March 31, 2020 (lectionary for today)
Setting out on the Red Sea Road, patience worn out by the journey, the snakes bit them and they were disgusted with the wretched food. Moses prayed for them anyway, out there on the Red Sea Road. “Let my cry come to you!” (Numbers 21, Psalm 102)
Jesus frightened the Pharisees when he said he would go away and they would not be able to find him. Not only that, they would die in their sin. He would go up and they would go down. God was with him, and they were blind. “The one who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone.” (John 8)
And that’s the way it was, just as John told the story. I walked on down the Red Sea Road, and they looked as I passed, and they raised their noses. That was all of them that would be raised.
Didn’t you take pity on them, Jesus, as you did so many others? Why did they get the sharp end of your stick?
Because they knew better, because they taught their students and the village elders and especially the village people not to look up but to look down. Not to look at their insides but their outsides. And most of all, to impress others, all the while thinking they were impressing God. God does not impress. He loves. She loves.
I think your anger is righteous. But still, it’s anger. And the anger does not become you, at least not in my mind. It makes you seem petty and defended.
Well, of course that’s what Moses thought too, and told me so. But he pulled a few more punches, and was nice to me. You are angry yourself, angry at my anger, and not sure what to do.
That’s true. But my anger is my problem, and those Pharisees were Jesus’ problem then, and it sounds like they are Jesus’ problem now. I know what it says in Ezekiel about false teachers and punishment for sleeping watchmen (ch 13 and 33). But I remember what you said on the cross. “Father forgive them for they don’t know what they are doing.” Doesn’t that apply too to the Pharisees, the Scribes, the Sadducees, the dictators, the killers, the edge of it all? The awful carping legalists and secularists and armies of the dead?
Wow, what a list! Yes. It applies to them. Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. My anger at the Pharisees does not exempt them from forgiveness. I ask my Father to forgive them too.
Well, thanks for sharing that, Jesus. I am still confused, but I appreciate that you act out of what seems like a paradox to me. Contradictions on top of contradictions, and out of all that thinking, you act in love.
Is it OK with you that suffering accompanies human life? Can you settle into that truth even when the suffering is not upon you, not bearing down on you like a two-ton truck? Because, David, you know, as your daughter-in-law said, the suffering comes, but in it you will never be alone.
There’s more to that, though. I will be with you, but my presence isn’t always comfortable. I’m like that lion in Narnia. I may not be nice, but I’m always good.
What does that mean, anyway? Your presence might not be comforting – that surprises me. But then I remember the metaphor in Hebrews, that with each other you want us to SPUR one another on to love and good deeds. Spurring is more painful than comforting.
But YOU are comforting to the ones you touch with your love and good deeds. As they come out of their own funk and pain and grief they will turn back, spurred on by others, and comfort you. I just stay out of the way.
You made us to be a family. We were made that way, in our pain we discover it again when we are loved and good deeded. Our sin, is to put up our borders, think of our scarcity, protect instead of give, push in instead of out. Limit our family. Define our family according to our own deserts, our own wisdom, our own desire to live forever. You don’t need us to do any of that. All of us belong to you, and all of us belong to each other.
I get that. But for me, my trouble is even as I think of all people as my family, I sit alone at my keyboard writing this instead of raking their leaves.
Yes. That is a problem. There is more much more and the More requires that you move your feet and face and smile and help and encourage. But still, your words might be encouraging, and are sometimes, when people hear them.
This is hard for you to figure out. Are you doing enough? Well, don’t forget, what you do is not for me. I love you no matter. And as too many skeptics say, you can’t save the world on your own. So what do you do, and what don’t you do? What do you give, and what don’t you give? Can you follow your gut, even while you’re thinking up a storm?
Margaret has said she’s felt for her whole life that she must save the environment, if necessary on her own. She says she knows she can’t, but she still feels that way. She saves everything, and that means too much doesn’t get thrown away, piles up. It’s a puzzle.
But she listens to her gut (made by me, of course), she gets closer that way to being the woman she was made to be. That’s a good thing. A very good thing. How can you spur her on to love and good deeds, especially when you are not comfortable yourself? Or can you just comfort her, listen to Paul … love keeps no record of wrongs, does not delight in evil. Love trusts and hopes. Love is patient and love is kind.
Ok, thank you Jesus for attending me. And for prodding me with the blunt end of your stick instead of the other one. Quiet my soul, quiet my words, clean out my listening ear, send me out.
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