LaurenRELarkin.com<p><strong>Psalm 103:20-22</strong> Bless God, you angels, you mighty ones who do God’s bidding, and hearken to the voice of God’s word. Bless Abba God, all you his hosts, you ministers of God who do God’s will. Bless God, all you works of God, in all places of God’s dominion; bless Abba God, O my soul.</p><p><strong><strong>Introduction</strong></strong></p><p><strong>We are about a month away from hitting the fourth anniversary of Covid_19 shutting down the world and turning it completely upside down. I can simultaneously believe and not believe that it’s been that long and only that long. It feels like yesterday and so long ago. Time feels thin right now, caught in a paradox of fast and slow, so close and yet so far away, here and not here.</strong></p><p><strong>But it’s not only time that feels caught in such a paradox. The atmosphere surrounding our bodies feels caught in its own paradox of familiar and strange. I don’t think I feel all that different than I did on March 12, 2020, but then I feel completely different, like maybe I don’t share one genetic similarity with that woman. But I do! She and I are one, and we did go through and are still going through that massive event that plunged the world into chaos.</strong></p><p><strong>And it’s more than just a personal sensation, something unique and private to me. It’s impacting all of us. And not only those of us here in this room, but in our community, in our state, in our nation, and in our world. This entire ball of matter orbiting its sun feels submerged in tumult. One global event after another arises, reminding us viscerally that our lives are short and our bodies fragile and vulnerable. We are not in control, are we? War and violence, genocide and extermination, hate and rage are the fuel motivating bloated egos consumed with power toward global extinction. Our own country grows continually divided over who has liberty and who doesn’t, xenophobia is (<em>re</em>)peaking (if you are not just like us then you are against us), our neighbors are becoming our supposed enemies to our own private freedom and liberty blinding us to the fact that we might be the enemy to ourselves; in short, everything and everyone is a threat. Our many places of worship, those once deemed sacred and safe places, are now battle-ground-zeros for so many people who are sure they know exactly what God thinks and wants, drawing lines thick and dark in the sand, meanwhile fighting terribly to keep their institutional heads above the waters of financial ruin and destitution, afraid to let death come and claim its victims and houses.</strong></p><p><strong>Almost four years ago we were thrown into a rupture in time and space, and—I don’t know about you—but it doesn’t feel like we’ve been rescued from it just yet. In fact, I’ll say it boldly, we have not been rescued; we’re still in the rupture. We are further in and further down, but not up and not out.</strong></p><p><strong>So, what do we do? Well, the tendency for human nature is to go backward, return to the shore of familiarity and comfortable, swim back to what was, and to ignore that our memory of the past silences malicious secrets and covers over terrible deeds. Humans are convinced that what we know is easier to battle than what we don’t know. We love to look backward with rose colored glasses and reminisce with fondness about things that, frankly, never truly existed as remembered. Our minds lie to us, lure us backward toward images of yesterday that are (actually) images of never-where and never-when. We are easily seduced by thoughts that somehow the past was better, more vibrant, simpler, without difficulty; <em>wasn’t it easier back then…</em></strong></p><p><strong>Human beings have a hard time fighting against this lure and seduction of the romanticized past; the more we fight the more stuck we become. We are <em>buried in the past, captive to what was</em>.</strong></p><p><strong><strong>Joel 2:1-2,12-17</strong></strong></p><blockquote><p>Blow the trumpet in Zion;<br>sound the alarm on my holy mountain!<br>Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble,<br>for the day of the Lord is coming, it is near–<br>a day of darkness and gloom,<br>a day of clouds and thick darkness!<br>Like blackness spread upon the mountains<br>a great and powerful army comes;<br>their like has never been from of old,<br>nor will be again after them<br>in ages to come.</p></blockquote><p>It seems Joel’s ancient, prophetic words ring true today. There is trembling among the people, darkness and gloom feel real while clouds and thick darkness taunt us from above. The day of God comes, and we’re yet to be saved from it. There is fear here, in Joel’s words. The people should be afraid of God, says Joel, but not of humanity.[1] But this fear is not because God’s principle characteristic is anger or wrath because God’s character is foremost longsuffering and patient, forgiving and merciful. [2],[3]</p><blockquote><p>Yet even now, says the Lord,<br>return to me with all your heart,<br>with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;<br>rend your hearts and not your clothing.<br>Return to the Lord, your God,<br>for he is gracious and merciful,<br>slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love,<br>and relents from punishing.