Conflicting Hats (Includes references to 2018 films, Green Book & Blackkklansman)

I wear many hats.  I’m a minister.  I’m an American.  I am chair of Horseshoe Falls Regional Council.  I am on the management team for the Skylight Festival (Buy your tickets now!).  I am a mom.  I am a wife.  I’m a friend.  I’m a musician.  I’m a writer.  I am a woman who wants to be referred to as she and her.  I’m of European descent.  Like most people, I have a variety of roles in my life and have a variety of labels.  Sometimes it feels like too many and then I have to start letting some of them go, but mostly I enjoy my many hats, the roles I play, and the people with whom I work.

But there are times when roles conflict or collide with one another.  For example, I cannot be on a committee at St. Paul’s United Church or be chair of their Council because I serve as their minister.  As a minister, I am not a counsellor.  I can listen and offer spiritual advice, but I could get in big trouble if I start to act as a counsellor.  I could be hurting those who are coming to me for help.

It used to be that as a woman, I couldn’t be a minister.  In 1936, the United Church began to ordain women, but restricted it to those who were unmarried, widowed, or at a time in their lives when they were no longer required in the home.  So I couldn’t wear my wife or mom hat and be a minister in the church.  These restrictions were lifted for ordained women in 1964 and for deaconesses in 1970, but I can imagine that it was still difficult for women, single, married, with or without children, to be accepted as a minister and to be respected as a leader in the church.  I imagine that qualities like vulnerability, softness, being emotional, wouldn’t have been as valued as qualities like, strength, logic, and assertiveness.  Women would have been expected not to be too feminine but would have been criticized for being too masculine, which, many of us know, still occurs today with many leadership roles in our society.

Green Book was a very popular movie from 2018 and it's a great story.  It’s about a pianist, going on tour, who hires a driver.  It’s about the relationship between these two men and the experiences they have together on this journey.  What makes the story complex is that the pianist is black and the driver is white, and the tour is in the deep south in the 1960’s.

I don’t want to give too much away for those who haven’t seen the movie, but they do begin to respect one another and learn from one another.  It is less a show about racism in America and more about two very different people who learn to respect each other’s lives and experiences.

There is one scene in the movie where "Doc", the pianist, expresses his frustration with his identity.  This clip contains some profanity, but, if you don't mind, I invite you to take a peek.  (You can start the clip at 1:20, for less profanity.)

Doc is a man with hats in conflict.  He doesn’t fit in with his own people.  He is rejected by white people.  He’s divorced and unattached.  He’s alone.  He doesn’t seem to fit anywhere.

Another movie that came out last year was Blackkklansman, a movie by Spike Lee.  This is a movie about racism in American.  It’s set in the 1970’s and it’s the true story of a man who is the first black cop on the Colorado Springs Police Department.  This man, Ron Stallworth, goes undercover and actually becomes a member of the Ku Klux Klan.  You might ask how this can happen, but the initial conversations between Stallworth and the KKK are by phone.  Then then find a white man in the force who represents him in person.  Stallworth has several phone conversations with David Duke, the head of the KKK, that are actually pretty hilarious, if you can look past the racism and bigotry.

As we talk about identity though I highlight two characters from this movie, Flip, a white, Jewish cop, and Ron.  Flip is the one who physically poses undercover.  He pretends to be Ron, when they are face to face with the KKK.  There are several times when he is accused of being Jewish and in one scene is held at gunpoint and commanded to take a lie detector test to prove he isn’t Jewish.  He talks to Ron about his background, how he didn’t grow up Jewish, he didn’t observe the holy days or rituals, and never really considered himself Jewish, but now he is adamantly having to deny his background and trash talk all Jews.  Although he has never identified as Jewish, that identity is a part of him and trash talking his own heritage is disconcerting.

And then we have Ron who has gone undercover and is falling for a woman, Patrice, who is President of the Black Student Union.  Patrice refers to all cops as “pigs," for good reason, as you will see in the movie.  These pigs, she asserts, are against black liberation.  In this movie clip (which contains a couple of F bombs), Ron is trying to warn Patrice of an upcoming Klan attack and has to confess to her his identity as an undercover cop.

Identity.  Can you be a black cop in a system that supports racism while supporting black liberation?  Ron believes he can and he attempts to prove it.

There are two stories in our bible that I would like to hold up, each a story of a man wearing conflicting hats.  First we have Moses.  Moses was born among Hebrew slaves but was raised by Egyptians.  In this story, Moses has come upon a slave being beaten, one of his own people by birth.  He kills the soldier and hides the body.  The next day, he comes upon two Hebrew slaves who are fighting and attempts to break up the fight.  He probably identifies with them and feels he has the right to interfere.  He asks them, “Why do you strike your fellow Hebrew?”  Now Moses may see himself as Hebrew but the slaves see him as a Hebrew with the power of an Egyptian.  They ask him, “Who made you ruler and judge over us?” and then ask him if he means to kill them like he killed the Egyptian.  Knowing his secret it out, Moses flees.  Is Moses Hebrew or Egyptian?  He cannot be both and yet, he is both.

