No guarantees

When Jesus went out into the desert, the devil offered him all sorts of goodies:  you'll never go hungry, you'll be safe, you'll have all the power in the world.  But Jesus knew better than that.  He knew himself and he knew God better than that.  God never promised us a rose garden.  The only promise that God ever made that may have been worth any salt was through Jesus:  I will be with you, to the end of the age.

Ironically, though, God did not even keep that promise to Jesus.  On the cross we hear Jesus cry the words of Psalm 22:  "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"  At some point in our lives, we will face the cross in all its pain and sorrow and isolation.  In fact, being faithful to God, as Jesus was, just might lead right to it.

Good friends, good people, keep telling me that the right church is out there for me, that I need to keep the faith.  If ever I have lived through a wilderness time, this year plus some months of searching has certainly been one of the most challenging.  Ever since I made the decision 16 yrs. ago to stay home with my girls, I never thought it would be this difficult to reenter full-time ministry.  I thought that somehow God owed me one, that since I had been willing to give up my vocation to fulfill another (motherhood), God would reward me with the church of my dreams.

Hah.

God didn't promise me a thing.  I devised that whole fairytale to get me through the lonely times, through not having the company of a single pastor who has relinqished what I have; not being able to share the same struggles and joys as my colleagues when we gathered for fellowship;  not serving at the Table; not being available to preach because all four of us being at church together was more important some Sundays; not being able to attend clergy groups or conferences or Synod; not working except when I could because I was not able to divide my energy between being a mother and being a pastor.  To those of you who have been able to do this, I wholeheartedly applaud you and I am envious of you.  But I would also not trade places with you.  Accepting this does not make any of this easier.

It would be sheer bliss if I could look back on this time from the quiet of my pastor's study in some future church and see the reasons why, the connections, the purpose, the meaning of this desert, this back-and-forth with the constant presence/fiercest adversary I know as God.  Anybody who has cancer or who is struggling to keep afloat with house and bills or who can't find the right combination of meds to allow some normalcy of life or whatever the battle is, knows about this and knows that it really doesn't help.  Because there are no guarantees.  George Burns smoked cigars and drank martinis almost every day of his life, and he lived to be 99.  I could eat right, exercise, and still get hit by a truck tomorrow.  Or keep the faith and still not be called by a church.

The desert is all about being faithful, not about anything promised on the other side or there even being the other side.  It's about remaining true to oneself and not letting the desert and its demons corrupt your soul.  It's about loving and forgiving and being merciful and compassionate, perhaps even joyful when what you'd really like to do is grab the Almighty (or the nearest bystander) by the collar and ask what the hell is going on. 

Hope isn't pretty.  The reason it can be so hard to hold onto is because it's covered in thorns.  Hope isn't the resurrection; it's the cross.  It's crying out to God even when you know it's not going to get you off the damned cross, when you're going to die anyway but it's the only prayer you've got left.

Am I going to find a church?  Damned if I know.  All I do know is that I'm thankful I don't have to do it alone.  Although, there are days it sure as hell feels that way.  Lord, I believe.  Help my unbelief.  Amen.

Good Friday world

Craigie Aitchison, Crucifixion, 1998

Ever feel like
the bogeyman is just
around the corner?
All the time?
God can’t stop it.
You know it,
I know it.
As for Psalm 91,
'no evil shall befall you'
residing in the palm of God's hand:
Forget about your foot
being dashed by
a silly stone.                                                             

We whiz through space
while meteors hurl their way
through fragile atmosphere, storied glass,            
flesh and dirt.
God lives
to disturb
as much as comfort,                         
provoke as much as heal.
The incarnation
wasn’t just about
sheep-and-goat morality.
Who do you think was
testing Jesus in the desert
but his rabbi-father-adversary?
Makes a whole lot more sense of
that ‘love your enemies’ thing.
The cross
in all its shame and neglect,
wouldn’t have happened
if God hadn’t walked away
like the rest of us.

Cynthia E. Robinson © 2013

NFL: Not For Long

Last night was the last Super Bowl, the last football game I will ever watch.  Football is the first cousin once removed from gun violence.  If you don't agree, think on this:  at least seven NFL players have killed themselves using a handgun:  Jeff Alm, Andre Waters, Dave Duerson, Ray Easterling, Junior Seau, Kurt Crain, OJ Murdock, and Jovan Belcher.  Most, if not all of them, have been posthumously diagnosed with chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative brain disease which can cause severe headaches and lead to depression, dementia, even symptoms similar to Alzheimer's.  Even if a player has had few concussions, they still can develop this disease from repeated knocks to the head.  From violence done to their bodies in the name of sport and entertainment.

My church sponsored three Super Bowl parties:  junior and senior high youth groups and the adult fellowship group.  I was at the adult gathering.  Many of us bemoaned the outrageous cost of advertising, commenting on how many people could be fed, housed, treated for cancer, receive organ transplants.  These are good people.  I have worked and sweated, studied and struggled, laughed and cried with these folks, many times in the service of others.  And yet we could not talk about the connection between what we were watching and cheering and yelling about and the gun violence in our nation.

Many folks in our congregation are still suffering with and trying to move through the trauma of the Sandy Hook shooting.  One daughter of a family sings in the Sandy Hook Elementary School chorus that performed last night.  Her mother said the kids were treated like royalty, and so they should be.  And yet it was at an event that glorifies violence into entertainment, like the gladiators of the Roman empire.

 


Shoulder pads, chest protection, helmets, a stadium, and roaring crowds.  Money, lots of it.  And the accompanying sex trade.  We are an empire on its way down.  When a tragedy occurs or we cry out against an injustice, we peel back layers of our society and we don't like what we find.  Hence, we try to fix the disturbing problem but we only go so far.  Not nearly far enough, like the Affordable Care Act, getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan but keeping Gitmo open, the upcoming compromises I'm sure we'll see with gun control.  Make your own list. 

I wish I had had the good sense to stay home and watch Downton Abbey, one of its broad themes being the passing of the old world of money, power, and influence and the birth of a new world of equality, justice, and compassion.  What we have been experiencing for about a century are the death throes of the domination system - patriarchy, power, hegemony, empire, competition, the rich few over the multitudinous working class and the poor.  What is being born is a system based on partnership, interdependence, cooperation, enough for everyone, we can only do this together.  And like any birth, transition can be the most difficult, painful phase.

I realize this perspective is not popular.  But as one of the deacons reminded us yesterday in his opening prayer, God calls us to be unusual, inconvenient, unpredictable, and unpopular, often going against the crowd, in order that God's kingdom would be made visible, justice be done and peace made.