Honest to God

Sunday 30^th August – Trinity 12 (Proper 17)

I am presiding at All Saints at 9.30am and St. Michael’s at 11am and Rev. Karen Young is presiding at St. Peter’s at the 10am service.

Jeremiah 15: 15-21. A pained and disillusioned prophet accuses God of misleading him. He endures great suffering and estrangement for preaching God’s word. In God’s response, he assures Jeremiah that if he continues to be a prophet that people will have to respond to him because what he is saying is true. This passage is a profound insight into the mystery of being caught up in God’s plan which can bring pain as well as ecstasy.  

Romans 12: 9-21. Ethical teaching which draws on both Old Testament and perhaps teaching of Jesus (Paul never quotes any of Jesus’ sayings or parables, only relaying the Eucharistic rite). He starts with how Christians in the same fellowship ought to treat each other, and then Christians in other churches, and how to deal with outsiders and outright opposition. Repaying evil with good produces the intriguing sentence “For in doing so you heap burning coals on their head” is not easy to interpret but probably means that it will make them feel ashamed.

Matthew 16: 21-28. “Get thee behind me Satan” has entered the English language to describe someone who tempts one down a wrong path. Peter goes from “the rock” to Satan in one easy move, proving that we all have feet of clay no matter how lofty our intentions. Jesus says that some will not die “before they see him coming in his Kingdom”. What this means is not clear but could be a cryptic reference to the cross, or the coming of the Holy Spirit, but one assumes from Matthew’s words themselves in chapter 28: 16-20 that he thinks it refers to the resurrection itself.

  

The way Jeremiah accuses God of deceiving him is a way of speaking to God almost unknown in Christian churches of all stripes but is quite common in Judaism, where the concept of wrestling with God is part of their DNA.

I have heard Jewish commentators say about the CofE in general that we are far too nice and deferential when addressing God.

Perhaps we could learn something from the Jews here who because of their history of suffering, the holocaust, expulsions, pogroms, exiles, and persecution, probably have more reason than most to question the providence of God.

In private prayer I think that God would prefer honesty instead of a deferential false humility when actually you are seething inside. He is God after all and can tell the difference.

A prayer I have quoted many times before written by Harry Williams, a great influence on me in Mirfield starts,

"O God, I am so hellishly angry;
I think so-and-so is a swine;
I am tortured by worry about this or that;
I am pretty sure I have missed my chances in life;
this or that has left me feeling terribly depressed."

Is so honest you can feel his pain and confusion. He is being honest about how he really is and feels. Why hide from someone who knows where you are at all times? The second half of the prayer seems equally bleak on the face of it.

"But nonetheless here I am like this,
feeling both bloody and bloody-minded,
and I am going to stay here for ten minutes.
You are most unlikely to give me anything.
I know that.
But I am going to stay for the ten minutes nonetheless."

But it shows a profound realistic faith in a God who doesn’t necessarily answer every whim or desire but shows a determination to want to be with God regardless.

Being with God, communion with God, is a good in and of itself and not dependent on what you might gain from it. It is a short step from that position to the heresy and deceit of the prosperity gospel which preaches that faith in God is automatically rewarded with success in this life.

Tell that to Jesus whose faithfulness landed him being flogged and crucified, or any of the martyrs and saints, who endured pain and suffering, and untimely deaths for their faithfulness or the hundreds of thousands of Christians being persecuted in Muslim countries for their faith in Christ.

We are faithful to God, revealed in Christ, because He is the way, the truth and the life and regardless of what flows our way as a result; not because it gives us anything but because God is true, good and Holy and a manifest good in and of himself. Jesus tells us plainly in the gospel today that we need to deny ourselves and take up our cross if we decide to follow him. In another place he counsels us to count the cost first before becoming a disciple.

Of course, the central paradox of the early church is that the more it was persecuted, the more people were killed, the faster it grew. It used to be said that “The church is built on the blood of the Martyrs” and in a echo of that, the church is spiritually stronger when it encounters opposition and weakest where it is most comfortable – in the Western world.

In that encounter in Jeremiah God tells him to stick at it because things will turn. Blessings and answered prayer may indeed come our way, but that is not the reason we pray or worship. We do so because God, made known as father Son and Spirit, is True and worthy of worship and prayer and communion in their own right.

Blessings and answered prayer happen but they mustn’t become the reason we pray or worship, making God a heavenly slot machine that pays out every time.

To find ourselves wrapped up in the mystery of God, like Jeremiah did, can lead us down many different paths, some painful and upsetting, and you wouldn’t choose to go down those paths yourself given a free hand, but follow God he did, regardless and so should we.