In one of Paul’s letters, the one he wrote to communities in Galatia, other early Christians like Paul were telling these Gentiles (non-Jews) in Galatia that in order to follow Jesus they had to become Jewish: they had to become circumcised, follow the food laws and other Jewish customs.  Paul disagreed.  And Paul was Jewish.  He never let that part of his identity go.  He was circumcised and followed all the Jewish laws, but he felt the message of Jesus, the gospel he was preaching, was more important that forcing others to conform to his own identity.

There are many others stories of people struggling with their identities, of people juggling different identities, in the bible, in the movies, and in our own communities.  How many stories do we hear of people “passing” in order to receive rights and privileges.  How many people who are black, hispanic, or indigenous, with lighter skin, have passed for white in order to be treated fairly?  How many people who are gay, lesbian or anywhere to the left or right of the gender normative have hid their true selves in order to be accepted and embraced by their communities?  How many hide disabilities or health struggles because they want to be treated fairly and not pitied?  How many of us hide our true selves, our true identities, because we are afraid, because we want the same rights as everyone else and to be loved.  We do this because our society is still about us or them, we or they, black or white, Christian or heathen, woman or man, normal or strange.  These dualisms, that cause racism, sexism, heterosexism, ableism, and classism, also cause splits in our identities, cause us to feel hate for others and even shame for who we are?

We need to be able to start seeing the grey, or, better yet, the spectrum of colours in the rainbow.  We need to unpack the stories we read in our bible and see them through a different lens.  We need to question what it means to be welcoming and inclusive.  Is it enough?  How do people come to know a place is safe, where they can feel a sense of belonging, where they can feel fully affirmed and loved for who they are?  These places are rare.  How can we make them more abundant?

May God be our rock and a steady presence as we are challenged.  May Jesus be our inspiration and example in his teachings and actions.  May the Spirit be always at our backs, pushing us towards bringing God’s kingdom on earth.  May it be so.  Amen.

The Space Between

A couple of weeks ago, I talked about words without knowledge and how important it is to listen.  We have two ears and one mouth for a reason.  Much of what we do is filled with words, words, and more words.  In church, we describe God with words.  We praise God with words.  We share the word of God.  We express ourselves with words.  It helps that there is some music thrown in as well, but even the music is filled with words.  

Last year in February, I went to a Jesuit retreat centre and was in silence for eight days.  I’d only every done about 48 to 72 hours before this.  Eight days felt very long.  My life is surrounded with words, especially now with phones.  Texts, emails, podcasts, and apps, all filled with words and sounds, spoken or read.  How often do we sit in silence in today’s world?  Eight days filled with silence made me realize that I was burying some pain that I still needed to process and heal.  It’s amazing how the noise in our lives can distract from feeling what we need to feel.

There’s a story in the first book of Kings about the prophet Elijah.  He has just performed a tremendous miracle that went against the powers of the nation and he is running, knowing that his life is in danger.  He is on a mountain, where he experiences God, not, as it is written, in the strong winds that split the mountains and broke rocks into pieces, and not in earthquake or in fire, but in the sound of sheer silence.  

In the book of Job, that we have been reading throughout the season of Lent, Job also encounters God, but this time God through a whirlwind and poetry.  Job and his friends have been speaking for 35 chapters, words about why Job is suffering and why God has caused it, about Job’s innocence or lack thereof, all theorizing about why God allows suffering in the world.  Words, words, and more words.  I like to imagine, that at the end of chapter 37, there is a pause, a gap before we enter into chapter 38 and hear God’s response to Job.  I like to imagine that Job and his friends have run out of words and that they sit in silence, pondering what has been said, maybe finally at a loss to say anything more.  An hour?  A day? A week?  Eight days?  Time enough for them to come to terms with their humanity, their ignorance, their incapability to help Job through his suffering or to help him explain it.  Then, and only then, are they open to hearing God.  Then, and only then, in the sound of sheer silence, might they hear what God has to say.  

The technical term for my imaginings is called midrash, reading into the story, looking at the space between the words, the white space on the page that surrounds each letter, each word, each phrase, helping it to make sense to my own experience.  Again, there is so much more beyond the words, beyond what is being said.  We need to look deeper.  Yes, we need to be aware of the context, the culture, the people of the time, but sometimes we just need to sit with the silence, with what we don’t know, with what’s not being said.  

Have you noticed that our gospels don’t tell us what happened on Holy Saturday, the Sabbath day, the day after Jesus was crucified and the day before they discovered his empty tomb?  Mark’s gospel in particular, details every day from Palm Sunday to Good Friday, even in three-hour intervals on Friday, but writes nothing about the Sabbath day.   The story picks up again with the women approaching the tomb of Jesus, where he was placed after his death.  In some ways, because it’s the same every year, most of us don’t notice this absence, but maybe we should take notice?  What happened on Saturday?  Is this silence telling us something?

In our Easter story, from Mark, the first gospel written, the ending is odd.  There is much debate about how this gospel ends.  There have been an additional ending tacked on to this gospel, because there was discomfort with the way it ended.  The last words of the gospel, without the alternate endings, are: “So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. (16:8)  They said nothing?  But what happened next?  Surely word got out somehow?  Isn’t the whole point to share the gospel, the good news?  How can it end so abruptly, without sightings of Jesus, as the other gospels include?

According to Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan, in their book, “The Last Week,” the author of Mark’s gospel has said everything that needed to be said.

