Posts Tagged ‘disappointment’

God in the small things

December 17, 2022

Advent 3 – 2022
Matthew 11:2-11 (some belated thoughts)
Marian Free

What no eye has seen nor ear heard, the Lord has prepared for those who love him. Amen.

Even though none of us can predict the future, we all have certain expectations. Some expectations are realistic – the sun will rise tomorrow, we will get older rather than younger, we will continue to love our children. Much, however, is beyond our control. We cannot know with any certainty what tomorrow will bring – whether we will still have a job, whether our health will hold, what the weather will do. Even so, because it is difficult to live with uncertainty we make plans, we assume that things will stay the same and that we will be able to determine our futures. For many of us, things work out – if not exactly as expected. We finish our education, get a job, form a relationship, and are generally satisfied with our lot. Others, for reasons that are not always within their control, reach a certain age and find themselves wondering what went wrong, why their life hasn’t worked out as they thought it would. In the worst-case scenarios, some wonder if they have wasted their lives, or if fate has been against them.

This seems to be the situation in which John the Baptist. now finds himself. Having started out confident that he knew what the future held, he now finds himself languishing in prison, wondering if he was right when, certain that God’s promised one would come, he had announced that Jesus was the one. Now he is not so sure. His expectations (whatever they were), have not been met. The Roman oppressors have not been overthrown, the Temple practices are still corrupt and the difference between rich and poor remains the same. Has his life been wasted? Should he have taken a different turn? Did he mistake his role, his place in God’s plan?

Whatever was going on in John’s mind, it is clear that he needed some reassurance, some certainty that he had been on the right track. He sends his disciples to Jesus. to ask whether he really is the one who is to come, or should they be looking for another?

Jesus’ response is interesting. Instead of answering John’s disciples directly, he tells them to look around themselves and to notice that the blind have received their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised and the poor have good news brought to them. In other words, Jesus points out to John that there are signs that God is active in the world in ways that God had not been active before. The signs are subtle to be sure, but they are obvious to anyone who looks carefully. God (through Jesus) is not upending the world, overthrowing the oppressors, demanding complete and total obedience from God’s followers. God is making the sorts of changes in peoples’ lives that allow them to live well under any external circumstances. Jesus is making people whole. He is not filling them with rage and encouraging them to use violence to overthrow the Romans – that would be only a temporary solution. The blind would still be blind, the lepers unclean. People would still be unsatisfied with their lot.

Jesus brings wholeness – not revolution. John’s fiery proclamation was to turn people’s hearts towards God, to enable them to be receptive to the one whom God sent, to be willing to submit themselves to God’s will, rather than to long for God to radically change the world.

We are not told John’s reaction to Jesus’ response, but there is of course a lesson for us in this gospel.

In a world beset by war and terror, the effects of climate change, corruption and inequity, it can be difficult to see the evidence that God is active in the world. We, like John, can be filled with despair and wonder if we have it right. At such times we, like John need to be reminded that God is not to be found in the dramatic, that God does not take sides (which might make things worse rather than better), and that humankind has not, as a whole, turned to God. Jesus wants us to see that none of that means that God is absent from the world or from our lives. God can be found in everyday miracles – new shoots after a fire, a child’s smile, the goodness of strangers, the sacrificial acts of aid workers and more especially in the birth of a child – who contrary to all expectations will change the world.

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Ask and you will receive?

July 27, 2019

Pentecost 7 – 2019
    Luke 11:1-13
Marian Free

In the name of God Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier. Amen.

Some time ago I met a very angry woman. She had prayed and prayed that her mother would recover from cancer and still her mother had died. She felt utterly betrayed by a God whom she had been led to believe would answer her prayers. Her anger and hatred were all-consuming – in part, because despite her deep disappointment, she still believed that there was a God. It was just that God had turned out to be very different from the picture of God that she had in her head and God had let her down at the very time when she needed God most. The death of her mother convinced her that God was indifferent to human suffering, and that God had no personal interest in the affairs of individual people. This woman could not give up her faith, but the faith in which she had trusted had failed to give her comfort when comfort was required, and she could not forgive God for that betrayal.

