Lamenting the Violence (Pastoral Letter on the Uvalde Shooting)

"Thoughts and Prayers" by A. Mattson

“How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? … How long must I bear pain in my soul, and have sorrow in my heart all day long? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?” (Psalm 13:1-2)

The past two weeks have been punctuated with awful violence. 

On May 13, a public playoff party in Milwaukee turned into chaos when gun battles broke out and injured 21 people. The next day, a racist gunman entered a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, and killed 10 people. Then the next day, a man walked into a church in Laguna Woods, California, and shot 6 people, killing one, because of political hatred towards Taiwanese independence. And then this week, we saw yet another school shooting in which a young man killed 19 children and 2 adults, and wounded 17 more. 

And if all of that weren’t horrifying enough, the war in Ukraine continues to kill over one hundred people per day, according to one estimate, and a bombshell report came out over the  weekend that the Southern Baptist Convention has spent decades ignoring or belittling victims of sexual violence by church leaders.

Following previous tragedies — like Sandy Hook, the Sikh temple shooting, the Boston Marathon bombing, the Charleston Nine, Parkland, the Miller Brewery shooting, and probably more —  I have written a pastoral letter (such as I am now) to offer perspective and hope. Each one gets harder, and I must admit I am struggling to find the words to write this time. The words that keep coming to me are from a hymn based on Psalm 13: “‘How long, O God?’ The psalmist cries, a cry we make our own, for we are lost, alone, afraid, and far away from home” (“How Long, O God,” Ralph F. Smith).

How long, indeed. 

In the midst of my pain and frustration at yet more violence, these words remind me of a gift from Scripture that we often forget: the practice of lament. In our culture, we often focus on the positive and dismiss the negative, but this isn’t what we find in scripture. Almost half of the Psalms are laments; the book of Job is pages of complaints about the injustice of the world and demanding to hear from God; the prophet books are filled with commands to repent and weep over the evil people have done; and there’s even a whole book called “Lamentations.” 

Instead of ignore the negative and focus on the positive, the Bible encourages us to name the negative and pray for the positive. After all, it’s not a surprise that the world is not as God intended it. Since the beginning, humans have been rebelling against God’s plan for the flourishing of life on earth in favor of our own ideas. (That rebellion is what we call sin.) 

Lament is a way of naming the world’s brokenness and that we are victims (and perpetrators) of that sin. Though lament can feel overly critical or negative towards God, it is one way of us turning back to God for answers, which is what we should be doing anyways. If human rebellion created these problems, we need holy wisdom to solve them. 

So I have words of hope that I will continue to share and suggestions for steps forward, but I also invite you to join me in lament. I have been crying to God about the evil in this world, and I will pray for “Your kingdom come,” and I will listen for the wisdom of the Holy Spirit to lead me forward so that I can be part of the healing. And then I will hope in the last stanza of the hymn: “‘How long, O God?’ The psalmist cries, a cry we make our own. Though we are lost, alone, afraid, our God will lead us home.” 

In God’s Grip,

Pastor Ari

"I'm trying, I'm trying to sleep, but I can't, but I can't when you all have guns for hands." -twenty one pilots, "Guns for Hands"

Suggestions for Faithful Responses

Pray Honestly and Personally

Pray to God and don’t be afraid to ask questions like “How long?” Or “Where are you?” Martin Luther said prayer is “rubbing God’s ears with God’s promises.” (“Hey, God! You promised life and peace. Where is it?”) But it’s also helpful to pray, “How can I help?” Ask for help in being a peacemaker. 

Read the Psalms 

Whatever you are feeling or experiencing has been seen by God’s people before. The Psalms are a wonderful record of the highs and lows of our experience with God. They make beautiful prayers, conversation starters, or just reminders that we are not alone. 

Be Aware of Your Feelings…

Sometimes we dismiss our feelings, but they are an important part of how God created us. Anger and pain can be warning lights that something isn’t right and needs to be fixed. When we are aware of them and ask, “Why am I so upset?” or “What specifically is making me feel hurt?”, those questions can help us get to the root of the emotions and how to respond constructively. 

…But Not Driven by Them

At the same time, if we let our emotions control us, we can create more problems. If fear or anger hardens into hate against a person or group (“it’s their fault…”), it continues the cycle. Sin is a disease in all of us and indulging it on one side does not correct it on another. The men who took guns into public places did so because there was a “they” who needed to be eliminated. 

Connect With People

One root of violence is frequently social isolation, loneliness, and a lack of loving relationships. The pandemic and other trends in our society have created more, not less, of these. We can’t prevent all evil and no one action is guaranteed to prevent evil, but many drops of water turn a mill. Chat with a neighbor or relative, send a note or text, meet someone new, or just smile at everyone for a day. We are called to love God and our neighbor; the best way is often to love God BY loving our neighbor. 

Write to Your Legislators

We are blessed to live in a country that allows us to elect and petition our government and as people of faith, we are called to speak up for the vulnerable and suffering. I will be the first to acknowledge our government is not as responsive to voters as it should be, but it is an important tool we have and I have seen letter writing change policy before. 