1. Jesus was sealed in a tomb, but the tomb could not hold him; the stone has been rolled away.
2. Jesus is not found in the land of the dead: “He is not here.  Look, there is the place they laid him.”…
3. Jesus has been raised.  And as the angelic messenger tells the women this, he explicitly mentions the crucifixion.  Jesus “who was crucified” by the authorities “has been raised” by God.  The meaning is that God has said “yes” to Jesus and “no” to the powers who killed him.  God has vindicated Jesus.  
4. His followers are promised, “You will see him.”

That’s all that’s needed.  The extra stories are nice and they help us to imagine how Jesus would have been experienced after they found him missing from the tomb, but the author of Mark didn’t find these stories necessary.  It’s possible that the author wanted us to create our own stories, our own midrash, in the silence that followed.  

Rob Bell, an author and preacher, had a podcast a few weeks ago called, “That Pause.”  Once in a while, he will bring in his learnings of science to his message on faith.  This time he was talking about empty space.  He said,

“Before the modern era, for many people, the way the universe was seen is there is empty space and there are objects in empty space, moon, sun, planet earth, furniture, a car, that person, objects in empty space.  But what we now know from quantum physics is that empty space itself is filled with particles and those sub-atomic particles are coming and going from existence, they’re bonding, they’re splitting, they’re forming atoms, those atoms are forming molecules.  That actually empty space is filled with…what the physicist Paul Davis talks about as, chrystalized conundrums of pulsing energy.  The empty space itself is filled with particles.  These particles are doing things, they’re bonding, they’re splitting, they’re aware of each other, they’re entangled, they’re changing their spin, there’s all sorts of things happening within what you and I would think of as empty space. 

So, the beautiful thing and the metaphor here is to think about this empty space, to think about that pause, the stillness, before you speak, before you respond, before you act, when you listen to your deepest intuition, to your deepest Christ wisdom, when you pause, when you are still, to know the divine.”

Sometimes when we take the time to stop speaking and listen, just be open to what the universe is trying to share with us, we realize how much we don’t know, how vast is the mystery that surrounds us, how seeking answers isn’t always what is needed.  In Job’s final words, his response to God, Job first says, “I lay my hand on my mouth.  I have spoken once, and I will not answer; twice, but will proceed no further.”  And then later, in his last sentence, Job says, “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in ashes and dust.”   In our current context and in our growing awareness of shame and how it affects us, a different interpretation of Job’s last words is offered by Harold Kusher, author of, “Why Bad Things Happened to a Good Person.”   

Having heard God say to Job, It will not be a perfect world, but it will be a world marked by great natural beauty, inspiring human creativity, and astonishing human resilience, and I will be with you in all of those times, [Job responds]:

“I repudiate my past accusations, my doubts, even my anger.  I have experienced the reality of God.  I know that I am not alone, and, vulnerable mortal that I am, I am comforted.” (Ch. 10, pg 44)  

I can hear in these words how the disciples of Jesus may have responded to their experience of Jesus and his empty tomb.  Some betrayed him, some doubted, almost all abandoned him to his fate.  But in this empty tomb, in the angel’s message that their friend and teacher was not there and had been raised and would soon be seen by them in a new way, there awoke in them a joy beyond words, a mind filled with questions but a heart bursting with love for their friend, knowing that there was so much more to come, that it was not over, and it’s still not over.  

We continue to experience that reality of God, through our suffering and our joys, in our relationships, in a child’s laughter, in a beautiful sunset or a loud crack of thunder, a hug from a friend, or the awesomeness of a great blue whale or the view from a mountaintop.  In the gaps between, in the stillness within, we find the divine and we know we are not alone, vulnerable mortals that we are, we are comforted.

May we be open to the unanswered questions, the open endings, the gaps, that pause.  May we know we are not alone in the stillness, the sheer silence, the empty space, and the empty tomb.  In fact, may these gaps and these empty spaces, be where we find comfort when in need, discomfort when we need to be challenged.  May they be places where we might find the divine and the wisdom of Christ.  May it be so.  Amen.

Words Without Knowledge

Have you met those people who seem to talk and talk and really have no idea what they’re talking about?  Then there are those people who talk and really seem to know what they’re talking about until later when you find out that they really have no idea.  In fact, I think, at times, we could all fit into one category or the other.  I know there have been times when I have been so sure about what I’m saying and then find out later that I was completely off the mark.  The fact is that our knowledge grows and changes with our experiences, and that what we know with conviction today might change tomorrow.  

Near the end of the book of Job, we finally hear from God, from within a whirlwind, we are told.  I love the first words we hear from God:  “Who is this who darkens counsel in words without knowledge?”  Words without knowledge.  Job and his friends have no idea what they’re talking about.  34 chapters of words without knowledge.  They seem to know the way the world works, they seem to be able to judge each other and God based on this knowledge, when really, they have no idea.  And God expands on that, saying “Where were you when I founded the earth? Have you ever commanded the morning, appointed the dawn to its place.  Have you come into the springs of the sea, in the bottommost deep walked about?  Have the gates of death been laid bare to you, and the gates of death’s shadow have you seen?  Tell, if you know all.”  How arrogant are Job and his friends to question God, to believe they know the mind of God?  How arrogant are we when we presume to know how the world works?

