[Propertalk] 5 Lent a 2017 - part 2

[Robert P Morrison]

Here's the second part for Sunday.
Blessings!
Bob

	 We sigh, we cry, we hold our breaths, our minds stop taking in the
human cost and the apparent hopelessness created by human greed, and
power-wielding, and, yes, stupidity. 

	 Yet the prophet discovered that even where there seems to be such
devastation and impoverishment of the human spirit, even when whole
villages, towns, states are being wiped out; even in West Mosul, and
in Sudan, and in South Sudan, and in Yemen – the prophet discovered
that wherever we think that no solution can be found; even there, in
the depths of misery and chaos, God stands present. God will not, God
can not be overwhelmed. God’s love can not be obliterated – by God
or by anyone else. 

	 These are, perhaps, the sort of scenes and situations of which the
prophet lamented. 

	 “I can’t do anything, God. The situation is impossible: the
pain, the grief, the thoughtlessness, or worse, the deliberate
cruelty; God, life seems so utterly hopeless. I can’t go on!” 

	 But, if there’s one thing that the Psalms teach us, it’s that
yelling when we experience all the crises of our lives is not only
O.K. It’s expected! God wants us, NOT to feel depressed or
overwhelmed, but, when we DO feel overwhelmed, God wants to hear how
we feel. God always wants to have us feel that we can express our
feelings, because then God and we, working together, and with others
around us, can look to see what responses can be made. 

	 Nowhere is it suggested that God wants us to do nothing. Nowhere is
it suggested that God wants those feelings and experiences to be
papered over either. God knows that we HAVE to struggle in order to
meet the daily challenges, and to mask that in any way simply
postpones the task of dealing with whatever we’re facing, and it
will exacerbate the problem. 

	 God didn’t blind the eyes of Ezekiel or the heart of the psalmist.
Ezekiel saw the terror of all those skeletons reaching to the horizon;
the psalmist felt so oppressed by the weight of everything going on
that neither of the two felt that there was anything which could
possibly bring salvation and renewal to their lives, individually and
as a community. 

	 It all looked so hopeless 

	 Where is God, we all cry, when someone we love dies, or is severely
wounded in a car wreck, or in a terrorist attack, or in
government-induced disease, famine, and drought by the withholding of
basic supplies? Where are you, God? If only You’d make Yourself
known, and pay attention to what’s happening. Oh, God! Why?! 

	 Just as Martha and Mary cried out – why, Jesus? Why were You not
here? Why do you come when there’s food to share, and stories to
tell, and laughter to last long into the night? Why are you there then
and You’re not around when Lazarus and we need You? 

	 It’s not just Martha and Mary berating Jesus either. We ALL do it,
in one way or another. 

	 So what’s the answer? 

	 Well, every time this question comes up throughout our Holy
Scriptures, as we see in the passages today; every time the question
comes up, God/Jesus IS there in one way or another, and we’re told
NOT to refuse to deal with our darkness, or to try to ignore it. For
if we fail to ask the hard questions we may not find the answer that
God has prepared for us in which to participate. And the answer indeed
may involve dealing with stench, with unpleasantness, even with the
admission that someone CAN and WOULD be able to be the agent to remind
us of the Presence of God. 

	 The Good News is that even when the stench of what surrounds us is
enough to make us gag; even when the physical pain is enough to
paralyse us; even when the emotional beating we’re experiencing has
us at the bottom of the deepest hole there is; even there, as the
psalmist points out, even there You are there, O God. 

	 When our brother, our sister, our child, our parent is threatened
with calamity; when we ourselves find that we’ve reached the
absolute end of our rope and darkness descends about us, suffocating
sounds which might remind us of the world and people around us; even
there, as Ezekiel found, as the psalmist found, as Martha and Mary and
their neighbours found; even at the point where we feel there’s
nothing at all; even there, there is the hope of the promise of hope. 

	 At no point in our lives are we separat3ed from the Love of God. 

	 One of the metaphors given in our Lenten discussion programme talked
about people being in the dark, and the person who described the
situation said that she could be used by God as the switch that brings
light to whatever, to whomever is despairing. 

	 This Presence of God; this inspiration by God to encourage us to
turn on the switch for ourselves and for others; this is what Ezekiel,
and the psalmist, and Jesus tell us is present for us. 

	 We can bring life through God working through us. We can bring hope.
We can experience this for ourselves as much as for others. We can
make this a vital part of our lives and, equally importantly, we can
make this vital, AND PRACTICAL, for countless others. 

	 In the dark of our lives, it may be difficult to find that switch.
But it IS there. It’s ALWAYS there. That’s a promise from God! 

	NOTE: 

	[1] http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=55841
[1]  

Links:
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[1] http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=55841

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