Many Deaths
Wednesday, September 10, 2008 -- Week of Proper 18
Alexander Crummell, Priest, Missionary, and Educator, 1898
Today's Reading for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 983)
Psalms 119:49-72 (morning) 49, [53] (evening)
Job 29:1, 30:1-2, 16-31
Acts 14:19-28
John 11:1-16
Job chapter thirty opens with Job's complaint about the argument he has received from his friends. But he turns his focus away from them, and back toward God. Job pours his soul out in complaint and accusation to God. He speaks of the depths of his affliction. He asks God why God cannot be at least as compassionate as Job has been. Job responded compassionately to the needy and suffering. But God has brought Job only misery and silence, which will end only in death.
Job is a Biblical model who invites us to speak our anguish to God with passion. Only God is great enough to receive our darkest emotions and not be damaged. We know that God will listen and accept Job's complaint. God will listen and accept ours.
As we move toward the passion of Christ in John's gospel, we begin the dramatic story of Lazarus' death today. Read in relationship with Job, we see some of the same dynamics at work. Jesus hears of Lazarus' illness, but does not return to Bethany immediately. He delays two more days in the place where he is. By the time he sets out toward Lazarus' home, it is too late. Lazarus is dead.
The disciple Thomas is incredulous that the group is returning to Judea where recently they barely escaped with their lives. With resignation, Thomas says, "Let us also go, that we may die with him."
In our story from the Acts of the Apostles, Paul has stirred up so much opposition that a crowd stones him and drags his body out of the city, presuming him to be dead. He has survived. So they move to the next community, and start doing the same business, targeting the Gentiles who attend the synagogue as Godfearers, inviting them into the Christian community which declares Jesus as the risen One.
Death is all around. There are the thousand deaths we endure in all of the life-attacking events we confront. There is the death of anger and conflict; the death of illness and oppression; the death of suffering and frustration. All our roads lead finally to physical death and the end of our lives on this earth.
The witness of scripture is that God is with us. God is with us through our suffering and our death. The story of Jesus is the story that God is with us, living with us through anger and conflict, through illness and oppression, through suffering and frustration. Jesus brings divine presence to our suffering, making meaning where there is none and healing where there is brokenness.
What God does with death is resurrection -- life through death. Jesus does not sidestep death. Death happens. Jesus enters death with us, and through his power brings resurrection. As Dorothy Sayers puts it: "God did not abolish the fact of evil. He transformed it. He did not stop the crucifixion. He rose from the dead."
God is with us. Through death comes life.
Lowell
_____________________________________________
Audio podcast: Listen to an audio podcast of the most recent Morning Reflections from today and the past week. Click the following link: Morning Reflection Podcasts
About Morning Reflections
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
The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church
is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance, and love.
Visit our web site at www.stpaulsfay.org
Our Rule of Life
Lowell Grisham, Rector
Audio podcast: Listen to an audio podcast of the most recent Morning Reflections from today and the past week. Click the following link: Morning Reflection Podcasts
About Morning Reflections
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
The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church
is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance, and love.
Visit our web site at www.stpaulsfay.org
Our Rule of Life
We aspire to...
worship weekly
pray daily
learn constantly
serve joyfully
live generously.
worship weekly
pray daily
learn constantly
serve joyfully
live generously.
Lowell Grisham, Rector
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas
Fayetteville, Arkansas
posted by Lowell @ 8:15 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Lowell's statement that "Only God is great enough to receive our darkest emotions and not be damaged" gave me pause. How many times have I in anger - righteous or otherwise - vented to a friend or redressed a wrong with caustic accounts of the truth? It IS damaging. Thinking deeply on that fact will make me more likely to give it only to God - to turn it over in prayer, to treat it with the antidote as Buddhists' do, and to remember that Jesus, our ultimate role model,always turned the other cheek (except with those pesky money changers - the modern equivalent of ex-spouses and attorneys). :-)
I used to struggle with Job's story and wonder what lesson was to be learned from the seemingly pointless and indiscriminate way God and the devil played out a game with the life of Job. Now I see: give the deep complaints only to God. We all have them, to one degree or another. Ours are no more special than anyone else's - in fact, the story of Job definitely can outdo anything that may happen to us (perhaps that was the point of the indiscriminate misfortune cast upon him unjustly -to stir strong feelings in us and make us question just like Job - and then learn to do as Job does. Give it to God, no one else.
Amy,
Thanks for your thoughts and deep feelings. For those of us who have been through great anguish, Job is a fellow traveler on a challenging road.
Lowell
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