When facing catastrophe

Friday, November 13, 2006 -- Week of Proper 27

"Morning Reflections" is a brief thought about the scripture readings from the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer according to the practice found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.

Morning Prayer begins on p. 80 of the Book of Common Prayer.
Evening Prayer begins on p. 117
An online resource for praying the Daily Office is found at www.missionstclare.com
Another form of the office from Phyllis Tickle's "Divine Hours" is available on our partner web site www.ExploreFaith.org at this location -- http://explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/index.html

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (p. 993)
Psalm 80 (morning) // 77, 79 (evening)
Joel 1:1-13
Revelation 18:15-24
Luke 14:12-24

So many portions of the scriptures lament our helpless and tragic circumstances and beg God to respond. Psalm 77 cries passionately, "My grief is this: the right hand of the Most High has lost its power." The psalmist has been pouring out prayer to God, and nothing has happened. "Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he, in his anger withheld his compassion." The best the poet can do is remember. "I will remember the works of the Lord, and call to mind your wonders of old time." He thinks about the mighty acts of God from the past and hold on to those memories as faith. That is all he can do in a threatening present.

The circumstances seem even more grievous in Psalm 79. It is written at a time when foreign armies have overthrown Israel and Jerusalem with destructive violence. "They have given the bodies of your servants as food for the birds of the air. ...They have shed their blood like water on every side of Jerusalem, and there was no one to bury them." In grief, the psalmist can only cry to God for vengeance. "Pour out your wrath upon the heathen who have not known you. ...May the revilings with which they reviled you, O Lord, return seven-fold into their bosoms." Exhausted in his rage, spent in sorrow, the psalmist closes, quietly reclaiming his identity and faith. "For we are you people and the sheep of you pasture; we will give you thanks for ever and show forth your praise from age to age."

Joel mourns a locust plague that he knows will devastate his people. They live in an agricultural society that lives from year to year on its crops. This plague of locusts will produce famine like genocide. His mourning reverberates through the centuries. Eventually Joel will call his people to worship, ask them to repent and to seek God's forgiveness. Eventually he will speak a word of hope and restoration.

Reading Revelation is like looking through the other side of the mirror. The destruction is to Rome. For John, this devastation is only a cause for rejoicing. This great city has been the cause of greed, immorality and great suffering. John can only imagine satisfaction in its destruction. I find his glee disturbing. Yet I know that the consequences of some injustices are often catastrophic.

Finally we hear from Jesus. He too describes a catastrophe. The banquet feast is prepared, and everyone invited it too preoccupied to attend -- business and family issues... Jesus has a novel solution. The uninvited are welcomed. The unclean who would be judged by the Biblical purity code -- the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame -- are not only invited and brought to the feast, but the master tell his servants to "compel people to come in, so that my house may be filled."

How do we respond in the presence of catastrophe? Sometimes we keep our faith only through memory. Sometimes we rage until we are spent. Sometimes we feel judgment, we change our direction and hope for a new future. Sometimes we enjoy another's comeuppance. Occasionally we are creative enough to take a catastrophe and turn it into a new opportunity to expand grace.

Lowell
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The Rev. Lowell Grisham
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, AR