls us to as something that happens relatively quickly and easily. But that simply has not been my experience. The troubles of this life continue in the midst of the peace, hope, and joy we experience through our faith. The “abundant life” that Jesus promised to those who follow him doesn’t magically happen overnight. The new life God offers us through faith is something that takes root in our lives and changes us very slowly.[2] So slowly that at times we are tempted to think that there’s really nothing happening at all. But when we look back over years, or even better, over decades, we can see the difference faith makes in our lives.

I think this lesson applies to the faith in the Psalms as well. As I mentioned at the outset of our journey through Lent this year, the way the Psalms speak of the joy of those who know God’s comfort, care, and relief can lead us to think that this is the “norm” for everyone all the time. But again, we have to read each Psalm as a whole, the Psalms together as a collection, and set it all in the context of the Bible’s total message. As I’ve tried to demonstrate during our journey through “Faith in the Psalms” during Lent, the joy that God’s unfailing love brings into our lives takes place in the midst of the normal sufferings and troubles of this life. Our faith doesn’t exempt us from hard times, but it gives us a resource with which to get through them.

We see that reflected in the backdrop for our Psalm today. It very likely comes from the time after the people of Israel had lost everything and had spent decades living in exile far from their homeland. At the end of that exile, the prophets promised that the God who brought the people safely out of Egypt in the past would now bring them safely through their long journey home from Babylon. The same God who made “a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters” (Isa 43:16) at the Exodus promised to do something brand new: he would make a “way in the wilderness” (Isa 43:19). And the prophets promised that God would restore their lives when they returned to Jerusalem. I would imagine they kept that promise close during the long journey home.

But when they completed their journey and made it back to their own land, instead of finding the home they remembered and loved, what they found was an abandoned city in ruins. More than that, having made their dangerous journey, they found themselves in even more danger. The stories of Ezra and Nehemiah tell us how dangerous it was for the people who worked to rebuild the ruined city. Rather than the safety of home, they found themselves under attack from enemies who had taken control of the land in their absence. At one point, while working on rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem to provide them with some protection, Nehemiah had to have everybody carry their swords with them as they worked (Neh. 4:17-18)!

It’s likely this was the context for our Psalm for today. It’s true that the psalm-singer speaks of their return from exile as a dream come true. But we know from the historical accounts that the dream took some time to realize fully. They may have come home, but they had all kinds of challenges to face. Not only did they have to fend off their enemies, but they also had to find a way to establish a reliable supply of food and water. They had their work cut out for them. And so they prayed that God would continue to “restore their fortunes” (Ps. 126:4).

In fact, they prayed that God would work in such a way that those who went out to sow their seeds in tears would come back rejoicing in the harvest. I can imagine that those who were sowing seeds in tears may have been like farmers who have endured several bad years, and they’re planting the last of their seed stock. If they don’t get enough rain to provide a good harvest this year, they might just be finished. And so they prayed, “Restore our fortunes, O LORD, like the watercourses in the Negeb” (Ps. 126:4). Now, the Negeb is a desert in the southern part of Israel, where there are gullies that are dry most of the year. During the rainy season they fill up with water that the farmers would use to make their crops flourish. Essentially, they’re looking at their situation, one that seemed difficult at best and dangerous at worst, and they’re putting their faith in God to provide for their needs.

What stands out to me about this Psalm is the way it portrays God’s work of restoration. We might say, “God’s work of salvation.” It’s not all joy, all the time. It doesn’t promise that God’s deliverance makes us “happy all the day.”[3] It promises us that we can trust God to see us through the tears we may have to shed in this life. But I think the key to this Psalm is that the joy and the tears go together. There are times when we find ourselves crying out to God, desperate for his help, not even able to imagine what it would look like for God to answer our prayer to “restore our fortunes” (Ps 126:4). Those are times when we express our faith through tears. There are other times when we find relief, right here and right now, and we can say with the psalm-singer, “the LORD has done amazing things for us! What joy!” (Ps 126:3).

