Some Random Thoughts from the Mental Junk Drawer

 

    - The only way to be 'richer than Midas' is to be as merciless as spiders. 

    - Only the rich can afford another war. And that's only because they have the rest of us pay for it. 

    - The so-called Christian Nationalist has the same complaints as the Egyptians in Exodus - "these foreigners are becoming too numerous and if we don't stop them, they're going to side with our enemies and take over the country..."  - Exodus 1:10

    - When it comes time to choose a theodicy to explain the existence of suffering - and there are many to choose from, some better, some worse - keep Vincent VanGogh in mind. "La tristesse durera toujours."

From the Heart of the Tempest

Then from the heart of the tempest Yahweh gave Job his answer. (Job 38:1)

Lamentations: An Incomplete Theodicy

Sunday's sermon will come from the book of Lamentations.  I'm not yet sure what I'll be preaching, but I do have this that I wrote some time back.  A Theodicy is an attempt to explain the "problem of evil",  an attempt to answer that question "why?".  This series of poems based on the book of Lamentations is an incomplete theodicy. I believe that all theodicies are incomplete - even biblical ones.


Lamentations: An Incomplete Theodicy

Chapter One

How doth the City Sit Solitary
How doth the city sit solitary that once was full of people.
How she sits alone; widowed
in the stifling heat - like being in a car left in the sun
     in air one hundred and fourteen degrees,
     heat lying upon the skin and filling the lungs like sackcloth and ashes.
She weeps long into the night; her tears carving canyons of grief
     through the dirt and grime of her filthy face
     and there is no one to comfort her.

All my friends have abandoned me and betrayed me.
My lovers are gone, my children - dead.
How doth the city sit solitary that once was full of people.

When the war planes screamed overhead and the bombs fell
and the night was full of fire
(phosphorescent fire fell from the sky and ravaged her bones)
then the adversary spread out his groping hands upon all her pleasant things
copping a feel, plundering, raping, spreading her nakedness for all to see.
Soldiers in their camouflaged fatigues and heavy boots entered her and defiled her.

Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by,
flipping past CNN and FOX news for more enjoyable info-tainment?
Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto mine.

Chapter Two

The Bombs Exploded
Our enemies, they hiss and gnash their teeth,
for He has flung a dark shadow over the city.
He hurled a dark shadow upon all the population
and has brought their opened mouths down to gravel and dust.

He bent his bow in his anger
and flung a dark enemy over them.

Like a giant magnesium flare over the fairest of cities,
his bow like an enemy - without mercy the Lord has destroyed them,
They hiss and gnash their teeth.

The bombs have exploded, Lord! Lord!
Your tremendous anger flashed dangerous,
blue-white light and dark shadow over the city.

The explosion brought intense glare and heat and horror,
the explosion brought the rumbling sound
of uncontrolled terror to the heights of heaven.

O God, think about this.

A Burning of My Bones
I am the ash-heap of memory,
scraping infected boils with potsherds
and I can believe that this is
the "no-place" utopia of nowhere.

The brutal assault of daily invasion
and routine inhumanity continued
while the evil-doers,
the authors of nowhere and nothing
trampled me underfoot into the ash-heap of history.

Afflicted in every way, pressed down and crushed,
persecuted, struck down, and struck mute,
hemmed in on every side,
Violence and terror on every side!

Great is thy faithfulness,
great is thy faithfulness, Lord, but
Great is thy terror!
Violence and terror on every side!
I know your hands of peace, your arms of love
but the hands of love sometimes pull down,
uproot and destroy.

I shall not live until I see God
and when I have seen him I shall never die.
But why is he perpetuating the horrors
that pummel me, trample me?
I am caught in the snares of the Lord of Terror.

O God, you liar, you deceived me, you enticed me.
O God, you strong-armed bully, you knocked me to the ground
and beat me to a bloody pulp,
O God, you duped me, thrashed me, raped me.

But it becomes a fire in my heart, burning in my bones
and I can't be silent.

