I'd like to begin this week's post by introducing myself! My name is Caitlin, and I began writing the lectionary blog last week. I am a second-year M.Div. student at Harvard Divinity School, and I'm very excited to be doing field education this year at the Massachusetts Bible Society. I am a United Methodist, but not on the ordination track; at this point, I'm hoping to ultimately use my degree in the non-profit sector, working on issues of international relief and development. I look forward to journeying through the lectionary with all of you over the next few months!
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As Christians, we proclaim that God is love. We praise God for God's goodness and justice, God's righteousness and care. We thank God for our abundant blessings, and rejoice that we have been brought into relationship with the Divine.
Yet, at the same time, few of us would say that our relationship with God is 100% wonderful, 100% of the time. Sometimes, when confronted with personal afflictions or when considering the vast suffering in the world -- for example, the grave toll of the recent typhoon in the Philippines and the earthquake in Indonesia -- we find ourselves angry with God. "How could you do this?" we might ask, or, "How could you let this happen?" At other times, we may feel that God has become distant or is no longer answering our prayers. And sometimes we may even find ourselves afraid of God.
In this week's lectionary texts, we hear from people struggling with their relationships with God. Take Job, for example. Job's tragic tale is relatively famous: despite faithfully serving God, his children are killed and his wealth destroyed. He refuses to "charge God with wrongdoing" (Job 1:22) but is still broken-hearted and dismayed.
Part of Job's grief stems from the fact that God seems to have disappeared -- Job cannot even find God to ask him why such terrible things have happened:
"Today also my complaint is bitter; his hand is heavy despite my groaning. Oh, that I knew where I might find him, that I might come even to his dwelling! I would lay my case before him, and fill my mouth with arguments. I would learn what he would answer me, and understand what he would say to me [... But] if I go forward, he is not there; or backward, I cannot perceive him; on the left he hides, and I cannot behold him; I turn to the right, but I cannot see him." (Job 23:2-5, 8-9)
Not only is Job frustrated by his inability to find God, but he acknowledges another strong emotion: fear. "God has made my heart faint," he exclaims, "the Almighty has terrified me; If only I could vanish in darkness, and thick darkness would cover my face!" (Job 16-17)
For Job, recent events seem to be presenting God not as a loving protector, but as a distant, even wrathful deity: someone to be feared. And this theme is continued in Psalm 22, when David cries,
"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." (Psalm 22:1-2)
The Psalmist's words -- words spoken by Jesus on the cross in Matthew 27:46 -- are clearly the lament of someone who feels cut off from God. The language is darkly evocative, portraying a person who is "poured out like water," with a heart "like wax," lying in "the dust of death" (Psalm 22:14-15). God, for reasons that are unclear, seems to have left the Psalmist alone in a time of anguish.
I suspect that most of us have experienced seasons of life where we feel cut off from God, or indeed questioned God's very reality. But David's psalm, while reflecting the human experience of feeling that God has left us alone, also offers hope. He calls our attention to the great faithfulness God has shown in the past: "To you [our ancestors] cried, and were saved; in you they trusted, and were not put to shame" (Psalm 22:5). "Since my mother bore me you have been my God," David continues, reminding us that we have always been God's children, even when we cannot feel God's presence (Psalm 22:10).
Human existence is characterized by both great joy and great pain. At times -- perhaps when life is otherwise going well, or perhaps when we have just been thrown a curveball -- we may discover that God seems to have withdrawn. Such experiences can be painful and frightening. But as we see in Job and in Psalm 22, we need not be afraid to call out to God anyway, to express our fear or anger: God can take it.
In the lectionary text from Hebrews, we read, "Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need" (Hebrews 4:16). The author of Hebrews is saying that we needn't be afraid to approach God, to express our deepest worries and fears, or to ask for the mercy and grace that God has promised us. Indeed, I would contend that this week's texts show us that doing our best to keep our relationship with God alive -- whether by praising God, or lamenting to God, or questioning God -- will help sustain us even in those times in our lives when we feel that God is far away.
Photo credit here.
Photo credit here.
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