The Cry of the Prophet: A Response to the El Paso and Dayton Shootings

"O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen? Or cry to you 'Violence!' and you will not save? Why do you make me see wrongdoing and look at trouble? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise. So the law becomes slack and justice never prevails." -Habakkuk 1:2-4a

"Lament" by Jeffery. flickr.com

This past weekend, our nation was once again rocked with news of mass shootings. This time they were only 13 hours apart in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio. As of this writing, there are 31 people dead and 50 injured, not counting the people killed and injured a week before at a Walmart in Mississippi or a festival in Gilroy, California or the dozens of others this year alone.

Mass shootings are a crime that always grab my attention, partly because one of the first took place a few miles from my home in Oregon. And whenever there is a national tragedy, I feel compelled to offer a pastoral word in sermon or letter to my congregation.

I've done this after the Sikh temple shooting in Oak Creek, WI...

and the Newtown shooting...

and the Boston bombing...

and the Charleston shooting...

and the Ferguson protests...

and the Charlottesville violence...

and... and...

This week, however, I found that I didn't know what to say. I've spent the past four days staring at my screen at a loss for words.

How many times can you say, "God weeps with us" and "Jesus is making the world better" before they just feel hollow and cliché?

How can I proclaim hope when it seems that nothing ever changes?

It was in the midst of this that I stumbled upon Habakkuk and found the words I needed. Habakkuk is one of the Minor Prophets in the Hebrew Scriptures (or Old Testament) and I mean minor. It is about a page and half long in most Bibles and it is not a favorite for pastors to preach or teach because it is a lament. But that is why it is perfect for me this week.

Habakkuk is a prophet crying out to God about how violent and corrupt and terrible the world is. "Destruction and violence are before me... and justice never prevails," he says in his opening words. He's basically writing a letter to God to say, "Dude! What the hell?"

It is a type of writing that is actually pretty common in the Bible. Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, portions of the prophets and MANY of the Psalms (e.g. Psalms 13 and 130) have a similar theme and they hold a great lesson for us: we can be honest and frank with God. Sometimes we find the strength to say or do the right thing, but sometimes we just need to scream or cry or fall apart and God knows that.

So if we are angry about the state of the world, God can take it; if we need to cry over senseless deaths, God will listen; if we can't figure out how to move forward because we feel lost, God is patient; if we can't do or offer anything positive because we just feel empty and overwhelmed, God understands.

Habakkuk eventually hears from God ends his letter with a word of hope: "Though the fig tree does not blossom, and no fruit is on the vines...yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will exult in the God of my salvation" (3:17-18).

Hopefully tomorrow I will rejoice in the Lord, too, but today I'm angry and sad. And that's okay because it puts me in the company of God's saints through the ages.

Come quickly, Lord.


Standing in the Gray,

Pastor Ari

“But you don't get thick skin without being burnt.” -twentyone pilots, “The Hype"

(Even pastors need to hear the Gospel from others. Thank you to those who spoke to me this week.)

Improper Amputations

"[Jesus said,] 'If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life maimed than to have two hands and to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire'" (Mark 9:43).

Last Sunday, the assigned gospel lesson in the Revised Common Lectionary included this happy line along with orders to remove your feet and eyes if they cause you to sin, as well. Jesus is commanding his followers to remove sources of sin and evil in their lives, but as far as I know, no one has ever taken this passage literally and maimed themselves in the name of holiness. (Which is good!) 

But the more I thought about this passage, the more I think we carry that out in ways that may not be literal, but are still destructive and unhealthy. 

I was thinking about it while watching the news of our politicians belittling each other or calling each other unAmerican, hateful, or even evil. 

I was thinking about it in Bible study where people shared stories of being rejected or shamed by someone in the Church sometime in their past. 


I was thinking about it in conversations where people talk about unfriending loved ones or removing themselves from from a social circle because of a disagreement about politics or religion.

And I was thinking that far too often (especially in this divided age of history), we see the sources of sin and evil in our lives as other people. Jesus warns about the evils within ourselves, but instead, we attempt to amputate the people we think are problems. 

This is the very problem Jesus is addressing in this passage, which begins with his disciples saying, "There was someone healing in your name, but he wasn't one of us, so we told him to get lost." That person was different. He was a problem. We had to get rid of him. 

But Jesus says, "No." And then he talks about hands and feet and eyes as a way of saying, "Don't look for evil in other people without seeing it in yourself, too." Whenever we silence, ignore, cast off, or dehumanize others because of differences, we fail to be faithful to Jesus. Whenever we see people as bad instead of their actions or words, we are likely ignoring the faults within ourselves. 

Sadly, history is filled with examples of people attempting to cut off those they saw as a problem by silencing, alienating, or even killing them. We've seen it done to monarchies and peasants, Jews and Muslims, Catholics and Protestants, foreigners and minorities, political radicals and moderates, leftists and right wingers, communists and capitalists, and on and on... All of these efforts have involved hatred or violence and are rarely remembered as high points in human story. 

In this era of division, Jesus' words here and to love my enemies challenge me that we can disagree but not dehumanize, we can be different but not belittle.

And if we seek to reduce evil in the world, we may need to start by removing our hatred, our prejudice, and our own pointing fingers. 