Chapter Three

Who?
Who beat me senseless?
Who kicked me repeatedly in the head and gut?
Who, with steel-toed boots, kicked me in the rectum till I bled?
Who with razors slashed at my face
     causing these "defensive wounds" on my hands and wrists?
Who tore out my hair - pulling away bloody pieces of scalp?
Who imprisoned me; chained  and shackled me, and threw me in the hole?
Who broke my ribs and punctured my lungs?
Who fed me poison till I puked up blood and bile?
Who duct-taped my mouth when I tried to scream for help?

He did.

And like the battered wife I crawled back to him.
I deserved it. It was my fault.
How can I complain about the punishment of my sins?

Three Days
For three days I was trapped under the rubble
when the walls of my home collapsed
under the enemy's bombardment.
Three days in the dark - I thought I'd gone blind.
Three days without food - without water
I drank my own piss to stay alive.

I cried out but no one could hear
I prayed but he would not hear
or, if he heard, he did not care
or, if he did care... I don't know

For three days I lay trapped beneath the rubble,
concrete shards pinned me to the ground as neatly
as a butterfly on display.  My organs were crushed.
My body was twisted, contorted, my face in the dirt,
my legs splayed out in an unnatural direction.
I thought I was dead - buried,
stones rolled over top of me and sealed in the pit.

I cried out but no one could hear

I prayed but he would not hear
or, if he heard, he did not care
or, if he did care... I don't know

Great is Thy Faithfulness
I am disheartened
my words have come to an end.

I think of my LORD,
let him give this human element
some portion of that balm of Gilead.

I wait for God to speak
I wait quietly to hear what he will say,
to heal is Thy faithfulness.

I fear I'll feel his mercies never again.

Chapter Four

A Fugitive Arrives with the News
(FADE IN FROM STATIC)... those killed in the chaos of the initial bombings were, perhaps, better off than those who survived only to starve to death now that the city has been completely cut off.  No supplies of any kind have entered the city for nearly a month.  Food is gone. Water is scarce and the corpses are everywhere.

There are reports coming in of mothers who have actually eaten their own children. The devastation here is nearly indescribable.  Horror like this is inconceivable and yet... (FADE TO STATIC)

But now the anger of the Lord is satisfied
O God! Please say the fury is spent.
We can't go on like this
our resistance is broken
as is our will.
We are obliterated
O, God, please say "no more."

Chapter Five

Tenebrae
In the face of a rocky hill on the western side of the city sits Jeremiah
in the shadowy smoke-darkened twilight.
he has nothing left to say to us; he will speak no more.
He came to us before, but we would not listen.

In the face of a rocky hill beyond the smoldering ruins
we gather for silence;
joy has vanished from our hearts.

Remember Us
We are the orphaned and fatherless;
our mothers are widowed and lost.
We are the children of death,
the progeny of disease.

We are slaves.
We are victims.
We are murdered in the streets.

Our sisters and daughters are raped
Our sons and brothers are sodomized

Our hearts are sick.
Is it enough, O Lord, that you remain the same forever?
Restore us, or have you rejected us?
Remember us.

Remember what has come upon us.
Remember what has come upon us.
Remember what has come upon us.

A Fire Burning in My Bones - Not A Good Sermon

"It won't be a good sermon," I warned them before I began.  "A good sermon, preachers are sometimes taught, will have a memorable formula - an alliterated three point outline that will be easily remembered, for example: the Power, the Purpose and the Plan....

Or a good sermon will follow a narrative arc.  People like stories and a good sermon is like a good story.  We have a beginning wherein we meet a compelling character, a middle wherein the protagonist's life is complicated by struggle and then we have a glorious ending that swoops upwards toward victory and confidence and joy.

But what I had to preach today wasn't a "good" sermon. Jeremiah chapter 20 doesn't lend itself to good sermons.

The prophet Jeremiah lived in precarious times.  The once great and powerful Assyrian empire (the constant and foreboding threat found in the prophet Isaiah's writing) had waned and was crumbling.  And with that, the little nation of Judah began to flex its aspirations for independence.  But there was another force on the rise.  The Babylonian empire was becoming more and more powerful.  Some within the nation of Judah recommended that they should ally themselves with the nation of Egypt as a hedge against the waning Assyrians and the waxing Babylonians.  Some said they should keep as they were with their heads down.

