Tag: mourning

How To Handle the One Who Grieves (Job 37:1-13)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
The Wrath of Elihu, by William Blake, 1805

“At this my heart pounds
    and leaps from its place.
Listen! Listen to the roar of his voice,
    to the rumbling that comes from his mouth.
He unleashes his lightning beneath the whole heaven
    and sends it to the ends of the earth.
After that comes the sound of his roar;
    he thunders with his majestic voice.
When his voice resounds,
    he holds nothing back.
God’s voice thunders in marvelous ways;
    he does great things beyond our understanding.
He says to the snow, ‘Fall on the earth,’
    and to the rain shower, ‘Be a mighty downpour.’
So that everyone he has made may know his work,
    he stops all people from their labor.
The animals take cover;
    they remain in their dens.
The tempest comes out from its chamber,
    the cold from the driving winds.
The breath of God produces ice,
    and the broad waters become frozen.
He loads the clouds with moisture;
    he scatters his lightning through them.
At his direction they swirl around
    over the face of the whole earth
    to do whatever he commands them.
He brings the clouds to punish people,
    or to water his earth and show his love.” (New International Version)

Job’s Despair, by William Blake, 1821

On the one hand, the biblical book of Job needs little introduction. Many people know it has to do with a man’s innocent suffering and tenacious faith. Most folks are familiar with how it feels to suffer for no apparent reason. And everyone understands the struggle when life is broken by pain and loss.

Yet, on the other hand, the book of Job defies simple anecdotes about suffering. And the relationship between Job and God has a lot of complexity to it. Add in Job’s friends with their wordy offerings into his situation, and there becomes a fuller picture of the true wrestling of faith and patience that occurs.

Elihu was a young person who was with the three friends of Job. After listening to everyone speak, he himself went on a long speech, stretching six chapters from Job 32-37. He was angry with Job, and with Job’s three friends.

The young Elihu had picked up that Job thought of himself more righteous than God. And he was also upset that the “friends” offered nothing helpful, and could provide no convincing answers to Job – thus making it appear that God was guilty of Job’s intense suffering and grief.

Job, by French painter Léon Bonnat, 1880

In today’s Old Testament lesson, we are getting an end part of Elihu’s speech in which he sought to defend God’s justice through observing the majesty and order of creation.

The testimony of God’s sovereign governance of the world is found in the rain, the thunder, and the lightning; through the winter storms and the frost. The Lord uses the created order to both judge and sustain people. And through the ecological systems we can see that God is at work, regulating it all, and using it for divine purposes, Elihu points out.

What strikes me about Elihu’s words is that he is not wrong, he’s just not very helpful. As a believer, I look at his speech as more of a Captain Obvious moment; yes, he is stating theological reality, but no, he’s not really breaking any new ground or giving any great insight here.

Both Job and Job’s friends had already expressed a theological perspective in kind. Which makes me curious as to why Elihu felt so compelled to even talk at all. I think he would have been better remembered, and maybe even hailed as spiritual beyond his years, if he would have just kept silent.

I realize not everyone is going to go with me on that observation, and that’s fine. Yet it seems to me that a good many people lob too many words toward the suffering among us, when what is actually needed is a compassionate presence that has learned to be comfortable with the uncomfortable.

There are times when words are not needed, when the situation is so incredibly unique and/or difficult that to offer a speech is like yelling in the woods with no one around; it might make the one yelling feel better but that’s about it.

If anyone needed to feel better it wasn’t Elihu. What’s more, a perceived need of defending God’s reputation or honor perhaps betrays a shortsighted theology to begin with. The Lord is quite big enough to handle any rebuffs or misunderstandings from mouthy humans. God isn’t in Junior High School, requiring a mouthpiece to help him out in a scuffle.

I would personally rather give comfort to a hurting person, instead of theological exhortations and speeches about how we ought to talk to, and about, God. That’s because I observe Jesus bringing genuine comfort and help. And I would much rather take my cues for dealing with grieving people from Christ than from Elihu, or anybody else for that matter.

“God blesses those people who grieve. They will find comfort!” (Matthew 5:4, CEV) Jesus said this in his Sermon on the Mount, as a beatitude of all who desire God’s kingdom. Christ understood well the psalmist’s understanding of God’s role and stance concerning people’s grief: “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted; he saves those whose spirits are crushed.” (Psalm 34:18, CEB)

The Apostle Paul, taking a lesson from both his Jewish learning and his encounter with Christ said, “mourn with those who mourn.” (Romans 12:15, NIV) Comfort because of grief and suffering will be built into the end of time. Methinks, then, that this is important…

“Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” (Revelation 21:3-4, NIV)

In whatever way you choose to look at the book of Job, please don’t miss what is to be our response to another’s pain. There is a time for theological education, and there is a time to put a robust theology into practice through a very real comforting presence of another who is in terrible suffering.

