Angry at God

Stories, whatever form they take, have a way of capturing our imagination and illustrating a truth that we may feel, but may struggle to articulate in our own words. Perhaps it is because we do not have words that are close to plumbing the depths of our emotions, maybe it is because we do not want to feel them so we dare not speak them with the hopes of forgetting, or  maybe we simply we have forgotten to feel in our hectic lives. And yet expressing one’s emotions is something that is done on a regular basis in the Bible. The prophet Jeremiah regularly gives voice to somethings we all know quite well, the emotions of sadness, anger, frustration, and lament. In Jeremiah 15:15-21 he prays a prayer of anger to God and if anything, this tells us that we too can do the same.

Have you ever been in a situation where your words could not express how sad, mad, or low you were feeling? Have you ever felt that these feelings may not be appropriate for church or might even be harmful to your faith? If so, you are not alone. Throughout life we experience high and lows and it is easy to express one’s joys within the church with celebrations like holidays, the birth of a new child, weddings, etc. However it is often much more difficult to express one’s pain other than in a funeral setting.

But the Bible has plenty of examples of expressing one’s sorrow. One of the primary instances is in the lament psalms, or prayers asking for God’s help. Furthermore, these psalms express deep pain and desire for God’s healing or saving action. These psalms speak to the low points of life in ways that are tangible and easily identifiable through metaphors and pleading. We have all likely found ourselves in the shoes of the psalmist at one point or another in our life, plainly telling God how things are and asking for help.

The same can be said of Jeremiah. From a young age he knew that he was called to be one of God’s prophets and readily did so, speaking God’s message to the people. Yet the people did not like what they heard from Jeremiah and so they rejected him as well as God’s word to them. After living like this for a number of years, it is understandable that Jeremiah would be upset! And so he comes before God to voice his frustration, likely through some yelling and tears.

But texts like lament psalms and this brutally honest discussion between God and Jeremiah are often not lifted up in the church for and number of reasons, likely because we choose to not talk about difficult matters and instead focus on the lighter sides of faith. But Jesus too knew of our pain. He asked God for his future crucifixion to pass from him if it were possible, he was betrayed by Judas and beaten, he was crucified, and he lamented on the cross, “My God my God why have you forsaken me?” (see Psalm 22). Lament scripture deserves a space within all places that claim to be a church.

Old Testament theologian Walter Brueggeman once wrote of the importance of sustaining a space for people to lament, “A community of faith that negates laments soon concludes that the hard issues of justice are improper questions to pose at the throne, because the throne seems to be only a place of praise” (Brueggemann, The Costly Loss of Lament, 107). Brueggemann is arguing that if we are to lose our lament and find them to be improper prayers to God, then God becomes only a God to whom good things are prayed, perhaps even only praised. However, if we retain lament as a form of valid, true, and right prayer as expressed in the Bible, we will find that laments are to be lifted up in the life of faith and not ignored.

Laments really boil down to a difficult question, “What is our relationship with God like?” If we experience this relationship to be one of openness, then laments should be lifted up whenever they are being felt. But if this relationship is one of God holding power over us, lament becomes unnecessary in hopes of holding divine favor. I hope that the latter is not the case because I understand God to be one who is intimately involved with us and indeed pays attention to all of our needs. It seems to me that we need not hide lament.

One of the most powerful people to teach us how to lament is Elie Wiesel. He was a Holocaust survivor, who became a professor at the University of Boston. In his book “One Generation After” he recounts a story of a local Jewish religious leader during times of deportations and executions of Jewish people.

It was the beadle’s custom to rush to the synagogue each morning, to ascend the bimah and shout first with pride, and then with anger: “I have come to inform you, Master of the Universe, that we are here.” Then came the first massacre, followed by many others. The beadle somehow always emerged unscathed. As soon as he could, he would run to the synagogue, and pounding his fist on the lectern, he would shout at the top of his voice, “You see, Lord, we are still here.” After the last massacre, he found himself all alone in the deserted synagogue. The last living Jew, he climbed the bimah one last time, stared at the Ark and whispered with infinite gentleness, “You see? I am still here.” He stopped briefly before continuing in his sad, almost toneless voice, “But you, where are you?