In my experience, that perspective on what God is doing in our lives is more true to life. Yes, the hope and joy and peace that our faith brings us makes it possible for us to live in a way that can be more genuinely happy. But those times of joy are combined with times when we are doing the work of sowing seeds of faith, “planting in tears” in the hopes of one day “harvesting with shouts of joy” (Ps 126:5). While we have times when we see the fruits of our labor and rejoice, at this stage in my life I tend to believe that the “harvest” of our faith is one that takes a lifetime to realize. We continue to plant seeds of faith, hope, and love throughout our lives. The work of cultivating the “harvest” of our labor, sometimes with tears and sometimes with joy, takes our whole lives. That’s the “abundant” life we’re called to live. Not a few simple steps that lead to non-stop happiness, but rather a lifetime of doing the work of God’s kingdom, sometimes with tears and sometimes with joy. But always trusting in the God who takes our efforts and uses them for good in this world.

[2] Cf. Shirley C. Guthrie, Christian Doctrine, rev. ed., 337, where he says that “To be a Christian … is not to have arrived but to be constantly on the way,” constantly growing toward “the whole or complete humanity of Christ.”

[3] We can see this in the way the hymn “Alas, and Did My Savior Bleed” was altered in the version known as “At the Cross.” The original hymn was written by Isaac Watts in 1707 to express gratitude for the way Jesus’ death on the cross helps us with our burdens. In 1885 Ralph Hudson added the refrain, “At the cross, at the cross, where I first saw the light, and the burden of my heart rolled away—it was there by faith I received my sight, and now I am happy all the day.” It was characteristic of the “revival” hymns of that time. But the refrain completely alters the tone of the hymn from one of thoughtful reflection on the gratitude we feel for what Jesus did to lift our burdens to an almost pollyannish approach to salvation that results in being “happy all the day” (in my opinion)!

Tuesday, June 11, 2024

Try and Try Again

2 Corinthians 4:8-18[1]

You may or may not know that I enjoy solving puzzles. All kinds of puzzles, from sudoku, to crosswords, to card games, to actual jigsaw puzzles, to Lego sets. Yes, I am an “Adult fan of Lego” (Afol). I enjoy the challenge of figuring out how to put it all together. I enjoy keeping my mind and my hands busy, so to speak. Solving a puzzle is something that I can do and lose track of time. I enjoy other activities as well, as you know. I can lose myself in a really good work of fiction. I can lose myself playing guitar, especially when I’m trying to learn something that’s challenging. But puzzles have been a “go to” activity for me for a long time.

One of the reasons why I enjoy solving puzzles so much is because you have to look at the “big picture” in order to solve a puzzle. That’s especially true with sudoku. Every column, every row, every segment can only have one sequence of the numbers one through nine. I also enjoy the fact that solving puzzles requires “thinking outside the box.” Or perhaps I should say looking at things from a different perspective. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had the right puzzle piece in the right place, but it was turned around the wrong way. I enjoy the challenge of a puzzle because it makes me look at both the “big picture” and the “small details,” and it makes me “turn things around” in my head until I find the solution.

I would say that the question of how a church can thrive in this current setting is something like that. We have to look at the “big picture” in order to solve the puzzle. We need to see how all the pieces fit together. We also have to look at the “small details.” Some aspects of our life together as a congregation that we may have taken for granted, perhaps for years, may need more careful attention. The way things are in our current context also means that we have to “think outside the box.” Some of the things we have always done continue to work for us. Some of them may not, and we may need to be willing to look at new solutions to the new problems we’re facing. Maybe the most important element to solving the question of how a church can thrive in this current context is the ability to look at things from a different perspective. We get used to seeing things on a regular basis (or not seeing them). All of this is going to require that we adopt the basic attitude that “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again”!

I think that’s what St. Paul’s testimony about his life was about. From our perspective, it’s all too easy to think of “Saint” Paul as someone who walked around with a halo and lived “above” this world and all its troubles. But Paul makes it clear in his letters that was not the case! Later in this same letter he tells us that he endured “troubles and hardships and calamities of every kind.” He continues, “We have been beaten, been put in prison, faced angry mobs, worked to exhaustion, endured sleepless nights, and gone without food” (2 Cor 6:4-5 NLT). He summarized his experience by saying, “I have faced danger from rivers and from robbers. I have faced danger from my own people, the Jews, as well as from the Gentiles. I have faced danger in the cities, in the deserts, and on the seas. And I have faced danger from men who claim to be believers but are not.” (2 Cor. 11:26, NLT).

