Shit Going On

A helpless man on his back foams from his mouth. Another man’s legs make repetitive hopping motions. He too is on his back. A young boy’s arms spasm as if he’s frantically kneading dough. But his hands reach nothing, and he’s not controlling them. A little boy’s body is still, and it will be so forever.

These are victims of sarin nerve gas attacks, shown in videos from Damascus, Syria .

These adults and children are mourned. But now they are also sad exhibits in the debate about what America should or should not do in Syria. And inevitably they will become exhibits in an argument against God: "If God is all powerful and all loving . . .."

1. The book of Job.

In the biblical book of Job, after one tragedy after another crushes Job, after Job’s righteous friends Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar try to argue him into accepting reponsibility, after Job complains to God, Job has a vision. It’s a terrifying, amazing, mysterious, and beautiful vision, and afterward Job knows that God is in the right.

To crudely summarize that vision: There’s shit going on that you don’t know.

2. The book of Revelation.

The book of Revelation is similar. It’s written to Christian communities that were suffering and wondering why, if they were in the right and God is all-powerful.

And John writes of stars being swept from heaven and of angels pouring bowls full of plagues that poison first the oceans and then the other waters of the earth. He writes of four living creatures, each with six wings and eyes all around and inside, who sing God’s praises.

And John writes of war in heaven and the great dragon thrown down to earth, where he goes to war against the saints. And John writes of a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, crowned with twelve stars, whom the dragon tries to sweep away by spewing a flood of water from his mouth, but the ground opens and swallows the flood.

Yeah, to summarize again: There’s shit going on that you don’t know.

3. There’s shit going on.

And there’s shit going on in our lives, too.

It’s a different scale than what’s described in Job and Revelation, but it’s still shit. Jobs lost; loved ones who suffer; loved ones who die; painful, lingering illnesses; hunger; injustice; children of caring, careful parents in prison for life. People who wake up in Damascus, dress their children, eat breakfast, and die before noon.

4. More to the story.

The book of Job doesn’t end with Job putting his hand over his mouth and saying that God is in the right. It ends with Job restored to wealth, long life, and children.

The book of Revelation doesn’t end with plagues, dragons, firey destruction, or war and flight. After those come a new heaven, a new earth, and a new Jerusalem – peace and joy for the righteous.

So, to summarize: There’s shit going on you don’t know, but everything will be alright.

So be patient.

5. Patience ain’t easy.

But patience isn’t easy. In the sixth chapter of Revelation, martyrs under God’s alter are impatient to know when they will be avenged. They’re told to rest, because the slaughter of the saints is not finished.

And it isn’t easy for us. It isn’t easy when you lose your job, and you lose hope of finding a new one.

It isn’t easy when you succumb to foolishness and sin, and you bear your shame in front of your family.

It isn’t easy when you body or mind starts to fail, and what you once could do easily you can’t do, and you know that you’ll never do it again.

It isn’t easy when your foes are strong, and they have seemingly infinite resources to oppose you, to win not by right but by might.

6. Let’s not speak piously about faith.

And let’s not blame the victim. Let’s not intone piously about only having faith. If we do, we condescend to great ones who wrote great words. For example:

Psalm 22 starts with this wretched lament:

1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
    Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?
2 O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer;
     and by night, but find no rest. [NRSV.]

Some psalms start like a dirge, but they end hopefully. Like Psalm 6. But not Psalm 88.

1 O Lord, God of my salvation,
    when, at night, I cry out in your presence,
2 let my prayer come before you;
    incline your ear to my cry.
　
3 For my soul is full of troubles,
    and my life draws near to Sheol.
4 I am counted among those who go down to the Pit;
   I am like those who have no help,
5 like those forsaken among the dead,
    like the slain that lie in the grave,
    like those whom you remember no more,
    for they are cut off from your hand.
6 You have put me in the depths of the Pit,
    in the regions dark and deep.
7 Your wrath lies heavy upon me,
     and you overwhelm me with all your waves. Selah

　
8 You have caused my companions to shun me;
    you have made me a thing of horror to them.
    I am shut in so that I cannot escape;
9 my eye grows dim through sorrow.
    Every day I call on you, O Lord;
    I spread out my hands to you.
10 Do you work wonders for the dead?
     Do the shades rise up to praise you?
          Selah
11 Is your steadfast love declared in the grave,
     or your faithfulness in Abaddon?
12 Are your wonders known in the darkness,
     or your saving help in the land of forgetfulness?
　
13 But I, O Lord, cry out to you;
     in the morning my prayer comes before you.
14 O Lord, why do you cast me off?
     Why do you hide your face from me?
15 Wretched and close to death from my youth up,
      I suffer your terrors; I am desperate.
16 Your wrath has swept over me;
     your dread assaults destroy me.
17 They surround me like a flood all day long;
     from all sides they close in on me.
18 You have caused friend and neighbor to shun me;
     my companions are in darkness.[NRSV]

7. "I know that my Redeemer lives!"

Horror and hope is a subject that the Bible speaks about with great beauty, so I find myself quoting long passages of it, which is not my habit. But who spoke more eloquently or powerfully than Job? Here he speaks to his righteous friends, who blame him for the misfortunes that have torn him like wild dogs.

2 "How long will you torment me,
    and break me in pieces with words?
3 These ten times you have cast reproach upon me;
    are you not ashamed to wrong me?
4 And even if it is true that I have erred,
    my error remains with me.
5 If indeed you magnify yourselves against me,
    and make my humiliation an argument against me,
6 know then that God has put me in the wrong,
    and closed his net around me.
7 Even when I cry out, ‘Violence!’ I am not answered;
    I call aloud, but there is no justice.
8 He has walled up my way so that I cannot pass,
    and he has set darkness upon my paths.
9 He has stripped my glory from me,
    and taken the crown from my head.
10 He breaks me down on every side, and I am gone,
     he has uprooted my hope like a tree.
11 He has kindled his wrath against me,
     and counts me as his adversary.
12 His troops come on together;
     they have thrown up siegeworks against me,
     and encamp around my tent.
 13 "He has put my family far from me,
     and my acquaintances are wholly estranged from me.
14 My relatives and my close friends have failed me;
15 the guests in my house have forgotten me;
     my serving girls count me as a stranger;
     I have become an alien in their eyes.
16 I call to my servant, but he gives me no answer;
     I must myself plead with him.
17 My breath is repulsive to my wife;
     I am loathsome to my own family.
18 Even young children despise me;
     when I rise, they talk against me.
19 All my intimate friends abhor me,
     and those whom I loved have turned against me.
20 My bones cling to my skin and to my flesh,
     and I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.
21 Have pity on me, have pity on me, O you my friends,
     for the hand of God has touched me!
22 Why do you, like God, pursue me,
     never satisfied with my flesh?
23 "O that my words were written down!
     O that they were inscribed in a book!
24 O that with an iron pen and with lead
     they were engraved on a rock forever!
25 For I know that my Redeemer lives,
     and that at the last he will stand upon the earth;
26 and after my skin has been thus destroyed,
     then in my flesh I shall see God,
27 whom I shall see on my side,
     and my eyes shall behold, and not another. [NRSV.]

8. The last word.

The prayer of John at the beginning of the book of Revelation is the last word of history. It is also the last word of this essay.

To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, who made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. [Revelation 1:5-6 (NRSV).]