"Why are you downcast, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God."
The Psalmist articulates what most of us feel during what Luther termed "anfechtung," the "dark night of the soul." I can't help but wonder if this was how Eli felt as he heard the prophecy concerning his household. He warns them, "If one person sins against another, someone can intercede for the sinner with the LORD, but if someone sins against the LORD, who can make intercession?" 1 Samuel 2:25 goes on to say, "But they would not listen to the voice of their father; for it was the will of the LORD to kill them." The LORD's will?!? What do we do when we come across the parts of the Biblical narrative in which we have the acrid-tasting words: "It was the will of the LORD to kill them?" Do we ignore it? Move on to a happier text? Do we read the lesson from the New Testament, and flirt with Marcion, who believed the God of the Old Testament was capricious and mean and the God of the New Testament is loving and kind? It's difficult to let it simply hang in tension, gnawing at our insides, because I think that there is part of us that thinks, "That could be me." We want the freedom to turn away from God, to create gods in our own image, to believe when convenient and admit it when necessary. At the same time, we want God to patiently wait in the background for us with no guarantee we will turn ourselves around and be faithful. So, we want God to allow us to be who we are (that is, human), but we do not want to allow God to be who God is (that is, Other).
It is a little too accurate a reflection of humanity to say, "If you are sure that you are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, a corrector of the foolish, a teacher of children, having in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth, you, then, that teach others, will you not teach yourself? While you preach against stealing, do you steal? You that forbid adultery, do you commit adultery? You that abhor idols, do you rob temples? You that boast in the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law?" Ouch. Sometimes, we gloss over these verses. Traslating them to, "You that preach love, are you loving? You that advocate for justice, are you just to people with whom you disagree? You that preach life, do you provide for your neighbor the things necessary for life?" makes them hit a little closer to home.
This, however, is not the whole truth. It is a picture of the truth, a reflection of ourselves from which we want to turn away, and I think this is exactly the point. To repent, to experience metanoia, the entire turning of our ideas, of our lives, of our essence, around, is precisely that. I think Martin Luther had it right: we are not capable (or if we are, we choose not to) repent, once and for all. Rather, it is a daily death and a daily resurrection to new life. It is a daily release of our incapacity (or unwillingness) to believe in a God who doesn't simply sit in the background of our lives, enabling us to make God into whatever we would like God to be: perhaps a disciplinarian for our neighbor and a savior for us. It is a daily admission that we have been created in God's image, not God in ours. It may not be the God we want, but it is certainly the God we need.
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