Out of the Whirlwind: Speaking Our Pain

We are in week three of the Book of Job. In the first week, we met Job. And learned of the wager between God and The Satan - an act intended to set up the rest of this thought experiment. And to raise questions. Hard questions. Questions of faith. Such as why innocent people suffer or even why we believe. Last week, we moved into the dialogue between Job and his friends - friends who had started so well by simply sitting beside the suffering Job in silence. But, then who opened their mouths to speak their truths - truths that Job, too, had believed. That if one does something wrong, they will be punished. Or, conversely, that if one suffers it is because they have done something wrong. Yet, we are, along with Job, beginning to see these constructs - these truths - challenged. By Job’s own experience. By his innocent suffering. 

Today, in this third week, we continue in these chapters of dialogue between Job and his friends. Thirty-five chapters. Thirty-five long chapters of back-and-forth between Job and his friends as Job struggles to make sense of his suffering and as his friends try to hold onto their truths, even in the midst of the evidence that is right in front of them. 

As we pick up this morning in chapter 14, we find Job in deep despair.

“For there is hope for a tree,

    if it is cut down, that it will sprout again,

    and that its shoots will not cease.

Though its root grows old in the earth,

    and its stump dies in the ground,

yet at the scent of water it will bud

    and put forth branches like a young plant.

But mortals die, and are laid low;

    humans expire, and where are they?

As waters fail from a lake,

    and a river wastes away and dries up,

so mortals lie down and do not rise again;

    until the heavens are no more, they will not awake

    or be roused out of their sleep.

O that you would hide me in Sheol,

    that you would conceal me until your wrath is past,

    that you would appoint me a set time, and remember me!

If mortals die, will they live again?

    All the days of my service I would wait

    until my release should come.

You would call, and I would answer you;

    you would long for the work of your hands. --Job 14:7-15 (NRSV)

In the chapters that precede this text, Job has been unpersuaded by the arguments of his friends. He responds to them, even attacks them. And rejects their claims and their assumption that this idea of retributive justice - that punishment or suffering is a result of one’s sin - is not valid. And that isn’t valid because it. Is. Not. His. Own. Experience.

But, what Job really wants is to speak to God. To see God face-to-face. And to sort out with God this misunderstanding that has somehow strained their relationship. Job seeks reconciliation.

And, so, he turns to God to argue his case. He is beginning to come to terms with his situation. He claims to God his innocence. Pleads that God might remove God’s hand. That God would tell him what he has done to deserve this. That God would speak. And God would not be silent anymore.

Then, Job moves onto the destiny of humanity. The struggle of humanity. He draws comparisons from nature. That even a tree stump has hope. That at the scent of water it will live, will bud and grow and sprout. But this, according to Job, is not the human destiny. The human destiny is one of death. And so Job pleads that God might grant him temporary asylum in Sheol - in this Jewish idea of the underworld. A place regarded as a place of no return. Job asks God to hide him in this place until God relents and finally allows Job to make his case before God.

In the next several chapters, Job continues a powerful and even deeper lament to God. With his own struggle, there is a deepening understanding by Job of the struggle of other innocent people. “If I cry ‘Violence!’ I’m not answered,” Job says. “I shout—but there is no justice.” “There. Is. No. Justice.” How familiar those words sound to us today. “No justice. No peace!” The cry - the protest chant - of those who suffer innocently.

Ellen Davis in her book, Getting Involved With God, suggests that we are not accustomed to challenging God. To blaming God. And so, when we find ourselves doing it, we feel guilty and religiously confused. For some of us, the solution is to give up on God altogether. For others of us, it is to cover our confusion about God with a false sense of piety, a fake holiness. Appearing to be holy on the outside, but evil underneath. Pretending to bow to God but grasping for power and control for ourselves as we oppress others.   

The witness of Job for us, particularly in these times, is that rage and even blame that are directed at God are valid. That to cry out to God, “Why?” is honest and true. And even more, Job’s lament that extends over so many chapters gives us permission in our lives of faith to stay in the moment of lament for a very long time. 

We continue in chapter 19.

“O that my words were written down!

    O that they were inscribed in a book!

O that with an iron pen and with lead

    they were engraved on a rock forever!

For I know that my Redeemer lives,

    and that at the last he will stand upon the earth;

and after my skin has been thus destroyed,

    then in my flesh I shall see God,

whom I shall see on my side,

    and my eyes shall behold, and not another.

