Lent 33

Sometimes.

What? Sometimes what?

Sometimes God doesn't let a person - and by person, I mostly mean me - off the hook. Sometimes God says something loud enough and often enough that there's no pretending I haven't heard it. Sometimes I wish God would keep God's words to God's self.

I will not tell the whole story, but church has been a place of Not-Rest for me for a long time. Years and years and years. The Church in general and The Church I'm A Part Of in particular.  There are lots of obvious reasons why the church can be a hard entity to be a part of - the history of the church is all too full of our flaws and failures, with killing people who don't agree with us being at the top of the list. Happily, the church I worship with has not killed anyone, but still, we are a collection of flawed and failurey people who inevitably hurt and fail each other, over and over and over again, and over these many years, I have done a good job of keeping a list of those hurts and fails, kind of hoarding them on the back deck in boxes and stacks.

For that reason, and few other bad ones, I don't join up with my church people all that often. But from time to time, I take some collection of my people off to the old high school building to go be church. This morning turned out to be one of those mornings, for no particular reason.  After a few songs, I took my small to the preschool program, and on my way back in to the service walked with my friend Jenn (yes, of Hell Talk Fame - I am still her really good friend, but today she was mine). I turned to her and said, "My heart is so black. I hate this place. I get so mad everytime I'm here. I don't even know why. I'm just so mad." And she said, "Oh no." And then she invited me to come with her.

This morning, it turned out our church was celebrating forty years of life together. I've only been in the together for about 15 years myself, and was gone for 6 of those. But all of my adult life has been spent with these people. When I started as a 19 year old, there were about 40 of us. Now there are about 400. It has been a full life for our little community.

As I listened to the stories of those forty years, it has hard to miss the part where no one stood up to remember the time they were let down by a jerk two rows over. I knew for a fact that some of those hearts had been hurt, more than once. But that wasn't the story that got told. What got told was story after story of God With Us.  God with us when we've been four families starting out together. God with us when we've moved and moved and moved and moved. God with us when we've been 20 and 200 and 40 and 400. God with us as we married and buried and yes, hurt and failed each other.

I sat next to my friend who had said, Come sit your black heart down with me, and I cried a bit. I cried because God whispered something about needing forgiveness. Maybe something about sin.  Maybe something about that stupid idol I've built to my own awesomeness needing to go. About God with us being with us and not just with me. Yep. My List of Reasons all came down to this one: These people don't think I'm awesome enough.

Gross.

I'm pretty sure churches end up dividing over this. We pretend it's about Major Issues and Theological Debate but in the end, people break up with people because those other people don't think we people are awesome enough. Or maybe, it's really just me.

Regardless, my Lent now brings me back to confession, to asking for forgiveness, for doing my best to hand over the idol I keep sneaking in my backpack and saying to God that I don't want to carry it anymore. And my faith is that God will do what God keeps doing over and over, all through Deuteronomy and Jeremiah, through Psalms and John and Romans and Mark - God serves up grace and mercy instead of hell. God says, Come sit your black heart down with me.

God with us.

This morning the church stood up and sang - all of them, even the ones I glare at the most - "Give thanks and praise to our God and King, His love endures forever."  Then I came home and read Psalm 118, today's reading. When God is repetitive like that, I take it as Listen carefully.  So I heard this, "I will not die but live, and will proclaim what the Lord has done. The Lord has chastened me severely, but he has not given me over to death."  And then I decided to let my black heart be restored, and see what happens next.

Psalm 118

¹ Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
    his love endures forever.

² Let Israel say:
    “His love endures forever.”
³ Let the house of Aaron say:
    “His love endures forever.”
⁴ Let those who fear the Lord say:
    “His love endures forever.”

⁵ When hard pressed, I cried to the Lord;
    he brought me into a spacious place.
⁶ The Lord is with me; I will not be afraid.
    What can mere mortals do to me?
⁷ The Lord is with me; he is my helper.
    I look in triumph on my enemies.

⁸ It is better to take refuge in the Lord
    than to trust in humans.
⁹ It is better to take refuge in the Lord
    than to trust in princes.
¹⁰ All the nations surrounded me,
    but in the name of the Lord I cut them down.
¹¹ They surrounded me on every side,
    but in the name of the Lord I cut them down.
¹² They swarmed around me like bees,
    but they were consumed as quickly as burning thorns;
    in the name of the Lord I cut them down.
¹³ I was pushed back and about to fall,
    but the Lord helped me.
¹⁴ The Lord is my strength and my defense^[a];
    he has become my salvation.

¹⁵ Shouts of joy and victory
    resound in the tents of the righteous:
“The Lord’s right hand has done mighty things!
¹⁶     The Lord’s right hand is lifted high;
    the Lord’s right hand has done mighty things!”
¹⁷ I will not die but live,
    and will proclaim what the Lord has done.
¹⁸ The Lord has chastened me severely,
    but he has not given me over to death.
¹⁹ Open for me the gates of the righteous;
    I will enter and give thanks to the Lord.
²⁰ This is the gate of the Lord
    through which the righteous may enter.
²¹ I will give you thanks, for you answered me;
    you have become my salvation.

²² The stone the builders rejected
    has become the cornerstone;
²³ the Lord has done this,
    and it is marvelous in our eyes.
²⁴ The Lord has done it this very day;
    let us rejoice today and be glad.

²⁵ Lord, save us!
    Lord, grant us success!

²⁶ Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
    From the house of the Lord we bless you.^[b]
27 The Lord is God,
    and he has made his light shine on us.
With boughs in hand, join in the festal procession
    up^[c] to the horns of the altar.

²⁸ You are my God, and I will praise you;
    you are my God, and I will exalt you.

²⁹ Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
    his love endures forever.