How many times have we caused harm because of what we know to be true.  Just in the past hundred years, we knew Japanese Canadians were a danger, so we interred them and took their property.  We knew communism was evil and persecuted those we believed were communists.  We knew the lighter the skin colour the higher the intelligence and moral judgement.  We knew indigenous people needed to be assimilated for the betterment of Canada.  We knew that any sexual deviation from male and female within a marriage was wrong and made illegal any acts outside that norm.  Much of this has been supported by the church, justified in ways that now seem incomprehensible.  What were we thinking?  

In Paul’s letter to the community in Philippi, in the Christian scriptures, he talks about his past, before he became a follower of Jesus and before he travelled to far off places to share his experience of the risen Christ.  He talks about growing up Jewish, being born of the tribe of Benjamin, and how he was a Pharisee, one who upheld Jewish law and who was a persecutor of the church.  He says he was righteous under the law and blameless.  Yet, he continues, all of this is nothing and that he has lost all of this because of Christ.  He says, “For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Jesus Christ.”  

Some of the early Jewish followers of Christ were persecuted by other Jewish people.  Paul was one of those persecutors and he believed that he was being righteous under the law.  He believed that these people were perverting his faith and leading people astray from the one true God.  He believed he was doing right, until one day, when he was knocked off his feet and blinded by a vision that turned his life upside down.  He became one of these Christ followers that he had been persecuting and in fact, with a new found zeal in this new faith, became one of those leading people astray to follow Christ.

Paul described himself as blameless under the law, which is the exact word used for Job.  Job is described as blameless and upright, but it doesn’t mean he was perfect and it doesn’t mean he didn’t have a lot to learn, just like Paul, just like us.  Job, like Paul, was knocked off his feet by the presence of God, and told how he was wrong.  

We all have a lot to learn.  We all need to be knocked off our feet.  No matter how righteous we may see ourselves, we will have experiences that will show us the error of our ways.  Currently, Canada has apologized for its error in judgement in taking indigenous children away from their home and putting them in residential schools.  The United Church is in the midst of offering apologies to the many hurt because their gender identity didn’t fit within the prescribed norm.  I have recently heard stories of women demanding an apology for the way they were treated in homes for women who were pregnant outside of marriage.  Many nations around the world are still suffering the effects of missionaries whose mission was to bring Christianity to those without and to bring help in ways that were often unhelpful because no one asked what was needed.  It was just assumed.  All of these things were done with the best of intentions.  All with the zeal of faith and love of God, feeling as if they were doing the right thing, feeling righteous and blameless.  

How often do we stand firm in our judgments, stuck in our ways, firm in our beliefs, and unwilling to budge, feeling we are right, feeling that our way is the only way, in politics, in faith, at work, at church, at home?   How do we keep our righteousness from becoming self-righteousness?

Some of us have to knocked off our feet, blinded, hit by such a strong experience, that we are forced to open our eyes and see differently.  Do we need to wait for that to happen or can we find other ways?  Keeping an open mind is sometimes easier said than done, so how can do we do this?  

I’ve heard this a number of times, most recently on Sunday during our Blanket Exercise.  We have two ears and one mouth for a reason.  There are times, no, I think at all times, we need to be doing more listening than speaking, especially to those who are in pain and are suffering.  Rachel Held Evans, in her book “Inspired,” wrote that the book of Job “favours the wisdom of those who have actually suffered over those who merely speculate about it.”  Job’s friends did more talking than listening to their friend who was in pain and Job, although he may have had a lot to learn, was the one speaking from his experience, was the one who needed to be heard, and not judged for his suffering.  

I also think it’s helpful to create experiences, rather than wait for them to happen.  Last week, I was part of a circle of 20 people in the Blanket Exercise as we listened to the story of colonialism through the eyes of the indigenous people.  This week, I have been part of a group learning what it means to be Affirming.  Reading books that have a different point of view, listening to a different radio station or watching a movie that you normally would have avoided, hanging out with people with whom you feel uncomfortable.  These are all ways that we learn, but they’re not easy ways.  They take time.  They take effort.  They, at times, make us uneasy, tense, embarrassed, and mostly, vulnerable. 

Opening ourselves up to new ideas, learning to listen before we speak, being vulnerable to being told we are wrong, that we have done wrong, that we are doing wrong, takes courage, takes risk, and takes humility.  We are fortunate because we can do all of this within a community of faith, a community that loves and supports us as we learn and grow.  We also count on a higher power to help guide us, give us strength, and accompany us always so that we are never alone.  Through those times when we are knocked off our feet, we can rely on the holy one to keep us grounded and we can be thankful that we will land on our feet, even if we remain a little wobbly.  May it be so and thanks be to God.  Amen.

Old and New Wisdom

I was talking with another minister about children’s curriculum for summer camps.  He mentioned that sometimes he has a problem with the theology of the children’s stories and some of what the children are taught.  I asked him to give me an example.  He said he saw one curriculum that was based on an Olympics theme.  One of the stories shared was about how an Olympic team had lost and how there had been such huge disappointment around the loss.  So the next year, people were encouraged to pray and many prayed very hard for their team to win, and, lo and behold, they’re prayers were answered and the team won!  Ask and you shall receive is the message, but does this work?  Was the other team praying just as hard?  Does praying really hard make God listen more, so that God gives whatever is being asked?