<br>Who knows whether he will not turn and relent,<br>and leave a blessing behind him,<br>a grain offering and a drink offering<br>for the Lord, your God?</p></blockquote><p>The people should fear this day of God’s arrival because God will come and expose that what the people have created as a sham: mere phantoms of good; things built in the image of humanity and not by the divine inspiration of God’s loving and gracious Spirit. Joel’s pronouncement of God’s coming judgment and anger summons the people out of themselves—their egos, their power, their pleasure, their comfort—and redirects them to a proper relationship to God (one of dependence and trust, one of reverence and forgiveness). Joel makes it clear, the people have gone astray, they must return to God because in this return God’s displeasure is (potentially) fleeting; it is a moment in time that happens, it will not last forever. [4]</p><blockquote><p>Blow the trumpet in Zion;<br>sanctify a fast;<br>call a solemn assembly;<br>gather the people.<br>Sanctify the congregation;<br>assemble the aged;<br>gather the children,<br>even infants at the breast.<br>Let the bridegroom leave his room,<br>and the bride her canopy.</p></blockquote><p>God loves God’s people; however, according to all the prophets of Israel and including Joel, God does not love it when the people forfeit their relationship with God for a relationship with power and privilege thus obstructing the wellbeing and livelihood of their neighbors. God does not deal kindly with such mischief. Thus, with their society on ethe edge of judgment and being engulfed by the divine pathos for the Beloved, according to Joel, God’s people can do something to mitigate this coming moment of wrath: they can turn to God because God is merciful and gracious[5] and this turning to God will turn away God’s displeasure,[6] especially if they return in time before God’s day of judgment arrives.[7]</p><blockquote><p>Between the vestibule and the altar<br>let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep.<br>Let them say, “Spare your people, O Lord,<br>and do not make your heritage a mockery,<br>a byword among the nations.<br>Why should it be said among the peoples,<br>`Where is their God?'”</p></blockquote><p>The Spiritual Leaders of God’s people, according to Joel, are to weep and pray. This is the beginning of a restored orientation toward God. The Spiritual Leaders petition God for God to spare the people and to honor God’s “heritage” thus establishing God’s people among the nations from this time forward. Therein God’s presence among the people will be sustained, letting the world know that God has not abandoned God’s people. Thus, Joel’s question posed by the mouths of priests, “Where is their God?” is moot because God is with them. However, if there is no return to God, then the bitter question remains on the mouths of Israel’s adversaries: <em>where is the Lord your God?</em>[8]</p><p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p><p>What direction should God’s people turn to return to a right relationship and orientation toward God? Not backward. Israel must not turn backwards to seek God because God is not located in the past, like a relic, stuck in the time and place of yesterday. By going backward, Israel would be betray just how deep is their alliance with their own image. To return to what is known and familiar is always to return to what is human, comprehended with the eyes and ears, to that which is known. To return to what is familiar to deprive God of faith and honor, trust and glory. Thus, it is the way of stagnancy and the status-quo, the way of fearing humans and not God. Going backward, for Israel, will seal their death sentence, hammer in the last nail in their coffin.</p><p>To <em>return</em> to God is to move forward into the unknown, to jump into the void, to dive into the rupture. It is all about facing the chaos and discomfort of that which is unseen and yet held by faith and hope. To hear the summons of God from the void, to sense the prophetic summons of God beckoning from the rupture, is to trust and to account to God that which is God’s: worthy of trust and faith; it is to proclaim that God is the truth and the way, thus God is the life. To move forward by faith and trust is to declare to the people and the world that God has not abandoned God’s people; to dive into the void is to affirm that even in this chaos God is present and able to bring order; to jump into the rupture is to render trustworthy God’s promises that all things are possible with God and that God can and will create out of nothing, once again.</p><p>So, today we stand at the edge of the void, on the precipice of the rupture, daring to hear the divine summons to enter this darkest of dark nights, and to hold on, by faith, to the presence of God as we tumble into what appears as death and nothingness. All the while we are beckoned to keep looking forward, holding God’s hand as God brings us to God and God’s new thing in the world—not an <em>old </em>thing, not a <em>familiar</em> thing, but a <em>new </em>thing. Tonight, we are brought deep into the divine womb to be born again of God by faith (trust) with thanksgiving into the divine light, life, and liberation. Born again as God’s people resurrected from the past and liberated from what was…</p> <p>[1] Abraham K. Heschel, The Prophets, (New York: JPS, 1962), 209. “To fear God is to be unafraid of man. For God alone is king, power, and promise.”