Sixth Sunday of Easter

This is a total aside but you clicked the link.  The NRSVue has this lovely line in the runup to the actual passage, which I want to store in my pocket for div school critiques: “What does this pretentious babbler want to say?” I can't decide if "a real Acts 17 message" sounds too encouraging though.  And having written this, it will no doubt be used against me; I look forward to it.

If you have read my second entry in this experiment then you may recall that I was disquieted by the opposite of this particular Acts passage in Corinthians.  This is a passage that I absolutely adore - it is the Paul that I enjoy the most, the brilliant technical intellectual with clever teaching, theology dripping out of every word.  I could sit in this passage forever.  I also enjoy any discussion of the Spirit, and I have been reading Peter anyway, so this is really a banger week for me.

...which makes it very strange that I am not doing Paul, much less the other two, this week.  I tried, I really tried - I wrote several paragraphs about Paul and Acts, and they were very unpleasant and not worth recovering (except for the one note that I left above, a rabbit trail for any of my future div school folks).  It turns out I am in a reflective mood, and as much as I love Mr Intellectual and as much as I love Peter and as fascinated as I am with the Spirit I really needed the Psalmist this week.

And what a Psalm!  It is interesting that the first part was cut from the lectionary; it's the kind of stuff that we would put to music nowadays, straight up praise stuff.  But it's not lectionary so I will stop talking about it.

So it seems like a normal Psalm, until we get to v10, and then I get sorely troubled.  See, I love the praiseworthy God, the one who keeps us among the living and doesn't let our feet slip.  It is easy to love that God, the one that (oh no I am breaking out of the lectionary) turns the sea into dry land (6) and who is worshiped by the literal earth (4).

...which reminds me.  In the introduction to this experiment I believe I said you should be prepared for the thing to be unrelated; today is your day.  As a younger man I was thinking about what differentiated animals from humans, from a Genesis perspective, and eventually I hit on this idea that animals must of necessity praise God.  They don't really have a choice: they don't know good, or evil, they lack discretion.  If they know God - and why would they not? - then they must praise him.  With this in mind the idea that the rocks would cry out - the earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof, after all - is not so much a leap as a natural consequence of the fact that the earth needs to cry out, is made to cry out.  The reason this is an aside is that "all the earth worships you" is almost certainly a human reference, not that I know Hebrew (yet), but I wanted to put this somewhere so here it is.  Next time you see a dog panting or a cat arching its back or the snake slithering across the road or a cockroach on the porch (not my porch!), remember that it is praising God in its way, too.

Thinking about this passage I have come to realize that this is very much a window to my prayers, and in many ways that is exactly what I would expect from a Psalm.  I have prayed a lot of these things for a lot of different people.  I pray that God does not let someone's foot slip.  I pray that someone would be kept among the living.  I pray that they would be brought to solid ground (maybe "spacious place").  I have prayed for people to come back to God's house, for God to hear them, for them to know God's love.  I have prayed for bounty, and I have prayed for people to have rams and bulls and goats (well maybe not exactly).

I also like the idea of being brought "to saturation" (alternate of 12) - I can just imagine going through the water and ending up completely soaked, having enough for all time; I can also - thankfully - recognize God's provision is full and complete, and that when God decides to give a bounty then it is enough. (And I hope that I can be faithful to remember the same in the lean times to come!) I have someone in particular for whom I am going to pray this very thing!

I have never prayed any of these for anyone - not me, not my friends, not my enemies, not anyone:

• melted in a crucible
• caught in a net
• burdened heavily
• have someone ride over their head (!)
• go through fire
• go through water

I specifically do not want someone to ride over my head! (Seriously who even thought of this?) I can't deny that I have been through some difficult times, and God has been there; and in some ways I am in a different kind of one now, and God is here too; but I would really rather not have to be in them in the first place.  I certainly don't want it for my family.

Yet reading this I am worried that I am too quick to choose the gentler path.  Earlier this very week, even while thinking through this very same passage, I prayed about a specific situation: "couldn't you have done this the easier way?" And of course, God could have done it an easier way!  My circumstances could have been timed in a way to be - from a human perspective - more reasonable, or ordered in a way that I felt like I had more volition, or the Spirit could have switched some things around.  It could have been more obvious, or less chaotic.  It could have been cookie cutter normal.  It could have made the whole experience more pleasant, less jarring, less traumatic for everyone involved.  I am in the middle, I don't see the big picture, and maybe I never will.  Maybe there isn't one?  But God is God, who am I to say?