Are we teaching our children that God is like Santa Claus?  Write a list, tell him what you want, and if you’re good, Santa/God will give you whatever you want.  But, if you’re bad…. What kind of message does this portray about God?  Are our lives controlled by the choices we make, by whether or not we are a good neighbour, by whether or not we follow God’s mandates?  If that sports team had lost, would that have sent the message that they didn’t pray hard enough or that the team or someone on the team, had displeased God in some way?

Why does he eat with sinners and tax collectors?

In the gospel of Luke, we read a phrase at the beginning of Chapter 15: “Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. ²And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, ‘This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.’”  At the time, it must have been well known to many that only those worthy shall be followers of wise teachers and that rabbis only socialized with people who were not known sinners.  Jesus, a wise teacher and rabbi, should not have been rubbing shoulders with known sinners, like tax collectors, lepers, certain unclean women, and the like.  

Nowadays, we think we’ve gone beyond this kind of thinking, but have we really?  How often do you hear of a person or a people blamed for their hardships?  I know I find myself doing it sometimes.  If only they would…. or if only they hadn’t….  People with addictions are judged for careless choices or weak willpower.  Parents with unruly children are blamed for not using proper parenting techniques.  People living on the streets are blamed for not trying hard enough.  Indigenous people are blamed for not being able to get over their past.  Young people living at home or those who can’t find work are said to be lazy.  

The idea that we reap what we sow can be found throughout our sacred scripture.  In the book of Proverbs we read much of this traditional wisdom:

• 1:31: They will eat the fruit of their ways and be filled with the fruit of their schemes.
• 11:18: A wicked person earns deceptive wages, but the ones who sows righteousness reaps a sure reward.
• 11:14: One person gives freely, yet gains even more; another withholds unduly, but comes to poverty.

In the book of psalms, the 106th psalm tells us:  How blessed are those who promote justice, and do what is right all the time! Remember me, O Lord, when you show favour to your people!

Throughout our scripture, a person’s wrongdoings explain their hardship or a person’s righteousness explains their good fortune.  Even when explaining the exile of the Hebrew people to Babylon, people believed it was their punishment, that they did not devote enough time to God or they ignored the needs of the widow and the orphan, or that they worshipped other gods causing the one true God to be jealous.  A person or a people’s bad luck is for a reason and this rationale is still a part of our psyche.  It helps us make sense of suffering.

The book of Job challenges this traditional wisdom.  Chapters 1 and 2 and 42 is a story of folklore, passed on for many generations and it carries the traditional wisdom.  In it, the satan makes a wager with God.  God says of Job, “There is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil.”  The satan wants to test this.  The satan wants to see if Job will continue to be so blameless and upright, once all has been taken away from him, his property, his children, and his health.  Through it all, Job trusts in God, saying, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there.; the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”  Then, in chapter 42, Job is redeemed.  In staying faithful to God, more so than his friends, God gives him twice as much as he had before, including ten more children.  He lives to one hundred and forty years, then dies, old and full of days.  The story seems to say that if one remains faithful to God, all will turn out well in the end.  But is this true?  Are the words of Eliphaz that Lindsey read for us today, true, that “those who plow iniquity, and sow trouble reap the same,” or in today’s language, “you reap what you sow.”

The character of Job, within these chapters, challenges this traditional wisdom.  Harold Kushner, author of a commentary on the Book of Job called, “Why Bad Things Happened to a Good Person,” writes the following:

The Poem of Job…asks questions like Do we live in a world that rewards people for being honest and charitable?, and if so, in what currency does that reward arrive?  Does God care about what kind of person I am?  Can a religious person be angry at God, even doubt the existence of God, and still think of himself or herself as a religious person?  The Poem of Job does not have an answer to those questions; it has answers.   It invites us to look at the world through the eyes of several characters, some who challenge God, some who defend God, and ultimately from the viewpoint of God Himself.  It is an extraordinary experience to be changed by a book as we read it, to see the world differently because of it, and the Poem of Job strives to be that kind of book.  (Ch 3 pg 10)

These so called friends of Job tell him that the travails of life happen for a reason, that Job must have done something, or maybe his children did something, to bring about all of this misfortune.  They tell him that he only need repent, for whatever the wrongdoing, and God will restore his good fortune.  That’s the way the world works.  

And in fact, Job doesn’t dispute the fact that he did something to incur God’s wrath, but he wants to know what it was.  He pretty much puts God on trial and like a lawyer, interrogates God and cross-examines his friends who have come to God’s defence.  Job believes God needs to be held to account.  After all, he sees the way of the world.  Thieves get away with their treasures all the time.  The innocent suffer.  Leaders are made to look like fools.  God seems to be able to get away with the suffering of many without having to offer any explanation and Job is now demanding an explanation.  

Job sees destruction and suffering and a god that seems to have complete control and needs no justification for what happens in the world.  Job says in chapter 12, “Why, he destroys and there is no rebuilding, closes in on a man, leaves no opening.  Why, he holds back the waters and they dry up, sends them forth and they turn the earth over.  He leads counsellors astray and judges he drives to madness.” (14-15, 17 of The Hebrew Bible by Robert Alter) Is this a good god?  Does this god have too much power, too little accountability?

