God and Problem Solving

          There is a statement made often to people who are in trouble.  “God won’t give you any more than you can handle.”  That certainly sounds good, and I know that it is meant to be comforting, but I have known lots of people who have had to deal with much more than they could handle.  Bills that can’t be paid, relationships that crumble, the news is full of episodes where people who are overwhelmed sometimes turn to crime to solve their problems.   Suicides and murders seem to multiply in our culture.  There are many people who are overwhelmed by the problems that they face.  Anyone who has listened in counseling to people with difficulties knows that being overwhelmed is one of the principle problems that we have in this world.  Think about your own life and the lives of those around you and it doesn’t take long before you see how overwhelming life can sometimes be. 

I think that this idea that we won’t be given more than we can handle comes from Paul’s words in the tenth chapter of first Corinthians:  God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.         

            I don’t want to be seen as arguing with the bible, but this is another example of how scripture can be used to justify almost anything.  One of the largest quandaries that we have with the bible is how random verses are picked out of it to tell us what the speaker wants us to believe.  I am reminded of the current turmoil over sexuality, how people quote verses from Leviticus or Paul’s epistles to provide what they believe is the final word of God on this subject.  I have seen how that kind of absolute bible quoting can hurt people and hurt them badly.  I know that it is possible to find great comfort and hope in the bible, but single verses completely out of context isn’t usually very helpful.

            When we take the bible as a whole, as the story of God’s creative spirit working to redeem creation, it is possible to understand what God can do for all of us in the more troubling moments of our lives.  Jesus tells us the greatest commandment: Love the Lord your God with all of your heart, your soul and your mind.  This is the first and greatest commandment, and the second is like unto it; love your neighbor as a person like yourself.  If you want to pick out a random verse of scripture to tie to your life, this is the one that I would recommend.  The reason that I think that this works in the most difficult moments of our lives is because it moves us toward community.  Community is what ties us together as a whole and gives us access to each other and what we need.  Community is what the church is all about.  We come together not only to worship our God, but to know each other.  There is nothing more important on Sunday morning than the gathering of the people in unity before the altar of God. 

            I have always believed that coffee hour, which has been described as the “eighth sacrament” is one of the most important times to gather that is offered by the church.  This is where we can informally share our lives with each other.  Pastoral care is the primary offering that clergy provide.  Counseling and caring is primary in the life of the church.  All of us have to participate in this.  Caring for each other becomes a function of the work of not only the clergy, but of all of us who belong to the community of God.  When we have each other, we have the greatest gift that God can bestow. 

            It has always been a miracle to me how problems can be solved when we tell each other what they are.  People who have no transportation discover that there are those who are willing to help; people who finally can tell someone that they have overwhelming financial or family problems can discover that there are ways that these things can be helped.  This happens only in community, when we know each other and trust each other so that we can share our deepest problems. 

             This is at the last, what loving means.  It is how we share our lives with each other and find common solutions to our various problems, and the struggles that we have in our community.   This is what I believe that we are about as Christians, and how God moves in this turbulent world.

Guns and Courage

          On December 8, 1941, the United States Congress declared war on Germany and Japan after the disastrous Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.  The European war had been festering for a long time and the US had provided aid to Britain in the form of Lend-Lease and other programs.  The President had hoped to keep us out of a shooting war, but after Pearl Harbor, that was no longer an option and this country headed into a four year shooting war with a seemingly endless cold war to follow with the Soviet Union. 

           

            I am impressed with the solidarity of the war declaration, a country united in purpose and resolve.  I remember the posters that went up all over the country uniting us and proclaiming our clear intent to not let the disaster of Pearl Harbor, or the sinking of the Lusitania go unpunished.  We were certainly a nation unified in purpose.

            I remember all of this because of the incredible difficulty that we seem to have in this nation after the Newtown shootings to provide any kind of effective legislation regarding guns.  There is, to be sure, organized opposition to anything that would restrict gun ownership or providing background checks of purchasers of guns, but the country seems to me to be united in its resolve to do something about the proliferation of assault weapons in this country and the problem of mentally unstable people able to get their hands on them.  We keep hearing about the Second Amendment to the Constitution, and its granting of permission to own guns, with the part about a well-regulated militia being necessary for our common defense de-emphasized so that it always sounds as though our founding fathers were endorsing the possession of any kind of weapon at all by the common people.  

            Where is the resolve that the people of this country are demanding?  Where is the courage of this congress to provide relief even in the face of the concerted opposition of the American Rifle Association and all of the others who are opposed to any kind of regulation?  

            In the face of certain opposition by many people who had power, Jesus continued to heal and instruct, knowing full well that those in power were trying to kill him.  His healing and their killing were not to be avoided, and we have the Cross of Calvary, and the Resurrection of Jesus as our prize and our hope out of all that he did in his powerful ministry.  

            All that we need to do is to cling to that hope with the same courage that our Lord provided to us and without fear do something about not only guns, but all of the crises that face humankind.  God will bless us when we do this.

Lent and Resurrection

           We are into Lent, that wonderful season of repentance and meditation; those forty days that precede Easter every year.  This can be a very useful time for all of us.  The intent is to imitate the journey of Jesus into the wilderness where he was tempted by the devil for all of his time there.  We are offered an opportunity to examine our lives, think about how we live them and think about how we might live them differently.  The process can bring us to a much better place than when we began. 

