How Long? (Will We Ever Get "there"?)

Lament 2015 (Nov. 8)

Psalm 13; Hebrews 5:7-9; and Matthew 11:25-30

Psalm 13 – How long O God – will you forget me? Will you hide your face from me? Shall I have perplexity in my mind? Grief in my heart? How long shall my enemy triumph over me?

 

Some of our life experiences are difficult, painful. In fact some such experiences literally break our hearts. I have often witnessed and experienced this. As an on call volunteer chaplain at a hospital this is part of what I saw, heard, felt: two young men who while drinking on a Saturday night decided to play chicken with their dirt bikes without any head lights. Too soon the phone rang. Both had sustained injuries. One would never recover. I remember attempting to be with that young man's parents, particularly his father, who only a few hours before had been drinking with both of them.

 

From that same hospital experience - almost every year, people would visit the area for a ski holiday. They would enjoy companionship, thrills and exhilaration. But then someone from their group would ski out of control or out of bounds. The results were often disastrous. Again the phone would ring. I would make my way to attempt to be with those people. Heartbreak ran over, flooding their lives. How could just one mistake be so irreparable, so tragic?

 

Sometimes it's another person's mistake that results in disaster for a single person or a group that happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. A father and two sons, one just 14, are driving on a Saskatchewan highway. It's a beautiful summer evening. They are on their way to visit the boys' grandmother who is hospitalized. Then, out of the blue they are struck from the side by a vehicle hurtling at them in speeds over 160 km/hr. The "pilot" of this out of control missile that strikes them has a blood alcohol count of nearly .20, 2 ½ times the legal limit. The 3 people who had been on their way to visit at the hospital are now themselves rushed by ambulances to the hospital. Two of them are taken directly to the morgue.  

 

At their funeral so many people ask the gut wrenching question, "Why? How come? How could God allow this to happen to a 14 year old boy and his dad who were simply going to do something so good?" The questions abide, years later.

 

Such cries unfortunately are not unique nor even occasional. Nor are they "new". The Psalmist from well over two thousand years ago cries out. We can hear him. We can hear because we hear others' cries. We can hear because sometimes our hearts are shattered and we cry.  Then our minds are lost, racing, drowning in anger and confusion, quasi-numbed. Does anything make sense? Does God truly care? If so, how can such things be?

 

In those moments, those hours, those times, we join the Psalmist in lament: "How long O God will you forget me?" How long O God will you hide your face from me?" Sometimes, I can't see, hear or feel you because my pain or the pain of others is all I can feel!

 

"How long O God, will I have perplexity in my mind, grief in my heart"

 

This November 11 I trust that we will remember not only "our soldiers" who served, many of whom died in World War 1 and II, in the Korean Conflict, in peace keeping missions around the globe and most recently in Afghanistan. I trust that we will also remember other soldiers who died, who had, some of whom continue to have mothers and fathers, sons and daughter, brothers and sisters. May we also remember the civilians who attempted to survive during these wars, thousands if not millions who died, while countless others lost their homes, their innocence, their limbs – even their minds and their ability to hope.

 

Yes, do remember! Also realize that such warring madness continues even in this instant. With over hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees and untold African refugees, with children being conscripted to kill and maim even their own people, we must not only remember, but cry out to God, to governments, to anyone who might hear.

 

We can and must cry out, internally, externally, to God when there is absolutely no answer that makes any sense, or none that will ultimately ease such pain and loss. We must cry out when the others' pain is one whom we love. We must cry out when we beg God to let us have that other's pain. But it is theirs to bear.  At such times we can, we must cry out, even if our cries are not audible but deeply guttural. In our crying we must hope against hope that we are being heard.

 

In those times logic, as important as it is, does not suffice.

 

As people attempting to trust and follow Jesus, we are being told even now, even in the midst of all our questions and pain that we have an amazing priest. This may seem irrelevant. BUT IT ISN'T IRRELEVANT!  This priest is not some man or woman we pay, who at their best does care for and about us, but also shares our limitations. No, THIS PRIEST IS MUCH MORE. He mediates on our behalf DIRECTLY WITH GOD. He is one who has cried out Himself, with loud cries. As He is being executed upon a cross, hanging there, spat upon, we achingly hear his lament, "MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?"