God, the strength of the weak and the comfort of those who suffer: Hear my prayers and grant those who suffer in body, mind, or spirit the power of your grace, that affliction may be turned into health, and sorrow into joy. Amen.

Face Reality (Numbers 20:22-29)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
Aaron’s Death, by David Roberts, 1842

The whole community of Israel left Kadesh and arrived at Mount Hor. There, on the border of the land of Edom, the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “The time has come for Aaron to join his ancestors in death. He will not enter the land I am giving the people of Israel, because the two of you rebelled against my instructions concerning the water at Meribah. Now take Aaron and his son Eleazar up Mount Hor. There you will remove Aaron’s priestly garments and put them on Eleazar, his son. Aaron will die there and join his ancestors.”

So Moses did as the Lord commanded. The three of them went up Mount Hor together as the whole community watched. At the summit, Moses removed the priestly garments from Aaron and put them on Eleazar, Aaron’s son. Then Aaron died there on top of the mountain, and Moses and Eleazar went back down. When the people realized that Aaron had died, all Israel mourned for him thirty days. (New Living Translation)

There is a tendency for us “enlightened” humans to believe that we are far more advanced than our ancestors – who did not know all that we very smart people today know.

Such a mental stance only demonstrates that perhaps we are getting more stupid as the centuries and the millennia wear on.

Despite all of our accumulated knowledge and research, and incredible technical advances, we have (in my humble opinion) strayed rather far from a wise understanding of anthropology and theology. In other words, many people in this contemporary world have little to no idea about who they are, why they are here, and what to do when life and death happens.

The death of Aaron the priest happened over 3,500 years ago. Yet, here I am, referencing it. Why? Because there is meaning to it. The ancients have a great deal to teach us, that is, if we have the spiritual and emotional ears to hear, and eyes to see. Notice just some of the lessons they continue to teach us…

The Need to Accept Death

Just as we have all been born into this world, we shall all die someday. If we are such an enlightened people, it would seem to me that we all might have highly developed coping skills, strategies, and ways of honoring and accepting the inevitable death of another – not to mention having adequately prepared for our own demise.

And yet, we go on, day after day, as if we will live forever. Then, when someone we care about dies, it’s as if we cannot believe it has happened. But there is only one sure event in this life, and that is death. It is inexorably coming, whether we like it, or not.

It also seems to me that a great deal of contemporary religious piety is shallow, and does not plumb the depths of real spiritual substance. The irony of it, for many, is that they long for heaven, but ignore death. This is nothing but the denial of reality. Our very real lives here and now must be contended with, including the inevitable death to come.

Reality is the one substantial door that must be acknowledged, experienced with all of our senses and emotions, and passed through – not denied. Only through complete acceptance of this world can the greater reality of the world to come be truly known.

Fantasy and endless gospel songs about heaven can only lead us astray. We picture a future of our own imaginations, which deludes and dulls us of how to actually pass from one dimension to another.

Death was a daily reality amongst the Israelites in their forty years of desert wandering. They understood that each individual passing was inextricably connected to the whole of the community.

John Donne was an Anglican priest and poet in seventeenth century England. He was insistent that all humanity is connected, that whatever happens to one of us, happens to all of us. I take some liberties in contemporizing his Old English language written in 1627:

“No one is an island, entirely independent. Every person is a piece of the continent, a part of the main body of land. If a clod of dirt happens to be washed away by the sea, the whole land mass is the less, just as if an entire peninsula fell off into the water. Whether a friend dies, or anyone in the world dies, it diminishes me because I am involved in the whole of humanity. Therefore, never question to know for whom the bell of death tolls; it tolls for you.”

John Donne (1572-1631)

The Need for Bereavement

A story is told of an old Sufi mystic who visited a sheikh in Baghdad. He found the sheikh gazing into a bowl filled with water. So, he inquired about this odd practice. The sheikh replied that he was watching the moon in the basin. To which the Sufi mystic cried out:

“Unless you have a boil on the back of your neck, lift up your head and look at the sky! There you will see the moon as it is, and not in this basin. Why are you leaning over basins, when all you are really doing is depriving yourself of what you are really looking for?”