So what does all of this mean for us?  What do we believe about God and the suffering we see in our world?  What do we teach our children?  Jesus heard people grumbling about the people he accompanied.  His disciples questioned him when he approached someone who was ‘unclean’ or someone that they believed was suffering because of their own sin or the sin or their parents.  Jesus, again and again, had to justify why he healed certain people or included certain people in his circle.  I don’t think he believed that suffering was God’s punishment.  Jesus turned his back on some of this old wisdom and offered new wisdom.  He healed the leper, he hung out with questionable women, he ate with tax collectors, and he made children his example of the kingdom of heaven.  This was new wisdom for his followers.  

Job struggled against the old wisdom and Jesus brought new wisdom.  Jesus brought love and compassion to those who were hurting and those who were excluded.  And today we are still struggling like Job with old wisdom and still trying our best to model Jesus and his new wisdom, to understand that it’s not God who causes suffering, that people aren’t suffering because of God’s judgement and punishment.  We are a people that judge others, that are greedy, who seek power, and are very tribal, excluding others who are different.  We are a broken people.  We are a hurting people, but we are also a people who are still learning every day how to bring God’s kingdom to this earth.  We are still learning every day, and need to told all the time, that God loves us and has plenty of grace for everyone.  

May we know that it’s all right to question, to doubt, to struggle against the suffering of the world.  May we continue to learn about the Way of Jesus and continue to try, every minute of every day, to model his example.  May we allow the Spirit of God’s grace to fill our lives and the lives of those around us and may we know that we are loved, regardless of our choices, regardless of our circumstances, regardless of our judgment of others.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

Why, God?

I recently saw a series on Netflix called “Black Earth Rising.”  Much of it dealt with trying to hold accountable those people who caused the genocide in 1994 of the Tutsi people in Rwanda, almost a million people in only 100 days.  It’s heart wrenching to think of the number of people who died, men, women, and children, and the effect it had on the country of Rwanda, then and today.  It was one of those events in my lifetime that had people asking how a loving God could allow such evil to happen.  Events like the shooting on Friday in New Zealand, have us continuing to ask that question.  Then there are times when seemingly random events, like hurricanes and tsunamis devastate a region, and we wonder again why a loving God would allow such suffering to happen.  Also this week, 157 people, of all ages, were killed in a plane crash in Ethiopia.  Why?  Why does God, who we are told loves all, how could this God allow such evil and hate, such suffering to exist in our world?  

Some try to rationalize these events by coming up with explanations.  It all happens for a reason.  Unfortunately, it’s sometimes Christian people that are offering some of the most hurtful explanations.  For example, there were preachers who compared New Orleans to Sodom and Gomorrah and that Hurricane Katrina was a sign of God’s disapproval and judgement of the immorality of this city.  Some will turn a blind eye to the shooting of people based on their race or their religion.  Some will say that God has a purpose and that God has a plan; we just may not understand it yet or may never understand it.

And we want to understand.  We want to find meaning behind suffering, evil, natural disasters, disease, dementia, greed, poverty, and violence.  For thousands and thousands of years, people have been trying to explain our world in a variety of ways.  Our bible offers some of these attempted explanations.  

Over my sabbatical last winter, I read a book by Harold Kushner called, “Why Bad Things Happened to a Good Person,” his commentary on the Book of Job.  You might recognize this author because of his bestselling book, “Why Bad Things Happen to Good People.”  Kushner has been fascinated by this question since his school days and the question truly hit home when his son was diagnosed with progeria, or rapid aging syndrome.  His son stopped growing and starting growing old at age three and died when he was fourteen.  

Kushner writes, 

“Human beings are meaning-makers, constantly trying to understand our world in terms of cause and effect.  We desperately want to believe the world makes sense, that it is a place where things don’t just happen, they happen for a reason.  Painful as it may be to conjure with, we want to be told that it was not by accident that a family member got cancer or an earthquake struck a given city, that there was a purpose to it.  An unpredictable world, a world of randomness unregulated by cause and effect, would leave us uncomfortable.” Ch. 1, pg 2

How could a loving God allow evil and suffering in this world?  When people attempt to answer this question or attempt to explore this question, this is called theodicy, and there are books, essays, speeches, poetry, prose, tons of writing on this very question.

The book of Job is one of those attempts.  The book of Job is part of the Wisdom Literature of the Bible.  I’ll repeat a quote I shared last week from Rachel Held Evans, in her book, “Inspired,” She writes that “the aim of wisdom literature is to uncover something true about the nature of reality in a way that makes the reader or listener wiser” (pg 96) and that the book of Job “favours the wisdom of those who have actually suffered over those who merely speculate about it (pg 97).”   

In my last post, I talked about the chapters that bookend this story of Job, chapters 1, 2, and 42.  In these bookend chapters, Job accepts his suffering as God’s will.  “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away,” and “Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?”  The Job within these bookends though is a different character.  He questions; he doubts; he rants; he practically shakes his fists at God and begs for an answer to why he is suffering.  He has had everything taken from him: his oxen, his sheep, his camels, and even his seven sons and three daughters, and then finally his own health, being covered from head to toe with painful and itchy sores.  Why, God?  Why me?  Why this?  What did I do to deserve this?  What does it all mean?  

At the end of chapter two, Job’s three friends have come to be with him in his grief.  Some see this action as the Jewish ritual of sitting Shiva, a seven day period of time in which family and friends sit with someone grieving the loss of a loved one.   These friends, it reads, barely recognize Job in his grief and maybe because of physical disfigurement.  They lift up their voices and weep for Job.  