From the Gray,
Pastor Ari

“Scars are souvenirs you never lose.” -Goo Goo Dolls, “Name”

A Response to Clergy Abuse in Pennsyvania

Photo: Keith Kelly via flikr

This week, a major report was published in Pennsylvania detailing how 301 priests sexually abused at least 1000 victims in every diocese in the state. Even more damning that previous similar reports, this one detailed how priests, bishops, and other church leaders conspired to commit and cover up these crimes over decades.

There is so much about this scandal that makes me angry.

I'm angry that anyone would sexually abuse children. It's beyond awful and even worse that they knowingly covered up the crimes. It's terrible to think about the number of lives that have been forever altered by this abuse.

I'm angry that the actions of these priests besmirch my profession and the Church I love. I'm angry that MY integrity is suspect because I wear the same uniform as them. (Though these offenses are the least of the crimes they've committed.)

I'm especially angry that it seems every level of leadership so radically failed to be the Church, the Body of Christ for the sake of the world. Christians are called to be light to the world, to care for the vulnerable and serve the needy, yet church leaders took advantage of the vulnerable, served their own desires, and worked to keep it all in the dark. For years and years. Shame on them.

I'm angry that after almost twenty years of clergy abuse being reported, Roman Catholic leaders still struggle to make a sincere apology and have an earnest investigation of their records to punish and defrock anyone who committed these crimes or covered them up. Truth and justice are core to Christian principles and yet church spokespeople often seem more concerned with protecting their reputation and money. (It was reported this week that some church leaders fought to prevent this report from going public over fears it would lead to bankruptcies. Again: shame.)

And this is not an anti-Catholic rant; I have deep love and admiration for many Roman Catholic people and institutions and would use these same words were it my own denomination. My love for my Roman Catholic sisters and brothers is partly why I'm so furious. How could something with so much good be used to defend and hide evil for so long?

As a Lutheran, I believe we are "simultaneous saint and sinner," imperfect people in need of God's grace. I believe there is forgiveness for our failures, but we must confess our brokenness, bring the sin into the light to be transformed. The church should be leading the world in how to name sin, practice justice, and seek restoration, but here it followed the world's lead in practicing selfishness, abuse of power, and worship of money.

Every Christian institution should look hard at this and pledge that we will do better. We seek to be righteous, but when we fail, we must confess our sin, seek justice, and face consequences when necessary. We must side with and support victims, even when it may cost us.

As a Christian, I also believe in resurrection and that God can bring new life out of terrible events. I pray that can happen here, but before there can be resurrection, we need to make sure this past is dead and buried.

From the Gray,

Pastor Ari

“The past is gone, but something might be found to take its place.” -Gin Blossoms, “Hey Jealousy"

Shame, Confession, and True Identity

This past Sunday, I was privileged to have a member of my church's preaching team provide the sermon. I love getting to hear others preach because it helps me hear other facets of the text and fresh perspectives that help me shape my future sermons.

In her sermon (which can be heard here until late April), Carla had a line that cast a fresh light on one of my favorite Bible passages, the woman at the well in John 4. Noting that the woman is gathering water at an unusual time of day, Carla suggested, as most commentators do, that she had been shunned by her neighbors who come in the morning. But then she asked, "Or is it her own self-doubt?"


I'd never thought of that. Shame is a powerful force for tearing us down, but it isn't always imposed from someone else. It can come from ourselves, too. Was this woman shunned by her community or did she exile herself? What little we know of her ("You've had five husbands" v. 18) means she's been widowed or abandoned five times (women didn't have legal standing to seek divorce then). She's known a lot of heartache. I'd never considered that her heartache could be causing her to isolate herself in shame. Perhaps she tells herself, "You're unlovable. They don't want to be near you. You're such a failure."


We all carry such voices around with us; little shame demons that point to our failures (actual or perceived) and our flaws (real or not). They can be rooted in minor incidents from our childhood that scarred us deeply or from repeated behaviors that we can't seem to stop doing. They can be from things we've done, things done to us, or things we've failed to do. They show up in phrases we repeat in our heads:

• "I'll never really belong at work/in my family/with my friends/at church because I'm imperfect/stupid/different/flawed." 
• "I'm just not cool/interesting/funny/attractive and someone's going to figure that out."
• "If I don't keep my life balanced perfectly, I'm going to disappoint people and they'll stop liking me."
• "If people really knew what I was like..."

Like the woman at the well, shame can lead us to avoid people, hide part or all of ourselves, or just believe that we're not that good or worthwhile.

All of this is why I love that our order of worship in the Lutheran church always begins with confession and forgiveness. Some people look at confession as a negative thing that creates shame by forcing us to think about how bad we are, but I don't.

For me, confession is confronting the shame that I carry with me and the voices that point out my flaws and then being reminded that they don't define me; that's not who I really am.

Because when I stand at the baptismal font each week during confession and splash in the "living water" that Jesus promised the woman at the well, I'm reminded that I'm a child of God, claimed by God's promise of eternal life. My shame and faults that make me feel worthless don't get the last word because I'm someone worth dying for according to Jesus.

My true identity is found in my baptism. When shame leads me to hide away, to avoid the crowds and come to the well in the middle of the day, I can remember that God's identity for me gives me a second chance. I don't need to fear living life fully or being vulnerable because the things I may feel shamed about (by others or myself) don't have to define me. God can reconcile and redeem the points of shame into empathy, wisdom, and compassion for others.