Still, question number one seems obvious - should I be praying for this testing?  I mean, I am not masochistic or sadistic, I don't want to suffer and I don't want people for whom I care to suffer - frankly for anyone to suffer - and it seems like that is reasonably Biblical or at least logical to want to avoid this pain.  Except... here God is being exposed through the suffering.

And question number two, of course - should I be praying to escape this testing?  I mean I can recognize that the testing is important and not want to be in it for longer than necessary, right?

And finally, question three.  First I mention that I am not one to make vows.  I am not sure what I have to offer God anyway, and what duties I have are owed.  I do not want to vow the first thing that comes to greet me - that did not turn out very well - and the things I have with any value to Christ are my own self, which has been bought dearly already and is no longer my own, and my children, who are also God's and also ultimately their own individuals.  What could I offer that God does not already have?

So let me ponder these with you, my dear reader.

First, asking for testing.

I am first thinking about the flagellants, punishing themselves - pretty sure this doesn't exactly qualify, but perhaps they were thinking 'test me and heal the land of this horrible disease'.  I am not going to pray this for my children, and I do not think I am wrong to decline.

Job prayed for testing, so that he could be found pure and win his case against God.  Again, no.

The psalmist prayed for testing of their heart and ways, and this I think is as close as I can come.  Create in me a clean heart.  I hope that I can ask God to test my heart, to burn off any of the dross that is accumulated, to see God's wisdom and grace in every thing.  So much of the time I get distracted, fearful, worried, and I miss the log in my eye - I need it to get pulled out, pain or no, so that I can be the helper my splintered friend needs once I heal.  That I think I can pray it for myself, and (perhaps with some caveats) for my family.  So maybe I am in error to have not done it, and I suppose I should be praising for the testing while in it which I certainly have not been doing.

Second, praying to escape testing.  I do this all the time.  Getting back to the psalmists, especially David - it seems like this is extraordinarily Biblical.  Bring me back to your tabernacle, free us from this oppression, heal your servant, heal your land.  Free us for joyful obedience.  If God wants us to be tested, perhaps God also wants us to be without pain and sadness, too, at least insofar as is valuable.  I can certianly pray this for my family in good conscience, that whatever suffering to which we are called for the sake of the Gospel will be redeemed in Christ in this life or the next.

Third, should I be offering things to God in the hopes of appeasing, or escaping this testing?  Here I start to wonder.  There are certainly Biblical examples where such-and-so offered whatever for victory in battle or something - I talked about one of them in the runup - and I do not see them as particularly compelling examples to follow.  If I believed I could offer God ... well, anything .... and then I would suddenly have this current test gone?  I would do it in a heartbeat and likewise I am sure that is not going to work.  But thinking that I wonder if sometimes the testing is to show us what we are over-valuing, and the offering is just a side effect.  So if I tell God I will bump my donations, or do some act of service, or feed the hungry or give alms to the poor - maybe the testing wasn't so much foreshortened as doing what it was intended, to expose my greed (notice it's in there thrice, hm) or laziness or indifference.  That I can totally get behind, and I wonder if I really ought to be looking for those opportunities in the phase where I already am.  Honestly now that I type it out it seems pretty obvious, which just goes to show how little I had really thought about testing before.

So - thank you, God, for being all powerful and great; thank you for being wise and wonderful, and capable of giving me everything that I could ever have wanted.  Thank you for making me work for things, for taking your time, for letting me wonder and fear that I am mistaken and making me beg and plead and cry.  Thank you for pointing to my errors, and letting me offer to correct them like it is some generous act, and allowing me to return to your presence and joy.  You have spared me and I trust that you will spare me again, and I will praise your name in it all.

PS - you know, I really don't like this one.  I took a very long walk today, having only written about half the above, and on the way I asked quite loudly, "and what about psalm 66?  Just let it go?" (And then I passed one of the neighbors doing yardwork...) This psalm still makes me uneasy, the concept of testing still makes me uneasy, frankly the idea that God might want us to negotiate makes me uneasy.  I am not at all clear that I understand the psalm any better than when I started pondering it last week.  I am leaving my thoughts from this week here, but it is disquieting for me, so definitely seek a second opinion before you take anything to heart.

If you are going through some kind of test - I am right there with you, my friend.  It is not fun, it is not pleasant, and frankly I want out, and for whatever reason God is not showing me an exit yet, and sometimes I worry there will never be an exit, that this is the final test of my life and either my life is going to be very short or my test is going to be very long.  If you are there with me, I pray that God is able to show us what we need to know soon, and we can move on to a fuller relationship and understanding and in grace and worship and unity, and do those acts of service and obeisance for which we have been redeemed by the Christ.  And if not, well at least that we may one day join together in that heavenly chorus in the peace and unity and love of God.