Job, then, for the first time in our story, speaks.  From his very first words, we get a sense of Job’s well-being or lack thereof.  He says (translation by Robert Alter):

“Annul the day that I was born 

and the night that said, ‘A man is conceived.’

That day, let it be darkness.  

Let God above not seek it out,

nor brightness shine upon it.

Let darkness, death’s shadow, foul it,

let a cloud-mass rest upon it,

let day-gloom dismay it.

That night, let murk overtake it.

Let it not join in the days of the year,

let it not enter the number of months.

In other words, Oh that I had never been born or even conceived, and that that very day be only darkness and not be numbered.

Job’s story is one of grief, despair, of one who has lost hope.  His story is of one who questions God, an action that we are not always encouraged to take.  Some call this blasphemy.  Some will encourage only acceptance of God’s mystery and God’s plan.  Others will say that there must be a reason and that God would never do anything without a reason.  I say that there are times when we need to express with God our anger, our sorrow, our confusion, and our frustration.  Being in relationship with God means being able to express ourselves, share our thoughts and feelings, be open and true to ourselves.  I think that this is what God wants.  As a parent, I know that I would rather have my child yell at me and disagree with me, no matter how difficult that may be, then to cut me out of their lives or pretend to be someone that they’re not.  

It’s how I’ve learned to read the psalms.  We love the psalms of joy, the ones that praise God and make a joyful noise, but there are other psalms that ask God to thrash our enemy, to tear them limb from limb, make them suffer.  These psalms are expressive of a people who have been trampled and now want their enemies trampled.  People have fantasies about harming those who have harmed them and as long as they remain fantasies, that’s OK.  It’s better to express our anger, whether it be in poetr, music, or in stories, by screaming at God, than to let it fester and grow.

The hatred expressed on Friday in New Zealand is a sign of brokenness.  It’s not the way we want to see anger expressed, killing innocent people, because of their religion.  Hate spreads.  Many people lost loved ones in this shooting and there will be anger and hate.  How do we show our support?  How do we extend the hand of friendship to our Muslim neighbours?  How do we overpower that hatred with our love?  It’s won’t be easy.  I saw people standing on a street corner in London Ontario on Saturday with signs that read, “Not in My Name” and “Muslims Are Our Neighbours.”  We need to show our solidarity, especially now and especially as Christians.

God wants all that we have, all that we are, even if that means our anger and grief.  God especially wants to be near us and a part of us when we are suffering.  And we can also be that for others.  We can be there for people in their anger and their grief.  We can be that presence of God for people who need to vent and grieve and be angry.  The hate will sometimes wear itself out if it is absorbed with love by others.  

Read the words of Job.  Hear his anguish.  Hear his grief.  Job lost all that he had, including his beloved children and his health.  During those times when you are experiencing loss, sit with Job and feel free, like Job, to question God, question why me, why this.  Shake your fists at God.  God won’t mind.  In fact, I believe God will wrap you in God’s loving embrace and hold you until you’ve gotten it all out, until you’ve exhausted yourself and just sink into that loving presence  May it be so and thanks be to God.  Amen.

The Tempter

The past week, people have been captivated by what is happening with the Prime Minister and the resignation of cabinet ministers.  I’ve been a part of a few conversations this week, and feeling I didn’t know enough, I decided that I needed to dig a little deeper and find out what the talk was all about.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, I'll share with you the little that I know.  Past Attorney General, Jody Wilson-Raybould, has stated that many government officials, including the Prime Minister of Canada, had inappropriate conversations with her about a court case with SNC-Lavalin, who is being charged with fraud and corruption in connection with nearly $48 million in payments made to Libyan government officials between 2001 and 2011.  These government officials wanted Wilson-Raybould to defer the charges as it could mean a loss of jobs and that it might affect the upcoming election in Quebec.  

I was hearing all of this just before the first Sunday of Lent, which is when, in churches, we read the story of Jesus’ temptation in the desert.  If you don't know the story, in each of the first three gospels, Mark, Matthew, and Luke, there is a story about Jesus going into the desert for forty days and nights and where he is tempted by Satan, with wealth, power, and glory.   As I thought about this old story and the story in the news, I couldn't help but connect these two stories.  I imagined top government officials with Wilson-Raybould, trying to influence her decision on this court case, tempting her to think their way, to follow their direction, to make their interests her interests.  As far as I know, she did not give in to this temptation, and she believes for this reason, she was later removed from her position as Attorney General.

I'll state right away that I am not trying to paint Wilson-Raybould as the Jesus figure and the Prime Minister as satan; it’s a bit more complex than that, but it is a story with one party putting pressure on the other, government officials leaning on the Attorney General, attempting to lead her away from, what she sees as, the straight and narrow path.

This year, during the season of Lent, I have chosen to explore the biblical story of Job.  Job is not an easy book to tackle but it’s worth tackling.  It’s a brilliantly written book, full of beautifully written poetry.  It’s a book that deals with the big questions, especially the question of theodicy, which is an exploration of why a loving God allows suffering and evil to persist in the world, a question we all seem to grapple with at one time or another.  

