| My
God, My God, Why? |
| Deep calls to deep at the thunder
of your cataracts; all your waves and your billows have
gone over me. By day the Lord commands his steadfast love,
and at night his song is with me, a prayer to the God
of my life. 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?" 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. |
|
| Psalm 42:7-11 |
| At three o'clock Jesus cried out
with a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?"
which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken
me?" |
|
| Mark 15:34 |
| The photos and videos of Katrina’s devastating effects
this past week relayed to us images of widespread destruction
and despair around the gulf coast. Many of the scenes looked
and felt God-forsaken. Forgotten by God. It alludes to the absence
of our knowledge of God’s presence and is only used properly
by those who have known and believed in God’s presence
with them and the world. In times like these people of faith
cry out, “My God, my God, why?” (1) |
| Yet we are often uncomfortable with language that indicts
God, with language of lament. I’ve rarely heard it voiced
this week. Yet this response is one of hope! I’ve heard
people thanking God that they are safe, that their family is
all right and that they are reunited. Stories of survivors getting
by, and stories of aid and relief finally on its way. These
are the stories that have been labeled stories of hope. But
as we thank God for the safety of some that leaves unanswered
the reality of the fate of the others and our initial question.
What about the thousands dead or dying, even now? As people
of faith we are called to go where the media cannot or does
not want to go. We are free to ask, my God, why? |
| To cry out and question God is almost unheard of anymore in
mainstream Protestantism. We are hesitant to raise our voices
and rail against God. We fear, though we proclaim God has set
us free. The scriptures even show us that God’s people
have always been free to argue with God and cry out against
pain and suffering. My God, my God, why? |
| Jesus’ words show forth his humanity and his faith.
Jesus felt abandoned, left alone in his suffering and proclaimed
himself as such. This makes all the difference in the world
to our grappling with suffering today yet we are often uncomfortable
with Jesus’ humanity in the scriptures. We deny angry
Jesus. Jesus whose mission develops. Jesus who changes his mind.
Jesus whose family and hometown think he’s lost his marbles.
Praise be to God that the evangelists and their communities
told a comprehensive view of Jesus’ humanity and divinity.
His cry from the cross was just as surely filled with anguish
and pain as the criminals next to him. What makes his cry different
is his acknowledgment of feeling abandoned by God. He cries
out to God expecting answers nonetheless. It was a cry of faith
in spite of his apparent God-forsakenness. His lament calls
God out; like the psalmists who rail against God’s absence
with them in their pain. His words had been voiced by his Jewish
tradition for centuries. The poet of Psalm 42 writes as one
abandoned by God. The waves and billows surround overhead. This
is the bottom of the pit for the psalmist, God-forsakenness. |
| Today is our stifled repression, our lack of honest questioning
of God, carried out because we feel we must be polite? Or is
it because we are scared to face the total chaos of this world
and fact that we are not in control? If we don’t ask the
question why, we can maintain a sense of knowing how the world
works and achieving our own security within it. |
| Humanity as a whole will never be able to make sense of suffering
on a macro level. Only individuals and groups can claim what
their suffering or another’s suffering has meant in our
own lives. Often we can’t even do this till years have
passed. It would be cruel and arrogant for any of us to try
to redeem the suffering of another, to take away the senselessness
of suffering, for our own comfort. Counselors often say individuals
and families must claim traumas we’ve suffered, and work
through our denial, in order to move beyond. In faith, we cry
out why because we know our lives depend on God. Hope is in
the question; hope that the one who questions God will again
know God’s presence. The psalmist cried to “God
my rock, ‘Why have you forgotten me?’” (2)
Faith and questioning go hand-in-hand. |
| The mistake we make when we fear being honest before God is
that we make God too small. Like God, Creator of the cosmos
and all that is in it, can’t handle our anger and questions!
The Jewish tradition as a whole often seems more honest in their
prayers. While doing my chaplaincy in New Jersey I worked with
a number of Jewish families dealing with a beloved one’s
trauma. “No God! Why God? God I cannot take this!”
I was witness to ongoing arguments of faith. It was honest.
Those families changed my faith forever. I claimed for myself
a biblical way to pray that I had neglected. Total honesty and
grappling before God. My God, my God, why? |
| One theologian puts it this way “Even Jesus, who fully
embodied dependence upon God, could not escape disquietude of
the soul. Neither shall we. The good news, however, is that
neither shall we be able to escape the steadfast love and faithfulness
of God, which are manifested in God’s desire to lead us
back to God’s own self.” (3) |
| We are called to hope in God. Ultimately, “We cannot
answer why such tragedies happen. What we can do is speak with
the sure and certain conviction deep in our souls that God is
present in the midst of the pain and panic, and that God will
continue to be present each and every hour. God's faithfulness
will endure.” (4) We claim God as our help even
when we cannot perceive God with us or God with the world. In
doing so we recognize we are not self-sufficient. We stand in
need awaiting God’s consolation, God’s presence,
to be made known. |
| We are called to respond to suffering. What are we to do?
What is a Christian response? There are many responses. Lament.
Prayer. Generosity. Love. Hope in God. |
| Out of chaos and darkness, God raised Hope for the world and
sent the Spirit to be with us always. “Hope in God; for
I shall again praise, my help and my God.” |
| Amen |
| Beth E. Godfrey - September 4, 2005 |
| Central Presbyterian Church, Geneseo, New
York |
| (1) Quote from Psalm 22:1; Mark 15:34; Matthew 27:46. |
| (2) Quote from Psalm 42:9. |
| (3) J. Clinton McCann, Jr., The Book of Psalms, The
New Interpreter’s Bible: a commentary in twelve volumes.
(Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1996) 854. |
| (4) Excerpt from a “A letter of concern and encouragement
from the PC(USA) Office of the General Assembly,” in response
to Hurricane Katrina. September 1, 2005. |
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