suffering

Dismantled

/ JJS / Leave a comment

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Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 56; 149, Jeremiah 52:1-34, 1 Corinthians 15:12-29, Matthew 11:7-15

When Jerusalem finally fell to Babylon, it fell hard. The king’s sons were killed and his eyes were put out. Priests, councilors, officers, and random citizens were executed in a show of force and cruelty that ended in the exile of Judah. The Babylonians sacked the temple, looting everything down to the serving utensils and decorative bronze pomegranates.

No one could say they didn’t see it coming. From Israel’s first king Saul through her last king Zedekiah, nearly all of them betrayed the Lord and the people in significant ways. Time after time, the Lord allowed them to repent, and spared both king and kingdom. The Lord had no desire to see his people suffer, and was generous with forgiveness. But after more than twenty kings and nearly as many generations, the Lord’s warnings that nothing good would come from choosing to be led by kings were undeniable. Israel and then Judah fell to foreign invaders and for all intents and purposes ceased to be.

In time they would be restored, at least for a while. The period in between was one of grief not just for the Jewish people, but also for the Lord.

The Lord never delights in our suffering, but also doesn’t seem to stop us from bringing it upon ourselves. Our relationship with our creator is based on love, and love can never be forced. Is all our suffering a result of our own decisions? Certainly not. Many times it’s the fallout of other people’s decisions. Sometimes it’s unavoidable or unpredictable, like a disease or a disaster. But our stubbornness and hard hearts still cause us no end of grief. And at times it feels like the consequences of our actions return to dismantle us down to the smallest details of our lives.

During those times, wouldn’t we prefer a God who, satisfied that we’ve learned our lesson, quickly snatches us from spiritual exile and restores us to good fortune? But easy fixes aren’t love either. Love stands by to offer the appropriate support while we fix ourselves … and sometimes it has to wait a long time for us to figure out both what we need to fix and the will to do it. No matter how long it takes, God waits.

When we feel undone by life, let’s cling to the certainty that God does not leave us, but grieves with us until we find our way back to wholeness.

Comfort: God is with you even when it doesn’t feel like it.

Challenge: If what you’ve been doing isn’t working … do something else.

Prayer: Open to me the gates of righteousness, that I may enter through them and give thanks to the LORD.. (Psalm 118:9)

Discussion: When the people of Israel eventually returned to their homes, they had to rebuild from the ground up. Have you ever had to rebuild instead of fixing?

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Blood and Fire

/ JJS / 2 Comments
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The Sacrifice of Elijah before the Priest of Baal, Domenico Fetti, c. 1622

Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 51; 148, 1 Kings 18:20-40, Philippians 3:1-16, Matthew 3:1-12

Today’s readings from 1 Kings and Matthew give us two very different perspectives on sacrifice.

When after three years of exile, drought, and famine the prophet Elijah returned to confront the corrupt king Ahab, he had to get past the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal with whom Ahab and his wife Jezebel had aligned themselves. Elijah challenged them to a contest: we’ll each sacrifice a bull, and whoever’s god manages to set it on fire is the winner. To attract their God’s attention and favor, the prophets of Baal marched around their bull until they were limping.  “They cut themselves with swords and lances until the blood gushed out over them.” If anything their bull only grew cooler as evening approached. Elijah was so confident in his God that he soaked the wood four times before offering his prayer. The fire of the Lord consumed the bull, the wood, and the stone and boiled off the water.

In the gospels, John the Baptist is closely associated with Elijah. Like Elijah he wore rough clothing of camel’s hair and a simple leather belt. John survived on a diet of locusts and honey. He was probably a little scary, living on the edge of his community and inviting the wrath of both the Jewish and Roman authorities by declaring the coming of the messiah. John, who would ultimately be imprisoned and executed, suffered for his faith.

Other than the fact that the prophets of Baal followed the wrong god, what differentiated their sacrifices of self-mutilation from John’s self-deprivation?

The prophets of Baal injured themselves in order to entice their god to do their bidding. John suffered because he wanted to do God’s bidding. With all our talk of Christ’s blood and the cross, we Christians sometimes seem to blur those lines. Our God is not one who demands sacrifice and suffering for the pleasure or cruelty of it. Needless suffering is something Christ asks us to remedy – not to perpetuate. Yet there are times we will suffer for staying true to our faith. The prophets of Baal limped and yelled and bled because they believed in a God who needed to be persuaded to want good things for them. We stay true to our God and find redemption in hardship because God’s love is a fire already burning within us.

Comfort: God doesn’t desire your suffering, but when you must God is with you. 

Challenge: Watch Paul Bloom’s video Against Empathy.

Prayer: Loving God, I turn my suffering over to you that you may transform it into redemption. Amen. 

Discussion: Do you think of your own suffering the same way you think of other people’s? Are you more likely to ask “Why me?” or “Why not me?”