But the prophet Jeremiah crossed them all with his message.  It doesn't matter.  None of that will be of any use, because Yahweh God has already decided to bring judgement on this nation for it's idolatry and violence.  The only way out of our predicament, Jeremiah said, is repentance... but I know and God knows that you won't so your doom is imminent.

This was not a message that won him many friends.
But it was the message that he was called to deliver.

Even before he was born, while he was still being knitted together in his mother's womb, before he had any sense of self or identity, God had marked Jeremiah for this role.  And when Jeremiah tried to object, "I'm only a boy, I can't do that."  God refused to hear Jeremiah's demure.  "Don't say, 'I'm only a boy' !"  You'll go where I send you and you'll say what I have for you to say, and I'll be with you. (Jeremiah chapter 1)

He would speak God's message to the people.  He would tell them of the coming wrath of God.  And he did.  And for this he was despised and arrested and beaten and thrown in jail and put in stocks and mocked and abandoned....

Chapter 20 verse 7  - 18 is part of what is sometimes called "the confessions of Jeremiah." These are passages within the book that are not part of God's message to the people, but rather Jeremiah's very personal and very intimate responses to God.  And they are not easy.  They don't make for "good" sermons.

You seduced me, Yahweh, and I was seduced.

Seduced, tricked, persuaded... the many translations use various words to try and capture the slippery meaning of this phrase in Hebrew.  It contains all of those ideas.  But what can we say - that God tricked him, fooled him, duped, - or what may be worse, God seduced him?  And then to put that against the next phrase - You overpowered me, you were the stronger.

Dare we say it?  God raped the prophet's will? 

Jeremiah's bitter complaint is that God not been fair.  God came to him when he was a young and naive and inexperienced boy and -forced- him into this life.  "You came to me when I knew nothing and you told me to be your prophet, but you didn't tell me what it would be like.  You didn't prepare me for this.  You didn't give me a choice..."

And now my life is a joke.  I speak your words and everyone hates me.  My enemies plot against me and those who were my friends avoid me or turn against me. And it's your fault, God.

Jeremiah says that he would, if he could, just quit.  I would leave it all behind. I would not mention your name and I would not speak in your name ever again ...

... except that when I tried to quit it was like a fire in my bones, burning me from the inside.  I could not stay silent.  I was damned by the people if I spoke and I was damned by God if  I was silent.

Then there is a turning point.  And here is where the text follows a nice narrative arc.  We've followed the prophet down into dark despair and now we're ready to hear a word of comfort - a word of the gospel, the good news.  And the prophet says, "But Yahweh is with me like a mighty hero." 

Jeremiah celebrates the presence of God in his life, and the protection and vindication that God brings to his faithful servant.  His enemies will be judged and Jeremiah will be rewarded.  "Sing to Yahweh.  Praise Yahweh.  for he has rescued this needy one from the hand of the oppressor."

And if this were a "good" sermon, this is where it would end.  I could deliver a nice and tidy word from God: when you're facing trouble and dark times, be confident because God will rescue and God will reward the faithful....

But the prophet won't let me end there.  I really wish that he would have stopped there. I could feel comfortable with that sermon.  We go through tough times, despair and loneliness come... but have faith, rescue is around the corner, blah, blah, blah...  But Jeremiah didn't conclude the matter like that.

Instead he turns again sends the whole thing crashing back down into the dark depths of despair - sinking even lower than before. He curses his entire existence from the day he was born to the present moment. And though he doesn't curse his mother or his father or God (for that would have been a capital offense) he comes awfully close. And this, I think, is some of the darkest language in the bible. 

Cursed be the day on which I was born
the day my mother bore me, let it not be blessed.
Cursed be the man who brought the 'good news' to my father...
let him be like the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah
forced to listen to the screams and cries of the people

why couldn't I have just died in the womb
why couldn't my mother's womb have been my grave?

From the womb on my life has been sorrow and shame.

How do make a "good" sermon from that?  Maybe there is no good sermon here.
But I am glad that this passage - as ugly and as dark as it is - I'm glad,  grateful even, that this passage is included in our scriptures.

