The initial notes I made next to the two passages
-- one from Jeremiah and one from Luke --
said, "when life goes badly." It still seems
the right thing to say in our initial time together. What do you
say when life, what do you say when our lives go
badly?
You can say what Jeremiah said. Watching his beloved
people in their sad condition, for a century
a vassal of Assyria, often invaded and brutally
mistreated, he saw that, indeed, their lives were going badly.
They had gone badly, Jeremiah said, because they had become
deluded. They had forgotten all that God had done
for them and how they had been brought out
of an even more desperate state of slavery in Egypt.
Priests and prophets were no help. Apparently clever handlers
of the sacred teachings and skilled word merchants
who found ways to turn a phrase, twist a law,
manipulate a teaching, they did not seek simply
and directly for the way of God. In addition, rulers of all
kinds and times participated in the same problem
as well. No one remembered God. " 'Me they
have forsaken,' " said Jeremiah on behalf of God.
So deluded had they become that they, Jeremiah would tell them
later, did not even admit that they had sinned at
all. "Yet you say, 'I am guiltless.' "
Like Jeremiah's time it is something that may not
be seen right away in a life, in a community,
in a family, in the world. But eventually,
life goes badly when God is forgotten. Life goes badly when
people do not understand the seriousness of what
they are doing and how they are doing it.
Life goes badly when they treat their lives casually and
forget that every decision, every act has reverberations that echo
from one life to another to another, reverberations
that echo, in fact, into eternity.
Some might say that people are acting as if they
are too important, too much like a god. But,
from Jeremiah, we learn that life also goes badly
when we see ourselves as too small, too lacking, too much a
victim, too little gifted in life. Life, as he said,
goes badly when we cannot remember anything
good done to us or for us. It isn't a punishment
doled out to us, for being bad boys and girls. It is far
more difficult and complex than that. It is, though,
that life does go badly when we forsake and
forget and neglect and casually discard what God
has done for us.
It isn't a very interesting notion to us any more.
It is more as Old Testament theologian Patrick
Miller has written: "There seems to be an
increasing tendency to assume or claim that someone else has really
brought about the trouble that seems to have our
fingerprints on it. That is true not only
for ourselves but as we look at others. Obvious cases
of brutal crimes may be the exception, but social analysis has
taught us to analyze and look for a pattern of causation
that reduces blame, that distances personal
accountability from the act of the various
contributing factors of environment, heredity, temporary
insanity, provocation, and the lie are uncovered
that account for the act in a way that leaves
little room for one to say 'I have sinned.' In the
past months, the New York Times told of a grandmother who made her
granddaughter eat a poison drink that killer her,
and the article focused on identifying who
in the social agencies did not spot the problem."
There is a problem, of course, even with such statements
and examples. They tend to point always to
the spectacular, the extraordinary, the horrific
and give us the space to work ourselves out of
that picture. Looking at them, we say, "We aren't like that." And
in the saying we are back in Jeremiah's view: "Yet
in spite of all these things, you say, 'I
am innocent.' "
I overheard this short exchange between a shopper
and a clerk not too long ago. The shopper
was in the process of buying a gas grill. The
clerk was pointing out this gadget and that gizmo and yet another
widget when the subject of buying the gas was raised.
"Oh, I don't intend to have to buy gas at
all," he said, matter-of-factly, even proudly,
"I'm just going to take it from work. I figure they owe it to
me anyway." His young son stood quietly by his side,
listening and taking it all in.
You can hear it, can't you? You can hear the continuing
reverberations moving outward. It is the lesson he
was taught. It is the lesson he is teaching.
It is part of a life-long view of life. The view
of the victim. The view of one who thinks there are no options,
no alternatives. The view of grabbing before
it is grabbed, getting before another gets,
pushing ahead in that awful, desperate fear you will be left
behind. "They owe it to me. I deserve it. It is just the way the
world is. It is the only way to get ahead. It is
the only way you will ever get ahead, son."