In our lesson for today he describes his experience of serving Christ as an Apostle in a particularly memorable way: “We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed” (2 Cor 4:8-9, NLT). I’ve always found this passage to be both troubling and comforting. It’s troubling because in essence Paul says that when we follow Christ, we are bound to have this kind of experience! In another passage, he says that we “must expect such things” if we follow Christ (1 Thess 3:3, Phillips)!

Given all of that, you might think that anyone in their right mind in Paul’s shoes would seek “greener pastures”! But I think this is where he was able to view his situation from the “big picture” and see all those hardships from a different perspective. In doing so, he was able to recognize that God was using the hardships he endured for good in the lives of the believers he was serving. He viewed his sufferings as part of Christ’s sufferings, and so he could say, “we live in the face of death, but this has resulted in eternal life for you” (2 Cor 4:12, NLT). I think his ability to adopt this perspective reminds us that we may not truly know how God is using the hard things we may have to endure for the benefit of others. But I think Jesus’ death on the cross makes one thing clear: that’s how God does his most powerful work in this world!

That brings me back to the comforting part of the passage I quoted earlier: “We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed” (2 Cor 4:8-9, NLT). Paul could face everything he had to endure with the assurance that God never abandoned him. And with God’s help, he was able to bear everything that came his way. He knew the weight of suffering, but it did not crush him. He knew the confusion of not understanding why some things happened to him, but he never gave up hope. Instead, he was confident that through everything he had to endure, God’s grace was reaching “more and more people” (2 Cor 4:15, NLT). And so he could say “we never give up” (2 Cor 4:16, NLT)!

For many of us, the condition of the church as a whole these days is perhaps the worst we’ve ever seen it in our lives. There are people who are paid to come up with reasons for it, and their insights are helpful. But I think we have to adopt the mindset of solving a puzzle in order to address this challenging and confusing time. We can look at the “big picture,” and think about what God may be doing in and through us in the midst of these struggles. We may not know what that is, but we can be assured that God is doing something in and through us in this difficult time. We can turn the pieces of the puzzle around and look at things differently to try to figure out the key question: how can we draw people who are content with their lives as they are into our community? In all of this, we can trust that God never has and never will abandon us. And this hope can give us the energy to try and try again.

Tuesday, February 06, 2024

Have You Not Heard?

Isaiah 40:18-31; Mark 1:29-39[1]

Everybody wrestles with faith at some time or other. That’s because, as much as we like to present our lives as “picture perfect,” nobody actually has an “ideal” life. Pretty much everyone is dealing with some kind of problem. It just seems to be the nature of life. Just as soon as you get one thing nailed down, two more come loose. And it’s also the nature of the Christian life. As one of my college professors put it, everyone you meet is either heading into a time when their faith will be tested, or is in the midst of a time of testing, or is coming out of a time of testing. When we go through hard times, it’s easy for us to wonder what went wrong. We think a life that’s free of troubles should be “normal” for a Christian. But the fact of the matter is that we follow a Savior and Lord who suffered, and who called us to follow him in that path. So we should expect the troubles in our life as “normal.”

Part of the problem is that when hard times come, we tend to think that God is punishing us. It’s actually a line of thinking that starts with the Bible. Especially the book of Deuteronomy. The idea there is that when we do what we’re supposed to do, God blesses us. When we do what we’re not supposed to do, God punishes us. But the problem with that line of thinking is that there are a lot of people out there whose lives seem to be “blessed” who aren’t making any effort to do what’s right. And there are also a lot of people out there who are making every effort to do what’s right whose lives nevertheless are filled with hardship. In the language of the Psalms, the fact that the “wicked” so often “prosper” while the “righteous” suffer makes it plain that the line of thinking that equates hardships with punishment just doesn’t work.

