Has God withheld good?

In Psalm 84 the writer insists (v.10), “No good thing does [God] withhold from those who walk uprightly.” Yet, even though we’re working hard to walk uprightly, we sometimes find ourselves in situations or circumstances that are very far from anything we would have chosen:

• Maybe we’re not in the relationship our heart cries out for.

• Maybe we’re in the relationship of our choosing, but it hasn’t turned out the way we’d expected or hoped.

• Maybe our career has taken an unexpected and disappointing turn, or things have bottomed out professionally.

• Maybe we don’t have the health we used to take for granted, and the future we face looks so much more limited and frustrating than the one we’d mapped out for ourselves.

• Maybe “peace like a river” simply doesn't attend our way anymore.

• Or maybe God has gone silent on us; that sense of his presence and love—the sense of his face shining on us—the joy that once seemed so real has evaporated and left us with the sense, rather, that God has withheld—or is withholding—good from us..

Whatever it may be, we sometimes find ourselves where we don’t want to be.

That was also true for the writer of this week’s Psalm. He longs to be in Jerusalem, and for whatever reason isn’t. His soul has a longing and desire for the courts of the Lord. His heart and his flesh cry out for the living God. He yearns to be part of the worshipping life of the Temple. But he is, for reasons we don’t know, very far from where he wants to be, and he looks longingly for what he does not, or cannot have.

So what does he do about it? And what might we learn from the Psalmist about how we might respond to similar situations or circumstances?

Hating Just Waiting

I hate just waiting, which helps explain why I can’t stand amusement parks. Did you know that if you visit the Magic Kingdom for a day (adults: $105; children 3-9*: $99) and visit the top five attractions, according to thrill-data.com, you will spend an average—average!—of 10 hours and 46 minutes in line, or on line to be grammatically correct, or on queue to be just pedantic. This barely gives you time to wait on queue for food.

Waiting just seems like such a waste of time I could spend something—anything—else.

According to the internet, in their lifetime, the average American will spend just north of five years waiting on lines or queues, where about six months of that are spent at red lights. It just breaks the heart. And it’s impossible to avoid. We spend a lot of life waiting, and this has always been the case.

Jesus is talking about waiting in this week’s Gospel reading. We’re at a point in Luke where Jesus is talking about his second coming. That time when he will usher in the kingdom of God in its fullness. When justice is done. When everything that’s wrong will be made right again.

But he’s not asking us to “just” wait. There’s something else we can do. Something important.

A bit harsh

Do you ever wish Jesus were a bit more polite? It sounds a bit sacrilegious, I know. The disciples thought this way on occasion. Sometimes they tried to help Jesus a bit, by informing him that he may be offending the Pharisees, for example.

In our Gospel reading this week, Jesus sounds a bit...harsh. He informs us that servants should not expect to be thanked by their masters, but rather admit their unworthiness.

Yet, it is important to interpret Jesus' words carefully. As modern Americans, we don't take naturally to the language of servants and masters, and we are inclined to expect rewards frequently.

But Jesus' culture of discipleship is refreshingly free from entanglements, mixed motives, hidden obligations, and manipulation. In contrast to many ofthose around him, his agenda was not distorted by false notes, but was clear, compassionate, truthful, kind, and good.

Jesus was not cozy with false motives, but neither was he dismissive of anyone who sought him, regardless of the reason. His invitation to join him as servants in his Kingdom of God movement ushers us into forgiveness and reconciliation, fruitfulness, collaboration, and purpose.

Polite? I don't know. Good? Beyond imagination! I look forward to exploring this more together with you on Sunday.

The opposite of love

Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor and 1986 Nobel laureate famously said, “There is no love without hate, and there is no hate without love; but the opposite oflove is not hate, it is indifference.” This quotation came to mind this week as I was meditating on our readings for Sunday, because of something these scriptures exposed in me…nothing so “unrighteous” as hatred, but rather a pernicious kind of indifference.

The charge the Prophet Amos leveled against Israel was that while they cared extravagantly for their own bodies, they had become indifferent to the needs ofothers. The Rich Man in the parable Jesus told didn’t hate poor Lazarus who sat at his gate every day—he was just indifferent toward him (and paid a high price for it).

The pernicious problem of indifference this Sunday at 10. We will also, as always, sing, pray, read the Scriptures, and celebrate the Eucharist together.