I remember being 13 or 14 and we had just moved - again.  I was in a new town with few friends and I felt alone and abandoned.  My parents were busy with the things of the church - and I knew that we were there because they were answering God's call for their lives - but that was no comfort to me. 

I remember being out one autumn afternoon, delivering the papers on my paper route. It was a bright and sunny afternoon.  The sky was bright blue and the air was crisp.  And I stopped in the sidewalk and looked up into the sky and I said, out loud, "God, I believe you're there, but stay the hell out of my life."

I don't know what I expected to happen.  Maybe I thought there would be a flash of lighting or an earthquake or something. But no.  I went on and finished my route and went home and nothing changed.

And that's what comforts me.  Nothing changed. 

God didn't hear that blasphemous boy and deliver a lightning bolt from the sky to smite him.  God didn't throw me out.  He didn't cut me off.  No.  He allowed me to be angry - even allowed me to be angry with God, and he still loved me.

God heard Jeremiah's confession - heard the prophet's bitter complaint, that borderline blasphemy and did not count it as a sin. We can be angry with God and it can be okay.

The other comfort (small comfort) I find in this difficult passage is that the life of faith isn't going to be all wine and roses; the word of God isn't going to always be honey on our lips. 

I know.  That doesn't really sound like comfort, does it?  But it is.  At least to me.   

Because to hear some preachers, you'd think that the life of faith is going to be nothing but sweetness and light.  That if we have been saved and if we have faith then we're going to have long and happy and healthy lives and we're going to be loved and respected and our children will be wonderful. We'll have great jobs and plenty of money, and we'll live our lives in sunshine and bliss.

but you and I know that that's a fairy tale.  It's just not true.  We're not promised a life of easy comfort.  In fact, it seems that most of the biblical examples demonstrate that the life of faith is a life of pressure and danger and struggle.  But there is reward in the struggle and there is victory.

Again, I know that doesn't sound like comfort.  And maybe it's not.
I told you this wasn't a good sermon.

Psalm 91 - Can We Find that Secret Place of The Most High?

As I was reading and researching Psalm 91 for today’s sermon I began to find a story about the 91st psalm repeated over and over on numerous websites, in the exact same words (or only slightly varied) each time.

A story from World War I tells about the 91st Infantry Brigade of the U.S. Expeditionary Army. When it was preparing to enter combat in Europe, most of the men were "green soldiers" who had never seen combat. Its commander, a devout Christian, called an assembly of his men where he gave each a little card on which was printed the 91st Psalm. They agreed to recite the Soldiers' Psalm daily.

The 91st Brigade was engaged in three of the bloodiest battles of WW I: Chateau Thierry, Belle Wood, and the Argonne. While other American units similarly engaged had up to 90% casualties, the 91st Brigade did not suffer a single combat related casualty!

Because of this story Psalm 91 is frequently described as the “soldier’s psalm” and as the “Ultimate Shield,” and you can find Psalm 91 devotional booklets to be distributed to soldiers to keep them safe.

Isn’t that story amazing? Isn’t it just unbelievable?

Exactly. It is unbelievable, because there was no 91st Brigade in the U.S. Expeditionary Army. Its commander wasn’t a devout Christian. They didn’t recite the 91st Psalm every morning. They didn’t fight in three of the bloodiest battles of World War One, and they didn’t avoid the massive casualties that every unit on all sides of that horrible war suffered. The story is not true.

But stories have a way of comforting people. We tell stories and we want to believe them. We’d like to believe that there is some kind of miraculous power in the words of scripture that can preserve us from death and calamity. So these kinds of stories circulate. The story is passed on from person to person, are forwarded in emails to all the names in our address books. The story gets copied into books of sermon illustrations for preachers and is shared in Sunday morning sermons, and the story continues to circulate.

It seems that this is the kind of preaching, the kind of story that people want to hear. People want a faith that produces demonstrable results. We want a faith that will keep us safe. We want our faith to keep our children safe. We want our faith to protect the men and women serving in the military. And most of all, people want a faith that is simple. Simple. Simple. Simple.

