Why do the wicked prosper? 11.17.13

Psalm 73:1-18

¹Truly God is good to the upright, to those who are pure in heart.

²But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled; my steps had nearly slipped.

³For I was envious of the arrogant; I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

⁴For they have no pain; their bodies are sound and sleek.

⁵They are not in trouble as others are; they are not plagued like other people.

⁶Therefore pride is their necklace; violence covers them like a garment.

⁷Their eyes swell out with fatness; their hearts overflow with follies.

⁸They scoff and speak with malice; loftily they threaten oppression.

⁹They set their mouths against heaven, and their tongues range over the earth.

¹⁰Therefore the people turn and praise them, and find no fault in them.

¹¹And they say, “How can God know? Is there knowledge in the Most High?”

¹²Such are the wicked; always at ease, they increase in riches.

¹³All in vain I have kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence.

¹⁴For all day long I have been plagued, and am punished every morning.

¹⁵If I had said, “I will talk on in this way,”

I would have been untrue to the circle of your children.

¹⁶But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task,

¹⁷until I went into the sanctuary of God; then I perceived their end.

¹⁸Truly you set them in slippery places; you make them fall to ruin.

John 12:23-33

²³Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. ²⁴Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. ²⁵Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. ²⁶Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.

²⁷“Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say—‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. ²⁸Father, glorify your name.”

Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” ²⁹The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” ³⁰Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. ³¹Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. ³²And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” ³³He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die.

John 16:1-10, 33

”I have said these things to you to keep you from stumbling. ²They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, an hour is coming when those who kill you will think that by doing so they are offering worship to God. ³And they will do this because they have not known the Father or me. ⁴But I have said these things to you so that when their hour comes you may remember that I told you about them.

“I did not say these things to you from the beginning, because I was with you. ⁵But now I am going to him who sent me; yet none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ ⁶But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your hearts.

⁷Nevertheless I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. ⁸And when he comes, he will prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: ⁹about sin, because they do not believe in me; ¹⁰about righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will see me no longer; ¹¹about judgment, because the ruler of this world has been condemned… ³³I have said this to you, so that in me you may have peace. In the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world!” 

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            I think we’ve all been in the psalmist’s situation. He describes looking at other people, especially selfish, arrogant people, and seeing that they have it easy. Sometimes it seems like everyone has it better than we do. Sometimes it seems like doing things the right way is a disadvantage because people who cut corners seem to have more time free and less stress in their lives. Sometimes it seems like the rules of the game aren’t fair and the only ones who get ahead are cheaters.

            We see corrupt Wall Street folks making millions on questionable deals. Even when they get caught, the penalty doesn’t seem very high. We’ve had coworkers who somehow skate by doing a shoddy job and letting others pick up their slack. We see sleek and strong professional athletes only getting more famous as they pile up episodes of bad behavior.

            In a world like ours it sometimes feels like you need to cheat just to keep up. It’s tempting to fall into a take what you can mentality, to envy those folks who are visibly successful and strive for success like theirs.

            Jesus is honest about the challenges that face us. He warns his disciples that they won’t only face trouble like everyone does; they are going to be persecuted because of their faith. It’s not just our perception: the world is actually out of whack. Greed is rewarded and compassion has an uphill battle.

            Jesus even suggests that evil is in charge in the world as we know it. We see the same idea when Satan tempts Jesus in the wilderness. Satan tells Jesus he will give him all the kingdoms of the world if Jesus worships him. Satan says all the world’s power is his to give away as he chooses, and Jesus doesn’t contradict him. There’s no doubt about it, evil is powerful in the world.

            That makes it harder to be good, harder to make the right choice. The more twisted things get, the easier it is to fit in and the more we adjust ourselves to an unjust reality. For instance, our politicians may have gone to Washington or Albany to work for justice, to improve our political life. But once they are there the power of the polarized environment makes it almost impossible to treat opponents like humans. The constant deceit of the campaign rhetoric makes any kind of compromise sound like weakness.

            That attitude filters down to regular voters too. We hear so much venom on the airwaves that it shapes the way we think about politics and people deeply. Words like “bigot” or “illegal” start rolling off our tongue and before long we start thinking of people who disagree with us as enemies instead of fellow children of God.

            When Jesus talks about the persecution his disciples are going to face, he is much fairer than we usually are. He says things are going to get so bad that people who kill Christians will think they are serving God. We know that’s how Jesus’ opponents thought about him too. Many of the religious leaders who worried about Jesus were afraid he was leading people away from the traditions given to them by God. They weren’t trying to be evil; they were just trying to protect their faith in a situation where the stakes were so high that disagreement seemed threatening.