Resonance

When I got serious about playing the guitar in my thirties, I took two years ofclassical lessons (none of which I now remember), and a year of fretboard theory (little of which I’ve retained except perhaps the ability to play an ascending diminished minor chord—the music that’s always played to build tension in silent movies when the maiden is tied to the railroad tracks and the train is bearing down. So at least I’ve got that going for me, which, I’m not going to lie, is nice.).

My teacher, Dr. Lovelady (his real name), a banjo (no kidding) and guitar virtuoso, was old school and not only hated but forbade digital tuners. Believing it developed a, pardon the pun, “sounder ear”, he required students to always tune with an A440 tuning fork. I still have mine. Acoustic guitars have a kind ofnatural resonance with that note, and when you place the vibrating 440Hz fork against the soundboard and get the A string tuned to 440Hz exactly, it’s a genuinely beautiful and resonant thing.

Because I now use a digital tuner when I play, I haven’t thought about this for years. What brought it to mind now is something Jesus said in this week’s Gospel. Like a tuning fork, our heart—what we love—resonates so naturally with a good but potentially dangerous thing we handle in some form literally every day, that unless we fundamentally reorder our loves, wherever “it” is, our hearts cannot not follow.

This is of such vital importance for his disciples that the Gospels record Jesus talking more about this than any other single topic.

See you Sunday.

“Say you’re sorry”

When I was a child and was caught antagonizing my siblings, I was given the directive by my mother or father: “Steve, say you're sorry.” Often times, my siblings were required to apologize to me. I'm sure many of you have similar experiences.

Apologies are complicated for everyone involved. The one who harms another and the one being harmed are engaged in interpreting the event with greater or lesser degrees of culpability or shared responsibility, varying perspectives, differing expectations, and complex emotions such as shame, fear, anger, or disappointment.

Repentance is a unique form of apology, expressing regret or remorse for sin or moral failings. According to Google, the use of the word diminishes significantly after the 19th century. The word doesn't sit well within our contemporary culture. Yet, our Anglican liturgy emphasizes the importance of repentance as a daily practice. Thankfully, God has provided just what we need to find forgiveness, peace, and what our liturgy calls “a quiet mind.”

King David's Psalm 51 is one of the most important examples of repentance in the Bible and helps us confront and navigate some of the challenging dynamics that occur when we have done something wrong.

Episcopal Visit and Confirmations

As an Anglican, one of the things I’m profoundly grateful for is that as a local church we’re not out there on our own. Not only are we part of a worldwide Communion, a Province, and a Diocese, but we also have a godly and loving Pastor. No, not me (though hopefully I occasionally tend toward both). It’s our Bishop, Julian Dobbs—Overseer of ~40 churches, a member of a College ofBishops, led by an Archbishop. Anglican Priests, Bishops, and churches, while having some degree of independence are not autonomous.

Once or twice a year, +Julian pays Redeemer an Episcopal Visit (“Episcopal” means, “of a Bishop”, or “of Bishops”). This is a time for him to get to know us, encourage us, and better shepherd us. It’s also an important time for us to hear his heart and get to know him a just a little better. Normally, when a Bishop visits, he will preach, Baptize, Confirm (three of our friends will be Confirmed Sunday), and preside over Communion…in other words, as our Pastor he serves in the local Priest’s place (or really, on all the other weeks of the year Steve E. and I by virtue of our Ordinations and licensure serve in his place).

The Great Resignation

When offices shuttered across the country in March 2020 and millions ofworkers submitted to mandatory stay-at-home orders, many employees were forced to work remotely. Overnight, organizations had to pivot to a virtual-first or virtual-only mode of operation.

In a matter of weeks, our kitchens and bedrooms became our offices. For some, the sudden shift meant more than bringing work into their home; it meant they wore the hats of professionals, schoolteachers, and caregivers all at once. For others, the time previously spent serving at church, dining out, attending concerts with friends, or sweating it out at the gym was suddenly freed up. Our lives became basically unrecognizable, triggering a widespread reevaluation ofthe role of work in our lives…and many have concluded that it really shouldn’t have one. People are simply leaving work behind in staggering numbers.

This extraordinary and unprecedented trend, chronicled by The New York Times over the past year in a series of articles entitled “The Great Resignation”, seems to be built on the implicit belief that work itself is wrong or a mistake…that humans can’t both flourish and work.

But this is entirely antithetical to the Biblical story, which insists that work is integral to a flourishing (and worship-filled) life.