Sometimes we may take this all the way to questioning whether God really is as good and loving as we’ve been taught to believe. In fact, this is a question that people have been asking for centuries, going back to ancient times. One of the Psalmists asks God if he has forgotten to be loving (Ps. 77:8-9), essentially asking if God has forgotten who he is! Another Psalmist asks God if he has fallen asleep instead of coming to help his people in their time of need (Ps. 44:23), again asking if God has somehow gotten too tired to make good on his promises. Those are some pretty bold questions. Not everyone goes through tragedies painful enough to bring us to question God to that extent. But there are many of us who have and still do, and I think it’s important for us to recognize that if psalm-singers and prophets could ask these questions in the Bible, it’s okay for us to have and to give voice to our questions. If Jesus could cry out to God “why have you forsaken me” from the cross, we can ask our questions too. God’s big enough to handle it, and he understands.

From the point of view of some Philosophers and Theologians, the presence of so much unjust suffering, or “evil,” in the world means that God cannot be both loving and all-powerful at the same time. If God is loving, he must not be all-powerful, because a loving God “would” prevent the tragedies that come upon the most innocent and vulnerable people. From this point of view, God is like a beloved grandparent who is simply powerless to protect us.[2] On the other hand, if God is all-powerful, he must not be loving, because being all-powerful means God can stop the terrible things that happen in life but chooses not to. From this point of view, God isn’t even a good father, because no parent would neglect a child in need![3]

As much as I understand why some people ask these questions (and why I’ve asked them myself!), the problem with posing the alternatives so starkly is that it presupposes that God’s ways are our ways. But the Bible bears witness again and again that God’s ways are as much higher than our ways as the heavens are higher than the earth (Isa 55:9). We know a lot more about how “high” the heavens are in our day than they did then. Generally speaking, science tells us that the universe is infinite! And so our lesson from Psalm 147 today says, “there is no limit to [God’s] understanding” (Ps 147:5, NIrV). That’s one way of dealing with the painful experiences of our lives: we may not understand what’s happening, but none of it escapes God’s notice, nor his wisdom, power, and love!

That’s the point of our lesson from Isaiah for today. The people of Israel languished far from home for a lifetime. In that land so far from everything they had known, they wondered whether God even noticed that they were suffering, or whether God even cared. And the prophet speaking in the name of the Lord reminds them who God is: “The LORD is the everlasting God; he created all the world. He never grows tired or weary” (Isa 40:28, GNT). God always knows what we’re going through in this life, and God always cares. That doesn’t mean things will always turn out the way we want or hope. But what it means is that “those who trust in the LORD for help will find their strength renewed. They will rise on wings like eagles; they will run and not get weary; they will walk and not grow weak” (Isa 40:31, GNT).

It’s something our lesson from the Gospel of Mark for today demonstrates. Although Jesus knew his task was not primarily to work miracles, but to proclaim the good news that he had come to bring the kingdom of God, wherever he was faced with suffering he met human pain with compassion. He was never too preoccupied with his sense of calling to comfort those who were suffering. And when he followed that calling all the way to the point of giving up his life on the cross, he showed us all once and for all that God shares our burdens. Although Jesus cried out in agony, and it seemed as if the only reply God made was silence, what our faith teaches us is that in Jesus God was right there, taking all of our suffering upon himself.[4] Just as Jesus didn’t abandon those who came to him in need, so also God didn’t abandon Jesus on the cross. And God will never abandon anyone in this world, especially in the midst of their suffering.

When I’m going through hard times, and I’m having a hard time believing that God notices or cares about what I’m going through, I know that it’s usually because I’m stuck in fear or pain or sadness. I think when we get stuck in those feelings, we lose our sense of perspective on our lives. We may even lose our faith for a time. That’s precisely when we need to remember the lessons those who wrestled with these questions in the Bible learned. While my understanding is most definitely limited, there is no limit to God’s understanding. We may not understand what’s going on, but none of what’s happening in our lives escapes God’s notice, nor his wisdom, power, and love. Just as Jesus never abandoned those who came to him in need, and just as God didn’t abandon Jesus on the cross, so God never abandons us, especially in hard times. God is always there for us; when we think God is silent, perhaps it’s because God is weeping right along with us. As our affirmation of faith reminds us today, God watches over us each day of our lives. It’s what we’ve heard from the very beginning. God always knows what we’re going through in this life, and God always cares.

