I guess you could say that good old Job walked the Stations of the Cross many, many years before Jesus. . .
Twelve ministers were on a plane flying to a conference. Suddenly the plane was jarred from right to left and up and down. They had flown into a large storm, and the flight became extremely turbulent. Everyone aboard was very frightened. One of the ministers called the flight attendant over to where the ministers were seated, and he whispered in her ear, Tell the pilot that everything will be okay because twelve ministers are aboard this plane.
Later, the flight attendant returned from the cockpit.
What did the pilot say? the preacher asked.
He said, he was really glad to have twelve ministers aboard, but right now he would rather have four good engines!
The God that answers Job’s laments in this week’s first reading elects to give that answer in the midst of the violent turbulence of hurricane force winds.
I think that you will agree with me that the God who answers Job’s laments is certainly not the warm, cuddly, domesticated God that normally we like to talk about when we are in the midst of suffering:
Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding.
Who determined its measurements– surely you know!
Or who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone when the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy?
In no way do I believe that God is supposed to be is saying, Job, there are a just a few things you don’t understand; there are a few things that were built into creation that make things just a tad different than the pre-conceived, well-intentioned prevailing notions about me to which you have become accustomed.
Job, the universe is a wildly, free place, just like this wind from which I speak. I made space for that freedom when the piers were being sunk at the very beginning of what you call time. You see, Job, a God of justice and love has to let creation be free, and with freedom comes risk, and with risk comes good and bad alike. Job, I guess what I’m trying to tell you is that I’m only as powerful as a God of love and justice can possibly be!
After years of studying philosophy and theology myself, the best analogy I have been able to come up with for how and why God stands for freedom is what I have come to call the Wounded Bird Analogy. I will tell you at the outset, that I wouldn’t be surprised to find God speaking to me in a whirlwind after I have completed this meditation with a few things to say about my analogy, but I’ll give it a try.
Most of us have had the experience of bringing home a wounded bird (or some wounded animal from the wild). You know the general scenario. When the bird gets better, we are told exactly what we don’t want to hear, The bird now needs to be let free. Not only are we attached to the creature, but to let it go free could mean that it might break its little wing all over again.
However, to keep it safe and sane in captivity will only bring a sure and certain death, much worse than any broken wing. It’s a tough concept for little minds to wrap themselves around, but somehow we know deep inside that it’s true. We would all agree that it is a sin to kill a mockingbird, but it is also a sin to cage that bird so we can listen to the singing.
The great theologian, Paul Tillich, thought that we all should stop using the word God for about a hundred years because we have so many pre-conceived notions about what the word God means. He suggested that we call God, The Ground of all Being. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that it’s not a very fuzzy, cuddly describer. Even a self-proclaimed progressive like myself has trouble warming up to The Ground of all Being.
But, at the same time, I think it’s one of the best attempts in modern history, within the scope of our hopeless human language, to describe the indescribable God within the whirlwind.
It’s an attempt to describe God, not as the parental manipulator who comes down out of the sky to rescue us and then leaves us to ask “why” when the rescue attempt fails.
No, “The Ground of all Being” is an attempt to describe God as the foundation, the undergirding of the world in which we live, a completely free and wild, risky and wonderful world; a God who is there when the risk pays off and a God who is also there when it doesn’t.
The God who speaks from the wild and free turbulence of a whirlwind isn’t a God who is separated from us, but is foundational in our lives, a God who is not just with us on the surface of life, but at the very core of our lives. This is the God in whom we live, and move, and have our being.
The God who spoke to Job isn’t a divine magician or a dispenser of rewards and punishments. As Episcopal Bishop John Spong wrote, this God would not be the terrestrial Mr. Fix-It for some while allowing others to endure their pain to the bitter end. This God was not an external, personal force that could be invoked, but rather an internal reality that, when confronted, opened us to the meaning of life itself.
This is where our Christian Faith comes into play. If we are tempted to think that the Ground of all Being, might not be able to understand our suffering and pain, we can then turn to Jesus Christ!
Christ’s power is also not that of a divine magician. Christ’s power can be found in Christ’s desire to come among us as one who suffers. That is why year after year, Lent after Lent, we symbolically walk the Stations of the Cross over and over again, listening to the story of helpless suffering. . . of suffering that came unbidden, unwanted. . . of suffering for which there is no rescue except to know that God is still there in the midst of it all.
Neither the God of the whirlwind nor the God of the Cross answer the haunting human cry of why? Neither the God of the whirlwind nor the God of the Cross will eliminate all the suffering and all the anger that comes from living in a wild world created to be free as the winds of a hurricane.
But the God of the whirlwind and the God of the Cross do promise to be with us in times of turbulence and senseless pain, and it’s that presence that we invite in our prayers, and it’s that presence that causes us to gather in our churches to celebrate.
But it doesn’t just stop there, does it?
Our walking of the Way of the Cross isn’t endless, is it? We do eventually walk into an Easter Church full of lilies and Easter hymns sung at full volume in the major key; a church that promises transformation and resurrection.
We can’t be sure of the when, the where or the how, but we are confident it will come. You know, a lot of people don’t like the ending of the story of Job. Where all his fortunes and his family are restored. It’s too Pollyanna, it’s too predictable. They accuse the unknown author of walking back his realistic view of God.
But, I see the ending of Job as similar to the ending of the story of the Crucifixion.
Both symbolize that eventually the God in whom we live and move and have our being… will have the last word!
In my view the “Ground of all being” is another way to describe LOVE. It is unforutnate the we have only one word for LOVE where the greeks have 7.
LOVE is the power that can save the world, however the other end of the LOVE continum is hate. My question is how do we move that continum from hate to LOVE?
Spong said,”Love wastefully, live fully and be the best one can be.”
I will do my part the best that I can.
Thank you FR. Bill
Frank Tortorich