She is not alone in feeling let down by a God who does not seem to answer prayers. There are many good people who feel disappointed and abandoned when their prayers go unanswered.

What is it about our teaching on prayer that leads believers to have such high expectations of results and which as a consequence lets them down so badly?

There are, no doubt, a variety of answers, depending on one’s background and experience of Sunday School and church, but a great deal of the problem stems, I believe, from today’s gospel which implies first of all, that if we pray with enough persistence God will give in to our request and secondly, and perhaps more dangerously that God will give us whatever we ask for in prayer. After all Luke 11:9 says clearly and unequivocally: “Ask and you will receive.” Can we then ask for anything no matter how selfish or punitive?  I suspect not.

To understand Jesus’ teaching on prayer, we must look at Luke 11:1-13 as a whole and not take one or two phrases out of context.

In the first instance is important to note that Jesus is speaking to the community as a whole and not to individuals. Jesus is responding to the disciples’ request: “Teach us how to pray as John taught his disciples.” In other words, how do we pray together?

Jesus begins his response with the words of a prayer – the only prayer that Jesus teaches. [We could, of course spend an entire sermon on the Lord’s prayer alone, but my intention is to show that the parable of the neighbour at midnight and the command to ask are framed in such a way that it is clear what it is that we are to ask for and what it is that God will give.]

The prayer starts by asking that God’s name be sanctified by the behaviour of the community – “hallowed be your name” and continues with a desire that God’s kingdom come, that the reign of God may become a reality for the whole world. In other words, Jesus’ suggests that prayer is about giving priority to God and to the kingdom of God. When we use this prayer, we are called to recognise that how we behave reflects on God – in other words if we behave badly, we bring God into disrepute and God’s name is cheapened, not sanctified. “Your kingdom come.” Together we express a desire that the world as a whole might come under the rule of God and that therefore that all the peoples of the world might live as God intended. These are not sentiments that relate to the wants and needs of ourselves as individuals, they are words that have a universal application.

Jesus’ teaching on prayer concludes by telling us what it is that we are to ask for. “How much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spiritto those who ask him!” We ask and receive, we seek and we find, we knock and the door is opened to us. It is clear that it is the Holy Spirit that we are to seek and for which we are to ask and who will open the door. God will unstintingly give the Holy Spirit to all who ask for it and in turn, empowered by the Holy Spirit, our prayers will, in effect be the longings of God uttered by ourselves.

Like all things spiritual though, most of us grow into prayer. We begin with “prayers of request (what we want) and move to prayers of gratitude (thanksgiving and praise) and graduate to prayers of empowerment (participation and collaboration with God)[1]”.

As our relationship with God deepens and matures, we become less focussed on ourselves and on our own needs, and more concerned with the kingdom’s becoming a reality. As we learn to listen to and to lean on God, we become attuned to what it is that God wants and what it is that God wants to us to pray for. The more practiced we are in prayer the more likely it is that our prayers will be aligned with the will of God and the more closely our prayers are aligned with the will of God, the more likely it is that they are to be answered.  When, empowered by the Holy Spirit, we are able to sincerely pray: “Your kingdom come”, our prayers will be God’s prayers and we will ask for what is truly best for ourselves, for our neighbours and for the world.

 

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So easy it seems hard

April 1, 2017

Lent 5 – 2017

John 11:1-45

Marian Free

In the name of God who love us beyond our wildest imagining. Amen.

“If only” must be among the saddest words in the English language. They express regret, disappointment, a certain dissatisfaction with the way things are and a yearning for things to be different. They suggest an unwillingness to accept that life is beyond our control and that it includes the good and the bad. They represent a failure to live in the present and a striving for what is probably an unrealistic and ideal future. Or, as in the case of today’s gospel, “if only” expresses a desire that God would behave in the way that we expect.