We want it to be as simple as a daily recitation of this psalm, of these few verses. And this isn’t faith. This is magic. What we want is magic. We want a charm that will put a protective hedge of God’s power around us so that we won’t have to endure suffering or illness or disease. In reality, we don’t want faith. We want magic.

We want no complexity or ambiguity in our faith. We want yes and no, black and white, this or that without reservation.

And Psalm 91 certainly seems to offer that. On the surface, by itself Psalm 91 could be read as an unconditional and unreserved promise in the Bible that God will protect the faithful from every kind of terror and trouble. This and many other parts of the bible reflect that attitude – that the good receive goodness and blessing while the wicked receive only toil and curses. Call it karma, call it fate, call it providence, this idea permeated the ancient world, and still does even today. We find this attitude in Job’s so-called friends and their no-so-comforting words.

Job had been a good man, a righteous man, yet because of a cosmic wager he lost all that he had – he lost his fields and flocks, his houses and his children. His goodness and his faith were no shield against disaster. When his so-called friends came to comfort him in his grief they exhorted him to repent of whatever sin had caused these calamities in his life. They reasoned, like so many do, that if Job were a good and honest man he would receive blessing and protection. That he lost everything was evidence of his depravity. Because if Job were good then:

He [God] will deliver you from six calamities;
yes, in seven no evil will touch you.
In time of famine he will redeem you from death,
and in time of war from the power of the sword.
You will be protected from malicious gossip,
and will not be afraid of the destruction when it comes.
You will laugh at destruction and famine
and need not be afraid of the beasts of the earth.
For you will have a pact with the stones of the field,
and the wild animals will be at peace with you.
And you will know that your home will be secure,
and when you inspect your domains, you will not be missing anything.
You will also know that your children will be numerous,
and your descendants like the grass of the earth.
You will come to your grave in a full age,
As stacks of grain are harvested in their season.

And they were quite confident of this; there could be no other explanation.

Look, we have investigated this, so it is true.
Hear it, and apply it for your own good.
(Job 5: 19 – 27)

And many preachers and religious leaders –either unscrupulous or unqualified – have preached Psalm 91 in exactly this way – as a universal promise of divine deliverance from every terrifying situation. These ministers, either in ignorance or in malice preach that God’s faithful have a special immunity to evil.

I say they do this either in ignorance - because they haven’t taken the time to diligently study this text and to compare it with the rest of the bible – or in malice – because they are attempting to manipulate and deceive the people of God for their own gain. They are like the false prophets of the Old Testament who told the kings exactly what they wanted to hear, rather than a true word from the Lord, prophesying “peace and safety,” when danger and destruction were just over the horizon. (Jeremiah 14:13 – 15)

Psalm 91 was probably written as a Royal psalm – a psalm for the king of Israel. The psalmist describes his situation as being enthroned in the shelter of Elyon – The Most High. The king is protected by God. The king is defended by God. No arrows will pierce him. No demons will harm him. No disease will afflict him. The king is defended by God because the King takes shelter, takes refuge in Yahweh. And what is more, the king will see his enemies fall to the side, and will see them punished.

This is, by itself, the simple faith we want. The good are protected, the wicked punished. The good live long and healthy lives, gain wealth and die happy. The wicked get their just deserts, reaping the mischief that they themselves have sown.

But we must resist this simplistic kind of interpretation. We need to examine this psalm in a fuller context. It helps us that Psalm 91 enters directly into the story of Jesus

At the beginning of Jesus’ ministry he was lead into the wilderness, into the lonely desert where he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days and at the end of them he was hungry. The devil came and tempted him to use his divine power to turn some stones laying nearby into loafs of bread, but Jesus refused. The devil then led Jesus up to a very high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world and promised to give all authority to him if he would but worship the devil. But, again, Jesus refused. Then the devil led Jesus to the city of Jerusalem and to the top of the temple and encouraged him to throw himself down because it was written in scripture that

He will command his angels concerning you to guard you carefully;
they will lift you up in their hands
so that you will not strike you foot against a stone. (Luke 4: 1 – 13)

But, once again, Jesus refused. Jesus refused that kind of simplistic interpretation of Psalm 91 that says that God will, without qualification, protect us from any danger. The Devil quoted the sacred scripture of Psalm 91 to Jesus, encouraging him to take advantage of God’s unconditional, unqualified promise of protection. But Jesus refused that kind of interpretation – both here in this specific episode and in his life as a whole.

