Epistle for 7th Sunday of Easter 24 May 2020

1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:6-11        Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that is taking place among you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you are sharing Christ's sufferings, so that you may also be glad and shout for joy when his glory is revealed. If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the spirit of glory, which is the Spirit of God, is resting on you.

Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you. Discipline yourselves, keep alert. Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour. Resist him, steadfast in your faith, for you know that your brothers and sisters in all the world are undergoing the same kinds of suffering. And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, support, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the power forever and ever. Amen.

Reflection        Please join me mounting a ten thousand feet above the ground perspective from which to scan the course of life and it’s ordeals?

From the beginning of our faith traditions narrative some thirty four hundred years ago, there has never been a time without ordeals and suffering. In the third chapter of Genesis our first named human ancestors succumb to the temptation to aggrandize themselves by “eating from the tree of good and evil,” and the man blames the woman and the woman blames the serpent and our human propensity to shirk responsibility and look for someone to blame for our troubles is born and the consequences of our choices are; shame, hard work and consciousness of pain.  The next thing that happens is sibling rivalry. Cain is jealous of Abel, so kills his brother. Before we wander through seven chapters of the first book of the Hebrew Testament humanity is nearly extinguished by a great flood. 

Here is the thing. The Genesis stories are not historical records of events. They are our ancestors attempts to understand and make meaning from their mysterious ordeals. Why are some people favored more than others?  Why do women have pain in childbirth? Why is there suffering? Why do people die? Humanity’s questions echo from the beginning.

And so the writer of 1 Peter entreats us, “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that is taking place among you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you.” There has never been a generation that did not face fiery ordeals.  But here is the thing. When the writer includes in his exhortation, “to test you,” he is not describing situations designed for us to either pass or fail. Testing means proving or refining. In the text from 1 Peter, testing is being “restored, supported, strengthened, and established.” Established in relationship to something greater than us, a ubiquitous perspective, something that we call God, something that has been emerging through billions of fiery ordeals.

4.5b years ago there was the birth of a planet we call earth. Perhaps we could think of this as the big ordeal that set the stage for the first microorganisms that predicated life 3.5 billion years ago. The earth’s surface broke into rocky platelets that moved and gave birth to the first continent named “Ur.” That was 3 billion years ago. Sex started about 1.7 billion years later with red algae which led to multicellular life but then on two occasions the entire earth froze. A subsequent explosion birthed animals with shells and massive diversification then, you guessed it, the first mass extinction about 450m years ago. Next fish that walked inhabited the single earth continent that then tore itself apart and another mass extinction preceded dinosaurs. We know what happened to them. 

Question is not, “Why are there ordeals?” The question is “How do we choose to walk through ordeals?”  The writer of 1Peter continues with good counsel. “Humble yourselves… Cast all your anxiety on (God)… Discipline yourselves, keep alert.” Because during ordeals we are vulnerable. 

Early Wednesday afternoon, sitting in my office with a laptop recently gave to the church. The thing is, it is a PC and I am a Mac user, so I decided to get it set up ahead of time for our 2 pm Centering Prayer and Lectio Divina  meeting. Much to my relief I managed to get the zoom site running then left the laptop open and continued to work on my own computer. At some point I noticed the image of a beautiful lion’s head looking at me from the PC. I actually stopped and thought about the beauty of this noble beast before closing the laptop and carrying it to the library for the meeting.

At 1:58 when I opened the laptop, the screen was bright blue. No matter which key I touched I could not get past the sea of blue nothing. Depressing the power button failed to turn it off. Time is passing, my cell phone is buzzing with texts from meeting participants wondering where I am. Huffing and muttering things that I shall not write, I grab the recalcitrant laptop and retreat to my office, hoping against hope that I can access zoom and open the meeting on my unreliable Mac. Stomach churning, heart pounding, mind racing, you might think I was being chased by a lion rather than late for a Centering Prayer meeting. And there we have it.

“Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour.” Humble yourself Debra. Stop being anxious about all the changes and how to lead the church through this Covid-19 ordeal. Put your faith in God and resist the devil’s temptation to assume you have to figure this out, make everything work. Stay alert and know “your sisters and brothers in all the world are undergoing the same kinds of suffering.”  