Sufi Master, 13th century

As a Pastor and Chaplain who engages in a lot of grief support for those who have lost loved ones to death, and who has dealt with hundreds of people with significant emotional issues, I can say that a lot of people’s grief goes unattended. A good many people go looking for comfort, all by themselves, in staring into a bowl of water.

Death is real. And when someone close to us dies, it hurts like hell. It’s as if somebody came along and pulled the rug out from underneath us. We are flat on our backs and unable to get up.

The only way we can get back up is with the help of others. When Aaron died, the entire community mourned for a full month. Perhaps nothing speaks more to the modern delusion of death and grief than of taking a day or two off work, then expecting to return as if nothing ever happened. No wonder so many people end up in significant depression and anxiety.

The Need for God

Ignoring God is what got the Israelites in their predicament of desert wandering in the first place. And it is also what got both Aaron and Moses a refusal by the Lord to enter the Promised Land.

God isn’t some genie in a bottle that we can control, or a divine Santa to receive presents from. Like death, God is a reality that must be contended with. To go your own way, and decide which commands and instructions you’d like to keep, and which one’s you’ll discard, will not end well – not to mention simply stating that there is no God at all.

Humans are creatures, formed by their Creator. Obedience to God is vital, not optional, because the Lord’s presence is much like the unseen and constant force of gravity. You ignore it at your own peril.

Although we have a lot of freedom in how we can live our lives, and the choices we can make, there yet remains a basic way of existence for everyone. And that way is meant for good, not evil; it has its foundation in the character of God. The Lord is pure love, justice, righteousness, and goodness.

Therefore, as people in God’s image and likeness, we too, are to live in a way that is just, right, good, and loving. To not live in this way would be like walking off the roof of your house because you don’t believe in gravity – then blaming God for your broken body (and soul).

The Need for Ritual in Transition

Israel was transitioning from desert wandering to entering the Promised Land. They were also transitioning leadership from Aaron to Eleazar. And it was all acknowledged with rituals to help people make those transitions.

The community did not simply get an email from Moses informing them of a new priest and welcoming Eleazar to the company. There was an extended time of mourning the loss of Aaron, and a meaningful ritual that demonstrated the change of leaders.

Transitions can be hard. But with every change there is a transition time that must be faced and walked through. Rituals can help us with that. If we ignore this reality, we will find ourselves unable to navigate changes that we personally never asked for. 

The following are some things that I have found helpful in handling change and dealing with the transition from one reality to another:

  1. Maintain personal spiritual rituals. If the change is one that I did not choose, then having regular times of silence and solitude, prayer and bible reading, fasting and journaling help me make sense of what is happening and put it in proper perspective.
  2. Maintain personal health rituals. Freaking out by burning the candles at both ends, forgetting to eat sensibly, and ignoring exercise only exacerbates the change and makes the transition time unbearable.  Instead, take the time necessary to remain healthy through proper sleep, nutrition, and activity.
  3. Grieve and ritualize your losses. Lament, I would argue, is a spiritual practice – a necessary one. It is also biblical.  To focus on next steps without acknowledging transition is to set oneself up for later emotional difficulty and/or trauma. Unpack the heart and allow yourself to feel the loss.
  4. Be patient. Rituals cannot be hurried. The Lord cares more about our spiritual growth and character development than avoiding painful transitions. Let God teach you all that you need to learn.

Institutions and faith communities are sometimes notorious for being inflexible and allergic to change. But, after all, they are made up of real flesh and blood people. To struggle with change is to be human.

Let’s first help ourselves to know how to cope with needed transitions so that we can do the important work of transitioning others from one spiritual place to another. 

It’s high time for us to face the reality that the ancients have much to teach us – including ancient literature such as the Bible.

Pay Attention to Grief (Genesis 49:29-50:14)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment
The Death of Jacob, by Rembrandt, c.1640

Jacob told his sons:

Soon I will die, and I want you to bury me in Machpelah Cave. Abraham bought this cave as a burial place from Ephron the Hittite, and it is near the town of Mamre in Canaan. Abraham and Sarah are buried there, and so are Isaac and Rebekah. I buried Leah there too. Both the cave and the land that goes with it were bought from the Hittites.

When Jacob had finished giving these instructions to his sons, he lay down on his bed and died. Joseph started crying, then leaned over to hug and kiss his father.