We don't need to live in shame or hide from the crowds. We don't need to listen to the negative voices tearing us down inside. The voice of Jesus says we're forgiven, loved, and adopted as children of God. That's our true identity.

From the Gray,
Pastor Ari

"Here in my head full of shame, you pick me up and say I look like You." -Jars of Clay, "Sing"

What is Normal Anyway?

This morning my church hosted a network meeting of Cross+Generational ministry workers in our area. In the course of our conversation, we discussed mental illness and the difficulty many people have talking about their own or a loved one's mental illness, even though it isn't nearly as unusual as people think.

We stigmatize many issues like mental illness as not being "normal" and therefore feel uncomfortable talking about them, but perhaps the problem is our idea of "normal."

Statistically, it is more likely than not that you or someone you love has experienced mental illness, addiction, miscarriage or fertility issues, incarceration, sexual assault, or abuse. By definition, then, it isn't the person who has never dealt with any of these issues that is "normal," it's all the rest of us who have. And if that's the case then why do we so often treat all these topics as taboo or strange? Especially in church?

As I think about this further, isn't it in the Bible and Christian theology that it's normal to be broken and imperfect? That we experience troubles?

Jesus said he came not for the healthy but the sick (Mark 2:17), and he meant the sin-sick, the heartsick, the sick and tired of life, and sick to death of hiding my troubles.

If that's true, then church is where we bring our struggles and hurt to break down stigmas and taboos, not where we hide them. Then church really is for normal people, but normal doesn't mean what we thought it means.

From the Gray,
Pastor Ari

“We made an art out of neglecting what we don’t want to see.” -Jars of Clay, “Skin and Bones”

When God Doesn't Answer (Blog on Job, Part 2)

(This is part two of my blog on Job. You can read part one by clicking here.)

Last week, I mentioned that two great questions get raised by Job: Why has this happened to me? and Why would God allow this? In the second text assigned for reading in the lectionary this month, Job voices his pain when those questions go unanswered by God. 

In Job 23:1-17, Job cries out that God is not answering his prayers, saying, "If I go forward, he is not there; or backward, I cannot perceive him; on the left he hides, and I cannot behold him; I turn to the right, but I cannot see him" (vv. 8-9). These verses (echoed many other places in the book) capture why so many people read and study this book. 

Job asks one of the profound questions of faith: Where is God when we suffer? And why does it so often feel like God is distant in times of pain?

These are questions that I am asked all the time. They are questions that I ask all the time. 

They are questions that deserve careful examination because they are a part of everyone's lived experience. We all are afflicted at times with loss, pain, suffering, and disease. We will all likely think things can't possibly get worse only to be proven wrong. 

Because they are so universal, they are questions that have led to much spilled ink over the millennia (including the ink originally spilled to write Job) and it would be impossible to settle them in one blog post. (Job alone spends 42 chapters trying to answer these questions and still leaves them partly unanswered.) But there are a few points we can draw from the Bible in and around Job that help shape how we ask the question today.

When God Speaks, It's Rare

When we read the Bible, it seems as though God is answering prayers and saving the day left and right. God has prophets and priests and rulers hearing God's word and doing miracles all over the place. It can lead us to wonder why God has stopped speaking and acting as much today.

But if we look more closely, we see that many of the stories of the Bible the highlights in a long timeline, kind of like SportsCenter showing all the runs from a three hour baseball game in thirty seconds. In fact, there are long periods of silence from God within the Bible. The Israelites are enslaved in Egypt for generations; the period of Judges has years of suffering in between a few heroic battles; and there are four hundred years between the Old and New Testaments. 

God's silence seems to be the rule more than the exception for much of the Old Testament. Why that may be is hard to say, but it is clear that God does not speak out of burning bushes to every person in trouble, then or now. 

So does that mean that God just doesn't care? Does God ignore us most of the time? The Bible says "no," because...

When God Speaks, It's Hopeful

When God does speak in the Bible, it's often to offer comfort and hope. (God's response to Job doesn't really, but I'll get to that next week.) God makes it clear that he doesn't intend suffering for those who trust in God and promises that there will be a time when all we be right. Even if we don't experience justice or an end to suffering in this life, God's final word to us is hope.

In the Bible, God shows care for us in the midst of our suffering because God often sympathizes with us, joins us in our mourning, and cries over injustice in our world. Most importantly, we see God choose to physically enter our suffering and walk alongside us in the person of Jesus. Jesus seeks out those who suffer and answers their questions with himself. Rather than be indifferent, God promises to be present with us in this life.

But why then does it not always feel like God is with us in pain? Why does God feel silent?

When God Speaks, It's...To Voice Our Question? 

The Bible is filled with people and poems asking a version of Job's question. The Psalms are full of so-called songs of lament, crying for the God that feels distant. Perhaps the most famous of these is Psalm 22, which bears a great resemblance to the crucifixion of Jesus in the New Testament. In fact, the opening words of the psalm, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" are spoken by Jesus on the cross. 

And there is the great mystery and hope of this difficult question. The wrenching cry of "Where are you?" spoken by Job and the psalmists is also spoken by God the Son in his time of suffering. And the immediate answer is silence... and death.

