Live the Mystery

Pentecost 8, July 25, 2004

Larry Crockett, priest-in-charge

This summer I have been teaching a philosophy course on-line through Augsburg College, which has a cooperative relationship with Capella University, which specializes in on-line courses. I am glad my students did not read St. Paul's advice, which we find in today's lessons:

See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe, and not according to Christ.

It looks as though Paul is comparing philosophy to empy deceit. Just a week or so ago, they were doing their section on logic and I suspect they would have seen logic in particular as empty deceit. Now we are on two sections which discuss the existence of God and I happened to run across this riveting piece by Rabbi Brad Hirshfield who is an orthodox rabbi:

I guess I constantly struggle with [the image of God], because oftentimes the God that I want is not the God I want to believe in. There's a piece of me that wants a very personal, very nurturing, very caring, very "make-it-all-OK" God -- the God to whom I can wake up in the morning when one of my kids is sick, maybe really sick, and say, "Please, please, make this better."

I know I need that God. I also know it's ridiculous at another level to believe in that God, because if that God exists, that God was dethroned a long time ago. Whether that God was dethroned at Ground Zero or in Rwanda or in Auschwitz, I don't know. But that God was dethroned a long time ago. ...

People keep asking me, "Where was God?" And they think because I'm a rabbi, I have answers. ... There is a part of me that wants to yell back at them, "What? You're asking now? Why now? Why didn't you ask about Bosnia or Rwanda or Hiroshima or gas chambers and concentration camps, or go back through all of human history? I don't understand. Now you're asking 'Where was God?'

If God's ways are mysterious, then don't tell me about the plan. Live with the mystery. It's upsetting, it's scary, it's painful, it's deep, it's rich, and it's interesting; but no plan. That's what mystery is. It's all of those things.

You want plan? Then tell me about plan. But if you're going to tell me about how the plan saved you, you'd better also be able to explain how the plan killed them. And the test of that has nothing to do with saying it in your synagogue or your church. The test of that has to do with going and saying it to the person who just buried someone and look in their eyes and tell them, "God's plan was to blow your loved one apart." Look at them and tell them that God's plan was that their children should go to bed every night for the rest of their lives without a parent. If you can say that, well, at least you're honest. I don't worship the same God. But that at least has integrity. ...

It's just that it's too easy. That's my problem with the answer. Not that I think they're being inauthentic when people say it, or being dishonest; it's just too easy. It's easy because it gets God off the hook, and it's easy because it gets their religious beliefs off the hook. And right now everything is on the hook.

Perhaps we are shocked by these words. We might expect these brutally honest words from a Reform rabbi or perhaps from a Unitarian minister--but from an Orthodox Rabbi? What's orthodox about these words? His words remind me of the equally brutal words in the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes. So we need to remind ourselves that the Bible is not only a book of answers but also a book of questions. In this same comment, he also remarked that he sees his job as helping his people live with the questions our experience generates. One gets the sense that he is impatient with those who have opted out with too-easy answers.

But is everything "on the hook"? Isn't that a frightening, even ugly phrase? Surely the good rabbi has gone over the top, beyond the pale, much, much too far. Shouldn't a rabbi be prepared to comfort us with comforting words so that we can return to our routine with happly smiles on our faces? Isn't Christianity about "don't worry, be happy"?

As the rabbi says, that would be too easy. We perhaps need to remind ourselves of the 19th-century Dane, Soren Kierkegaard, a famous Christian writer, that looked around his world and discovered that everyone was working diligently to make things easier. Prestigious science, seemingly explaining all. New, labor-saving inventions everywhere. A Christianity proclaiming that all was well and sin a thing of the past. So he resolved to make things more difficult. He saw the danger of satisfied people in comfortable circumstances. In particular, he had contempt for those who facilely embraced a sunny Christianity with no doctrine of sin. As a result, Rabbi Hirschfield can be compared to the existentialist Kierkegard since neither will let us off the hook with our easy, breezy answers to the questions life as we live it generates.

Consider the Gospel for this day:

He was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.’ He said to them, ‘When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us. And do not bring us to the time of trial.’ And he said to them, ‘Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, “Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.” And he answers from within, “Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.” I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs. ‘So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish? Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!’

This Gospel is filled with surprises. Jesus praying? Why would the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, pray? Wouldn't that be like talking to yourself? Moreover, it looks as though the disciples are saying Jesus the teacher has been derelict in his duties as a rabbi--they compare Jesus somewhat unfavorably to John the Baptist. And why would Jesus compare God with the impatient friend who is not much of a friend? We are knocked out of our comfortable Christian couches and onto the hard, cold wood floor of experience that won't allow us sustained, easy comfort. We would much prefer that Jesus build us a soft, warm recliner in which to while away our secure, cozy hours.

We are surprised as well by the form of the Lord's Prayer. It differs in some ways from the one in Matthew. Can't the Bible get the words of our most important prayer straight? Another surprise is that there is a variant reading for one of the petitions. Some ancient manuscripts replace the familiar "Your kingdom come" with "Father, give the Holy Spirit." I like this reading better since "kingdom" could be understood as a plan that we can decipher. When we presume to talk about God's plan in too much detail, then I think we presume too much. God is God and we are mere people who live but for a few years.

Even more surprising, what would we make of the familiar reassurance from Jesus, given what I have just said? Would Rabbi Hirschfield like the words of Jesus about asking and being given, searching and finding, knocking and finding the door open? If we presume that this means our plans are God's plans, then I think he would respond "don't tell me about the plan." If we imagine that the kingdom of God happily coincides with our good fortune and all the things we want, then he would balk and so would I. Everything is on the hook in the sense of plan talk. Given the range of our experience, "mystery" is a more apt word than "plan." We live, we celebrate, the mystery.

The Ancient of Days, the Bible teaches, is infinitely good and will in good time make provision for us. That's about as much plan as I think we dare mention. Life is a mystery, as the rabbi teaches, to be lived. I would add, as a Christian, that it is a mystery that will finally be disclosed as an infinitely good mystery. A good mystery, of course, can make for a great story. An obvious plan, by contrast, is a poor ingredient for good story. God is good and loves us like a parent but God is also the Divine Storyteller. God's Spirit is here to help us live the mystery, live the questions, and write a drama that will leave even God on the edge of the heavenly throne.