+How often are you disappointed in God; do you question God’s motives; do you ask, “well where is God in that?” There are times, in all of our lives, when the presence of God is, at best, hard to notice and at worst, seemingly gone, vanished, nowhere to be found. , when God seems distant, when God seems absent, when we are disappointed, despairing and doubtful of God’s Love for us we are being honest. And God never minds honest. Today’s readings are full of examples of people working through these natural human responses to God.
God may always be with us, but sometimes God’s presence is so absurd, we have to laugh, as Sarah did when told of God’s plans for her and Abraham; sometimes God’s presence seems so disinterested we need to shout out NO as Peter did in today’s Gospel. Sometimes we have to express our doubt, our despair and our disappointment in the Creating and Loving God we so adore. And I think that’s just fine.
After all, isn’t that a big part of Love?
No one can disappoint us like those we truly and deeply love. We can feel let down by all sorts of people, but real, deep heart-wrenching disappointment….those feelings are saved for the ones we really truly deeply love--- our children, our parents, our partners, our siblings, our dear friends----these are the people who are able to really disappoint us.
If feelings of doubt, despair and disappointment are part and parcel of loving another human being, then how can we deny these feelings for God? After all, shouldn’t our love for God be as deep, passionate and unending as the love we have for those people I have just named?
Abraham is 99 years old. He and Sarah are childless and assume, as any reasonable person would, that they’d remain that way. Yet, in the second of the covenants we hear about this Lent, God promises Abraham innumerable descendants, the first to be born of Sarah. Stunned and no doubt as amused by this outrageous promise of God as Sarah was, Abraham works to honor God by being faithful. Now, let’s be clear, being faithful doesn’t mean always being happy with the other, being faithful just means trusting that it will all work out, trusting, in this case, that Abraham’s love for God and God’s love for Abraham will carry them through.
Now, if we ended our reading of Abraham’s story here we would assume that Abraham did what God expected and that God did what Abraham expected, that there was no disappointment, despair or doubt in this relationship. Of course we’d be wrong, for the relationships between God and Abraham, God and Sarah, God and Hagar, are full of disappointment despair and doubt. But, through it all, everyone remained faithful, convinced that God’s will would be done and that the desire of God, was something to be trusted, even if it wasn’t always understood, even it wasn’t always easy, even if it wasn’t always pleasant.
Paul, in his letter to the Romans gives us another look into God’s promise to Abraham; addressed how, even through the rocky times with God, Abraham, to quote one commentator, “faithed it out.” Abraham trusted in God’s promise, even though it didn’t always make sense, and it didn’t always seem fair and it often seemed annoying. “Faithing it out” means Abraham walked this journey with God deliberately, giving his faith room to grow, piece by piece and step by step. Paul admits that Abraham had mis-givings, but, in spite of these misgivings, maybe because of these misgivings , Abraham’s faith grew. You see, faith in God is not a stagnant thing. Faith in God grows and flourishes not because we follow some guidebook on How to be a Good Christian-----but because we keep plugging along at it. We work ourselves into strong faith. We strengthen our faith muscles, by exercising them…by pushing them to their limit and then maybe even beyond. Just like lifting weights, strengthening our faith requires pushing and challenging, tearing at what we think is our limit and then moving beyond that point. For only then, only when we push our faith and our love to its limit do we open up more capacity for faith, more capacity for love, more capacity for God.
Living a life of faith isn’t all sweetness and light. It, at times can be bitter and dark---look at the whole of Abraham’s life, look at Job, at Noah, at David. Living into our faith means, besides joy and hope, that there will be pain, disappointment, despair and doubt.
What Paul outlines for us is an exercise program of faith. He’s asking us to “feel the burn”—to stretch our relationship with God, to push our faith and love muscles past the point of comfort, trusting, like Abraham, that just past the point of comfort, just past the point of despair, just past the point of doubt, and just past the point of disappointment, lies greater faith greater love and more God.
Peter, in today’s Gospel is smack dab in the midst of disappointment despair and doubt. Just moments after Peter has correctly identified Jesus as the Holy One, the Messiah—he tells his Messiah, his Lord that he is wrong and that the path Jesus has just outlined is unacceptable and clearly incorrect. Who can blame Peter, for the message of Jesus—that he will be arrested tortured and killed, that, to follow him we must lose our life and take up our cross---isn’t really fathomable to us humans. It makes no sense.
How can God be killed? How can this be Good News? Peter is incredulous and who wouldn’t be? How are we, as Christians supposed to rejoice in crucifixion and death? Why do we seemingly embrace a horrific death such as Jesus’ and make it the focal point of our faith?
Because our faith isn’t in a neat package.
Our God isn’t a God just for the good times.
Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ isn’t just some miracle worker and death deifier. Our Faith. Our God, our God as come to us as human, Jesus, is PART OF US. Fully and completely. Our God is in the despair. In the disappointment, in the doubt. Our God is also in the rejoicing and in the celebration and in the happiness. Our God is everywhere and in everything. The only limit to God’s presence in our lives is us. And that’s why we practice our faith…because the more we work at faith, the more we strive to see God in all of our life, accepting that God is in it all-- the good, bad, and the ugly--the more room we make for God.
This is the joy available to us this Lent. Sure in the truth that God loves us, completely. All of us. Even the disappointment, despair, doubt…I’d venture to say especially the disappointment, despair and doubt. For God knows that we save our real sorrows, our real laments for those we truly and deeply and madly and honestly love. So when we give all this to God, God knows we are truly, really and deeply in love. With God. +
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