    My heart faints within me! --Job 19:23-27 (NRSV)

Well, this is surprising! Even as he is in the midst of deep despair, Job suddenly expresses hope. Unexpectedly. Our New Testament lens immediately suggests that the Redeemer mentioned is Jesus. But, if we are to understand this from Job’s perspective, we must look more deeply at the Hebrew. The word in Hebrew for Redeemer is go-el. In Jewish tradition, a go-el was a person who was obligated under family expectation to care for a member in need. In his words here, Job is affirming his hope that he will be vindicated by a redeemer of his own kin, who will be a witness on his behalf before God. And who will declare Job’s innocence before God. Job accepts his human destiny - that he will die. But at the same time, three times in this passage, he states his confidence that he will see God. That he - and not some stranger - will see God. And that, with his redeemer, he will be vindicated. Acquitted. Exonerated. Freed.

There is a witness in Job that teaches us that, because God is in relationship with us, we can freely and honestly speak to God and trust that God hears us and the pain we are experiencing, whether it is personal or that of our broader world.  

This, ultimately, is the paradox of Job. That it is this full admission of pain that eventually opens the door.  To hope. And for us, in particular, even in the midst of chaotic and uncertain and even painful times, we, who know this Redeemer in Christ, have all the more reason to hope. 

Amen.

Preached Sunday, June 28, 2020, online at Grace & Glory Lutheran Church, Goshen, KY.

Pentecost 4.

Readings: Job 14:7-15, 19:23-27; Psalm 121.

Good News Spreads: Transforming

Meanwhile Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any who belonged to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. Now as he was going along and approaching Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” He asked, “Who are you, Lord?” The reply came, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.” The men who were traveling with him stood speechless because they heard the voice but saw no one. Saul got up from the ground, and though his eyes were open, he could see nothing; so they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. For three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank.

Now there was a disciple in Damascus named Ananias. The Lord said to him in a vision, “Ananias.” He answered, “Here I am, Lord.” The Lord said to him, “Get up and go to the street called Straight, and at the house of Judas look for a man of Tarsus named Saul. At this moment he is praying, and he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him so that he might regain his sight.” But Ananias answered, “Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem; and here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who invoke your name.” But the Lord said to him, “Go, for he is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel; I myself will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.” So Ananias went and entered the house. He laid his hands on Saul and said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and his sight was restored. Then he got up and was baptized, and after taking some food, he regained his strength. Acts 9:1-19a (NRSV)

Grace and peace to you from our Lord and resurrected Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

In our reading last week, we heard the story of how the Good News was beginning to spread. From Mary Magdalene, word of Jesus’ resurrection had spread to Peter and John and, then, last week to the remaining followers, including Thomas. We heard last week how Jesus breathed on the disciples. That he breathed into them the Holy Spirit and commissioned them to continue to spread the Good News. The Good News of the complete reversal that God had performed in raising Jesus from the dead.

This week and for the next few weeks, we are in the book of Acts. This is the book in the Bible that gives us stories of the early church--stories of how this first community of believers lived together and, particularly, stories of how the Good News continued to spread.

In the chapters before today’s lesson, the news of Jesus’s resurrection has spread throughout Jerusalem and beyond. The number of believers has continued to increase greatly in Jerusalem. So much that, as their numbers have grown, so has opposition among the Jewish and Roman leadership. This growing tension reaches a climax with the arrest of Stephen, who gives testimony about Jesus’ death and resurrection and, particularly, about the complicity of the religious and political leadership in his crucifixion. It is this testimony--this truth--that results in Stephen’s stoning and death as the first Christian martyr. It is after his death that we are first introduced to Saul--one of two main characters in our lesson today. We know Saul better as Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles and prolific writer of letters to the various faith communities he helped found throughout the Mediterranean area.

But, before he became Paul, he was Saul. We first hear of him in Acts 7. “Then they (speaking of the people Stephen had angered with his testimony)--then they dragged Stephen out of the city and began to stone him: and the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul...And Saul approved of their killing him."

After Stephen died, a severe persecution began against the church in Jerusalem. All of the disciples except for the small group of apostles were scattered throughout the countryside of Judea and Samaria. In the third verse of chapter 8, we read that “Saul was ravaging the church by entering house after house; dragging off both men and women” and committing them to prison.

As the disciples were scattered, the Good News continued to spread. Not only throughout the countryside of Judea and Samaria, but also into other places. One of those places was Damascus in Syria. It’s the same Damascus, Syria, we know today. Saul was determined to destroy the new believers, those who belonged to “The Way,” which is what they called this movement. Wherever members of “The Way” went, Saul was determined to go after them and imprison or even kill them. 

The city of Damascus, which was 135 miles away from Jerusalem, was one of his target cities. It was on Saul’s first journey to Damascus to hunt out the people of “The Way” that we witness a great reversal. These reversals are characteristic of the Good News. These moments when God completely disrupts expectations and unexpectedly reverses everything. Reversals that indicate to the early disciples that God is at work. That, when God’s intentions are realized, the normal state of affairs is turned completely upside down.