The meaning of that moment in history is profound. Jesus shows that God hears our suffering, God comes near us in our suffering, and God experiences our suffering to the point of despair.

There are some who will say that asking the questions that Job and the Psalmists raise is a sign of weak faith or is unfair to God. They may say that we must simply trust "God's plan" and never question God. But when Jesus cries from the cross, he validates all of us who ever sit on the ash heap with Job and ask why we're there. Without offering the answer to why there is suffering to begin with, Jesus makes it okay to keep raising the question. Even without the example of Jesus, the author of Job is clear to say that Job "did not sin with his lips" (Job 2:10), meaning all of his questions did not separate him from God. 

One of the lessons of Job is that even when we get no answers, there is no sin in asking the question. Even if we get no answers, asking the question puts us in the company of Jesus. 

From the Gray,

Pastor Ari


"Cuz I, I got a question... I got a question: Where are you?" -Jars of Clay, "Silence"

Next time: Living with Mystery...

(If you are interested in exploring the question of God's presence in suffering in more detail, I strongly recommend two books. In "Where's God When It Hurts?," Philip Yancey asks this question very directly and uses Job to explore it in depth. For a fictional approach, read "Silence" by Shusaku Endo, a classic novel about Christians persecuted in the era of feudal Japan.)

Just Who Is This God Anyway? (Blog on Job, Part 1)

One of the gifts of using a lectionary to preach is I am given four texts to choose from each week. One of the curses of using a lectionary to preach is I am given four texts to choose from each week. 

There are times the lectionary offers up too many good texts to preach on or worse, texts that I know will raise difficult questions or concerns in the minds of those who hear them, but I cannot address the questions from different texts in one sermon. This month, our lectionary offers up some important and difficult lessons from Jesus in Mark's Gospel while at the same time giving us three weeks of lessons from the Book of Job, a book that raises all sorts of (cue the heavy, baritone narration...) deep, meaningful questions. Since I can only preach one sermon on Sunday and live to tell about it, I promised my congregation that I would blog on Job as a way of exploring those questions.

The first week's lesson was Job 1:1; 2:1-10, the prologue to this epic poem in which Job is identified as a righteous, wealthy man who loses everything and spends the rest of the book trying to figure out why. It has become a favorite study for many people because it seeks to address one of the universal questions of human experience: How do we explain suffering and evil in the world? 

Before going further, it's important to note that Job is almost certainly not an historical account. Most of the book is written in poetry and it has always been grouped with Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs, which are all books of poetry, philosophy, and wisdom, not histories. In other words, Job is a book that is trying to explore universal truth, not historical fact.

That can be important to keep in mind because Job opens with a disturbing scene. In a conversation with God, Satan (literally, "the Accuser") asserts that Job is only righteous because he is so healthy and wealthy. If he lost everything, the Accuser suggests, he would curse You to Your face. With God's permission (really?!), the Accuser sets about causing havoc to Job's life, destroying his family and wealth and inflicting him with a painful skin disease. After causing this trouble, the Accuser never appears in the book again.

The reader is left with two questions. First, Job asks, Why has this happened to me? Second, most readers ask, Why would God allow this? The book spends chapters exploring these questions, but (spoiler alert!) never really answers them clearly. Like many works of philosophy, the book of Job seems more interested in the questions than the actual answers. Still, there is much to draw from these early chapters to make reading worth our while.

Job's Faith in God

As Job ponders why he has come to tragedy, his interactions with his wife and friends provide an important exploration of the nature of God and faith.

His wife says, "Curse God and die." God for her was only as good as the blessings he provides and like an appliance that stops working, it's time to kick this one to the curb. What good is a god if that god stops working the way you want?

In her mind, God doesn't care and is hurting them for sport. The idea of a god toying with the lives of humans would not be a strange idea in the ancient world. It was expected. If you want an example, try reading a couple other ancient epic poems — the Iliad and the Odyssey. The Greek gods in mythology are every bit as petty and selfish as humans themselves.

His friends insist that he must have done something bad. Tragedy must have a source to blame and therefore Job must have sinned in some way.  If God isn't uncaring, then God is punishing Job for some reason. He should fess up and beg for mercy.

They echo many of us who want to find some reason or meaning for the suffering we see in the world. What have I/you/they done to deserve that?

But Job refuses to go along with either opinion. Instead, he repeatedly holds up two things he knows to be true: "God is just" and "I am innocent." How those can both be true in the face of tragedy becomes the central tension of the book. Job refuses to believe that God is petty or has stopped caring for him. He trusts that even if God is responsible for his suffering, because God is just, Job's cries for justice will be heard and answered.

God is just and Job is innocent.  How the book tries to answer that tension will be dealt with in the third part of this blog series. For now, Job's faith in God's justice and concern for human life is still an important cornerstone to this book and reading the Bible in general. Some of us may take it for granted, but the idea that God is not callous or distant, but is just and compassionate, was and remains a radical suggestion that deeply affects the faith of anyone who holds it as truth like Job.

