The belief that some cosmic Jewish Zombie can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him that you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree.

In geek-speak in sounds crazy, yet it is close to the truth. Here’s the translation from geek-speak to Christianese:

cosmic: from beyond earth, outside our galaxy/universe, transcendent God

zombie: body returned to life, resurrection

cosmic Jewish zombie: Jesus Christ, 2nd Person of the Trinity

live forever: eternal life in heaven

symbolically eat-flesh: eucharist, communion, Lord’s Supper

telepathy: prayer

accept as master: accept Jesus as Lord & Savior

evil force in soul: original sin

rib-woman: Eve

talking snake: Satan

magical tree: Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil

Complete Translation to Christianese:

The belief that the transcendent God, incarnate in Jesus Christ, was raised from the dead can give you eternal life in heaven if you remember his sacrifice in partaking of the Lord’s Supper and pray, telling him that you accept him as your Lord and Savior, so he can remove original sin from your soul that is present in humanity because Eve was convinced by Satan to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

    If Jesus were walking our streets [post]. . .

• He would be more critical of those who are theologically on target than those who are not.
• He would attend celebrations and drinking parties.
• He would possibly provide the beer.
• He would drink with the rest of us.
• He would spent a good chunk of time with those whom the religiously “pure” had no time for.
• He would interrupt some of our religious services by making unplanned announcements and controversial statements.
• He would tell stories that were relevant and attractive but not always immediately clear.
• He would spend a lot more time encouraging others to follow him than he would simply providing religious facts about himself.
• He would live courageously yet humbling.
• He would serve those who crossed his path.
• He would rub shoulders with the outcasts of society.
• He would demonstrate that theology is intended to be done in public and on the streets.
• He would go places deemed objectionable by the moral standard-bearers of society.
• He would make people feel both comfortable and uneasy.
• He would violate some of the rules of the religious establishment.
• He would desire to heal and not to hurt.
• He would be compassionate every day.
• He would be challenged (and in some cases hated) by the experts of our day.
• He would probably cause a lot of us to wonder if he is truly the one he claimed to be.
• He would keep his promises.
• He would most likely be criticized by a good percentage of the media.
• He would . . .

Also, peek around on the sight I found this on: The Porpoise Diving Life–Reality For the Rest of Us or Picking Up Where Purpose-Driven Peters Out by Bill Dahl.

I went to the theatre
With the author of a successful play.
He insisted on explaining everything.
Told me what to watch,
The details of direction,
The errors of the property man,
The foibles of the star.
He anticipated all my surprises
And ruined the evening.
Never again!–And mark you,
The greatest Author of all
Made no such mistake.

So, maybe it is a good thing God doesn’t tell us everything. As much as we want to ask why he gives certain commands or allows different tragedies to befall us, he does have a reason for it. For us to know, would remove the wonder. It would diminish our faith, not increase it. It makes living this spiritual journey exciting and scary, but it will be worth it to see how it all ends.

INTRODUCTION:
One of the hardest things about our small group study on Justice is that we have to also look at Injustice. We have to face things like poverty, slavery, forced prostitution, and ethnic cleansing. When we hear personal stories and not just statistics, these oppressive tragedies are unbearable. The difficulty is that the more you look at evil, the harder it is to see God.

Our study of Justice has revealed that we as Christians are commanded to seek justice, encourage the oppressed, and defend the helpless. Hebrews 13:3 says, “Remember…those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering.” However, as we love our hurting neighbor by identifying with their pain, we can be overwhelmed by feelings that God is distant and uncaring.

This may be why we turn away from images and stories that reveal the suffering in the world. One person who refused to look away from the suffering of the world is Mother Teresa. She founded the Missionaries of Charity, whose mission was to care for, in her own words, “the hungry, the naked, the homeless, the crippled, the blind, the lepers, all those people who feel unwanted, unloved, uncared for throughout society, people that have become a burden to the society and are shunned by everyone.” Her first Home for the Dying was to give a beautiful death to people who lived like animals so that they might die like angels—loved and wanted. Instead of isolating herself from the pain of others she embraced it.