This is what happens with Saul. He experiences a series of reversals. Of great change. Of transformation. God disrupts his experience along the road to Damascus. He changes from seeing to being blind. From a confident and zealous persecutor to one who confesses ignorance about the “lord” he can’t recognize. From a man planning to lead captives back to Jerusalem in chains to one who must be led into Damascus by others. From having authority over others’ bodies to becoming completely dependent with his own. From a man on a mission to one who must now wait to learn what he is to do next. From a man exercising great power over the church to one who has been completely overpowered. Completely overpowered by Jesus. 

Reversal. Transformation.

But, Saul is not the only one. As we move through our story, we are introduced to Ananias, one of Jesus’ disciples in Damascus. Ananias has heard about Saul and his reputation. So, when Jesus appears to Ananias and tells him to go meet Saul, he argues with Jesus. Unaware of the reversals that Saul has already experienced, Ananias is determined that he will not confront this arch-enemy of his and of all of the other believers of The Way. So, he argues with Jesus. But, Jesus responds. “Go, for he is an instrument who I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel.” 

In his conversation with Ananias, Jesus has redefined Saul for him. Saul’s past or his reputation no longer fully express who he now is. Jesus has chosen Paul as his own “instrument” or, better, “vessel” through which to continue to spread the Good News among those who have not yet heard. And not by himself, but as a member of the community of disciples, as one of the The Way.

Reversal. Transformation.

As part of the process of becoming ordained, I was required to participate in CPE. CPE stands for Clinical Pastoral Experience. It consists of 400 hours of chaplaincy training in a hospital or other care situation, where trainees learn how to provide pastoral care for people who are sick or hospitalized, or in need of help to make meaning of a difficult time or situation in their lives. 

In my CPE training at a hospital in Minneapolis, I was grouped with 4 other trainees. All of us came to the group with no or very little practical experience, other than a class or two we had taken in seminary. After one week of orientation, each of us was assigned as a chaplain to one or two of the medical units in the hospital.  

I was terrified. We were all terrified. None of us felt ready to do this important work. Each week we would meet and process our experiences together and tell each other over and over that we were enough. That each one of us was enough. That God had chosen us as God’s instruments--as God’s vessels--and that, as broken and inexperienced as we were, we were enough. 

By the end of our training, each one of us was transformed. Transformed with the understanding that we were enough and beginning to see all of the possibilities that God had in store for us. 

Reversal. Transformation.

This is what God does. God dramatically re-orients our expectations and causes us to reassess what is possible. God did it with my CPE group. God does it with Saul. God does it with Ananias. God does it with you, too.  You, a broken vessel. A chosen, broken vessel. Chosen by God to come into community here and together do the impossible. 

This is the church that Acts imagines. A gathering of broken vessels chosen by God, coming together in a cooperative existence and building a community that lives into a future that completely defies human expectations. What if God continues to surprise and disrupt us as with the Acts church? To surprise us just as God surprised Saul and Ananias with promises of a different identity and an expanded future? To completely reverse and transform our expectation of what is possible? To nudge us to a new experience with new possibilities?

What if?

Amen.

Preached April 15, 2018, at Grace & Glory Lutheran Church, Goshen, KY.
Fourth Sunday of Easter
Readings: Matthew 6:24; Acts 9:1-19a.

Good News Spreads: Believing

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.  John 20:19-31 (NRSV)

Grace and joy to you from our Lord and resurrected Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Welcome to Holy Hilarity Sunday! Or as it is also called - Holy Humor Sunday. Or also - Bright Sunday. This is a tradition from the early church on this second Easter Sunday (There are seven Easter Sundays in this season!). After the grandeur and celebration of the first Easter Sunday, this is the Sunday in which we revel in the hilarity of God’s action--the resurrection as the last laugh of God’s over the devil. 

It is also, traditionally, the Sunday when we hear the Thomas story. Or “Doubting Thomas” as he has been nicknamed. So, thinking of both Thomas and Holy Hilarity Sunday, I went online searching for any jokes about Thomas.

Do you know that I couldn’t find any? Or, at least, not any that were good jokes. The best i found was this cartoon, where Thomas is frustrated with the other disciples…”All I’m saying is we don’t call Peter “Denying Peter” or Mark “Ran away naked Mark.” Why should I be saddled with this title?” And, then, the response, “I see your point, Thomas. But really, it’s time to move on.” 

Not funny!