God's Faith in Job

The remaining question of why God would allow the Accuser to afflict Job is one of the most troubling in the Bible. And, frankly, there is no good answer within the pages of Job. About the best that can be said is to try chalking it up to artistic license on the part of the author who was setting the stage for the story as efficiently as possible. But even that doesn't sit too well with me.

Despite the unease I feel with God's permission giving to evil, I do find a positive facet to God's interaction with the Accuser. The Accuser believes Job is a pushover, but God believes that Job will be faithful. What occurs to me is that God has faith in Job.

As a Lutheran, I was taught and I teach that there is nothing I can do to earn God's love, nor can I come to faith or God without the Holy Spirit drawing me there. I believe both of these, but I also recognize that they have at times been excuses for inaction. "Why do good if it doesn't change God's mind?" or "I don't want to appear like I'm trying to earn my way to God." 

But God's faith in Job reminds me that Jesus grants me grace and eternal life and trusts that it will change my heart to love as he loves me. In the same way, God entrusts the Church into human hands. And even though we make mistakes along the way, God has faith that, led by the Spirit, we will remain faithful even in times of strife. That God has faith in me is good news on days when it feels like I've been left on the ash heap with Job.

Next time: When God Doesn't Answer...

From the Gray,

Pastor Ari

“I’m looking for something that I didn’t notice was gone.” -Jets Overhead, “Heading for Nowhere”

What Do We Mean by Forgiveness?

In the wake of the killings at Emmanuel AME in Charleston, SC, I've had a number of conversations with people who were surprised/moved/confused/encouraged by the family members of the victims who publicly forgave the shooter just days after the tragedy. There has also been a lot of commentary in the media about their statements, with some people applauding the families and others chastising them because they believe such acts of violence or racism itself should never be forgiven. Others have made statements like "it's fine that they forgave him, but I would never forgive someone who did that."

Forgiveness is deeply tied to Christian theology. By my count, Jesus talks about forgiveness about 30 times in the Gospels. He includes forgiveness as a key part of the Lord's Prayer (Matthew 6:12), and tells his disciples to forgive others "seventy times seven" times (Matthew 18:22). He famously cries for forgiveness for those crucifying him from the cross (Luke 23:34) and we even say that the very point of Jesus' ministry and death is to forgive us from sin.

At the same time, forgiveness is often misunderstood by Christians and non-Christians alike and those misunderstandings can stand in the way of the healing and freedom that God means for forgiveness to bring. In light of Charleston, it may be helpful to define what forgiveness is and isn't.

Forgiveness is not forgetting.
We've all heard the phrase "forgive and forget." It's a nice sounding proverb, but it's poor theology. It's next to impossible for us to forget ways we've been hurt and that's usually good, because remembering past pain can help us avoid being hurt in the future. (I don't touch hot stoves because I did that once.) So while God promises to "forget" our sins (what that means exactly could be a whole column or book), that's an unrealistic standard for humans and tying the two together can lead people to think they can't forgive because they still think about the pain sometimes.

Forgiveness is not excusing the sin or crime.
This is a big one and deserves to be repeated: forgiving is not excusing the sin or crime. It's important because many people often equate forgiveness with letting someone off the hook. But no one in the courtroom in Charleston was suggesting that what Mr. Roof did didn't matter or wasn't awful and no one was suggesting he shouldn't face (severe) punishment from the legal system. The victims' families spoke eloquently about the pain and damage that was done to their lives that cannot be undone. I've tried to teach my kids (and myself) not to say "It's okay" when someone apologizes to them and instead say "I forgive you." That's because it's not "okay" to hurt someone. Sin and violence are not okay. They can be forgiven, but they should not be excused.

Forgiveness is not really even about the perpetrator.
People will sometimes say, She doesn't deserve forgiveness. or He didn't ask to be forgiven, so why should I? Often these people think that the only just response is to continue being angry or hating the other person until they've "suffered enough." Whether or not someone wants or deserves forgiveness is beside the point. A wise person once said that holding a grudge is like drinking poison hoping it will hurt someone else. Hate and anger are consuming powers and they can come to define and control us and if they do, we are in some way letting the object of our hate have control over us. This perspective assumes that forgiveness is a gift to be given to the perpetrator, but it's primarily a gift you give to yourself.

This is where we get to what I believe forgiveness actually is. The best definition I've found for forgiveness is making the decision to not let the pain you've experienced control your life anymore. Mr. Roof walked into that church hoping to spread hate and fear and chaos. When those victims' families forgave him, they were saying, You failed. You cannot make us hate. You cannot make me fear. You cannot destroy my life. Forgiveness is sometimes dismissed as a kind of weakness, but those families demonstrated that forgiveness is an act of strength and bravery.

It should also be pointed out, perhaps, that there is one more thing forgiveness is not. It is not easy. Often it takes time. Sometimes it takes a lot of time. So it's important to note that what happened in Charleston was extraordinary and powerful, but it should not be used as the expectation for all situations. To force someone to forgive before they are ready doesn't do any good. It can become a kind of victim blaming and compound the pain and alienation someone may be feeling. Forgiveness should empower a victim and therefore must be his own decision whenever he is ready to make it.

That said, when we do find the time and power to forgive, we release ourselves from a bondage that someone else put upon us. Rather than "giving in," forgiveness is an act of liberation, of new life. One might even say it's a kind of resurrection.