In her private writings published in “Come Be My Light” she writes of a vision she had where Jesus calls her to the poorest of the poor. Here is what she says God said to her:

“My little one–come–come–carry Me into the holes of the poor.–Come be My light.–I cannot go alone–they don’t know Me–so they don’t want Me. You come–go amongst them, carry Me with you into them.–How I long to enter their holes–their dark unhappy homes. Come be their victim.–In your immolation–in your love for Me–they will see Me, know Me, want Me….
You will suffer–suffer very much–but remember I am with you.–Even if the whole world rejects you–remember you are My own–and I am yours only. Fear not. It is I.–Only obey–obey very cheerfully and promptly and without any questions–just only obey. I shall never leave you–if you obey.”

Her response was one of simple obedience and humility that reveals a deep intimate relationship with God. However, almost precisely the time she started her mission to care for the poor and dying in Calcutta, she began to feel abandoned by God. His presence which she had known so powerfully disappeared. This is not something you would expect from someone who was so obviously following the will of God. For almost 50 years until her death she lived with a feeling that God had left her. Only for a five week period in all that time did she experience the intimate presence of Christ she used to have.

Why is this? Why do we also go through times where God seems distant? Honestly, I don’t know. But if someone like Mother Teresa lived through it as well as King David, then it must play some role in our spiritual journey.

Now, to our text today. We often turn to the Psalms to hear some of the most honest prayers ever recorded, because we can relate to the raw emotion in them. For whatever emotion you feel, there is probably a psalm expressing it. It is also interesting that the same person who wrote Psalm 23 about the closeness of God as his Shepherd is the same person who wrote Psalm 13 about how distant God is.

DAVID’S QUESTIONS:
David starts out Psalm 13 with four questions:

How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?
David feels utterly, completely abandoned by God. The feeling of loss and abandonment is so great that he feels it may last forever. In the midst of suffering and trials it always feels like it will last forever. Rarely do we see when they will end our what the outcome will be. For David, the feeling is even more severe because he can still remember a time when God was close. The closer we walk with God, the louder the silence is in his absence.

How long will you hide your face from me?
In the Bible, turning your face to someone is a way to show love and favor. It basically means “blessing”. Conversely hiding your face means “rejection”. David feels that God has rejected him and removed his blessing from him. It is common in times of suffering to feel that God has rejected you. It is the difficulty we face when we can only see God’s gifts not him himself.

How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart?
In the depths of despair, David’s thoughts eat away at him. His emotions overwhelm him. He may have wondered if he has sinned or offended God in some way. Or perhaps they have progressed to the point of telling him to give up. David knows God’s promise that he will never leave him or forsake him, but his thoughts and emotions are challenging that promise. It has become a daily fight to trust in God’s promises over what he thinks and feels.

How long will my enemy triumph over me?
Who knows whether David’s enemy is the cause of the suffering or merely taking advantage of it, but either way when he sees the injustice of evil man prospering while he suffers; it is too much to bear.

DAVID’S PRAYER:
Look on me and answer, O Lord my God.
Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death;
my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,”
and my foes will rejoice when I fall.

The first thing David does during this time of feeling abandoned by God is to pray. G.K. Chesterton said, “When belief in God becomes difficult, the tendency is to turn away from Him; but in heaven’s name to what?” Isn’t that true? When we feel abandoned by God, we tend to turn away from him, but there is no where else to go, no one else better to turn to. The best thing to do is pray an honest gut wrenching prayer.

Obviously, David’s prayer is that God would once again turn his face to him, that he would bless him. He longs for God’s felt presence. However, if he can’t receive that, his second request is that he would have light for his eyes. This phrase refers to spiritual knowledge or enlightenment. But even if God stays silent, he trusts God enough to believe that there is a reason for it. Yet, he still wants to know that reason.

To know why there is suffering is a question theologians and philosophers have asked forever. If we only knew why we suffer, we think that it would make it easier to bear. In the book of Job, his friends offered a bunch of reasons, all of which were considered and fell short. Even Job’s explanation wasn’t sufficient. His encounter when God answered the question revealed there was much more going on then he could possibly imagine.

