Saturday Night Theologian
3 October 2004

Lamentations 1:1-6

There are many different kinds of disasters that can afflict a people. A natural disaster like Hurricane Jeanne that killed several in Florida and more than 1,500 in Haiti is one example. Another is the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, in the U.S. or the recent slaughter of schoolchildren in Russia. Severe economic downturns, like the Great Depression of the 1930s, are another type of disaster. Genocide, like what is currently happening in the Sudan or the Rwanda genocide of 1992, obviously qualifies. Brutal dictatorships are yet another kind of disaster. Today's lectionary reading from Lamentations reflects a disaster of another kind, that of an occupying foreign army within one's national borders. The Babylonians, under the command of Nebuchadnezzar, had attacked Judah, torn down the walls of Jerusalem, carried off its leading citizens (those who weren't killed), and destroyed the temple, the focus of worship for the nation. The book of Lamentations contains five poems that express the author's distress, or even despondency, over what has happened. In the midst of the disaster, though, the poet is able to reflect both theologically and realistically on the problem. Although he undoubtedly had animosity toward the conquering Babylonians, he recognized in the tragedy the movement of God in history. Judah had relied on other nations to protect it, the poet says, and Judah had also turned away from God, so God is right in inflicting judgment. The level of self-critique in the poems of Lamentations, which were probably written within a few years of the destruction of the temple, when many Jews were still living in Babylonian exile, is astounding. On the other hand, it must be remembered that the poems were written by someone who remained in Judah rather than accompanying the elites into Babylonian exile, so his critique of Judah is largely--though not entirely--a critique of the ruling class. Despite this observation, the poems of Lamentations remain haunting reminders of the untold misery that a nation feels when it loses its sovereignty and is subjugated to a group of foreign invaders. What might that feel like? If we really want to know, we could ask the Iraqi people. These people moved from suffering under a ruthless, native dictator to suffering under an often uncaring, foreign occupier. Like the situation with Judah, the leaders of Iraq were largely to blame for the invasion that changed their country. The leaders of Jerusalem withheld tribute from Babylonia, and the leader of Iraq refused to cooperate with the demands of the U.S. Both the Babylonians and the Americans (their leaders, at least) felt fully justified in invading and pacifying what they considered to be a rogue state. Regardless of the justness of the invasions, the results on the common inhabitants of the land were largely the same: death, suffering, and misery. How do those who suffer react to God? Some curse God and turn away from the divine, perhaps to other forms of religion, believing that God must be impotent if God was powerless to stop the disaster. Others deny the existence of God, since an almighty God who was good would surely have intervened. Still others struggle with their faith, wondering why God would allow such suffering, and even getting angry at God for God's inaction. The important point about this last group, which includes the poet of Lamentations, is that they still engage God in conversation, even if the conversation sometimes degrades into denunciation or diatribe. At least they're still talking to the right person. People who suffer have the right to be angry and bitter, particularly at those who they feel have inflicted their suffering. It is our duty as people of faith to pray for all those who suffer, to work in whatever ways we can to alleviate their suffering, to avoid participation in activities that further their suffering, and to show them our solidarity with them.

Psalm 137

In 1868 the U.S. government signed a treaty with the Sioux nation giving them exclusive ownership of the Black Hills in the Dakota Territory. Four years later, however, prospectors who had illegally trespassed discovered gold in the Black Hills. In 1874 General George Armstrong Custer accompanied a group of miners into the Black Hills to investigate the claims of gold. When it turned out there was indeed gold, the government reneged on its treaty and allowed white men to invade. The government tried to buy the land from the Sioux, but the Indians refused. To them the land was sacred, the center of the world. In 1876 the Indians defeated Custer and his troops at the Battle of the Little Big Horn, killing Custer and all his men. A year later the army captured the last of the rebellious Sioux, murdered the thirty-five-year-old warrior Crazy Horse while he was in custody, and expelled all the Indians from the Black Hills. A few Indians walked away from the trek to the new reservation and went to Canada, among them Crazy Horse's parents. They brought with them their son's heart, which they buried beside a creek called Wounded Knee. The Sioux had been ejected from their homeland, the land they considered sacred, and they mourned the loss. Psalm 137 was written by a poet who was taken into exile in Babylonia after the temple's fall. Like the poet of Lamentations, he suffered immense loss and felt great pain. Exile from one's homeland can be painful even when it is voluntary, as when a person moves from home to pursue a career. When exile is involuntary, though, the pain is immeasurably greater. The psalmist speaks of the Jews weeping alongside the rivers of Babylon. They have hung their harps in the trees and are unable to sing, because they have no joy in their hearts. "How could we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land?" he asks. The psalmist's sorrow turns to bitterness and even hatred when he thinks of those who forcibly removed him from his homeland, as well as all those he considers complicit in the affair. He calls down God's wrath on the Edomites, who assisted Babylon in its overthrow of Jerusalem. Then he utters what is perhaps the most brutally explicit horror in all of scripture: "Happy shall they be who take your little ones and dash them against the rock!" It is human nature to hate your enemies, particularly enemies that have caused so much death and destruction to your family, friends, and fellow-countrymen. Christ asks his followers to do the impossible: forgive them. That's hard to do. Just ask the Iraqi woman whose husband and daughter have been killed by a U.S. bomb how easy it is to forgive. Oh, but we're trying to liberate them, you might say. Maybe so, but that doesn't make her loss any less painful or forgiveness any easier. I agree that all those who are injured should be willing to forgive their enemies when they ask for forgiveness, but before we demand that the Iraqis forgive the pain and suffering that Americans have done to them, ask yourself if Americans are ready to forgive the suffering caused by al Qaeda's attack on the World Trade Center. It's easy to expect others to forgive, but it's hard to forgive a terrible wrong done to you or your loved ones. Yet that is exactly what Christ demands of his followers. If our nation responds to a terror attack by killing as many innocent people as the terrorists themselves, what have we become? Christians are called to love our enemies, to do all that is within our power to be at peace with everyone, and to be peacemakers. We need to read Psalm 137 every now and again, because its graphic harshness jolts us to our senses. Violence only begets more violence. The way to peace is through love.