 

He knows the darkest moment of any and all life. From that He promises to send part of Himself to accompany us in all of our living. He can do this because He continued to obey God even through his own excruciating death. In and through His death He also experienced that He is no longer abandoned. He has been delivered through the power of death to new life by God.  

 

So it is that we dare, that we can cry out from the depths of our own and other's pain to Jesus. He has walked before us in profound vulnerability and deep suffering. We can cry out because Jesus wills to share our burden, even though sometimes we do not feel that. We can cry out to Jesus because He is also gentle and humble. By God's grace we can learn from him, be mentored by him. In Him, somehow by God's grace we find rest and peace.

 

Dear people, do not be afraid to cry out in your pain, to be honest with yourselves and with God, individually and collectively. Internally and externally cry out without shame, expecting, longing to be heard. This is our lament. We are not alone in our cries.

 

But also know this: someday our crying, and all crying will end. I suspect then, that like the first disciples, we will hear God's voice saying to us, "Do not be afraid. My peace I give to you. My peace I leave with you."

 

O God, may it be so!

 

Until then, "How long O Lord, how long?" Amen.

Come Out and Live!

All Saints Sunday, John 11:32-44 with Isaiah 25:6-9 and Revelation 21:1-6a in b.g.

Have you ever wondered why, in North America, especially on the west coast of Canada fewer and fewer people attend church or have any desire to be part of a church?  

 

I have spent a good part of the last 20 years not only wondering about that – but in some ways trying to reverse that.

 

There are many reasons for people leaving or not having any desire to be members of churches. Some say that there is too much hypocrisy in the church. Others say that there is too much scandal.  And still others say that the continuing erosion of "long held" values and the church's inability to change that, is leading to the demise of the church. Finally, others boldly state that the church is irrelevant. 

 

There is some measure of truth in all these claims. There is hypocrisy within the church. Part of our call as Christ's followers is to advocate for and feed the poor and hungry. To be sure we do some of that – we open and run cold weather shelters, we are part of coalitions that work for the protection of the land especially lands of peoples who experience limits in protecting themselves. We coordinate with other non-governmental organizations on the ground before and after disasters strike, with both development and relief. But at the same time we are generally unwilling to give up or reduce the numbers of our beautiful buildings or ensure that our pension plans are all climate friendly. We continue to spend large percentages of our budgets on ourselves. We need God's help to be changed from the inside out. Nevertheless I am convinced that there is always room in the church for at least one more hypocrite.

 

In terms of scandal, the church has had more than our fair share, from time immemorial. Judas was rumoured to have had his hand in the church's treasury jar. More recently, some ministers pastors and priests have engaged in sexual behavior that has done immeasurable damage to  others, themselves and the church. Sadly, there have been attempts to cover that up it or minimize it. All of this must stop. It is past time to admit, to confess our culpability, to get help for the victims and the perpetrators, to fire those responsible and in as much as possible, without further damaging the victims, to be transparent. We can and must change. I do see some progress. Yet it can and must be accelerated.

 

In terms of the erosion of "old, traditional" values, it is true that the church is changing. Part of the reason for this is that the world is continually changing. If we are to speak or proclaim God's Word into the reality of the world we always need to find new words, new music, and new metaphors.  It has ever been so. That's why in the 16^th century Luther went to the pubs, heard their music and adapted it for use in the church.

 

But some say that God doesn't change. That's an entirely different discussion. The universe continues to expand and change...

 

In any case, the two great commandments of the First and the Second testaments remain. Some manifestations of these commandments are lived out in many other world religions. Love God with everything we have and are. Love our neighbors as ourselves.

 

Love, not like!  Love: work for the well being of others by honoring and respecting them. This is also loving God.