Joseph gave orders for Jacob’s body to be embalmed, and it took the usual 40 days.

The Egyptians mourned 70 days for Jacob. When the time of mourning was over, Joseph said to the Egyptian leaders, “If you consider me your friend, please speak to the king for me. Just before my father died, he made me promise to bury him in his burial cave in Canaan. If the king will give me permission to go, I will come back here.”

The king answered, “Go to Canaan and keep your promise to your father.”

When Joseph left Goshen with his brothers, his relatives, and his father’s relatives to bury Jacob, many of the king’s highest officials and even his military chariots and cavalry went along. The Israelites left behind only their children, their cattle, and their sheep and goats.

After crossing the Jordan River, Joseph stopped at Atad’s threshing place, where they all mourned and wept seven days for Jacob. The Canaanites saw this and said, “The Egyptians are in great sorrow.” Then they named the place “Egypt in Sorrow.”

So Jacob’s sons did just as their father had instructed. They took him to Mamre in Canaan and buried him in Machpelah Cave, the burial place Abraham had bought from Ephron the Hittite.

After the funeral, Joseph, his brothers, and everyone else returned to Egypt. (Contemporary English Version)

Jacob’s death, by Wenceslas Hollar (1607-1677)

117 days. That’s how long Jacob’s family, along with the people of Egypt, mourned for him after his death. Yes, he was a patriarch. And yes, Joseph was the administrator of an entire nation. Yet this was not unusual behavior; it was normal.

When my mother-in-law was tragically and suddenly killed in a car accident, 30 years ago, I could not take any bereavement time off, because according to company policy, it was not my mother. So, since she lived a thousand miles from us, I had to use vacation time and take a week away. Then, when I returned to work, I was expected to pick up where I left off, as if nothing had happened.

Although I work under better conditions today, and workplaces are getting better at acknowledging the importance of tragic events in the life of employees, we still have a long way to go in dealing with grief, bereavement, mourning, and lament.

The modern funeral industry is a rather recent phenomenon in history. Beginning with, and then following, the American Civil War, death was a prominent specter, affecting every community and nearly every home. People like my second great grandfather became part of a growing business of handling the dead and providing services for grieving families. He became a coffin maker and a chief supplier for the burgeoning funeral parlor (which later morphed into a furniture business which lasted a hundred years).

Even though families needed help after a devastating war, over time, the unintended effect is that we became detached from death. Others could handle bodies and arrangements. We could choose to see or not see the dead. Folks began losing the ability to grieve and mourn their changes in life.

Grief doesn’t just go away with time. If it isn’t acknowledged, faced, accepted, and dealt with, it slowly begins to sit in the soul and rot. Eventually, it becomes spiritual gangrene; the person becomes bitter, without joy and stuck in unwanted emotions.

The point of all this is that grief and bereavement strikes us all; none of us gets off planet earth without having to deal with the loss of significant people in our lives. And when it happens, it’s imperative that individuals and societal structures allow for the time and space to mourn.

The ancients were on to something which we need to recover. They discerned the importance of allowing grief to run it’s course, instead of us trying to master grief, get over it, and move on. Grief will be dealt with when it is dealt with. Trying to tame it is like attempting to bench press 700 pounds; it’s only going to crush you if you try controlling it.

I’m not agitating for a 117 span of days for everyone’s mourning. But I am insisting that we have conversations about grief and confront it, rather than ignore it. Because grieving doesn’t mean you’re imperfect; it means you’re human.

The way we move through our grief is by telling our story – which requires someone to listen. That only happens if we have created the space for it to occur. Expectations of moving-on will leave grief where it is, poisoning us from the inside-out.

The only way to the mountain is through the valley. The only way to make the pain go away is to move through it – not by avoiding it, pretending it’s not there, or trying to go around it. Pain and suffering are inevitable; misery is optional. And letting bereavement and grief have it’s way for a while is the path away from the misery.

You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered. You will be whole again, but you will never be the same. And that’s a good thing. It gives us the ability and empathy to extend blessing to others who will eventually face their own terrible loss. They will need someone to listen. And you will be there for them.

Lord, do not abandon us in our desolation. Keep us safe in the midst of trouble, and complete your purpose for us through your steadfast love and faithfulness, in Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.

Psalm 6 – Independence Day Celebration or Mourning?

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year CLeave a comment

O Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger
    or discipline me in your wrath.
Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am languishing;
    O Lord, heal me, for my bones are shaking with terror.
My soul also is struck with terror,
    while you, O Lord—how long?