            Lent begins for me with Shrove Tuesday, when we eat sometimes terrible pancakes usually provided by our youth groups, with some kind of charity in mind.  But the main event at the beginning of Lent is Ash Wednesday, the day that we present ourselves at the altar of God and receive ashes on our foreheads, and listen to the solemn words:  Remember that you are dust, and to dust you will return.  This follows a liturgy of confession and repentance that brings us all together as a people who are dedicated to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  I know that we all mean it when we offer our confession and receive the absolution, but it doesn’t take us very long before we begin again to deviate from what we have so solemnly promised.  That is not to suggest that it is impossible, but merely to offer the observation that we are all human and that we continue in our sin daily. 

            I’ve always been impressed with Jesus’ trip into the desert and the way that he responded to the devil when he tempted him.  All of the temptations were things that Jesus needed very much.  First, was his hunger and the temptation to turn the stones into bread.  Jesus said to the devil, that one doesn’t live by bread alone.  That almost seems curious when you reflect on the hunger that life in the desert can create; but Jesus resisted this because of his dedication to the word of God, and his need to keep his focus on his mission.  Secondly, the devil offered to Jesus all of the cities of the world, if only he would worship the devil.  Jesus resisted this by telling the devil that It is written worship the Lord your God, and serve only Him, again, being in charge of all of the cities of the world is something that was deeply a part of Jesus’ hope, indeed, it has been the goal of the church since it was created.  But having this given to him with the price of devil worship wasn’t in the mix.  It involved Jesus renouncing the worship of God that was the very essence of his being.  Thirdly, the devil took Jesus to Jerusalem, put him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down so that angels will rescue you so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.”  Jesus resisted this by simply saying do not put the Lord your God to the test. At the end of all of this, the scripture says that the devil ended his temptations and departed from Jesus until an opportune time.

           

            This last temptation is certainly a preview of the crucifixion.  Nicholas Kazantzakis echoes this in his magnificent book The Last Temptation of Christ when he has Jesus come down from the cross in the middle of his crucifixion, being tempted by a small girl, who is really the devil who has returned at what he believes to be “an opportune time”. In this fantasy, Jesus goes on to live in Bethany with Mary, whom he marries and has several children.

  After a long time, the dream is over; Jesus wakes up, is back on the cross and the crucifixion continues.  One can almost applaud Kazantzakis’ beautiful fantasy ending of a story that we know so very well; that Jesus dies on the cross and is buried in a tomb.  What this book tells us is that Jesus’ resurrection is not possible without his death, and that Jesus’ death is there for all of us to understand that with his death and resurrection, we will also rise from our graves into the loving arms of our Lord God.  That is what this Lenten journey is all about; to give us some perspective on this incredible story.

            Do we really believe in the Resurrection?  We’ve never seen one.  I can tell you that I have stood beside caskets many times at funerals when I wished that I could wave my hands and do a resurrection.  The grief that we all suffer at those times is palpable.  I would have loved to be able to mitigate that horrible grief with a happy ending right there.  What we all need to remember is that we all have a happy ending.  Our resurrections are secure, no matter what else we might think, we will be safe in the arms of our God after our deaths, whether we believe that or not.   I know, I’m asking you to grasp the most incredible mystery that this world offers.  What about life after death?  What happens to us when we die?  No matter what it is that we wish for our enemies, our God is full of grace and merciful.  That is the end of the story.  We are loved with an intensity that we can’t even begin to imagine.  It is the kind of Love that God wishes for all of us to have for each other.  If we were somehow able to do that, all of the wars would cease and we would return this world to the paradise of Eden.  Isn’t that what we all have in mind?  There is a project that will occupy us for all of this Lent.  Work on it.

The Role of Religion

          I found myself stunned when I learned that the Lutheran clergyperson who participated in the joint prayer service in Newtown, Connecticut had to apologize for his appearance there because his Missouri synod superiors were afraid that he stepped over the line in seeming to offer some kind of recognition to other religions.  I have also been somewhat puzzled by the way that the bishops of the Roman Catholic church have argued against the way that the Affordable Health Care law provides for birth control for people who want it.  The bishops don’t want to have to pay for it.  The government has bent over backwards to try to insure that their paying for it won’t be the case.  I also wonder why the newly appointed Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby sees fit to say that he stands in opposition to gay marriage in England.  He is just entering office and it seems to me that there are a lot of other things that religious people in England and indeed all over the world need to hear from him other than this.

            What all of this says to me is that religion seems to be trying very hard to commit suicide.  There is nothing new in that, it has been going on for two thousand years.  As soon as religion gains a foothold, it begins with its claims of certainty to undermine its very existence.  I’m not surprised by this, human arrogance being what it is, we will not see the end of it any time soon. 

            In Luke’s gospel, he tells the story of Jesus taking Peter, James and John with him up to the top of the mountain in Galilee where he is transfigured before them and they see Moses and Elijah with him and out of the deep cloud that covers Jesus, they hear the voice of God say to all of them: This is my son, my chosen, listen to him! The disciples are deeply moved by this.  But what really interests me about this story is what happens next.  They come down the mountain and a man calls to Jesus to come and to heal his son, who has been seized by a spirit that makes him shriek and convulse.  The man tells Jesus that he asked his disciples to cure the son, but they were unable to do it.  Jesus throws a fit and says:  You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you?  He asks the man to bring his son to him.  He calls the evil spirit out of the child and cures him. 

            The reason that I love that story is because it is a mirror of what we do with our religion.  God gave us all of the tools that we need to provide comfort to those in need in this world, and we continue to squander them on issues such as I raised above.  We fight our religious battles in the world of politics, not human need.  No wonder God becomes impatient with us.  We need to learn that our religion is not absolute.  Our religion is simply a way for us to express our faith, and our faith is the only thing that binds us to our God.  Our particular religion is one of many ways to honor that faith.  When we fight over it we dishonor ourselves and our faith.