[2] This was the view of Rabbi Harold Kushner in When Bad Things Happen to Good People. His views were likely influenced by the death of his son from cancer at an early age.

[3] This is the view of Sam Harris: “God visits suffering on innocent people on a scope and scale that would embarrass the most ambitious psychopath” (post on Twitter dated Aug. 5, 2015).

[4] Cf. Helmut Thielicke, The Silence of God, 14: “Even when He was silent, God suffered with us.” Cf. also ibid., 13: When we don’t understand what’s happening, perhaps God “is fitting stone to stone in His plan for the world and our lives, even though we can see only a confused and meaningless jumble of stones.”

Tuesday, November 21, 2023

Humble Thanks

Psalm 123-124[1]

It’s easy to be thankful when all is right with the world. At least, it seems easy. We can see God’s mercies that are “new every morning” (Lam 3:23) all around us. Our families and friends, our homes, our jobs, all the countless gifts that God has poured so generously into our lives constantly lead us to sincere gratitude. In those times, it seems like the light of sunshine blesses everything and everyone in our lives. Hopefully, seeing all the good things God has brought into our lives helps us humbly recognize that they all come from his hand. And that humble acknowledgement leads us to give thanks to God. Not just at this time of year, but every day.

It's harder to be thankful when all is not right with your world. Whether it’s a health crisis, a family crisis, or a financial crisis, hard times seem to overshadow everything else. The fear of “the worst” can crowd out even the hint of gratitude from our lives. It’s hard to be thankful when it seems like there’s nothing to be thankful for. Hard times have a way of distorting our perspective like that. We can focus all our attention on what’s wrong with our lives. We can doubt ourselves, wondering what we’ve done wrong to “deserve” what’s happening. And when get caught in that kind of thinking, it’s hard to be thankful. But that’s precisely the time when we need to practice giving thanks!

Our lesson from the Psalms for today helps us learn how to give thanks in hard times as well as good times. The reading comes from a whole series of Psalms, Psalm 120-134. They’re called “Psalms of Ascent,” because they were written to be used by pilgrims on the way to Jerusalem for the great festivals at the temple. It seems pretty clear, however, that these Psalms come from a time in Israel’s history when all was not right with their world. The original temple had been destroyed by the Babylonians. The people of Israel were scattered all over the Middle East. As they made their way to Jerusalem to worship, some of them lamented the fact that they were not able to live among their own people, but rather had to live “in far-off Meshech” and “in distant Kedar” (Ps 120:5, NLT). We don’t know exactly where those places were, but from what the Psalmist said, they were lands where they did not know “peace” (Ps 120:6-7).

To be sure, some of them had been allowed to return to their own land, but even there, their lives there were far from prosperous. Even those who returned still cried out to God to “restore our fortunes, … as streams renew the desert” (Ps 126:4, NLT). They longed for the time when “those who plant in tears will harvest with shouts of joy” (Ps. 126:5, NLT). Even the temple was merely a shadow of the one that had been there before. The pilgrimage to Jerusalem was as much a reminder of how much they had lost as it was an occasion for joyful worship.

And so their observance of their festivals became a time to cry out to the Lord to have mercy on them. As we heard in our lesson from Psalm 123, they said, “Have mercy on us, Lord, have mercy, for we have had our fill of contempt” (Ps. 123:3, NLT). We know that even the people who had returned to their own land were constantly harassed by powerful warlords who controlled part of the territory. That seems to be the point of the cry, “We have had more than our fill of the scoffing of the proud and the contempt of the arrogant” (Ps 123:4, NLT). They were living in hard times, but they were trying to be faithful to give thanks to God for all the ways he had blessed them.

