Went to my church's Worship and Share this evening about spiritual warfare and we sang this great hymn! I've been singing it ever since I got home, so I thought I'd post the lyrics even though everyone (except me) has probably heard it a million times before.
Sing a song of celebration, lift up a shout of praise
for the Bridegroom will come, the Glorious One
and oh, we will look on His Face
we'll go to a much better place
Dance with all your might
lift up your hands and clap for joy
for the time's drawing near, when He will appear
and oh, we will stand by His side
a strong, pure, spotless bride
We will dance on the streets that are golden
the glorious bride and the great Son of man
from every tongue and tribe and nation
will join in the song of the Lamb
--this hymn was written by David Ruis. Enjoy!
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Friday, August 27, 2010
Judging Sorrow (Job 9:1-15, 32-35)
[a brief comment from the Daily Office]
The book of Job is interesting because Job questions the understanding of justice found in the rest of the Deuteronomic canon: the idea that if a person is suffering, it’s because of his sins. The idea that the conditions of a person’s life reflect whether God is rewarding or punishing her for things she has done.
Job says, “No, I have done nothing to earn me this pain and hardship.” Job rebels against the biblical interpretation of suffering that other people around him believe.
But that doesn’t mean he thinks he’s perfect, either. He asks, “how can a man be just before God?” (9:2). On the one hand, he means that no one can sue God, as it were, for wrongful suffering and expect to come out of the lawsuit justified as the winner. There’s no one to oversee the trial because no one can judge God. God is not a human being, and everything He does is just. Being angry at God because he’s suffering is not the answer Job is looking for – he has no illusions that God will take responsibility for causing unjust sorrow.
On the other hand, it also isn’t possible for anyone to be just before God, to stand before Him and call oneself sinless. Just because Job has tried to live a good life and hasn’t done anything horribly wrong doesn’t mean he’s sinless. Everyone is a sinner, and God alone is just.
Then why, Job asks, do some people suffer while others don’t? More than anything else, Job wants people to know that bad things haven’t happened to him because he is a bad person who did bad things. They’ve simply happened through no fault of his own.
We all have something to learn from Job because we all reflexively judge people based on what we see of their life. Psychological studies have been done on things like the ‘halo effect,’ for example: we have a cognitive bias that makes us think beautiful people are also good people. The bias also works in reverse. We often assume that a person is very poor or homeless because of his own bad decisions. As a society, we’ve made some progress against the belief that sick people are to be shunned because there’s something wrong about them – we aren’t ashamed about most cancers anymore, because we don’t think a person somehow did something to deserve it. But we do have problems when dealing with mental illness. We do still think people just aren’t trying hard enough to get better when they’re depressed, and we still back away from the psychotic. We also sometimes blame victims of crime for putting themselves in a dangerous position or not being careful enough.
These knee-jerk responses are natural: we’re cognitive misers (our brains are wired to think as little as possible) and evolution has set us up to make certain connections. But Job reminds us that those connections aren’t necessarily true. His suffering, which found a place in the Bible, tells us that we have to work harder at being compassionate toward those in distress, and that we shouldn’t blame them or abandon them. No one is perfect, but no one deserves to suffer, either.
Prayer of the day: Lord, we pray for all people who feel abandoned under the weight of sorrow, illness and despair. We ask that each of them finds in their friends, family and community a place of comfort and respite, and a source of strength. We ask also that we be given the grace to better support the people who depend on us for help, and that we receive the wisdom to see beyond suffering to the human being who suffers.
The book of Job is interesting because Job questions the understanding of justice found in the rest of the Deuteronomic canon: the idea that if a person is suffering, it’s because of his sins. The idea that the conditions of a person’s life reflect whether God is rewarding or punishing her for things she has done.
Job says, “No, I have done nothing to earn me this pain and hardship.” Job rebels against the biblical interpretation of suffering that other people around him believe.
But that doesn’t mean he thinks he’s perfect, either. He asks, “how can a man be just before God?” (9:2). On the one hand, he means that no one can sue God, as it were, for wrongful suffering and expect to come out of the lawsuit justified as the winner. There’s no one to oversee the trial because no one can judge God. God is not a human being, and everything He does is just. Being angry at God because he’s suffering is not the answer Job is looking for – he has no illusions that God will take responsibility for causing unjust sorrow.
On the other hand, it also isn’t possible for anyone to be just before God, to stand before Him and call oneself sinless. Just because Job has tried to live a good life and hasn’t done anything horribly wrong doesn’t mean he’s sinless. Everyone is a sinner, and God alone is just.
Then why, Job asks, do some people suffer while others don’t? More than anything else, Job wants people to know that bad things haven’t happened to him because he is a bad person who did bad things. They’ve simply happened through no fault of his own.