            Our world, like theirs, feels threatening. The economy is fragile, so we think of human beings crossing a border to escape poverty as a threat to us. Relationships are challenging, so we close ourselves off from others. Faith and politics are full of important, difficult questions, so people with different opinions make us feel threatened. Money is tight, so we pursue it with hard work and clutch it tightly when it comes in. The world is tough and we become hard to protect ourselves.

            Jesus calls us to a better way. Thinking about his approaching death and the coming of the Holy Spirit, he claims that the ruler of this world is cast out. In other words, in Jesus’ ultimate love on the cross and his triumphant resurrection, God’s love conquers Satan’s power. Even though it doesn’t look like it, even though it still often seems like Satan rules the world, he does not. Even though love looks weak against the hard “facts” and callous actions we see every day, love will have the last word.

            The psalmist has a similar revelation when he goes into God’s temple. I’m sure it wasn’t the first or last time he went into the sanctuary, but for whatever reason, one day he saw things differently. Maybe today will be the day we see things differently; maybe today will be the way we see things from God’s perspective like the psalmist.

            Even though it looks like wicked people have it all; even though success seems so assured for them; the truth is quite different. He says he sees that God has set their feet in slippery places. When people put their trust in money or success or popularity or power, their feet are in a slippery place. In a second all of those things can disappear because they are things. A stock market crash can make a huge fortune disappear in a day. An illness can take away looks and popularity overnight. One picture on a website can bring power crashing down. Nothing we have is going to last.

            That means people who have built their lives around pursuing things have no real foundation. When things go wrong, they will fall, and since their focus has been on things and on themselves, they will not have the relationships and faith to sustain them through hardship.

            Is money a bad thing? Not unless it becomes our god. Likewise with all the other “good things” in life. It’s fine to enjoy good food, a comfortable home, and a rewarding career. But those things are not ultimate; they are not what life is about.

            The psalmist doesn’t say what it was in the sanctuary that revealed the truth to him, but I wonder if it was the community at prayer. There’s something amazing, transformative and sacred about a community of faith. When we really open ourselves up and pay attention to each other it’s hard to stay trapped in the world’s oppressive definition. When I sat with Sue Dargavel on Thursday I couldn’t help but think how fragile life is, how easy it is to let time slip away without visiting, how quickly someone can go from being independent to the border of life.

            When we spend time eating and talking and praying with people whose whole financial life is different from ours we see both how important and how unimportant money is. Everyone feels stress about money sometimes, but that means different things to different people. When folks who are fairly comfortable financially become close with those for whom a tank of gas can make or break the month, they are reminded of how much they really have and invited to clutch it less tightly and fearfully. When those who worry about how they are going to pay the heating bill spend time with folks who drive a newer car they see that more money doesn’t solve all their problems. It doesn’t create more time, it doesn’t solve family stress, it doesn’t eliminate fear.

            When we commit to life in a diverse community of faith we have brothers who never touch a drink and others who can’t put the bottle down. We have sisters who long for a husband and those who have escaped unimaginable abuse. We have family who have been here all their lives and those who grew up somewhere very different. We know people who can’t imagine life without a computer and others who remember life before TV.

When we really get deeply involved in a community we see life from so many different perspectives that we see the limits of our experience and the breadth of God’s grace. We learn from each other and realize that we have a lot in common despite our differences. We know that we all suffer; we share many fears and joys. We are all human, all God’s children and we all have something to share. That breaks us free from the rat race of measuring ourselves and each other by outward things and being captive to the powers of this world.

When going into the sanctuary changes us, when being with our brothers and sisters and hearing the word of God transforms our hearts, we see suffering and prosperity differently. We not only see that the wicked are not really secure, we also see that they aren’t really happy. And when we’ve practice loving a wide range of people through the community of faith, we can have compassion for those we used to envy.

Being part of God’s amazing community doesn’t give us a better job, or help us afford a bigger house. It won’t cure our physical diseases either. Christians suffer like everyone else. Jesus says it as clearly as possible: he tells the disciples that the faithful path will be hard. He also says that if they follow him, they’ll find a deeper peace, a deeper satisfaction that comes from trusting God, not things or situations. “I have said this to you, so that in me you may have peace. In the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world!”

In suffering and in joy, in celebration and sorrow we have peace in Christ. We offer and receive that peace from others through a caring community of faith. Suffering is real; evil is powerful, but love has the last word.