We see that effort to remain thankful in the fact that, despite all they were going through, there is a refrain that echoes throughout these pilgrimage Psalms. It begins with the question that opens Psalm 121: “I look up to the mountains—does my help come from there?” And the answer comes back, “My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth!” (Ps 121:1-2, NLT). We hear it again in our reading for today from Psalm 124. The people praised God for being on their side and protecting them from being “swallowed alive” by those who were attacking them, because they knew that “Our help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth” (Ps. 124:8, NLT). And the final verse of these pilgrimage Psalms concludes with the prayer, “May the Lord, who made heaven and earth, bless you from Jerusalem” (Ps. 134:3, NLT). It was a prayer that, despite the hard times they were going through, God would continue to bless them. And remember, the God they were praying to was the one who made heaven and earth, so they expressed their confidence that he had the power to overcome everything they were dealing with.

Based on the conviction that “Our help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth,” the Psalmist calls the pilgrims, despite their disappointments and fears, despite the attacks they had to endure, despite all that would call in question their faith, to “hope in the Lord” (Ps. 130:7, NLT). “Hope” may not seem to be a very powerful word these days, and perhaps there were some in that day who wondered what good it did to keep hoping for better days. But “hope” is a word of faith in the Bible. And the reason for calling the people to “hope in the Lord” was because “with the Lord there is unfailing love” and “His redemption overflows” (Ps. 130:7, NLT). The Psalmist repeats the call in Psalm 131: “O Israel, put your hope in the Lord—now and always” (Ps. 131:3, NLT). And that call rings out to us today, to put our hope in the Lord, who made heaven and earth.

Hoping in the Lord, putting our trust in God, looking to the one who made all the heavens and the earth to care for us—these seem just natural when times are good. But when we’re facing a serious crisis, it can feel like a stretch that is out of our reach. Those are the times when we need to fall back on the basics. We can do what the psalmists did repeatedly: remember all the ways that God has been faithful in the past. We may need to make a list that we can keep as a handy reminder. When it’s hard to give thanks, we can stand in the truth that we are all, each and every one of us, God’s beloved child. We always have been and we always will be. And nothing will ever change that. We can also make a list of what we’re thankful for in our lives right now. We all have many gifts to be thankful for, and in hard times it helps to have a list we can look at. More than that, taking time each day writing out several specific things for which we are grateful today becomes a way to shift our attention from hardship and fear to gratitude.

When we remember all the ways that God has been faithful to us in the past, when we stand in the truth that we are all, each and every one of us, God’s beloved child, and when we list the things in our lives for which we are truly thankful, it can be a humbling experience. It helps us remember that God has been good to us in so many ways, far beyond anything we could ever deserve, far beyond anything we have to earn. And that reinforces the conviction that, despite whatever we may have to endure in this life, we always have reasons to give thanks to God. These basic disciplines of faith help us keep on trusting God through the hardest of times. They help us to keep on hoping in the God who made all the heavens and the earth. They help us continue to give God our humble thanks.

Wednesday, July 26, 2023

Who's To Blame?

Who’s to Blame?

Matthew 13:24-43[1]

These days it can seem like nobody is willing to take responsibility for their actions. From a child in preschool who has a problem sharing a toy to those at the highest reaches of our society wrangling over power, the standard answer is “It’s not my fault.” The idea that “the buck stops here” could have very well from “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.” Maybe we shouldn’t be too surprised at that. After all, resolving our problems by pointing the finger at someone else started in the Garden of Eden! It seems that the human family has always had a tendency to blame someone else for the problems in this world.

I think that natural tendency only gets stronger in times of crisis. When we are surrounded by realities that keep us up at night, as we are these days, many of us find comfort in knowing whom to blame. And there’s no shortage of people out there who are willing to try to convince you that they know exactly who’s to blame. But those who are constantly pointing the finger don’t offer any constructive solutions other than the (hollow) promise that if we give them power, they will fix things. Of course, for those of us who have been around a while, it’s all too obvious that they either never could or never intended to make good on their promises. Maybe we should have seen through their attempts to blame someone else. In my experience, the only way things change is if we take responsibility for our part in a problem and try to do something about it ourselves.

Our Gospel lesson for today comes from a situation of extreme crisis. The early Christians for whom Matthew was writing his Gospel were likely Jewish converts. But because of their faith in Jesus, they had not only been expelled from their synagogues, but also likely had been shunned by their families. They were treated like heretics and blasphemers. They had found new life through Jesus’ promise of blessing for the poor, the merciful, the peacemakers, and those who were longing for God’s righteousness to renew the world. Part of what troubled them was the fact that their friends and family, people whom they loved, either couldn’t or wouldn’t see the truth that had set them free.