From the Gray,
Pastor Ari

“And the baggage that we all carry around has this way of dragging you down.” -Bill Mallonee, “The Kidz on Drugz (or Life)”

When Broken Isn't Really Broken

One of the classrooms at my son's school likes to post a "Quote of the Week" on its bulletin board. Earlier this year, the quote was "Broken crayons still color."

As I passed it daily, it seemed to me like a description of resurrection, of Easter, of the kind of eternal life Jesus says we have now.

God used a lot of broken crayons to mark the shape of God's reality, shade the world with love, and draw a picture of hope for today.

If you feel broken, keep adding your color to the world. It's part of the picture.

From the Gray,
Pastor Ari

“We just want the fire in our bones.” -Emperors, “Be Ready When I Say Go”

Making Words Dangerous

This week, a member of my congregation sent me an email about ISIS. The email shared a couple news items about ISIS's practice of martyring Christians (including children) who refused to renounce their faith in Jesus and convert to (a narrow, twisted interpretation of) Islam. Those who aren't killed are charged a "tax" or forced to flee their homes. "It's unbelievable what others are suffering," she wrote.

I've been heartbroken by these same stories and they have reminded me of a conversation in Bible study from a couple years ago. We had been discussing the Apostle's Creed and someone had raised the question of whether it had any real meaning for most Christians anymore. A woman in the class changed the whole conversation when she said, "When I say the Creed, I think about the fact that there are people who are persecuted for being Christians around the world and my reciting it is showing solidarity with them."

I replied to the email this week by saying that since ISIS's crimes against humanity have been in the news, that conversation has been in my mind whenever I recite the Apostle's Creed in worship. For some people saying those words is dangerous and that makes them more meaningful for me. I ended the email with the only words that made sense: "Lord, have mercy, indeed."

As I ponder this more, I think about the fact that I will likely never face death because of stating my Christian faith, and the question that inevitably comes to mind is, "What can I do?" Knowing there are those who die for their words in this world, what difference can my life make?

At this point, many people might start listing off various charities and causes that are working in this arena and I encourage anyone moved by these things to pursue that angle. (I certainly have several charities I support beyond my congregation.) But even though good agencies need financial support, I also want to believe that my ability to affect good in the world extends beyond my wallet.

And so in the process of writing the past several paragraphs, my efforts to answer "What can I do?" settled on a different question: "How do I make my words dangerous?"

You see, all my thoughts about the Creed and martyrdom kept coming back to one thought -- the words we say matter. I can forget this because words are cheap these days. Many of us send thousands of texts and emails a month, watch dozens of hours of television of people talking, and read books, blogs, and sports columns daily (sometimes doing several of these at once). We are surrounded by words to the point that everything is background noise.

But our words can be meaningful--and dangerous.

The book of James in the Bible has a lot to say about our words. Most of what James says is negative ("The tongue is a restless evil..."), but he also makes the point that the tongue is powerful, comparing it to a rudder that turns a large ship. Words can affect change and challenge the status quo--for good or bad--and that can make them dangerous for anyone who uses them.

When we say things like "I love you" or "I'm sorry" or "I forgive you" we are making ourselves vulnerable because we don't always know what someone will say back. When we reply to gossip or hateful speech with the words, "I don't feel that way," we risk feeling very alone. We may never risk our lives for the Gospel, but we can risk other things that are precious to us: pride, power, status. (Although those might not always be a bad thing to lose.)

Within this world, there are people who are dying for the words they use. How will I be mindful of mine to make them meaningful? Will my words carry the dangerous vulnerability of love and mercy? In what direction will my tongue steer the ship? On the eve of St. Francis's commemoration day, I remember his words, "Lord, make me an instrument of your peace..." Amen.

(I ask that if you pray, please join me in using some of your words today to pray for innocent martyrs of all faiths.)

“Speak louder than the words before you and give them meaning no one else has found.” -Ian Axel, "This is the New Year"

I Don't Like Genesis 22

I've been dreading this coming Sunday for over a month.

You see, this coming Sunday, the lectionary my church uses has appointed Genesis 22:1-14 as the Old Testament reading. And Genesis 22 is one of my least favorite parts of the Bible: the (near) sacrifice of Isaac.

This is the type of text that I usually preach on because there are elements to it that I just can't let pass without some kind of commentary. But the elements that make this passage so difficult also make it hard for me to shape into a decent sermon*. So after much thought I decided to wrestle with it here instead.

For those who are not familiar with the story, God chooses to "test" Abraham by asking him to sacrifice his only remaining son, Isaac, who was a miracle child and meant to start a great "nation" of people. (Abraham's semi-legitimate son, Ishmael, was already sent off in another troubling episode.) Abraham obeys and gets so far as placing his bound child on the altar and raising the knife to slay him when God steps in and stops him.

I'm bothered by the text because of the connections it holds with two problems that are sadly still relevant today: child abuse and violence in the name of God.  When we continue to see children abused and exploited and when suicide bombings, apartheid, and KKK lynchings backed by religious beliefs are current or in recent memory, it's troubling to read a story of God promoting this type of behavior and a person of God who is willing to do both -- and is commended for it.