Whether we choose to begin our story 13.7 billion years ago with the massive fiery ordeal that blew space into smithereens, thirty four hundred years ago with our Hebrew ancestors’ attempts to make sense of their mystifying ordeals, or the most recent time the roaring lion showed up to steal our peace or shake our faith, there is no escaping life’s ordeals.

So what shall we do when the lion roars? Be disciplined and alert saying, “Welcome, welcome, welcome. I let go of my desire for things to be different than they are.”

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Psalm for Sunday the 17 of May 2020

Psalm 66.7-18

Bless our God, O peoples,

   let the sound of his praise be heard, 

who has kept us among the living,

   and has not let our feet slip. 

For you, O God, have tested us;

   you have tried us as silver is tried. 

You brought us into the net;

   you laid burdens on our backs; 

you let people ride over our heads;

   we went through fire and through water;

yet you have brought us out to a spacious place. 

I will come into your house with burnt-offerings;

   I will pay you my vows, 

those that my lips uttered

   and my mouth promised when I was in trouble. 

I will offer to you burnt-offerings of fatlings,

   with the smoke of the sacrifice of rams;

I will make an offering of bulls and goats.

Come and hear, all you who fear God,

   and I will tell what he has done for me. 

I cried aloud to him,

   and he was extolled with my tongue. 

If I had cherished iniquity in my heart,

   the Lord would not have listened.

Reflection        Friday morning I received a text, “Got an email from you this morning that looks different. Should we talk?” Having no recall of sending an email to this person, I quickly visited the “sent” folder on my computer and thankfully discovered that I had not. A follow up phone call confirmed, once again the cunning hackers who stole my contacts a year ago have sprung into their shady swindles. By noon five congregants let me know they too received malicious emails, feigning to be me, asking for their discrete help so that I could give money to folks who have been dealing with Covid-19. 

This was not my best moment. I felt “pushed to my very limit, road tested inside and out, driven to hell and back again.” My thoughts were anything but kind and generous. Savage and murderous would be more accurate. “How dare these blank blank people prey on the precious relationship of trust and good will between me and the church?” Every cell and space of my being strained to the psalmists words, “O God, you have proved us; * you have tried us just as silver is tried. You brought us into the snare;  you laid heavy burdens upon our backs. You let enemies ride over our heads; we went through fire and water.” Really, God, are we not enduring enough? Is not Covid-19 enough? Do we really need these contemptible criminals fleecing our faith and good will?

Then I caught myself sounding a lot like Job. You know the story. Job is a man of grand slam success and faithfulness. With ten children, thousands of sheep, camels, oxen and donkeys, he is an admired businessman, beloved employer, devoted father whom even God describes saying, there is “no one like him on earth, blameless and upright.” (Job 1.8)  God’s favor ignites the ire of the Satan (here it helps to recall we are talking about a tale told in the Ancient Near East where stories of wars between good and evil were ubiquitous). Satan provokes a contest protesting, “You (God) have blessed the work of (Job’s) hands, and his possessions have increased in the land.” (Job 1.10) Which is to say, “Why wouldn’t Job be faithful to you, he has everything imaginable. But, if Job lost everything, “he would curse you God to your face.” (Job 1.11) God accepts the wager, tells Satan to go ahead, take everything away from Job except his life. 

Job looses every evidence of his external success; children, livestock, business, friends and community. Although Job insists he is innocent, he never speaks out against God which really infuriates Satan, the enemy who challenges God. “People will give up anything to save their own life. But if you make Job suffer in his flesh…then “he will curse you to your face.’” Betting that Job will persist in his integrity, God accepts the second wager and empowers the Satan to inflict life threatening suffering on Job. And indeed, though his body is covered with oozing boils and Job sends himself into exile sitting on an ash heap, when his wife confronts him saying, “Do you still persist in your integrity? Curse God and die,” Job endures saying to his maligned wife, “Shall we receive the good at the hand of God and not receive the bad?” 

Which brings us back to today’s psalm.  “You let enemies ride over our heads;

we went through fire and water; * but you brought us out into a place of refreshment.”

Now let me be crystal clear. Neither the ancient wisdom tale of Job nor the words of our psalmist are meant to paint God as the grand puppet master, pulling our strings in a pre-scripted theatre production. Let me suggest instead they are meant to inform our relationship with God. Even more to the point, no matter the good or the ill we encounter along the twisted way we call life, God is with us. The question is, are we with God, no matter what? Do we face life with the integrity of Job?

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