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Angels in the Wilderness

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Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 84; 148, 1 Samuel 17:17-30, Acts 10:34-48, Mark 1:1-13

Imagine that on your first day of work the boss introduces you to everyone by proclaiming how proud he is of you. Then he immediately assigns you to an extended gig at a remote branch to square off against a disgruntled former employee who now runs the competition. Per the opening chapter of Mark, that pretty much summed up Jesus’s first day on the job: John baptized him, God announced his favor from the heavens, “and the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness” where he spent forty days grappling with Satan.

That’s the way life goes though. Just as we screw up the courage to make that change, or earn that promotion, or have that baby, we discover it comes with a new set of problems we weren’t anticipating. We start to ask if we weren’t better off before we got what we wanted. It doesn’t seem fair that doing everything right leads to more work. But if Jesus – in whom God was “well pleased” – was sent to suffer temptation in the wilderness, maybe we should realign our expectations and definition of success.

Doing good work – especially God’s work – does not guarantee ease. To the contrary, the Jews as God’s chosen people suffered tremendously, and Christian history is filled with martyrs. Our own callings vary, but all are real and we must engage with them. Accepting accountability – to our boss, our children, ourselves, or God – enlightens us to the brokenness in the world, and how much of it we are called to heal, prevent, or bear witness to.

The Spirit didn’t send Jesus into the wilderness alone: angels waited on him. We too have support available in our fellow Christians who share the same accountability. When times are tough, we remind each other why what we do is important. We help carry each other’s burdens. We listen. We cry. We are angels to each other.

Faithfulness doesn’t create suffering, but it does put us in touch with suffering that already exists. We can count on our God – and our angels – to see us through it.

Additional Reading:
For more on today’s opening chapter of Mark, see Many Waters, One God or Intersections.
For more thoughts on today’s passage from Acts, see Astounding Gifts.

Comfort: Even in life’s wilderness, you are not alone.

Challenge: Write a thank you note to one or more “angels” who have helped you through difficult times.

Prayer: To you, O LORD, I lift up my soul. (Psalm 25:1)

Discussion: What’s the worst job experience that someone helped you get through?

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That’s it?

/ JJS / Leave a comment

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Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 123; 146, Job 40:1, 41:1-11, Acts 16:6-15, John 12:9-19

It’s here! The climactic chapter of the book of Job, wherein God will conclude his explanation of all Job’s suffering – and maybe the explanation of all our suffering. He’s told us about the majesty and wonder of creation that he alone is capable of. He’s made it clear we as mortals can never be righteous or wise enough to comprehend all he has seen and done. His final words of wisdom to Job and those present …

… are thirty-four verses about what may or may not be a super-hippo. Huh?

That’s it, folks. That’s all the author(s) of Job had to offer. Perhaps, in the end, the subject matter was beyond anyone’s ability to address. Maybe there simply is no good justification for a God who allows the slaughter of a man’s family to win a wager. Maybe God is an all-powerful jerk who couldn’t just say “Sorry, that was a rotten but necessary thing to do to you.” No matter what the explanation, we can’t help feeling God just sidestepped the whole issue.

And some of us may be asking, “Did I just waste my time? Why is this book in the Bible anyway?” Well, we haven’t wasted anything. We’ve spent weeks pondering the human condition. We’ve been appropriately outraged about injustice, and equally outraged by inadequate – even unloving – efforts to explain it away. We have inquired into the nature of God, and found the conveniently packaged answers lacking. In other words, we’ve done what serious Old Testament scholars have done for centuries: wrestled with our faith. With its lack of a satisfying resolution, Job may seem like the world’s earliest piece of post-modern literature, but – intentionally or not – it does its job (no pun intended) by leaving us with more questions than answers.

We will always seek meaning in our lives. Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar, Elihu, Job, and even God represent points of view we work through in our search. Like Job, the best answer we get in life may be: “It’s a God thing – you wouldn’t understand.” And we’ll keep searching, because the search alone holds meaning.

Comfort: The mystery of God is worth exploring our whole lives.

Challenge: Write your own response to Job’s questions.

Prayer: Compassionate God, thank you for your comfort when I suffer. Amen.

Discussion: What questions do you really wish you had answers to?

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Getting What We Deserve

/ JJS / 2 Comments

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Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 54; 146, Job 6:1-4, 8-15, 21, Acts 9:32-43, John 6:60-71

Our culture finds a certain satisfaction in seeing people get what they deserve. When we say “justice has been served” we are usually referring to the sentencing of a guilty person, or the acquittal of an innocent one. We romanticize the myth that anyone with a strong enough work ethic can “pull himself up by his bootstraps” and become a success. What we can’t quite wrap our heads around is when good things happen to bad people, and bad things happen to good people.

Job’s insistence that his suffering is unjust by such standards makes his friend Eliphaz uncomfortable. Like many of us, Eliphaz wants to believe people get what they deserve. He so desperately clings to a worldview threatened by Job’s situation that he can’t admit the reality that would comfort his friend: suffering is not always deserved. Job archly observes: “you see my calamity, and are afraid.”

