Are there times when it’s’ OK to yell in despair, “Where ARE you, God?” Honest pew-sitters have to admit to those moments when it seems as though “the right must fail, the wrong prevail”. Where in headline-land are those moments of Peace on Earth? Lectionary readings give us permission to rant and rave against the unGodliness all around us despite our own good intentions and playing well with others…
JOB 23 sees our hero as complaining, “Oh, that I knew where I might find [God], that I might come even to [God’s] dwelling!” He wants to plead his case of Being Good even when the storms of life are raging at his ears. He believes that God is a good ruler, a Creator of that which God called Good. This Book is Biblical because it invites us to acknowledge the darkness. Thomas Edward Frank suggests that God is waiting for us to be quiet…
HEBREWS 4:12-16 appears to go in two directions: we have the image of a double-edged sword, or is it a surgeon’s scalpel, cutting away the excess fat to revealthe barebones of the soul beneath. And then there’s the idea of a high priest who bears our needs to God, an act of grace. There’s a tension here of the human tendency to indulge and God’s tendency to restore. This sharp sword cuts into our darkness and lets the light out. Cuts through the illusions we cling to and allows God to be God.
You’ll notice that the last several weeks we’ve been studying MARK’s Gospel: Jesus telling his students that they need to be different from the rest of the world. 10:17-31 continues this exercise: an overly-rich fella asks Jesus what he has to do to inherit Eternal Life someday. Jesus tells him about the PRESENT Kingdom: “Go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.” What?! Today?! But I meant Beyond the Sunset! Well, he was close, but no cigar.
Susan B. Andrews tells us that “we can cry out with complete honesty…confessing the worst–and the best–of who we are.” (FEEDING on the WORD, B 4:160) Christianity isn’t a life-style of accepting what comes along as God’s Intent, but it IS an excercise of Hope that the downcast shall be restored.
In the process of unfolding, Horace Brown King
Every Tuesday we explore the prescribed scripture passages for the upcoming weekend. You’re invited! At horacebrownking.com Gods Beyond the River
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