“Dear God: Where Are You?”

Psalms 42 & 43

There are real victims in our world: people who are really suffering. There are real exiles in our world: men, women, and children who cannot go home - ever. Some of us ministered among such folks this past summer in Clarkston, GA. There are victims of war, natural disaster, crippling financial losses, crime, and persecution all around us. There are victims of illness, injury, betrayal, and loss in our neighborhoods, and quite possibly sitting beside us at work, school, and even church.

The words I’m about to quote are not directed toward such real victims. They are directed toward the many in our culture, who are always playing the poor-pitiful-me card just because they must endure the normal and necessary difficulties and disappointments of life. They are of the everyday variety of spoiled, self-centered whiners and complainers: those who very often want to be delivered from the results of their own behavior. To give a highly personal example, they are people like me who whine about being overweight yet keep on overeating.

Finally the quote, taken from a song recorded by the Eagles: “I turn on the tube and what do I see/A whole lotta people cryin’ ‘don’t blame me”/They point their crooked little fingers at everybody else/Spend all their time feelin’ sorry for themselves/Victim of this, victim of that/Your momma’s too thin; your daddy’s too fat… Get over it. Get over it. All this whinin’ and cryin’ and pitchin’ a fit/Get over it.”

Today’s readings from Psalms were composed by a real victim. We don’t know of exactly what. We don’t know exactly why. But there are some hints in the two psalms. Let us listen to some of them, reading this time from The Message: “All day long people knock at my door, pestering, ‘Where is this God of yours?’…Why am I walking around in tears, harassed by enemies? They’re out for the kill, these tormentors with their obscenities, taunting day after day, ‘Where is this God of yours?’… Why am I pacing the floor, wringing my hands over these outrageous people?”

Obviously there are some folks out to get him, but again, we don’t know who and we don’t know why. Although the psalmist refers to them as loveless, immoral people, he gives no details. All we know is that this poor guy is in torment, the victim of those who constantly persecute him. Their most wicked form of torment is a spiritual one: Where is this God of yours?

That one really hurts because it’s pretty much the same question the psalmist is asking: “Sometimes I ask God, my rock-solid God, ‘Why did you let me down?’… I counted on you God. Why did you walk out on me?” Poor man: he is wickedly harassed and tormented by non-believers while at the same time feeling totally cut off from the God he has so faithfully loved, worshiped, and served: “I was always at the head of the worshiping crowd, right out in front…”

Or as Leah Horton puts it, “The psalmist [is] suffering under the cruel domination of those who mock the God of Israel whom he worships, and perhaps most painful of all, suffering from the apparent silence of God in the face of his troubles.” The last thing he needed to hear from those who cared about him was: get over it. If he could have he would have. He had no control over his persecutors. Nor did he have the power or authority to command God to end his spiritual exile.

He had no control over his situation. He had no power to change it. What he did have was a strong belief in the promises of God. He expected God to keep those promises. He expected God to listen to his cries of anguish and then do something about them. In essence he was saying, “Do the things that you, as God, are supposed to do! I’m in hell here; get me out of it!” Please note that these were the frustrated demands of someone in pain; they were not the commands a creature can ever make of the Creator.

If anything, they were expressions of hope that God would act. In the midst of all the pain, torment, and anguished cries, there was a recurring theme of hope. Both psalms end with the very same words: “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.” He’s frustrated by God’s apparent unwillingness to intervene, but at the same time, he truly believes that God will. Things are bad, very bad, but deep in his heart he knows that things will get better, that God will do what God is supposed to do.

The good news in all this is that God always does what he’s supposed to do or to be more theologically correct, always does what it is his will to do. We don’t know what became of the writer of today’s text. It ends with him still in deep pain and suffering a form of spiritual exile. It also ends on a note of hope: “He puts a smile on my face. He’s my God.”

What we do know is God’s history with his people. They rebel; he forgives. They bring upon themselves an exile to a foreign land; he delivers them from it. They will not be the light to the nations that he has chosen and called them to be; he intervenes in a most unexpected way, as in: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us… for God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”

Jesus referred to this life as abundant life not just in heaven, but right here and right now. But for those of us who follow Jesus this life, at least on the surface, doesn’t always feel very abundant. Christians get sick, lose jobs, experience heartache, and eventually die just like everybody else. We are not immune to any of life’s disappointments and defeats. Stuff happens, and sometimes the only thing we can do is, as best we can, is get over it – deal with it – respond to it.

And sometimes, because we are Christians, we must deal with being persecuted by the same kind of loveless, immoral non-believers who persecuted the psalmist. Sometimes, because we are Christians, we are exiled from the places and people we love; we become refugees – victims - for Jesus. Sometimes deliverance, as such, never comes. Neither the persecutions nor the exiles end. Sometimes it seems that God has abandoned us.

Can we pray for deliverance? Yes we can. We’re even allowed to challenge God to come save us, to come be the kind of God we believe him to be. Like the psalmist we are free to express our impatience, to vent our frustrations. We can even demand deliverance. God will hear us. God will understand us. He will not smite us. He will continue to love us, but his will is greater than our own. We cannot command God to act.

What we can do is trust that God will be with us in our pain, that in the person of his Son Jesus he will constantly be interceding for us. We can know that we are loved with a love that will not let us go. We can believe that a time will come when we will make our home with God for eternity. In the face of whatever hell we might be in, we can be like the psalmist and hope beyond hope that God will put a smile on our faces again.

In the meantime one of the best things we can do is take heed of the advice the Apostle Paul gave to the Philippians: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice… the Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”

And also take to heart these words he wrote to the Romans: “… [nothing] in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

So let us rejoice; the Lord is near. Let us lift up our prayers, knowing that they will be heard. Let us always be thankful for our blessings, especially those that are ours in Christ Jesus. Let us trust God to be God. And we will experience a deep in the heart peace and joy that cannot be taken from us. Not no way. Not no how.

Knowing that, let us allow God to put a smile on our faces. Amen.