Hope in God

Psalm 42
1As a deer longs for flowing streams,
so my soul longs for you, O God.
2My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When shall I come and behold the face of God?
3My tears have been my food day and night,
while people say to me continually, “Where is your God?”
4These things I remember, as I pour out my soul:
how I went with the throng,
and led them in procession to the house of God,
with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving,
a multitude keeping festival.
5Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my help 6and my God.
My soul is cast down within me; therefore I remember you
from the land of Jordan and of Hermon, from Mount Mizar.
7Deep calls to deep at the thunder of your cataracts;
all your waves and your billows have gone over me.
8By day the LORD commands his steadfast love,
and at night his song is with me,
a prayer to the God of my life.
9I say to God, my rock, “Why have you forgotten me?
Why must I walk about mournfully because the enemy oppresses me?”
10As with a deadly wound in my body, my adversaries taunt me,
while they say to me continually, “Where is your God?”
11Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my help and my God

A powerful earthquake strikes Haiti. The grim reports and pictures come in daily as the casualties mount. Maybe as many as 200,000 people killed devastating an already poor nation. And we respond, “Why, God?” “Why Haiti?”

Hurricane Katrina hits the Gulf Coast. Images of people stranded, hungry, waiting for help. 1,800 dead and thousands left homeless. Especially hard hit are the poorest citizens. Five years later, Presbyterian Disaster Assistance and Habitat for Humanity are still rebuilding homes. And we respond with the same questions. “Why, God?” “Why New Orleans?”

The magnitude of those disasters makes them difficult to truly grasp. Then tragedy strikes here at home. Cancer ravages the body of one who should be enjoying the best years of her life. Or violence claims the life of a friend, a loved one. And we struggle to understand.

“Why, God?” “Why him?” “Why her?”

In part, they are questions and we want answers. We need to make some sense of the senseless. We expect there to be some logic, some reason, cause and effect. We need to know there is order to God’s world. And there are some ready to jump in with answers. God is always right. Since God let those terrible things happen it’s because those people sinned. God was punishing the people in New Orleans because of their lifestyle. God was punishing the people of Haiti because they made a pact with the devil. Answers that seem to be defending God, as if God needs to be defended. Or maybe they are a response to the critics who taunt us saying, “Where is your God?” And they have answers, answers that are insulting and hurtful, and, frankly, not God’s answers.

“Why, God?” “Why him?” “Why her?”

When we feel the pain of loss deeply, though, they are not so much questions as complaints. “Why, God!” “How could this happen!” “It’s not right, God!” Sometimes our complaint goes all the way to anger. And we’ve been told we can’t get angry at God.

“When shall I come and behold the face of God? My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me continually, ‘Where is your God?’”

Psalm 42 is a complaint, a psalm of lament. Nicholas Wolterstorff at Yale, who lost his son in a mountain climbing accident and shared his struggles that first year in “Lament for a Son,” writes “lament is the language of suffering, the voicing of suffering.” And the book of psalms is full of laments, maybe one-third of them – complaints directed to God. I remember years ago after learning about all these psalms of lament asking my pastor why we didn’t hear them more often in church. Apparently, we’re afraid to admit in church and to God that sometimes life really stinks. Wolterstorff notes lament doesn’t sell well because it is a cry to God that doesn’t match the “victorious living” mentality in many of the churches in our country. Lament doesn’t fit a can-do attitude, our need to fix things, to solve problems. “To lament is to risk living with one’s deepest questions unanswered.”

Yet, the people of Israel kept the psalms of lament. And some of these psalms are brutally honest. They are a reminder “that the Hebrew worshipper was free to express complaints, anxiety, rage, and deep sorrow before God and other members of the community.” Yes, it is OK to be angry at God, to be honest with God. Because even when we express our anger, we are still speaking with God; we haven’t given up.

“I say to God, my rock, ‘Why have you forgotten me? Why must I walk about mournfully because the enemy oppresses me?’ As with a deadly wound in my body, my adversaries taunt me, while they say to me continually, ‘Where is your God?’

Psalms of lament were also kept by the church, because they were part of Jesus’ language of suffering. On the cross, he cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me” – Psalm 22. “Father, into your hand I commit my spirit” – Psalm 31. God can hear our cries of anger and pain and sorrow, because God in Christ knows our anger, our pain, and our sorrow. Even as we mourn the loss of loved ones, God mourns with us.

“Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God”

At funeral services, we dare to say that death does not have the final word. Yes, Lord, we shall again praise you. It’s a defiant stand against the ultimate enemy. It’s our message of hope, our witness to the resurrection reflected in the ministry of the church. We feed the hungry, clothe the naked, house the homeless, do justice, love mercy, care for one another because we know death is not the end. Our ministry is not futile; our work is kingdom of God work.

Yet, we do not feel like singing and praising God now. The psalmist’s promise is in the future. Yes, one day we shall again praise God. But right now, we’re not ready. The words are still stuck in our throats. The wounds are too raw, the pain too fresh.

Sometimes our greatest witness to the world, to those we love at these times is not to figure out the reasons why, not to find the answer, not to speak for God, not to try to patch things up quickly and move on. It is simply to gather as a community of faith and express honestly to God our sorrow and our anger even as we try to comfort those who suffer, trusting in God.

“Hope in God; for we shall again praise him, our help and our God”