The book of Job is part of the Wisdom Literature of the Bible, along with the Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs.  Rachel Held Evans, in her book, “Inspired,” writes that “the aim of wisdom literature is to uncover something true about the nature of reality in a way that makes the reader or listener wiser” (pg 96) and that the book of Job “favours the wisdom of those who have actually suffered over those who merely speculate about it (pg 97).”    

Because Satan appears in the Jesus story in the wilderness and in the story of Job, I thought it appropriate that we look at the role of Satan.  Chapters 1, 2 and 42, the last chapter, of the book of Job tell a story that is believed to be older than the rest of the book, a story of folklore, passed down for many generations and even in different cultures.  It’s a story in which God is influenced by Satan, causing harm to others, a story that makes us question who God is, and which is probably why we usually avoid this story.

In this story, God is very much like a king holding court and Satan is like an informer.  This Satan roams the land, almost like a spy, keeping watch over the kingdom, and informing the king, or in this case, God, of what is happening, the general mood of the kingdom, where there might be any disobedience or unrest, or anyone disloyal to God.  In this story, God doesn’t seem to know all, but needs the court to offer  information.  So, here we have God, surrounded by heavenly beings presenting themselves, and God is bragging about Job, the one person in the kingdom who is like no one else on earth, “a blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil.”

Satan is one of these heavenly beings and sees an opportunity.  Now, I’ve been saying the name Satan like it’s a proper name, but actually it’s a title or a job description, like the minister, the chef, the teacher.  The satan.  This word satan has a number of meanings.  It might mean the tempter, the adversary, or the accuser.  You can also see the satan as a persuader or an opportunist.  In our gospel, after tempting Jesus in the desert, we read at the end of that passage that the satan leaves until a more opportune time.  In the story from Job, this is the opportune time and God falls for the bait. 

Upon hearing God brag about Job, the satan says, “Does Job fear God for nothing? ¹⁰ Have you not put a fence around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. ¹¹ But stretch out your hand now, and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.”  In other words, God has protected Job up to this point; God has not put up any obstacles to Job’s success.  Only take away all that Job possesses, and Job will certainly curse God.  So be it, says God.  Let’s find out.  All Job’s worldly possessions and success are then taken away, including his ten children, all in one fell swoop.  Job is left with nothing, but, contrary to the satan’s expectation, says, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there; the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”  God wins this wager.

But the satan is not finished and continues to taunt God by saying that people would give everything they have to save their own skin.  Stretch out your hand, the satan says, and touch his bone and flesh, and he will certainly curse you.  God takes the bait again and this time Job’s body is struck with horrible, itchy sores, from head to toe and still Job says, “Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?”  Thus do we have the saying, “the patience of Job.”

As I said earlier, this is an old story, one in which God acts more like the gods of old, playing with human lives, than the one all powerful God we are used to reading about in our scripture.  It’s also a story with easy answers and with Job seeming like a bit of a patsy, just accepting whatever comes his way as God’s will.  The rest of the book of Job, turns this story on its head, but we’ll dig into that a little bit more in the following weeks.  

The satan in this story and in our gospel story is a powerful presence.  These stories use a powerful figure to personify the effects of temptation and influence in our own lives and how strong and powerful they can be and how difficult to ignore, similar to the animated figures we see of an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other, presenting both sides of an argument, but the devil always seems to have the better one, easier, more fun, more self-serving.  The angel has to fight doubly hard if the right and true way is the more difficult direction or more of a sacrifice and more for the good of others.

I don’t judge people like Wilson-Raybould or Justin Trudeau because I know that politics is filled with temptation and influence.  There are a number of stories on film, on TV, in books of politicians being seduced by power, of being caught between a rock and a hard place and having to choose a lesser of two evils, of people, good intentioned, who get into trouble.  

Needless to say, I don’t usually hold up politicians as role-models.  They too often disappoint.  It’s a world that corrupts many.  I think I’ll stick to a different role model.  I’ll follow the one who resisted temptation, resisted and refused the satan in the desert who promised wealth, power, and glory.  Jesus went into the desert after his baptism.  The experience changed him, so that he felt ready to preach the word of God, to show a new way, and resist the current powers of the land.  That’s a model I want to follow, even though it is the more difficult direction and may not always be in my own self-interests.  

Jesus took the difficult road, he resisted the way of power and glory, and that journey, the one working towards God’s kingdom, healing, teaching, and leading, eventually led to the cross.  How far are we willing to go?  Would we resign our position, expressing our lack of confidence in our leaders?  Would we go public with knowledge that might potentially cause a loss of reputation?  Would we face down our tempters, those people encouraging us and influencing us to go in a direction we know is the wrong choice?  

When I am tempted, I use Jesus as a role-model but I also rely on the strength I receive from my family, from my own inner integrity, and a supportive community.  From where do you find your strength?  How do you withstand temptation, the satan that always seems to be waiting on our shoulder?   

May you find those spaces that give you strength, those people, places, or activities that keep you grounded and pointed in the direction of truth, compassion, and justice.  May you find in Jesus a role model, one who has shown us a way to live, a way to die, and a way to live again.  As we live in this complex world of multiple directions and decisions, a world full of seductive power and privilege, may the Spirit, that angel that resides on the other shoulder, be your guide and your wisdom.  Thanks be to God for good role models and loving supports.  Amen.