At its core, the lament is witness to a profound faith that takes God seriously and takes our relationship with God seriously. This means there has to be dialogue. There has to be exchange in open and honest ways. There can be no holding back. Everything is on the table: doubt, anger, despair, guilt, resentment. There is no requirement of politeness. There is no need for gentility. If the relationship is authentic, then it can endure and even thrive on the honest and candid expression of all of the hurtful feelings. These feelings have to be spoken in order for them to be dealt with. Silence in the face of hurt does no good. The anguish of life calls for speech, for words, for prayer.

In the life of faith, the lament remains difficult as it should. There is nothing easy about lament. But prayed in its fullness and voiced from the depths, it provides a bold act of faith. From out of the depths, the lament teaches us—and has taught us—that the darkness will not overcome us. Our pain can be spoken and named. Our hurt can be lifted up and heard. Our cries can come from our heart. We can rest assured nothing, nothing at all, can separate us from the love of God.

A Sermon after Charlottesville

Thus says the Lord: Maintain justice, and do what is right, for soon my salvation will come and my deliverance be revealed. Happy is the mortal who does this, the one who holds it fast, who keeps the sabbath, not profaning it, and refrains from doing any evil. Do not let the foreigner joined to the Lord say, “The Lord will surely separate me from his people”; and do not let the eunuch say, “I am just a dry tree.” For thus says the Lord: To the eunuchs who keep my sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give, in my house and within my walls, a monument and a name  better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off. And the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord, to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord, and to be his servants, all who keep the sabbath, and do not profane it, and hold fast my covenant— these I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer, their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples. Thus says the Lord God, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, I will gather others to them besides those already gathered.

- Isaiah 56:1-8

Grace, peace, and mercy are yours in the Triune God. Amen.

The book of Isaiah traces a long stretch of the history of Israel. The first thirty nine chapters deal with the prophet declaring judgment and a future hope on Jerusalem. During this time the Israelites were conquered and sent into exile. Chapters forty through fifty five provide the community with comfort and encouragement that one day their people would go back home and salvation would come. And then we have the third movement in this book, the return home, which contains further messages of comfort and warnings not to go back to old ways.

Our passage this morning begins the movement back to Jerusalem. Yet things are not as they once were as the Israelites are faced with rebuilding their nation from the ground up. And here enters the prophet Isaiah with a charge from God as to what this nation should be grounded in. To paint this message in broad strokes one could say that through the prophet, God invites all to enter into God's salvation, while calling on Israel to turn from idolatry and inauthentic worship, to share their food with the hungry, and to repent of their oppression of others and their revolt against God.

But if we look closely at our text we discover that God is calling the people to be active participants in the salvation of the world. Technically salvation and deliverance have already come for the Israelites as they were going home, but on the other hand there is more to be done than just bringing a group of people home. God’s purposes of salvation are still being worked out, and the people’s lives are to reflect that end. Isaiah declares that this ongoing work of salvation is to help bring about justice and righteousness for all people whether they are within our outside of our community or nation.

Now I am not sure what Pastor R.S. preached on or addressed last week as I was on vacation visiting my family last week, but as you all know some disturbing events took place in Charlottesville, Virginia. As your pastor I feel that I must respond instead of continuing a church culture of neutrality that comes off as dismissive, indifferent, or even out of touch. In case you don’t know the events of last weekend, let me briefly summarize them:

On August 11^th, White nationalists holding tiki torches marched through the University of Virginia campus in Charlottesville ahead of the so-called "Unite the Right" rally, a gathering of white supremacists staged in part to demand protection for the statue of Robert E. Lee.

The men chanted "white lives matter," "you will not replace us," and the Nazi-associated phrase "blood and soil." Some white nationalists brawled with counter-protesters at the scene of the rally.

Police arrived on campus, declared it an unlawful assembly, and ordered the crowds to disperse. But the skirmishes, as well as images of the marching that were posted on social media, contributed to an atmosphere of tension that opened up into violence the next day.