Maybe questions that ask why people don’t get what they deserve are the wrong kinds of questions. Paul hunted Christians up to the moment of his conversion. What did he deserve? Jesus asks us to love and forgive our enemies. What do they deserve? What do we deserve? While most of the world works on a merit system, Jesus works with grace. “Good” people don’t need success, but spiritual growth. “Bad” people don’t need punishment, but healing. Deep down, we know this. We describe our criminal justice system as rehabilitative, though the reality is very different. Our worldly form of justice too often trumps the justice of Christ and the prophets.

What if Christian justice isn’t a focus on what we personally deserve, but on the act of providing bread and love and wholeness where none of these things are found? What if we are to temper accountability with mercy? Fairness with charity? Law with love? Suffering can’t be explained away in one or a thousand daily devotionals, but if our highest value is a life based on faith in Christ, that value is neither increased by prosperity nor decreased by suffering. In both joy and hardship we can find God.

Comfort: Grace is not earned, but given freely.

Challenge: When you read, listen to or watch this week’s news, note when worldly and Christian justice are they same and when they differ.

Prayer: God of justice, teach me its meaning. Amen.

Discussion: When are you tempted to promote worldly justice over Christ-like justice?

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Praising through Pain

/ JJS / Leave a comment

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Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 36; 147:12-20, Job 1:1-22, Acts 8:26-40, John 6:16-27

The Book of Job is sad, scary, and difficult: forty-two chapters tackling the big questions of why bad things happen to good people and in summary it concludes (spoiler alert!) you don’t get to question God. Its “happy” epilogue, if one thinks on it for more than a moment, is as horrifying as the rest of the story (replacement children? really?). But it drives home an important lesson many Christians would rather rationalize away: no matter how good or faithful you are, bad stuff can happen to you and you may never find a satisfactory reason.

By the end of chapter one, because of a wager between God and Satan, Job loses his oxen, donkeys, sheep, servants, camels, and children. Devastated by grief, he shaves his head, tears up his robe, and … falls to the ground in worship?

Naked I came from my mother’s womb,
and naked I will depart.
The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away;
may the name of the Lord be praised.

Have you known anyone to respond to a great loss – or a minor one for that matter – with sin  cere worship? Imagine comforting a grieving mother at a funeral by saying: “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.” A more common response is anger toward God, perhaps even a period of turning away. Yet Job does not hesitate to worship. A friend once said she gave daily thanks for both the good and bad things in her life. What a faithful prayer!

In all times, in all places, and under all circumstances, God loves us. It’s so very human to want explanations for suffering: God is testing us; God is refining us; God is punishing us. Maybe all of these are true and maybe none are. If there are lessons to be learned from our suffering, we should be open to them. But if there are none … God still loves us.

Worship always. If we must ask “What did I do to deserve this?” let the “this” be God’s undying, praiseworthy love.

For further reading on today’s text from Acts see Run Don’t Walk

For further reading on today’s text from John see Healthy Fear

Comfort: God is with you in good times and bad.

Challenge: Think back to a time you were angry with God. Offer Him now the praise you didn’t feel then.

Prayer: Creator and Redeemer, thank you for the love you bestow on me at all times. I am sorry for the times I couldn’t return it. I will praise you always. Amen.

Discussion: Everyone copes differently with grief. How do you?

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A Thing of Horror?

/ JJS / 1 Comment

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Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 88; 148, Judges 5:1-18, Acts 2:1-21, Matthew 28:1-10

“You have caused my companions to shun me;
     you have made me a thing of horror to them.”  – Psalm 88:8

What a jarring statement, to declare oneself a horror to companions and neighbors. Sadly, we can all relate. When we experience an extended personal crisis – a divorce, a job loss, an illness – most of us reach a point where we suspect family and friends must be weary of hearing about it. We notice (or imagine) that people have begun to avoid us. Whatever the situation, even when we feel most alone, God is with us. Like the psalmist, we may feel God’s face is hidden. When that happens, we may need to use prayers like sledgehammers to batter down the barrier a crisis erects between us and God.

And when the tables are turned? Do our neighbors in crisis ever become horrors to us? We grow tired of hearing the minutia of Bill’s family court drama. We have to drag ourselves to the bedside of a formerly vivacious friend we weep to see wasting away. Some days we simply aren’t up to the task. But on better days we honor the Christ of the cross – who had become a physical and social horror to his friends and loved ones – by seeing his face where people suffer. We all know someone who lends the ear, takes someone to chemotherapy, or bakes the casserole. Maybe we are that someone.

If you are that someone, let people who still struggle to serve others know you don’t have superpowers – you rely on the Lord for strength. If you are not that someone and find yourself struggling to serve, understand that you are more capable than you realize. None of us wants to share disease or loss any more than we want to experience it, but we do so because love calls us to. When we serve each other with love, no one – no matter how awful their situation – is a “thing of horror” to God. Each of us is a child of God in need. Let’s not be put off by a matter of degree.

Comfort: God loves us as a child, regardless of circumstance.

Challenge: If you find it easy to serve others, offer to help someone who struggles. If you struggle, find and work with someone who finds it easy.

Prayer: God of strength, I will serve you by serving others. Amen.

Discussion: Have you ever felt like a “thing of horror?”

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