We all have something to learn from Job because we all reflexively judge people based on what we see of their life. Psychological studies have been done on things like the ‘halo effect,’ for example: we have a cognitive bias that makes us think beautiful people are also good people. The bias also works in reverse. We often assume that a person is very poor or homeless because of his own bad decisions. As a society, we’ve made some progress against the belief that sick people are to be shunned because there’s something wrong about them – we aren’t ashamed about most cancers anymore, because we don’t think a person somehow did something to deserve it. But we do have problems when dealing with mental illness. We do still think people just aren’t trying hard enough to get better when they’re depressed, and we still back away from the psychotic. We also sometimes blame victims of crime for putting themselves in a dangerous position or not being careful enough.
These knee-jerk responses are natural: we’re cognitive misers (our brains are wired to think as little as possible) and evolution has set us up to make certain connections. But Job reminds us that those connections aren’t necessarily true. His suffering, which found a place in the Bible, tells us that we have to work harder at being compassionate toward those in distress, and that we shouldn’t blame them or abandon them. No one is perfect, but no one deserves to suffer, either.
Prayer of the day: Lord, we pray for all people who feel abandoned under the weight of sorrow, illness and despair. We ask that each of them finds in their friends, family and community a place of comfort and respite, and a source of strength. We ask also that we be given the grace to better support the people who depend on us for help, and that we receive the wisdom to see beyond suffering to the human being who suffers.
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Judges
Along with my blatant neglect of this blog, I've recently gotten out-of-step with several other things as well. I skipped praying the Daily Office for a while and, let me tell you, the action-packed book of Judges did not agree with that! Getting back into the swing of things, I found myself totally confused about what was going on. Who are these people? Why are they at war? Who is the man in the yellow hat?
It's interesting how clinical depression can be a vicious circle. You feel bad, so you're too tired to pray; you don't pray, so you feel worse; cycle continues ad infinitum. I hate to compare prayer to exercise, but it kind of is: if you'd just do it you'd feel better. It's a difficult situation for me because I've always connected prayer to a passionate desire for God, so the idea that I have to create that by getting into a prayer routine is foreign, because it's backwards.
Nevertheless, I think that this is a valuable learning experience for me, if I can learn how to draw a new kind of strength from prayer. What does it mean to want God when you don't feel like you want Him? The great experiment begins.
I know that I seem like a pessimistic crackpot pessimist but, really, there's a lot I have to look forward to. If all goes according to the current plan, I'll be welcomed into the Anglican Church in October (woohoo!!). I might me leading a Worship & Share session in September at my church, about liturgy (yay liturgy!); also might get to preach for back-to-church Sunday. If ministry team agrees, we're also going to start having daily prayer a few times a week, once we can get it started in the Fall (awesomeness!). It'll be good to have a prayer responsibility to someone other than myself...well, good for me, anyway. I miss the corporateness and the timeliness and the human contact.
So you see, lots of churchy goodness on the horizon.
But, even MORE awesome: two of my closest friends are getting married today!! YAY!!! I can't wait!
p.s. Pat, the elephant misses you a lot. You always cheered it up. The elephant will come visit you when you least expect it. And it's saving a great big hug just for YOU.
It's interesting how clinical depression can be a vicious circle. You feel bad, so you're too tired to pray; you don't pray, so you feel worse; cycle continues ad infinitum. I hate to compare prayer to exercise, but it kind of is: if you'd just do it you'd feel better. It's a difficult situation for me because I've always connected prayer to a passionate desire for God, so the idea that I have to create that by getting into a prayer routine is foreign, because it's backwards.
Nevertheless, I think that this is a valuable learning experience for me, if I can learn how to draw a new kind of strength from prayer. What does it mean to want God when you don't feel like you want Him? The great experiment begins.
I know that I seem like a pessimistic crackpot pessimist but, really, there's a lot I have to look forward to. If all goes according to the current plan, I'll be welcomed into the Anglican Church in October (woohoo!!). I might me leading a Worship & Share session in September at my church, about liturgy (yay liturgy!); also might get to preach for back-to-church Sunday. If ministry team agrees, we're also going to start having daily prayer a few times a week, once we can get it started in the Fall (awesomeness!). It'll be good to have a prayer responsibility to someone other than myself...well, good for me, anyway. I miss the corporateness and the timeliness and the human contact.
So you see, lots of churchy goodness on the horizon.
But, even MORE awesome: two of my closest friends are getting married today!! YAY!!! I can't wait!
p.s. Pat, the elephant misses you a lot. You always cheered it up. The elephant will come visit you when you least expect it. And it's saving a great big hug just for YOU.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)