Turn, O Lord, save my life;
    deliver me for the sake of your steadfast love.
For in death there is no remembrance of you;
    in Sheol who can give you praise?

I am weary with my moaning;
    every night I flood my bed with tears;
    I drench my couch with my weeping.
My eyes waste away because of grief;
    they grow weak because of all my foes.

Depart from me, all you workers of evil,
    for the Lord has heard the sound of my weeping.
The Lord has heard my supplication;
    the Lord accepts my prayer.
All my enemies shall be ashamed and struck with terror;
    they shall turn back and in a moment be put to shame. (New Revised Standard Version)

Methinks we Americans, especially on this our national Independence Day, must remember that this has not always been, nor currently is, a day of celebration for a sizable chunk of people in the United States.

Now before you begin offering some mental pushback that I am pouring cold water on a time-honored holiday, or begin believing I’m not a true patriot, I will simply point out that not only is today’s psalm lesson in the Revised Common Lectionary a lament, but also that I’m a guy with two academic degrees in American history.

If we only look at Independence Day from the perspective of white Northern European heritage persons, then it will seem that, speaking like this, I am not grateful for the blessings of being in this incredible country of my birth and the place I’ve lived my entire life.

But I am not looking from that angle today. I choose to acknowledge that on this day, every year for the past 246 years, today’s psalm has been the lived experience and expression of others who looked to the heavens and asked, “How long, O Lord!?”

A true people of compassion are able to suffer with those who suffer. The people of God really ought to be at the forefront of exhibiting empathy and standing in solidarity with suffering folk.

A patriot is one who acknowledges and affirms all it’s citizens, and not only the ones who look like me, talk like me, and act like me. After all, the original documents of the United States made room for this to be so. Empathy, compassion, and solidarity are intentionally built into our nation’s grand experiment of democracy and government.

“We the people of the Unites States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

Preamble of the United States Constitution

The very fact that the previous quotation is true for some, and not for everyone, is a telling testament to the reality that we need to keep striving to live into our heritage as Americans and ensure that welfare for the common good of all citizens is continually sought, even if done so imperfectly.

Grieving, tears, and lament was the response of the former slave Frederick Douglass.

“The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your [white] fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought light and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me [a black man]. This Fourth July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn.”

Frederick Douglass, “What to the Slave is the 4th of July?” (An oration on July 4, 1852)

Mourning and weeping was and continues to be the experience of many Native American peoples.

“While the United States and its settlers claimed its independence from Great Britain, this came at a cost of others, including this land’s Indigenous Peoples that were stolen from their own homelands. This patriotic holiday is nothing to celebrate because freedom cannot come at the cost of another’s freedom. America’s Independence Day is a celebration of imperialism, genocide, and American exceptionalism, and there is no pride in genocide.”

Daisee Francour (Oneida Nation of Wisconsin)

We cannot change history, but we can work towards a better future where all of our rights are respected and we all experience freedom and independence equally. Those with non-European ancestry who today in our nation experience racism and anti-ethnic aggression need to be acknowledged and affirmed as Americans with equal standing and an equal voice alongside the white population.

So, I would argue that both celebration and weeping ought to occur on this day. We should weep for the dreams and lives of indigenous peoples who were destroyed through westward expansion, and even today experience the ongoing effects of cultural genocide.

We ought to acknowledge not only our nation’s blessings, but also our curses which are still seen in exploiting others through envy, greed, sloth, pride, lust, and gluttony.

We, the people of the United States of America, ought to actively seek to live in more simple and less harmful ways. We should offer our voices, not in violent speech and language, but with creative and healing words.

On this American Independence Day, the Church should reaffirm her allegiance and citizenship to Christ and God’s Kingdom and renounce any nationalistic, economic, ethnic, and political divisions which are contrary to the words and ways of Jesus.

All of the citizens of the earth should seek to embrace non-violent, self-sacrificial love on behalf of everyone. Today is an opportunity to affirm that Christ is the Friend of all people, not just some.

No one ought to be wasting away in their grief and languishing in their tears when we have the means to acknowledge their suffering and to do something about it.

Our Father who is in heaven,

uphold the holiness of your name.

Bring in your kingdom

so that your will is done on earth as it’s done in heaven.

Give us the bread we need for today.

Forgive us for the ways we have wronged you,

just as we also forgive those who have wronged us.

And don’t lead us into temptation,

but rescue us from the evil one. (Matthew 6:9-13, CEB)