Settled in 1736

Home By Another Way

Date: January 2, 2005

Scripture: Matthew 2.1-12

The earth isn't the only thing that has been shaken this week.

So also, when we see thousands of innocents killed, is our faith in a God of kindness and mercy.

Entire villages aren't the only things that been swept away in an unstoppable torrent of water.

So also have many of the underpinnings of our beliefs.

How do we watch children die – by the tens of thousands – and still say “God is good”?

How do we watch people who live in shanties on scraps have even those meager things taken away from them, and say “Blessed are the poor”?

How do we maintain a reverential approach to life – all life – when we have seen what we have seen? When, as a New York Times reporter on the scene described a beach in Sumatra as “a soup of human flotsam.”

We have a choice at this juncture. We can turn away, close our eyes and take comfort in the fact that we are half a world away.

Or we can stare into the face of this tragedy, this human suffering, this – as insurance companies will call it “act of God” – and dare to pose the question:

Why?

Elie Wiesel, the author and Holocaust survivor, frames the question this way, in his play “The Trial of God”:

Either God is responsible or God is not. If God is, then let us judge God. If God is not, let God stop judging us.

This is harsh stuff, and to some of you that may sound blasphemous. That is not my intention. My intention is to work through this horror. Personally, I find the answer “this is part of God's plan” to be offensive. Not simply offensive to my faith, but insultingly offensive – and dismissive – of those who have died.

To work through this horror, the easy routes are blocked.

We must go home by another way.

II.

If you listened closely to Matthew's account of the Magi, you will see that we have filled in a good part of this story. In our version, we have elevated the wise men to Kings; we have given them camels to ride; we have identified their homeland as Persia ; and we have even given them names – Casper , Melchior, and Balthazar.

OK, so we have filled in some of the blanks. Never let the facts get in the way of a good story. And this is a very good story. This story has captivated the Christian imagination for centuries. I would say God is still speaking in this story.

In this way:

The wise men knew that “something beyond them was calling them, and it was a tug they had been waiting for all their lives.” That is why we gather together here, as a faith community: we know that something beyond us is calling us. Calling us home.

As they approach the child, they encounter evil. Herod. He who would slay the baby.

And when they find the child, Matthew says, “they knelt down and paid him homage.” Here is where I, personally, would love to hear more story. What did they see that made them kneel? What did they sense that caused them to be “overwhelmed with joy?”

In my version of the story, here I would say that they knew they were in the presence of the holy. That this little infant, this miracle of life, was the incarnate goodness of God. And in my version of the story, they don't need a dream to warn them. They just step outside the stable after seeing the baby, and they know. In Herod, they have seen the face of evil. In the baby, they have seen goodness and the promise of mercy and kindness. No question, they are not going back the same way they came.

It has to be home by another way.

Not the easy road from Bethlehem back to Jerusalem . Not the highway from Jerusalem to Jericho . No, they must go home by another way. Much more difficult. Much more dangerous.

III.

On this particular journey – this home by another way – I want to call God to judgment. I want to express my anger. And, I want to know what to do with that anger.

Let me start by quoting James Taylor. He, too, has weighed in on this subject in his song “Home By Another Way”:

Well it pleasures me to be here
And to sing this song tonight
They tell me that life is a miracle
And I figured that they're right
But Herod's always out there
He's got our cards on file
It's a lead pipe cinch, if we give an inch
Old Herod likes to take a mile
It's best to go home by another way

Yes, life is a miracle. But accidents are always waiting to happen. Herod's always out there. Once you've seen Herod's face – whether it's the Holocaust or a tsunami – this lingering question of “why” is going to be stuck in your brain. It will haunt every prayer, every thought you have about God.

This is what Elie Wiesel calls the “tragedy of the believer.” We cannot dismiss our belief in God and yet, the things that we look for in God – goodness, mercy, kindness – aren't simply absent; in their place, we find horror, mayhem, and senseless suffering.

The tragedy of the believer is to be left with no explanation.

IV.

If I were to be stranded on a desert island, I would want to have three books of the Bible with me. The Psalms, of course. The Book of Job. And the Gospel of Luke.

Using these books, let me try to take us home by another way.

I spoke earlier of being angry with God. Many of us recoil from this idea for fear of some other kind of punishment. Lurking somewhere in our subconscious is a God of wrath, a God who does not suffer questions, or fools with questions, gladly.

But here is where we can learn so much from Judaism. There is something of value in being angry with God. It means we are still in relationship with God. Like any relationship, like a marriage, our relationship with God has its ups and downs. And also, like a marriage, when the lines of communication are shut down, problems will arise.

This is the true genius of the psalms. They express the entire range of human emotion. Even, yes, anger.

Psalm 13, for example

How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever?

How long will you hide your face from me?

How long must I bear pain in my soul, and have sorrow in my heart all day long?

Look at me, and answer me, LORD my God!

Psalm 22

My God, my God why have you forsaken me?

The same words Jesus used on the cross. But let us not neuter these words into words of submission. These are words of outrage and fury. Take Thursday's front-page picture of the father on the beach holding the hand of his dead son to his forehead, mouth open in a silent scream. My God, why have you forsaken me: that is the caption to this picture.

Anger is part of our relationship with God.

Nobody better illustrates this than Job.

Job 10.1:

I loathe my life; I will give free utterance to my complaint; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.

Job is often equated with patience. But that's not really what Job is about. Job wants an explanation. And he is angry. In fact, in Job we find a concept that will almost seem humorous to our ears – he wants to sue God. This is not as silly as it sounds. The Jews saw themselves in covenant with God. Job keeps asking God: “Show me. Show me where I broke my part of the covenant. And if you can't, I am suing for damages.”

He presents God with a subpoena:

Job 31.35

Here is my signature! Let the Almighty (now) answer me!

Oh, that I had the indictment written by my adversary!

Job wants to know the charges brought against him. This back and forth goes on in Job for some 30-odd chapters until God, not at all pleased, makes the famous appearance out of a whirlwind:

Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind: "Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up your loins like a man, I will question you, and you shall declare to me.

Gird up your loins. Meaning: let's wrestle. Another Hebraic tradition. It was all right to wrestle with God. Jacob in the tent, wrestling the angel to a draw. Job, of course, has no chance. He is pinned within the first few verses. God, however, just to drive the point home, goes on for three full chapters. With such questions as:

Do you know how to make stars, Job?

Do you know where I store the snow?

Do you know why the lion has to eat young gazelles?

Job, of course, has no answer.

Why?

Because there is no answer. We are back to the tragedy of the believer. Faith must allow the randomness of suffering and the existence of God simultaneously. Which means, on this way home, this home by another way, there are questions with no answers.

V.

And that brings us to the Gospel of Luke. More than any other Gospel, Luke portrays Jesus' focus on the victim, the outcast, the marginalized. It is here we find the parables of the Lost Sheep, the Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son. The parables of compassion. True compassion doesn't ask “why?” There is no discussion on the randomness of crime in the story of the Good Samaritan. There is simply compassion and action.

In the face of unanswerable questions, compassion and action are the stars that will lead us home by another way. They will see us across the abyss of meaninglessness.

It is a time to be generous, as generous as we possibly can. Prayers are good; right now, money is better. And, as David Brooks said in a column yesterday, commenting on the feel-good compassion relief stories that are flooding the news, let us please remember this story is not about us.

To return, in closing, to the Hebrew Bible. The third chapter of Ecclesiastes.

There is a time to mourn, and this is one of those times.

Let us mourn for those who have died. And let us mourn for those of use who have no explanation.