God Shows Up-December 6, 2023

God Shows Up-December 6, 2023

"O Lord God of hosts,
  how long will your anger fume when your people pray? 
 You have fed them with the bread of tears;
  you have given them bowls of tears to drink.
 You have made us the derision of our neighbors,
  and our enemies laugh us to scorn.
 Restore us, O God of hosts;
  let your face shine upon us, and we shall be saved." [Psalm 80:4-7]

Sometimes we need God to be near, just so we can be mad at God.

Sometimes we call on God to listen to our complaint... that we feel like God isn't listening.

Sometimes we appeal to God to be kind to us, while we are in the midst of accusing God of being unkind.

And amazingly, God shows up every time we need it.  

That really is astonishing, if you think about it.  We may well take it for granted that God is available and accessible at all times and in all circumstances.  But most of the people I know aren't exactly eager to show up for an appointment they know will involve personal criticism or complaint.  Most of my experience with human beings is that we are tempted to duck out, disappear, deny, or deflect complaints, rather than deliberately showing up to take the angry grievances of people who are persuaded they have been wronged... even if they're wrong about that.  And if I am honest with myself, I recognize all of those impulses in myself, too. I'd rather not have to deal with unpleasant conversations, reminders of my shortcomings, or criticisms from people who didn't like something I said, did, or didn't do. 

And yet--here is evidence from the Scriptures that the living God can not only tolerate our accusations and anger, but comes near to hear them all... and bears them.

One of the things that just boggles my mind about a psalm like this is that words like these ended up in the Bible itself, rather than being "edited out" because it doesn't make for good press on God's part.  In fact, since Christians have traditionally spoke about the Scriptures being divinely inspired, that means we have here record of God not only permitting but directly prompting some ancient poet to vent all these raw feelings and accusations, and God doesn't blush once at having them in the record.  God doesn't insist on holding a separate press conference or a courtroom rebuttal to say, "Now, hold on just a minute--I haven't given you the bread of tears! I haven't made you drink bowls of tears!  That's all a little melodramatic, don't you think?"  God doesn't offer any self-defense to duck the criticisms, and God doesn't step in with some "Footprints in the Sand" type of response to deflect the raw emotion.  God just takes every last accusation lobbed at the heavens and bears them, almost as if to say, "If you need someone to be mad at while you are processing the rotten stuff that has happened, fine--I can be the One you are mad at.  I will exhaust all your pent-up rage and sadness and disappointment, and I will still be here."

I wonder if sometimes that isn't really what happens in our lives--we are feeling angry or frustration or disappointment, and so we accuse God of not listening or not helping or not answering, and then after we have spent all our fury venting it all to God, what we discover is that God didn't run away.  In fact, we discover God had never abandoned us in the first place!  We might have accused God of being angry with us and ignoring our prayers, but that might really be our projection onto God of our own upset and anger.  We might complain that God has abandoned us, when in truth God has been with us all along--even when we're accusing God of abandoning us!  

And in a very real sense, this is what the incarnation of Jesus is all about: we have been calling on God to come near, and in Jesus, we are given the gift of a God who shows up in the flesh, even when all we do is unleash complaint, anger, and unfair accusation.  God bears with our worst in Jesus, absorbing our hostility even to the point of a cross, exhausting our enmity, and refusing to run away when we are angry or heartbroken or accuse God of being behind all the things we are mad about.  We may not realize that this is exactly what we need, but it is sometimes.  And in those times, the God who is strong enough to take our rawest emotion and fiercest accusations is the One who shows up, ready to listen... in fact, having been listening all along.

So today, if you find yourself venting, frustrated, or bitter (or you know someone else who is), know that the Bible itself invites us to be honest with God, and that we can bring all of those things to God's attention (since God already knows, anyway).  In fact, our surest hope is the God who is both strong enough to bear our anger and yet willing to be vulnerable enough to let us bring all of it right to God's face.

It's OK to bring it all to God.  None other than God has invited us.  God will show up to hear whatever we need to vent.

Lord God, bear all that is on our hearts today, and give us hope from knowing you will not run away even when we are upset with you.