For God alone my Soul Waits in Silence.

"Now the whole creation is a face or mask of God.  But here we need the wisdom that distinguishes God from His mask.  The world does not have this wisdom.  Therefore it cannot distinguish God from His mask.  When a greedy man, who worships his belly, hears that 'man does not live by bread alone, but by every Word that proceeds from the mouth of God,' he eats the bread but fails to see God in the bread; for he sees, admires, and adores only the mask.  HE does the same with gold and with other creatures.  He puts his trust in them as long as he has them; but when they forsake him, he despairs." (LW 26:95) - Martin Luther

Texts:

Psalm 62:5-12

Jeremiah 19:1-15

Revelation 18:11-20

The texts for today are texts I would expect to read during Lent.  Now, while I do not doubt God's destructive power and that God responds to those who turn away, and while I readily admit these texts make me uncomfortable, wondering, is this the "Good news of God?", to shy away from such texts is to copy-edit the Bible.

When we know God as our Rock and Refuge, as our place of salvation, as the place in which we find our rest, texts that smack of disaster and divine judgment are difficult to swallow.  What is the good news?  Is it foolish to even look?

"For God alone my soul waits in silence,

for my hope is from him.

He alone is my rock and my salvation,

my fortress; I shall not be shaken.

On God rests my deliverance and my honor;

my mighty rock, my refuge is in God."

If the Good News is what God has done for us, and not something we have done for God, it changes how we read these.  We claim God's voice for ourselves, determining God dislikes the same people we dislike.  We list our accomplishments as things we have done all by ourselves and assign the blame of our failures to others.

It is ugly.  God, nevertheless remains faithful.  Of this I am sure.  How... to be honest, it's complicated.  It's complicated to look at texts like this and say, "This is my God."  On the other hand, it is hard to look at humanity, with its penchant for destruction, and say it has no need of a savior.  To rest in the refuge of God is to allow ourselves to be claimed by the promise.  It is the promise that claims us, not we who claim the promise.  It is not by God's doing nothing that we live.  Rather, it is by the gift of breath every morning.  

In order to rest in the refuge of God, we cannot seek refuge in any other place.  To seek refuge in other gods, in our wealth, in our accomplishments, in our own actions, and in the edifices we have so carefully constructed to protect our egos, our fears, our hopes, and dreams.  It is in God we rest: the God who is with us and for us, whose love is jealous not only for we ourselves but for our salvation.  

"Then you shall break the jug in the sight of those who go with you, and shall say to them: Thus says the LORD of hosts: So I will break this people and this city, as one breaks a potter's vessel, so that it can never be mended."

This seems harsh, it's true: how easily we forget, though, what it must be for a Creature to look at her Creator and say, "No thanks, I'll take it on my own from here."  In her pride and self-indulgence, she creates for herself a beautiful exterior, thinking she can earn the love she has already received.  What we forget is how the Creator must grieve at the love that has been turned down, turned away, in favor of a more attractive package - a more attractive god - who rewards good and punishes evil, who looks on the exterior as means of value - a god who looks more like us than it does God.

And we break.

We are - all of us - broken beyond repair.  Stuck together with tape and bubblegum, with missing pieces and parts, we are invited to rest from our efforts to make ourselves whole.  We are invited to stop making excuses for our brokenness.  We are invited to stop giving alibis for our gods of stone.  In our brokenness, after all the tears have been shed, we are invited to rest.

"For God alone my soul waits in silence,

for my hope is from him.

He alone is my rock and my salvation,

my fortress; I shall not be shaken.

On God rests my deliverance and my honor;

my mighty rock, my refuge is in God."