DAVID’S DECLARATION:
Here is where we must have faith. David concludes the Psalm by saying:

But I trust in your unfailing love;
my heart rejoices in your salvation.
I will sing to the Lord
for he has been good to me.

Whether he feels it or not, he believes that God does in fact love him. Even if his suffering and abandonment leads to death, it will eventually lead to salvation which is only found in the Lord.

And that is the triumph of this Psalm. Whether we ever feel the presence of God again, we can still declare his unfailing love and his salvation. It takes immense faith to trust that in the midst of suffering that God is still being good to us. David could claim it and declare it. Mother Teresa never stopped believing nor abandoned her work. She simply said, “If this brings You glory–if souls are brought to you–with joy I accept all to the end of my life.” She accepted the darkness as the privilege of sharing in the Christ’s suffering on the cross.

Can you believe that God is being good to you even when you don’t feel his nearness? It may be the hardest steps of faith you take as you seem to walk all alone through the valley of death that keeps stretching on and on. But if you trust that God loves you and that he never leaves you, salvation is yours.

CONCLUSION:
On of the darkest times in modern history is Nazi Germany. Evil was out in the open and spreading through Europe like a cancer. God’s people suffered severely. It is amazing though how many still trusted God. On a cellar wall in Cologne, Germany where Jews had hidden are ascribed these words. Words of faith, hope, and love.

I believe in the sun
even when it isn’t shining.
I believe in love
even when I am alone.
I believe in God
even when he is silent.

Elisha died and was buried. Moabite raiding parties invaded the land at the beginning of the year. One day some men were burying a man when they spotted a raiding party. So they threw the dead man into Elisha’s tomb. When the body touched Elisha’s bones, the dead man came to life and stood on his feet.

What?! So a dead guy touches Elisha’s bones and he comes back to life. No prayer. No special reason. Seems to me to give some credit to the Catholic idea of relics. We see a few examples in the Bible where one of God’s men brings someone back to life, but that person was alive. Here Elisha was dead. Come on! What was God’s plan there? Seriously, I have no idea. Maybe God just didn’t want any other dead guys to share the tomb with Elisha, so if you toss one in, he’s just going to walk out.

Anyway, I’m trying to stretch my paradigm a bit. So far I’ve concluded that basically God does what he wants, when he wants, how he wants. Good theology I think, but kinda scary. You gotta expect things to happen in unexpected ways with God. You never know when a dead guy is going to come back to life. My other thought is that I know nothing about the spiritual world. Though it seems to me that the spiritual world is intricately linked to the physical world. That means there really must be holy places and holy things. Sure God is everywhere and everything is His, but in some places and some things he may choose to put some of his power.

On the one hand, it feels like superstition to me. And I am cautious. We are so drawn to the supernatural, the miraculous, the spectacular that acknowledging it might lead people astray. On the other hand, to suppress it seems that we deny God to work in ways that he might choose. Hey, God knows best. If we can’t admit that, we have a long way to go.  I don’t know what to expect now, but my eyes will definitely be open at the next funeral I attend.

“First they came for the Communists but I was not a Communist so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists but I was not one of them, so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Jews but I was not Jewish so I did not speak out. And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me.” -Martin Niemoeller

We must speak out against injustice against any group, even if we don’t identify with that group, even if we are opposed to that group. If gays or Muslims are being treated unfairly, Christians should be the first to speak up. This is how we show love to our neighbors. I am disappointed with Christians apathy towards injustice, even though I am just starting to be drawn out of it. Read your Bible, especially the Old Testament. Injustice was a major thing God wanted removed from his chosen people.

Maybe the problem is that Christians have a hard enough time identifying with other Christians. When injustice happens to a group that is more fundamentalist, charismatic, or traditional, it is too common for Christians to think they deserved it because they practice their “impure” faith how they do. This lets us be smug and self-righteous. (When did those become acceptable sins.)

Let’s do a better job of speaking up for justice. Like the quote above, there may come a time when we need someone to speak up for us. And, here in America, those willing to speak up for Christians is getting smaller.

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Bono, at the National Prayer Breakfast last year.