Daily Lesson for February 9, 2015

Today's daily lesson comes from Psalm 80 verses 8 through 14:

8 You brought a vine out of Egypt;
you drove out the nations and planted it.
9 You cleared the ground for it;
it took deep root and filled the land.
10 The mountains were covered with its shade,
the mighty cedars with its branches.
11 It sent out its branches to the sea
and its shoots to the River.
12 Why then have you broken down its walls,
so that all who pass along the way pluck its fruit?
13 The boar from the forest ravages it,
and all that move in the field feed on it.
14 Turn again, O God of hosts!
Look down from heaven, and see;
have regard for this vine.

In many pastoral conversations I have heard people say again and again, "I know I'm not supposed to question God."  When that comes out of someone's mouth I always stop them. "Really?" I ask, "You're not supposed to question God?  Is that a law?  Is it a rule? A commandment in the Bible?"

 If not questioning God is indeed a commandment in the Bible then the Bible itself broke that commandment.  And Jesus himself broke it also. Through his last dying gasps for air he broke it with these words, "My God, my God why have you forsaken me?"

Jesus was quoting a psalm. I love the psalms because they are real and honest and don't put belief in God into some pretty box with a near ribbon tied on top. There's an authenticity to the psalmist's words which reveal what a struggle faith is sometimes.

Today's psalm is a great example. The psalmist is almost beside himself. God delivered the Israelites from Egypt and planted them like a vine in the desert. It grew big and strong.  But now the vine seems to be left to itself. It has been run over by the wilderness, it's fruit ravaged. Where is the vine dresser?  Nowhere to be found. Why? Why, O why?

A God who won't be asked, "Why?" is the God of another world -- a perfect world.  But we don't live in a perfect world; we live in a world of war and suffering and brokenness and untended vines. We can't help it; we have to ask, "Why?"  

We not only can question God; we must question God. For questioning God is not so much the opposite as it is the essence of our faith. And the psalmist shows us how -- how to wrestle with God, how to ask our whys, and how to do it faith-fully.  

As William Sloan Coffin said in speaking about the loss of his son, "My God, my God why? - but still , my God, my God.