"For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and
those who humble themselves will be exalted."
Eventually, Jesus, too, reminds us that things
will be turned around. Eventually, the ones who clamor and grab
and always look for position will be seen for the
ones they are, or more accurately and painfully,
the ones they always have feared they were.
It is, of course, the way the world is, isn't it?
To be otherwise is to be weak and without
much. To do otherwise requires extraordinary strength
and faith and obedience, too, I think. Patrick Sonnier killed
Lloyd LeBlanc's son. Mr. LeBlanc says that when he
arrived to identify his son, he had "knelt
by his body and prayed the Lord's Prayer and when he
came to the words: 'Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those
who trespass against us,' he had not halted and said,
"Whoever did this, I forgive them.' But he
also acknowledges that it's a struggle to overcome
the feelings of bitterness and revenge that well up, especially
as he remembers David's birthday year by year and
loses him all over again." In talking about
this wounded, courageous man, Sister Helen Prejean
in her stunning book Dead Man Walking says, "forgiveness
is never going to be easy. Each day it must
be prayed for and struggled for and won."
It is that way for all of us who must live in this
world and try to remember the ways of God,
the presence of Christ, the gifts we were given,
the hope we are promised in the face of sin and neglect and,
sometimes, even destruction, death and cruelty. Each
day it must be prayed for and struggled for
and won. Each day you must resolve to live differently.
Each day you must set your minds and your spirits and your
hopes on what God wills and wants. Each day you must
seek to realign yourself with that power that
gives life and can lead you to do extraordinary
things in a desperate time. Each day.
But wait ... I hear you. I know ... sometimes life
goes badly and there is nothing you have done
and there is nothing anyone has done. Sometimes
our lives go badly the way Mark Wohlers' has. Mark Wohlers
has been a star pitcher for the Atlanta Braves. From
1995 to 1997 his 100 mile-an-hour fast ball
could overpower any hitter. Outwardly everything
is still the same ... he is young and fit and very well paid.
But about a week ago, he was placed on the Braves
disabled list and he has been told he will
remain with the Triple A Richmond Braves for the foreseeable
future. The reason listed for his being disabled was simple
and direct: inability to pitch. Something happened.
Something that no one can pinpoint or correct.
He cannot throw in the strike zone. He falls
apart, his pitching falls apart, something falls apart. Yogi
Berra has been quoted as saying: "Ninety percent
of this game is half mental." Something mental,
something from somewhere, but as yet undetermined,
has happened to Mark Wohlers and nobody can figure it out.
As the article about Mark said: "Finding explanations
is a daunting task." (New York Times, Sunday,
August 23, 1998) Something can happen to us
that nobody can figure out. It just happens. Again, there is not
much use looking for a reason, someone to blame or
any easy way out of it. It just happened.
It is just there. Some things, as Jesus said in his
parable, may have to wait to get worked out. They may have to wait
a very long time. And nobody has to tell you that
it is a daily struggle. That is how you are
forced to live. That is the way you already
know it is. Except, you may need to know, you may need to be
reminded, you may also forget what Jeremiah's people
also forgot. They forgot that God did, God
was, God always would be in that struggle. They
forgot what God is like. God leads us in the wilderness, in a land
of deserts and pits, in a land of drought and deep
darkness, in a land that no one passes through,
where no one lives." For good reasons they forgot.
For good reasons you may forget. But for good reason you also
may need to remember. You are going somewhere. You
are on the way, because you are being led.
You are moving each day, because God is moving
in you and with you and beyond you.
We began our time with what can happen when God
is forgotten. But now let's end in a different
place. Let's end seeing what can happen when
God is remembered. Let's end seeing that our lives can be
different when we allow the Living presence of God
in Christ to return into our lives. Let's
end remembering that in all times, in every place,
within every heart ... you are not forgotten. You are remembered
by God.