In fact, that still troubles faithful Jewish people to this day. One of the reasons why they have such difficulty accepting Jesus as the Messiah is because they believe the Messiah is supposed to heal the world. Since the world is obviously not healed, then in their minds, the Messiah cannot have come. But Jewish people aren’t the only ones who are unimpressed by the “kingdom” that Jesus proclaimed. In that day, Jesus’ death and resurrection didn’t change the fact that the Romans were still in power, and they wielded that power with cruelty and brutality. The wealthy still oppressed the poor with no accountability. Religious leaders used their position not to serve the people but to gain wealth and power for themselves. Suffering, violence, injustice, and oppression were still overwhelming the world. I can understand why some thought that whatever “kingdom” Jesus was talking about must not have made much of a difference. When you think about it, all of those things are still true today.

But that’s why Jesus told the parables in this chapter of parables in Matthew’s Gospel. He knew firsthand the hardship, the hostility, and the rejection they would face. So he told them parables to help them understand the “mystery” or the “secret” of the kingdom of God. And that secret is this: despite the appearances to the contrary, God’s kingdom will ultimately change all things and everyone. We see it in the “Parable of the Sower,” where the “fruit” produced by the good soil far exceeds all expectations. We see it in the “Parable of the Mustard Seed,” where a tiny seed becomes a “large tree.” We see it in the “Parable of the Leaven” where the yeast inevitably works its way through a large batch of dough. The idea is that the change the kingdom of God is bringing will inevitably work it’s way through this whole world.

One of the lessons I think Jesus wanted believers to come away with is hope. Despite all that remains wrong with this world, I think Jesus wanted believers of his day and every day to fully embrace the hope that one day the kingdom of God will right all the wrongs. There’s so much that seems wrong with this world, it’s hard to wrap our heads around this promise. More than that, the promise is that the kingdom of God will lift all the burdens. It will do away with violence in all its forms. It will restore all people and all creation to the way God intended when he made it all “very good.” The problems in this world can get even the best of us down at times. More than that, they can cause us to doubt whether God is as good and loving and powerful as we’ve always believed. But we don’t have to resort to trying to figure out who is to blame for all the wrongs in the world. It doesn’t really help anyway. What helps is the assurance that God is going to make things right in the end.

That leads to a second lesson from these parables. The hope that none of the wrongs in this world will ultimately prevail against God’s love that is powerful beyond measure[2] leads us not only away from getting caught in a cycle of blaming others. It also encourages us to do what we can here and now. One thing we can do is to “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness” (Mt 6:33). What that means is illustrated by a couple of parables that follow our lesson for today. Like a man who found a treasure, or a merchant who found a flawless pearl, “seeking the kingdom” means that pursuing God’s ways, extending God’s love, and working for God’s peace become the most important focus of our lives. The hope that God will set all things right is no “opium of the masses” that keeps us from working to set things right.[3] It is the very guiding light that inspires us to engage in that work with all our hearts and minds and strength!

Our world has changed a great deal. The church was once the focal point for “seeking the kingdom.” For better or for worse, that’s not always the case any longer. The “worse” of it is that many of us don’t devote as much time and energy to “seeking the kingdom” through the church as we once did. There are all kinds of distractions that pull us in so many other directions that we just don’t have the “bandwidth” for church. But the “better” of it is that there are all kinds of people out there “seeking the kingdom” in all kinds of places and in all kinds of ways that those of us in the church might not be able to imagine. I can’t say that I’m happy that those people are doing their work outside the church because I’ve been in the church all my life and I love the church. But what I can say is that I’m happy they are “seeking the kingdom,” and that’s the point of it all. That means the kingdom of God is still growing like a mustard seed that will become a huge tree. That kind of thing doesn’t happen in “real” life, but in the kingdom of God, all things are possible!

[2] Cf. “The Study Catechism” 1998, questions 7-8.

[3] As Karl Marx (in)famously said in “A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right” Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher, 7 & 10 February 1844.

The Waking Dreamer