Although the "Unite the Right" rally was scheduled to start at noon on August 12th, violence between white nationalists and counter-protesters began in the morning. State police reported injuries, and soon after, the city declared an unlawful assembly at Emancipation Park. Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe declared a state of emergency shortly before noon.

Then at 1:42 p.m., an Ohio man rammed a car into a crowd of people who were demonstrating against the white nationalist gathering. About an hour and a half later, it was confirmed in a tweet that at least one person had died in the day’s violence and at least 19 others were injured.

Later that day two Virginia State Police troopers, Lt. H. Jay Cullen and Trooper-Pilot Berke M.M. Bates, died while lending air support to respond to the deadly violence unfolding in Charlottesville. Their helicopter crashed seven miles southwest of the city. Since then vigils and marches of solidarity have been held throughout the country in remembrance of the officers and against white nationalism.

I do not care if you are republican or democrat, liberal or conservative, the idea that one person is better than another based upon the color of their skin or their country of origin is simply wrong. More than that it is racism, and racism is a sin.

St. Paul area synod Bishop Patricia Lull wrote in a statement:
“Our country’s strength is reflected in the rule of law in which free speech and the expression of divergent opinions are undergirded by a common respect for every racial and ethnic group within this vast nation. When hate-filled speech is borrowed from the Nazi and fascist movements of the 20^th century and parades of protesters armed with clubs and torches and other weapons march through a college town as an intimidating show of force, we are far afield from the principles of our nation’s democratic ideals. White supremacy is wrong. Anti-Semitism is wrong. An Islamophobic attack on the Muslim community in this country is wrong. Ignorance of and disrespect for the Native American community is wrong. But all these are more than wrong in the sight of God. They are sinful and evil. As people of faith we know that every one of our neighbors is created in the image of God. Any political ideology which places one race as superior to others is a form of idolatry. In response to such hate we are called to be the church, to be the body of Christ, and to not be silent.”

Isaiah shows us how to be the church in times such as these.

Being church begins with cultivating relationships with all people. The people in Isaiah and us are to respond to God’s gracious acts by developing and maintaining a sound relationship with God and also with other people. That means we are called to listen, learn, and respect people even if their culture is completely different from ours.  In doing so we realize that our story and the story of another person are not divided by boundaries, but are both reconciled within God’s story. We are not just called to love those who love us, who “get” us and understand us because we are very much alike. Rather we are called to love and be loved by those who are not like us, whom we might have to work quite hard to understand, or who may not understand us at all. God’s reconciliation goes across borders and boundaries.

You might want to dismiss this message as that of a young idealist pastor, but this is not. And this goes to my second point, this is something that you all claim to believe as people of this congregation. Our mission statement declares that all are welcome. And if we as a people claim that, then it is high time that we live into the community that Isaiah declares helps to bring about God’s salvation. We are called to be a people that welcome those different from us, those with different skin colors, those with different ideas, those with different backgrounds. For in the community that Isaiah is preaching, God’s kingdom is one of fantastic diversity. The same is true of us today as it values diversity if we truly mean that all are welcome.

Finally, I think being the church means that we need to take a cue from God and be a place and a people that give out grace lavishly. In Isaiah, God invites people from the margin to the center of the covenant promises. This means that our God is not about exclusion or claiming one person is better than another, our God is about inclusion, so radical that it reshapes our entire lives.

This is tough work isn’t it? It is a lot easier to assume that God is on our side, looks like us, favors our positions, and endorses our views. The real problem is when we imagine God is only like us. When we do this, we probably find God made manifest in Jesus on the other side. Here’s what we need to remember, and know, and live: God’s love is in fact for all. God is working in us, and with us, and through us to make this world a more just and equitable place; God grants us courage and grace to meet the struggles of the day; and that when we stand with and for those who suffer or are persecuted, we encounter God in a powerful way.

That’s what God’s salvation looks like: a kingdom that is inclusive, that is full of grace, and that is about good relationships. It is a life changing truth that Isaiah gives us. It is a reminder that God loves all people and bids us to stand against those who deny human rights and dignity to anyone. God is working God’s purposes of salvation out, and God’s people are to participate in what God is doing for the sake of justice and righteousness. May we live into that dream of equality that many have dreamed, including our own God. Amen.