So, then, I decided to search for different artist’s renditions of Thomas. I was pretty amazed at the volume of art that depicts the scene we heard in our reading this morning. This classic painting by Caravaggio. Or another by German Martin Schongauer. Or here’s one by another German, Emil Nolde--on the the first Expressionist painters. Or here’s one from contemporary Russian artist Andrey Skorodumov. Or another contemporary--Chinese artist James He Qi. And, then, finally, John Granville Gregory, who does a contemporary version of the classic by Caravaggio. 

As I looked at this different artistic interpretations of today’s gospel, I was particularly struck by their similarities. Do you see it? In each painting, every artist has captured Thomas’ need to experience the resurrected Jesus. Whether it is touching the wound on his side or viewing the nail holes in his hands, Thomas needs his own experience with the resurrected Jesus.

To have his own experience.  Have you ever had a friend say to you, “You’ve got to see this!”? Maybe it’s a movie they’re ranting about. Or a particular product. Or maybe it’s to see the sunset from this particular spot. Whatever it is, your friend comes to you and is enthusiastic about it. Even a little over-enthusiastic. To the point that maybe you begin to doubt it a little. Or to wonder about what is real and what is hype. It’s not that you don’t believe your friends experience, but more that you don’t have anything to compare to it yourself. You haven’t experienced it. And, so, to be able to offer your own testimony of the greatness of the movie, or the product, or the sunset, or whatever it is, you need to have your own experience. Just like Thomas.

The Gospel writer knows this. And writes in this pattern throughout John. Where someone hears about Jesus and needs more information. And, then, they receive what they need to come to their own experience of the life that Jesus is embodying. 

Remember Nathanael, our earliest example. “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Or the woman at the well. “Sir, you have no bucket and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water?” Or the man born blind. Or Mary Magdalene on the first Easter morning: “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.”

Each person who meets Jesus. Needing more information. So that they can have their own individual experience with him. 

I’d like to back us up a little in today’s story. In the section before the resurrected Jesus and Thomas meet, Jesus first appears to the rest of the disciples on the evening of that first Easter. He appears in the midst of them and offers them a blessing, “Peace be unto you.” Peace meaning shalom. That word from the Hebrew scriptures that connotes more than just peace, but a wholeness. A state of completeness. 

Jesus then shows them his hands and his side. They have their own experience with Jesus. An experience that brings them much joy. And, probably, a lot of laughter, too. Then, Jesus once again offers them a blessing of peace. And commissions them: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” Jesus then breathes on them. In the Hebrew, ruach. That breath of God. The Holy Spirit. “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

There’s something interesting about this last sentence. Verse 23 in chapter 20. The phrase “the sins of” are not there in the original Greek. For years, translators have just assumed that these words are assumed. That they match the pattern of the first phrase--”if you forgive the sins of any.” But more recent scholarship has begun to question this assumption.  That perhaps these words should be assumed. 

So, what happens if we take the assumed phrase out? How does that change the meaning of this sentence.

In the closest verbatim translation, it would read like this “Of whomever you forgive the sins, they [the sins] are forgiven to them; whoever you hold fast [meaning embrace], they are held fast.

Or, to make it more understandable, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven. If you hold fast to someone, they are held fast.”

If you hold fast to someone, they are held fast. This is what Jesus does for Thomas. He holds him fast. It’s what Jesus did for Nathanael, for the woman at the well, for the blind man, for Mary Magdalene, for the disciples in fear behind locked doors on that Easter evening, and for nearly every other character introduced to us in John, Jesus holds them fast through their doubt, or their fear, or their partial understanding or whatever else it is until they receive what they need to believe. Until they experience what they need for faith. This is what Jesus has been doing throughout John’s gospel. Holding each person fast until he or she has their own experience of belief.

And, when Jesus breathes the Holy Spirit onto the disciples, Jesus is making is possible for them to continue his work. To continue his work of “holding fast” onto those “who have not yet seen.” “Holding fast” to others along with the accompanying work of forgiving sins.

This, my friends, is what we are called to do in this place. In the midst of our doubt. Or our fear. Or our grief or our anger, we are called to hold fast to each other. To embrace and share in that brokenness. Because it is there, in the brokenness, in the embrace, in the holding fast, that God enters in. That God is incarnated within us. In, with, and under. God enters in, kills our brokenness and brings new life. Wholeness. Shalom. God brings life out of death. God resurrects us. Just like Jesus. And just like Thomas.

Knock, knock.
Who’s there?
Holly.
Holly who?
Hollylujah, Christ is risen!
Christ is risen indeed. Alleluia!

Amen.

Preached April 8, 2018, at Grace & Glory Lutheran Church, Goshen, KY.
Easter 2

Readings: Psalm 145:13-21; John 20:19-31.