Thanks be to God.

Job, suffering, faith and truth, 10.20.13

Job 3:1-7, 10-11, 20-22

After this Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth. ²Job said: ³“Let the day perish in which I was born, and the night that said, ‘A man-child is conceived.’ ⁴Let that day be darkness! May God above not seek it, or light shine on it. ⁵Let gloom and deep darkness claim it. Let clouds settle upon it; let the blackness of the day terrify it. ⁶That night—let thick darkness seize it! let it not rejoice among the days of the year; let it not come into the number of the months. ⁷Yes, let that night be barren; let no joyful cry be heard in it… ¹⁰because it did not shut the doors of my mother’s womb, and hide trouble from my eyes.

¹¹“Why did I not die at birth, come forth from the womb and expire?... ²⁰“Why is light given to one in misery, and life to the bitter in soul, ²¹who long for death, but it does not come, and dig for it more than for hidden treasures; ²²who rejoice exceedingly, and are glad when they find the grave?

Job 4:1-11, 5:12-19

Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered: ²“If one ventures a word with you, will you be offended? But who can keep from speaking? ³See, you have instructed many; you have strengthened the weak hands. ⁴Your words have supported those who were stumbling, and you have made firm the feeble knees. ⁵But now it has come to you, and you are impatient; it touches you, and you are dismayed. ⁶Is not your fear of God your confidence, and the integrity of your ways your hope?

⁷“Think now, who that was innocent ever perished? Or where were the upright cut off? ⁸As I have seen, those who plow iniquity and sow trouble reap the same. ⁹By the breath of God they perish, and by the blast of his anger they are consumed. ¹⁴They meet with darkness in the daytime, and grope at noonday as in the night. ¹⁵But he saves the needy from the sword of their mouth, from the hand of the mighty. ¹⁶So the poor have hope, and injustice shuts its mouth.

¹⁷“How happy is the one whom God reproves; therefore do not despise the discipline of the Almighty. ¹⁸For he wounds, but he binds up; he strikes, but his hands heal. ¹⁹He will deliver you from six troubles; in seven no harm shall touch you.

Job 21:1-14

Then Job answered: ²“Listen carefully to my words, and let this be your consolation. ³Bear with me, and I will speak; then after I have spoken, mock on. ⁴As for me, is my complaint addressed to mortals? Why should I not be impatient? ⁵Look at me, and be appalled, and lay your hand upon your mouth. ⁶When I think of it I am dismayed, and shuddering seizes my flesh.

⁷Why do the wicked live on, reach old age, and grow mighty in power? ⁸Their children are established in their presence, and their offspring before their eyes. ⁹Their houses are safe from fear, and no rod of God is upon them. ¹⁰Their bull breeds without fail; their cow calves and never miscarries. ¹¹They send out their little ones like a flock, and their children dance around. ¹²They sing to the tambourine and the lyre, and rejoice to the sound of the pipe. ¹³They spend their days in prosperity, and in peace they go down to Sheol.

¹⁴They say to God, ‘Leave us alone! We do not desire to know your ways. ¹⁵What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? And what profit do we get if we pray to him?’ ¹⁶Is not their prosperity indeed their own achievement? The plans of the wicked are repugnant to me.

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            Job is a challenging and wonderful book. It’s got a beginning and an end to tell the story and the rest of the book is basically poetry. The different characters argue with each other, or rather, Job’s friends argue with him. They come to comfort him, but they can’t take the raw emotion of Job’s grief and they worry that his claims of injustice go against God.

            Religion taught that good people were rewarded and bad people were punished. We still generally think that in some way. We may call it Karma or say “what goes around, comes around,” but some part of us wants to believe that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people. It’s not just a religious belief, but a cultural one as well. We know it’s not true all the time, but we still want to believe it will all get sorted out correctly in the end.

            Job and his friends all make good points. They all make good points that echo other parts of the Bible and resonate with our own experience. I remember the first time I really read Job was in college. I wrote down a quote from almost every page. There’s some really wise stuff being said in this book and powerful poetry to go with it.

            That’s the irony of the book: each speaker makes good points, but they never come to an understanding. That’s the irony of suffering in general and why it’s so difficult for us to deal with. It just doesn’t make sense. We can’t understand it; we feel like serious, innocent suffering makes a mockery of everything holy we want to believe in.