There are, as is often the case with John’s gospel, a number of things going on in today’s gospel. Jesus’ life is in danger. The Pharisees have been trying to stone him, which means that for Jesus to be anywhere in Judea, let alone near Jerusalem, is extremely dangerous. According to John Jesus makes three trips to Jerusalem. Apparently while there he chooses to say with his friends, Martha, Mary and Lazarus, whose home in Bethany is only a couple of miles from the city. The siblings are more than friends with Jesus. They share an intimacy that would allow Mary to anoint Jesus’ feet and to wipe them with her hair, and that gives the women courage to tell Jesus that “the one whom you love is ill.” Not only are they close friends, but Martha and Mary have confidence in Jesus’ ability to bring about healing.

When Lazarus becomes ill, they send a message to Jesus, but Jesus doesn’t come. The sisters don’t have the advantage that we have. They don’t hear Jesus’ discussion with the disciples. What they know is that a friend who loves them not only doesn’t come, but fails to even to send a word to explain the delay. One imagines that the sisters are disappointed and confused by Jesus’ behaviour. His failure to honor their friendship and to come to their aid must have taken them by surprise.

No wonder both women reproach him when, long after Lazarus has died, Jesus finally turns up. “Lord if only you had been here our brother would not have died,” they say. We could have been saved this trouble and this grief – “if only you had been here.” Their confidence in Jesus’ ability to heal is unchanged. They simply do not understand why he would choose not to save their brother.

The reaction of the women is often overshadowed by the miracle of the raising of Lazarus, or overlooked because of Martha’s declaration that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, but it is important to notice the reproach and to recognise that, despite their friendship and love, the women are not afraid to let Jesus know that they feel he has let them down. It is probably because the sisters know Jesus so well that they feel free to tell him just what they think.

Both the Old Testament and the New are populated with real people who have real feelings and real failings, both of which are essential to their relationship with God. When we read the bible we don’t get the sense that the various characters on the pages are trying to be something that they are not. We are not given the impression that if a person is less than perfect that God will have nothing to do with them. We learn that from Abraham to Martha and Mary, those who are close to God, those who have a strong relationship with God have no problem in either being themselves or in letting God know exactly what they think. Abraham takes God on when God threatens to destroy Sodom, Moses suggests that God will look foolish in the eyes of the nations if God destroys Israel, the woman at the well was not afraid to tell Jesus that it was the Samaritans, not the Jews, who were the true believers, and Martha and Mary have no qualms in greeting Jesus with a reproach.

These characters have one thing in common – an open and honest relationship with God/Jesus – a relationship in which they are not afraid to tell God/Jesus exactly how they feel, in which they are comfortable to have their doubt and uncertainty, their frustration and disappointment exposed for all to see. They didn’t care if they appeared foolish or uncertain and they had no problem letting God/Jesus know just what they thought. When they were face-to-face with God/Jesus, they were not overcome with embarrassment, self-consciousness or shame. They were comfortable enough in their relationship with Jesus to have their flaws and doubts laid bare.

Over the past four weeks we have met characters who, in conventional terms have been anything but model Christians, let alone perfect human beings. Nicodemus is timid and uncertain, the woman at the well had had five husbands, the blind man came to faith only in stages and Mary and Martha reproached Jesus for being late. During this time, we have observed people who were not confident that Jesus was who he said he was, whose self-interest led them to misunderstand what he said, who took their healing for granted and who scolded Jesus for not responding in a timely manner.

We learn from these characters that if we want our relationship with God/Jesus to grow, it is important that we are completely honest – about ourselves (our strengths as well as our weaknesses), about our questions, our doubts and yes, even about our anger and disappointment. We can take the lead from those in the bigger story that it is not only OK, but that it is healthy to enter into debate with God, to voice our concerns and express our frustration. Our relationship with God is like any other relationship. It cannot grow if there is dishonesty, fear and anxiety, but only if there is openness, respect and trust.

My hope is that this Lent you have learned something of God’s boundless love for you, that you have gained confidence to be yourselves – knowing that God’s love will not be withdrawn – and that you understand that the best relationship with God is one that is honest and true, one in which nothing is hidden and in which we are so sure of our place in God’s love that we are not afraid to let God know what we think, to ask the difficult questions and even, as did Martha and Mary to question God’s reaction (or lack of action) in regard to issues that we think are important.

Being a Christian has nothing to do with being good and everything to do with being in a relationship with God – Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier. It is only because it is so easy that it sometimes seems so hard

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