 

Finally, perhaps the most daunting claim of those who have opted out or don't wish to be part of a church – their claim that the church is itself now irrelevant.  When we are timid, lacking faith in God and simply try to fit in with the predominant culture, we are indeed irrelevant! Or, when we get our backs up and want to keep things the way they were for about the last 60-70 years or even the last 500 years, or when we think in limited terms of a 3 tiered universe – heaven, earth and hell - we are for many people, especially young people, totally irrelevant. Or, when we understand "being Christian"  as having the primary aim of  getting us out of "here" – with images of we Christians being delivered from an imagined fiery inferno and total chaos while all the 'rest" are left behind – well many will rightfully understand us as being thankfully, irrelevant.

 

In responding to such claims let me ask this – both of ourselves and of any who think or feel that God or Jesus and the church, his "body" that Jesus calls into being, is irrelevant now: how does one deal with the powers of evil and death? Surely, they are not irrelevant!

 

What is there outside of God's action independently as well as in and through people, that has the power to literally change hearts, minds and wills, individually and collectively? Who else can give human beings the courage to love our enemies, to face death and work against it, without fear?

 

Many parts of our culture attempt to deny the power that evil and death have around and upon us. Have you noticed this? Often we no longer bury dead people. We do everything within our power try to not use the "d" words – dead, dying. We think or act as if we refuse to speak the "word" that it will not visit us. So, we employ euphemisms like "passed". The military issues press releases with words like "collateral damage" when in fact civilians have been killed.

 

Nor are we willing to own the reality of the stench and pain of death. Now when people have "passed" we have "celebrations of life". But when people go home after their loved one has died – they experience great pain. It is called mourning the death of a loved one. Death is as universal now as it has ever been. Many things do change – but death still comes. 

 

Nor is death solitary. Death brings with it his/her brothers and sisters – hatred, fear, violence, arising within our hearts. Who has the capacity to take these on, not only to incarcerate them, but to transform them? Who can lead us and others – to a different way of living now and in the future?

 

Listen in to Mary and Martha. In many ways we are them. Lord, why didn't you do something to prevent my brother's death? Why don't you do something now? Why don't you do what I want and need?

 

Watch they and their brother, Lazarus, as the text unfolds. God is doing something! Jesus comes to Lazarus' place – that place of death. Jesus, God in the Flesh, God's Word TO and FOR US AND THIS WORLD, weeps with Mary and Martha because of Lazarus' death. Yet Jesus does not only weep. Jesus is angry at the power of death and the lack of trust, among those who have been with him for some time.

 

Now Jesus confronts the power of death. He raises his voice demanding that Lazarus be freed from that place and experience of death to new life. Lazarus is moved, being raised from death to life. His body may still have stunk. He was still encased in his grave clothes. But Lazarus' death is overcome not by the economy, nor by slick advertising nor even by wonderful hikes in God's grand creation. Instead, Lazarus' death is overcome by Jesus, God in the flesh, who amazingly and miraculously responds to our mortality, vulnerability, questions, anger, disobedience & anxiety by coming to us and for us, himself.

 

After raising his voice and commanding Lazarus to "come out" Jesus gives those present the task of removing Lazarus' grave clothes.

 

Even now God continues to move into places where death seeks to control and hold sway. I am convinced that God in Jesus moves into Syria demanding that those who are caught up by death be delivered, freed from that death and evil. And God continues to call us and others to help those people get out of those things that bind them to evil and death.  

 

God in Jesus calls us wherever we are, with whatever skills we have, to overcome our fear and anxiety, to proclaim in word and deed the love, mercy and power of God in Jesus Christ. We are called to live right where we are with this God-given sense of honesty, freedom and hope. 

 

So, do not deny the power of death. Instead, because of Christ, face death and all of death's relatives with the hope, love, power and grace of God manifested in Christ. In these ways we can and do defy death.

 

Perhaps the primary reason that people aren't coming to church is that often they don't see, or hear people who are so living, honestly but with love, hope and grace in the face of all that is. By God's grace we can change that.

 

On this All Saints Day give thanks for those who have gone before us in the faith. They are the saints of God made holy not because they were perfect but because God called them through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus and joined them to Christ's body. At the same time, may we also be God's people sharing the light of Christ in our lives where we are. For that light has, can and does change the world.

 

Even now Jesus calls to us, to come out and live! Amen.