            People of every religious background and level of commitment get hung up on this question. How can God be all-powerful and loving and still allow such terrible suffering? It doesn’t make sense; we can’t wrap our heads around it.

            So we try to figure it out. We come up with explanations like Job’s friends. Maybe your kids sinned, so God punished them. Maybe God is using this experience to lead you away from sin and make you even better. Maybe it’s a test of your faith. Maybe you’re not as innocent as you claim to be, after all, everyone sins. Everything happens for a reason.

            There’s truth in all the discussion. Scripture often talks about how God’s correction and discipline leads us to greater faithfulness. And we know the best of us still fall short sometimes. Job’s friends have their heart in the right place. The first seven days they spent with him they simply sat with him in silence to comfort him. Even in our second passage, when Eliphaz responds to Job for the first time, we can see that he wants to be encouraging and comforting. He tries to be gentle, but he’s also afraid.

            He’s afraid because grief as powerful as Job’s is hard to face. Job is in such despair he not only wishes he were dead, he wishes he had never been born and wants to erase his birthday from the universe. It’s hard to face raw emotion like that. More than that, Job’s deep suffering threatens the theological order of the universe. There are a few questions like that, questions that have the potential to shatter our understanding of the world or God or faith. Questions like why is there suffering? Is God real? Is the Bible true? These questions shake the foundations of our world, so we turn away from them.

It’s much easier to face the world with certainty. It’s much easier to get up in the morning if we understand the basic rules. For Job’s friends one important rule of the world was that living a righteous life led to success. And that rule had been working really well for Job too; he was very righteous and very successful. He was someone a parent could point to and tell their children, “If you follow God’s commandments and treat other people with justice, God will take care of you like he takes care of Job.”

            So when all that falls apart; when Job’s world collapses, what is the parent supposed to tell the child? What are the friends supposed to tell themselves? It’s much easier to look for a reason for Job’s suffering; so Job’s friends keep looking for a fault in Job with increasing desperation. Without a reason for Job’s suffering they are faced with a world that doesn’t make sense.

Job refuses to accept those answers. He says, “Look at me and be appalled.” He is exhibit A. As much as his friends want Job’s suffering to make sense, he hasn’t gone off the path of God’s commandments. The narrator confirms it too; right from the beginning we’re told that there was no one as righteous as Job. Even God lifts up Job as an example of what a human should be.

            Now, of course, in real life Job’s claim is dangerous because none of us is perfect. And Job’s friends are on to something: the first thing we should take a look at when things go wrong for us is how we might be contributing to the problem. But the truth of Job’s complaint is inescapable too; sometimes terrible things happen to people for no good reason. Sometimes suffering is simply unfair, unjust and incomprehensible.

            Too often the wicked do prosper. We see so many examples of people getting ahead by cutting corners or taking advantage of other people that it doesn’t even surprise us anymore. We see companies profit by destroying the environment. We see corrupt leaders who live out a comfortable retirement even when they are removed from power.

            Too often the innocent suffer. Ask the mother whose two year old was killed by a random bullet through the window. Ask the children starving in the mountains of Syria or the toddlers growing weak from malaria in South Sudan. Too often the innocent suffer, and too often the wicked thrive. The easy answers don’t do justice to the heartrending facts.

            So what are we supposed to do with all that? Honestly, I don’t have a great answer, at least as far as airtight logic goes. We can sympathize with Job’s friends who try so desperately to uphold the rules of religion as they have been taught. They are afraid of offending God, so they argue on God’s behalf, defending God’s justice. They are also afraid of the possibility Job’s suffering represents, afraid that if the rules they trust of reward and punishment aren’t really true, then maybe the whole foundation of their life is false too.

            That fear leads to rigid faith. It leads to a fear that if we allow any questioning of our core beliefs, we will lose everything. It’s a fear of looking closely at the world because we’re afraid what we will see is not what our religion tells us should be there.

On the other hand, we can imagine a universe ruled only by the laws of physics and biology but no moral law. We can imagine a universe where evil goes unpunished and good goes unrewarded. There’s a logical appeal to that too because then what we see is what we get. There are no mysterious forces at work and no ruler at all; we’re on our own. That view can easily lead to cynicism, resigning ourselves to the worst possible view of the world to protect ourselves from disappointment. We can give up our sense that the world should be better.