Jesus’ life – or his death rather – certainly wouldn’t seem to indicate an unqualified unconditional divine protection of God’s faithful. Jesus suffered the pain and the humiliation of the most excruciating of deaths. Shouldn’t he, if anyone, have had God’s divine protection? But perhaps Jesus’ life and mission aren’t the best place to look for help in understanding this passage.

What if we look at the lives of Jesus’ followers, his disciples? Again, if we look at the lives of the apostles – those men who were faithful to the message of God’s salvation, were devoted followers, were upright righteous – yet they all, excepting John, endured much suffering before dying a martyr’s death. And John, while he escaped the martyr’s end, he too endured a long imprisonment and torture. These faithful did not seem to have an unqualified, unconditional promise of divine protection.

So… what does this mean for us? What can Psalm 91 mean for us today? Can we find that secret place of The Most High?

Jesus told his followers that in this world they would have trouble. (John 16:33) Trouble, disaster, pain, suffering, sickness, abuse, scorn and humiliation, all this would be theirs. They would not have a divinely granted immunity to these things. They would have to face them, endure them, but not alone. Jesus told his followers that they would, indeed, face trouble and suffering, but they were to take courage because Jesus had overcome the world.

We are to have courage and faith – not easy magic.

No Answer but Silence

“There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job.” Job was a good man, a righteous man who, because of cosmic wager between God and the Satan, lost his wealth, his family and even his health. And yet through it all he insisted that God was good.

The story of Job is a Theodicy. It is an attempt to explain the problem of evil and suffering. How do we reconcile the presence of evil and pain and suffering in the world with our belief in good and loving God? If God is good why does he allow people to hurt and to grieve and to suffer? If God is powerful why does he not stop natural disasters?

These are not just esoteric philosophical, theological, questions for scholars and academics. Everyone everywhere has asked this most difficult of questions: Why? It’s part of who we are as human beings. We hurt and we want to know why. We weep and we want to know that God cares. Cultures around the world and all through history have asked these questions. And after thousands of years of asking the question and debating the issue, what answer to I have? What wisdom, what insight do I have into the problem of pain?

I don’t know.

Now, to be sure, the flooding here along the Red River and further west in Jamestown haven’t been as catastrophic as in past years. There hasn’t been the destruction and devastation that we’ve seen in other natural disasters or in human caused destruction. But being here these days causes me to probe these theodicean questions. Why?

The Salvation Army responds to floods and hurricanes and earthquakes, and burning buildings. Our Emergency Disaster Service (EDS) teams offer cold water and hot coffee and the comfort of food to those in crisis situations. But even more than that, we offer the comforting presence of one who cares. Spiritual and emotional care is just as important as that cup of coffee.

And it has always bothered me that I can’t answer these questions. I do not know why God allows floods or hurricanes or earthquakes. I do not know why.

Sometimes I feel like I don't know
Sometimes I feel like checking out.
I wanna’ get it wrong
Can't always be strong
And love, it won't be long.
       Ultraviolet (Light My Way) – U2

As a cadet on my summer assignment I was called to respond to a drowning. A group of teenage boys had been swimming in the river. One of them was pulled under by the current and swept away. The rescue workers and dive teams went to work, and the Salvation Army EDS team was there to offer sandwiches and beverages to them. After making sure that the food and drinks were laid out and that the EDS team was set up to do what they needed to do, I sat down in a chair next to the family of the missing boy. I sat there with them for three days until their son was found. And I said nothing.

What could I have said to them? I was 21. I had no answers. And now more than a decade later, I still have no answer to that kind of question, no satisfying answer anyway.

I could give those stupid and clichéd answers: “well, God must have wanted him in heaven…” or “It was just his time.” But I don’t believe those answers. And I know that when I suffered a loss in my own life that kind of answer only made me angry.

I have no answer but silence.

A friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief or bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing … not healing … not curing …that is a friend who cares.  -Henri Nouwen