</p><p>[2] Heschel, <em>Prophets</em>, 285. “It is impossible to understand the meaning of divine anger without pondering the meaning of <em>divine patience</em> or forbearance. Explicitly and implicitly, the prophets stress that God is patient, long-suffering, or slow to anger…”</p><p>[3] Heschel, <em>Prophets</em>, 285. “Patience is one of the thirteen attributes of God,’ yet never in the sense of apathy, of being indifferent. Contrary to their thinking was the idea of a God who submits to the caprice of man, smiling at the hideousness of evil The patience of God means his restraint of justifiable anger.”</p><p>[4] Heschel, <em>Prophets</em>, 290. “Anger is always described as a moment, something that happens rather than something that abides. The feeling expressed by the rabbis that even divine anger must not last beyond a minute seems to be implied in the words of the prophets.”</p><p>[5] Heschel, <em>Prophets</em>, 290. “Merciful and gracious, <em>rahum ve-hannun</em>…are qualities which are never separable in the Bible from the thought of God.”</p><p>[6] Ehud Ben Zvi, “Joel,” <em>The Jewish Study Bible</em> Jewish Publication Society Tanakh Translation, eds. Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler (Oxford: OUP, 2004), 1166. “As the text leads the readers to sense that human society and culture in Judah are at the brink of obliteration, it asks them to identify with a prophetic voice that calls on them to return to the Lord, to fast and lament. Then the book moves to Judah’s salvation and the rangement of passages dealing with the ideal future, in which the fate of the nations figures prominently.”</p><p>[7] Ehud Ben Zvi, “Joel,” 1170. 2.12-17, “<strong>On the need to turn back to the Lord, and for a communal lamentation. </strong>This must be done before the arrival of the Day of the Lord, which is near or close…otherwise Israel too will be the victim of God’s power.”</p><p>[8] Heschel, <em>Prophets</em>, 292fn17. “Anguished by the blows of enemies, Israel was the butt of stinging sneer: ‘Where is the Lord your God?’”</p><p><a href="https://laurenrelarkin.com/2024/02/14/buried-in-the-past-captive-to-what-was-ash-wednesday/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://laurenrelarkin.com/2024/02/14/buried-in-the-past-captive-to-what-was-ash-wednesday/</a></p><p><a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://laurenrelarkin.com/tag/abraham-heschel/" target="_blank">#AbrahamHeschel</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://laurenrelarkin.com/tag/ash-wednesday/" target="_blank">#AshWednesday</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://laurenrelarkin.com/tag/chaos/" target="_blank">#Chaos</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://laurenrelarkin.com/tag/covid_19/" target="_blank">#Covid19</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://laurenrelarkin.com/tag/day-of-god/" target="_blank">#DayOfGod</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://laurenrelarkin.com/tag/day-of-the-lord/" target="_blank">#DayOfTheLord</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://laurenrelarkin.com/tag/death/" target="_blank">#Death</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://laurenrelarkin.com/tag/divine-anger/" target="_blank">#DivineAnger</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://laurenrelarkin.com/tag/divine-wrath/" target="_blank">#DivineWrath</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://laurenrelarkin.com/tag/faith/" target="_blank">#Faith</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://laurenrelarkin.com/tag/fatih/" target="_blank">#Fatih</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://laurenrelarkin.com/tag/forgiveness/" target="_blank">#Forgiveness</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://laurenrelarkin.com/tag/graciousness/" target="_blank">#Graciousness</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://laurenrelarkin.com/tag/hope/" target="_blank">#Hope</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://laurenrelarkin.com/tag/joel/" target="_blank">#Joel</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://laurenrelarkin.com/tag/jps-study-bible/" target="_blank">#JPSStudyBible</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://laurenrelarkin.com/tag/judgment/" target="_blank">#Judgment</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://laurenrelarkin.com/tag/long-suffering/" target="_blank">#LongSuffering</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://laurenrelarkin.com/tag/mercy/" target="_blank">#Mercy</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://laurenrelarkin.com/tag/nothingness/" target="_blank">#Nothingness</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://laurenrelarkin.com/tag/prophet/" target="_blank">#Prophet</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://laurenrelarkin.com/tag/return-to-god/" target="_blank">#ReturnToGod</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://laurenrelarkin.com/tag/rupture/" target="_blank">#Rupture</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://laurenrelarkin.com/tag/tumult/" target="_blank">#Tumult</a></p>