            The trouble is those theories don’t do justice to the moral light we know is in us. We can’t prove it, but we feel deep down the desire to do good. We feel better when we help each other than when we hurt each other. We have a sense of right and wrong at our core, and our instinct tells us that moral intelligence reflects our creator. When we read in scripture that God is love, it strikes a chord in our soul; it makes sense to us. We long for it to be true and it is. We see that love in the goodness of creation at the beginning, and in the full redemption of the world promised at the end. We see God’s love especially in the amazing, grace-filled ministry of Jesus and in his courageous, innocent death on the cross.

            Instead of being rigid in his faith and refusing the evidence or being cynical about the world and giving up faith’s power, Job takes a brave middle way. He sees the world as it is, but also as it should be. He proclaims that what is happening isn’t right. He calls out for justice and refuses to be silenced even by his friends telling him he is wrong.

            Job wrestles with the painful uncertainty of not understanding. He doesn’t resolve the tension by letting go of his faith or his grasp of the truth. He doesn’t understand why these terrible things have happened to him, but he knows they are. He refuses to adjust his sense of reality to religious teaching to make things clearer. Instead he demands truth and justice from God.

            He holds on to his faith and to his sense of right and wrong. Even as voices his rage about the wicked at peace, he goes on to say that the way of the wicked is repugnant to him. Even if it does work, even if evil isn’t punished and good doesn’t profit Job, he holds on to good and turns away from evil. Whatever happens, he knows God calls him to be righteous. That’s who he is; that’s the character he has build on a foundation of faith. It’s not the rigid foundation that needs to be right and fit reality to it’s vision. It’s not a soft foundation that goes along with whatever is going on, right or wrong. Instead it’s a firm foundation flexible enough to absorb that the world is not always what it should be, but solid enough to push away from cynicism or relativism.

            Job’s courage is a model we need now. It’s the courage to face the world without having all the answers. It’s the courage to hold on to faith and to hold on to truth. It’s the courage to speak out against injustice even without having all the answers. Job’s courage doesn’t free him from trouble, and our courage won’t either, but it will allow us to face trouble with integrity and to stay faithful even when the way isn’t clear. That’s a courage we need today and always.

Thanks be to God.

           

barriers to repentance (7.3.11)

Matthew 11:16-30
16“But to what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to one another, 17‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn.’ 18For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon’; 19the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.”

20Then he began to reproach the cities in which most of his deeds of power had been done, because they did not repent. 21“Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the deeds of power done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. 22But I tell you, on the day of judgment it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon than for you. 23And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? No, you will be brought down to Hades. For if the deeds of power done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. 24But I tell you that on the day of judgment it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom than for you.”

25At that time Jesus said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; 26yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. 27All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. 28“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. 29Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”


Romans 7:15-25
15I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. 17But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. 19For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. 20Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me.

21So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. 22For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, 23but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with my mind I am a slave to the law of God, but with my flesh I am a slave to the law of sin.
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Reflect briefly on the following words:
Sin
Repentance
Good
Evil


Repentance is a hard word to hear; often we cover our ears and head off in a different direction instead of examining our hearts honestly. John the Baptist and Jesus both found themselves in trouble for calling people to repent. We often put up the same barriers to repentance that Jesus and John’s audience did in their time.

In our passage from Matthew, Jesus takes his audience, his generation, to task for closing their ears to God’s message. He says, “John came neither eating nor drinking and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ The son of man comes eating and drinking and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard; a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’”

His point is that people reject God’s message of repentance when it comes through John because they see his strange clothes and write him off as crazy. Then they reject God’s message of welcome and forgiveness when it comes through Jesus because he hangs out with questionable characters. Like petulant children, they only want things their way. They only accept a message that comes in the expected package and says what they want to hear. How often do we ignore a critique or suggestion because it comes from a person we don’t expect? How often do we put down the Bible because we don’t like what it says about us?

We also sometimes ignore the message of repentance because we forget that we need it. We say to ourselves: “I’m a pretty good person. I don’t hurt anyone or break the law.”

For many Jews of Jesus’ time, especially the religious leaders, it was simply taken for granted that they were God’s favorites and that everyone outside Israel was outside of God’s plan. Jesus shatters that illusion by talking about foreign cities like Tyre, Sidon and even Sodom. Jesus says those gentile cities would have repented if they had seen the miracles he did in Israel, but the Israelites he’s preaching to haven’t repented. The people closest to the message are least likely to listen.

We have the same problem in the church. Many of us have grown up with Jesus’ words, so they can seem like just part of the background of our lives. Familiarity dulls the impact of Christ’s calling, so we get complacent about our spiritual lives. We forget that Jesus is always calling us to repent, to follow, to grow in our faith and let the word change us.