There are many explanations of this text that seek to ease some of the tension in it:

• God had invested a lot in Abraham in making him the father of promise and needed to know that he would be faithful regardless of the task.
• Abraham's Schwarzenegger-esque words to his servant--"We'll be back"--suggest he expected that God wouldn't actually make him sacrifice Isaac and both would return.
• God was using this episode to condemn child sacrifice (which was practiced by many of Israel's neighboring religions) and show Abraham how his God was different from other gods.
• Isaac was likely a teenager and Abraham was over 100 years old and couldn't have over-powered Isaac. Therefore, Isaac wasn't a victim, but a willing participant. (In fact many early church leaders used this story as a foretelling of Christ, who also willingly carried the wood to be used for his execution up a hill expecting to lose his life.)

But none of those explanations answer the biggest problem I have with the story: Why did God feel the need to test Abraham? Was God feeling cranky? Was it morbid curiosity? Shouldn't God have already known whether Abraham was faithful? (Abraham had already left his family and home and moved hundreds of miles at God's request.) 

I want to believe that Abraham got the message wrong. I want to believe that between the time the events happened and they were written down, the detail of God testing Abraham was added by the scribes. But I believe that the hard parts of the Bible can't just be brushed off because they're hard or we don't like them. We have to deal with them.

But we don't have to deal with them in a vacuum.

One of the parts of Lutheranism that I love is how we read scripture and one of the key parts of how we do that is the premise that "scripture interprets scripture." Martin Luther, who was often arguing the meaning of scripture with his opponents, knew there were parts of the Bible that didn't seem to agree with each other and so insisted that difficult or confusing texts be read in the context of the whole Bible and especially in the context of the words of Jesus.

In that light, Genesis 22 is easier to swallow. Elsewhere, God clearly condemns child sacrifice (Lev. 18:21; Deut. 18:10), God speaks through Hosea to say "I desire mercy, not sacrifice," and Jesus says "Blessed are the peacemakers" and "Let the little children come to me, for the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to them." Regardless of whether God tested Abraham or why, I look for solace in the fact that in the end, God's true nature won out. God stayed the execution and kept Abraham from killing his son. That is some good news in an otherwise difficult text.

I still feel very uncomfortable with this text, but faith, like life, is rarely simple and God, if the Bible is any indication, is quite complicated. I sincerely pray often to know and understand God better, but Abraham knew God well and that didn't seem to make his life any simpler either. Just one more troubling thing to wrestle with.

“I’m not sure if anybody understands.” -Fun., “Some Nights”

*To me, a sermon is the Living Word of God encountering human reality and creating new life. That sounds kind of vague and fluffy, I'm sure, but what I mean by it is that a sermon is not the same as a lecture. A lecture passes along information; a sermon creates an encounter with God's law and gospel. Every attempt I made with Genesis 22 felt like a lecture.

The Problem With Beauty

It is THE question. Or certainly one of the big ones. It's the question I may hear more often than any other. It's the one I hear from Christians, other religious people and non-religious people alike. It's the one that gets asked with the most sincerity in the I-really-need-an-answer-that-makes-sense-to-this-but-I've-always-been-afraid-to-actually-ask kind of way. And it's the question I personally wrestle with all the time.

The question itself takes many forms:

• "Why does bad stuff happen to good people?" 
• "If there is a god, why is there pain in the world?" 
• "If God created the world, why is there evil in it?

Theologians like to use the fancy word "theodicy"to describe the question, but many people just describe it as "the problem of pain" or "the problem of evil." I've sometimes seen people use the question itself as proof of God's lack of existence, as if there can be no answer to the question and therefore the debate is over. I do have answers to the question (I think it's too complicated and important for just one answer), but instead of trying to settle the question in this blog posting, I prefer to ask a different question: "How do we deal with the problem of beauty?"

You see, to a certain extent, pain can be understood from a purely rational viewpoint. Pain has an evolutionary purpose; it tells our brains: "Something is wrong. Fix it!" Whether it's physical or emotional, pain can preserve and protect us by serving as a warning system. While we can wax philosophical about the causes of pain and how we deal with pain, the fact of pain makes sense.

But what about beauty? I've never met anyone who watches the sun set over the ocean in hues of pink and orange and doesn't think that it is beautiful. And most people agree that Van Gogh's "Starry Night" or Monet's water lilies are beautiful. But why? Where does our sense of beauty come from? If the universe is purely random and uncaring, why do we have a sense of beauty? What evolutionary purpose does it serve?

For that matter, how do we make sense of joy? Pleasure? Humor? Love? We take them for granted as part of human experience, but they are just as senseless as pain and suffering. To be clear, I'm not an evolution denier (before following a call to be a pastor, my plan was to be a biologist). But if the existence of pain and grief is somehow proof that God doesn't exist, then my counterpoint is that beauty, joy, and laughter are just as legitimately arguments for God.

As long as there is life, there will likely be debates about the existence of both evil/pain and God -- and there should be -- but for my money, there is just as much mystery to be found in the problem of beauty, the trouble with humor, and the senselessness of joy. It is wrestling with those mysteries that gives my life purpose.

“The space between the tears we cry is the laughter that keeps us coming back for more.” -Dave Matthews Band, "The Space Between"