2 Timothy 1:1-14

I recently read a book by Marcus Borg called The Heart of Christianity. He discusses the meaning of the English term "to believe" (in God) by comparing it to four Latin terms that can be so translated. The first, assensus, means to give one's mental assent to a proposition. This is "belief of the head." The other three terms can be called "belief of the heart." Fiducia means trust, not in a set of statements, but putting one's trust in God. The third term, fidelitas, means faithfulness, that is, faithfulness in our relationship with God. The fourth term is visio, related to the word "vision," which can be understood as seeing the whole, or seeing what is. I'd call it "seeing the big picture." Borg's contention is that over the past few centuries many Christians have shifted from a biblical understanding of belief of the heart to a modern, post-Enlightenment understanding of belief of the head. Biblical faith has more to do with trusting God, being faithful to God, and seeing the big picture in the light of our faith than believing a set of statements about God or Christ. The traditional translation of verse 12 says, "I know whom I have believed," but the NRSV renders it more precisely: "I know the one in whom I have put my trust." Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism all place emphasis on knowing and experiencing the divine, not on believing a set of doctrines. The simple creed of Islam is "Allah is God, and Muhammad is his prophet." Christianity was once that way, too. The early believers in "The Way" proclaimed "Jesus is Lord" and put their trust in God, not a set of beliefs. Putting our trust in God provides greater strength for the believer than putting our trust in a group of doctrines. Believing in the doctrine of the Trinity might be interesting, or even inspirational, but it doesn't provide the strength for living that putting trust in God does. Verse 7 says, "God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline." I frequently encounter Christians whose view of Christianity is quite different from mine. It doesn't bother me when people have a different point of view than I have, but it seems to bother some of them! Progressive Christians often take stands that are unpopular with our neighbors, including many Christians. Remembering that our trust is in God rather that in a list of doctrines can give us comfort, strength, and courage to live the kind of Christian lives we believe that God wants us to live.

Luke 17:5-10

Brendan Gill's short story "The Knife" is about a boy who has recently lost his mother, and he and his father are trying to deal with their sorrow and get on with their lives. As the boy's father is teaching him how to say his Hail Mary and Our Father, he tells him that if he asks the Virgin Mary for anything in prayer, God will give it. The boy decides to test Mary by asking for a pocketknife. His father finds out and buys him one. The boy is so excited that he decides to ask God to bring his mother back to life. What began as an attempt to get the boy to pray and to trust God degenerated into a test of God and a serious misunderstanding of prayer and faith. When the disciples ask Jesus to increase their faith, he tells them that if their faith were like a mustard seed, they could command a tree to be uprooted and tossed into the sea, and it would obey them. What exactly is Jesus' point? First, it's interesting to compare Luke's setting for this saying with Matthew's (Mark lacks it). In Matthew, Jesus' words to his disciples come in response to his disciples' query concerning why they were unable to cast out a demon. In Matthew, a mountain is the hypothetical object of the command to move. Most strikingly, perhaps, the Greek in Matthew implies the possibility that the disciples might have the kind of faith that Jesus describes. Would it really be possible to develop the kind of faith to move mountains? Undoubtedly the saying is hyperbole, but the possibility of having enough faith to cast out demons seems realistic in the context. The saying in Luke is completely separated from a story about casting out demons; it sits near the end of a series of loosely connected stories, often associated with adjacent stories by means of keywords or concepts. (In the case of the saying on faith, it is connected with the preceding pericope by the reference to being cast into the sea, and to the next pericope by the idea of obedience.) Instead of a mountain, a mulberry tree is the object to be moved by faith. In contrast to Matthew, the structure of the Greek conditional clause in Luke suggests that the disciples would not ever have "faith like a mustard seed," and thus they would never be able to make a tree obey them. Is it possible that this saying in Luke is meant to be taken ironically, that Jesus is telling his disciples, "I want you to have faith, but be careful what you wish for; it could be dangerous"? When one takes the phrase "faith like a mustard seed" according to its most natural meaning, that is, faith that is incredibly prolific, growing from almost nothing to something the size of a tree (as opposed to "faith the size of a mustard seed," i.e., tiny), then it makes sense to read this story as Jesus joking with his disciples, while also giving them valuable advice. "Yes, it's important to have faith, but increasing faith (i.e., trust) is something that has to come as part of normal growth. If I were to give you what you're asking for all at once, you'd be hazardous to everyone's health!" A mulberry tree has a purpose on land; in the sea it will only die. Capricious use of power reflects poor judgment, so God withholds power from us, because we wouldn't know what to do with it if we had too much. Like the boy in Gill's story, many people have a serious misunderstanding of faith. They misread this saying about faith and try to will more faith into themselves so that they'll be able to get whatever they want. That's exactly the opposite of the way that true faith operates. True faith is trust in God, not an arbitrary display of power. We can apply this story by trusting God and slowly building on that trust, not by performing parlor tricks but by serving God faithfully and thereby growing in confidence in God's presence in our lives.