Making sense of it all
Week of 6 Easter, Saturday
Ps. 87, 90; Ps. 136; Ezek. 3:4–17; Heb. 5:7–14; Luke 9:37–50
You turn us back to dust,
and say, “Turn back, you mortals.”
For a thousand years in your sight
are like yesterday when it is past,
or like a watch in the night.
You sweep them away; they are like a dream,
like grass that is renewed in the morning;
in the morning it flourishes and is renewed;
in the evening it fades and withers. (Psalm 90:3–6, NRSV)
This passage from the Psalms I certainly understand: life doesn’t last too long. I understand this more and more with every passing day. When I find out about the death of a college friend who succumbed to MS, when I read on the news of someone famous whose life has come to an end…I realize, life is short.
But I have to admit, as I continued in today’s readings, it was difficult to make sense of it all. Sometimes the Daily Office readings have a clearly discernible theme, some element that seems to tie them together, at least loosely. Today’s readings are a little trickier.
For example, in the reading from Ezekiel, the prophet is told of the hardheadedness of the nation of Israel…
But the house of Israel will not listen to you, for they are not willing to listen to me; because all the house of Israel have a hard forehead and a stubborn heart. See, I have made your face hard against their faces, and your forehead hard against their foreheads. Like the hardest stone, harder than flint, I have made your forehead; do not fear them or be dismayed at their looks, for they are a rebellious house. (Ezekiel 3:7–9, NRSV)
That’s rough stuff. It’s not that I can’t find a tie between this passage and the world I live in, of course. Sometimes I feel as if many of the descriptions of the stubbornness of Israel in the Bible are amazingly apt for today’s America. And who knows? Maybe that’s a good message for me to hear at this point in time.
About this we have much to say that is hard to explain, since you have become dull in understanding. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic elements of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food; for everyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is unskilled in the word of righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, for those whose faculties have been trained by practice to distinguish good from evil. (Hebrews 5:11–14, NRSV)
For those in the Church who like to accuse their opponents of not being able to understand the clear words of Scripture, I think the Bible would beg to differ. I’m not kidding, I’ve heard this argument all the time in debates in the Church: “Apparently, those people <liberals, conservatives, whoever> just haven’t read their Bibles. The Word of God clearly says…” And then they begin to explain how, clearly, God agrees with everything they believe. But maybe all of us, on different sides of these arguments have become “dull in understanding.” Or maybe I’m reading this passage wrongly, because of my own dullness of understanding. Whatever the case, I’m suddenly reminded of how much I hate to hear people say that Bible stands for “Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth.” No…it doesn’t. Stop pretending it does.
So, as I wrap up this reading, perhaps I am discovering the thread. We just don’t understand as much as we think we do. I mean, the disciples walked and talked with Jesus, and much of the time, they had no idea what He was talking about! “But they did not understand this saying; its meaning was concealed from them, so that they could not perceive it. And they were afraid to ask him about this saying.” (Luke 9:45, NRSV)
So I began by acknowledging that life is short. And I’m ending by acknowledging that, during the few decades I’ve lived thus far, I haven’t learned enough to say that I’ve made sense of it all. But I’m trying, with God’s help. Amen.
