The Revered Tim Sherwell
Are people disappointed in God? Maybe the problem for the diminishing church is not so much a matter of ‘lack of belief in the wider community,’ but rather a matter of ‘community disappointment in a false God?’ Perhaps it is disappointment in the lack of power shown by God.
In John’s gospel (chapter 11), the much loved Lazarus has died, and the author of John sets a scene. The sisters Martha and Mary send for Jesus. Their brother Lazarus has been dead and buried a few days. The corpse is ‘on the nose.’ Jesus stops short of the girls’ home. Mary is at home grieving and weeping. The Jews who seek to comfort Mary are weeping. Eventually Jesus also weeps. It would seem that Lazarus is a much loved member of the community. There is grief and loss. In the incarnate Jesus, God is present. That is the scene if you can imagine that on a stage.
John’s gospel has the Jews say; “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man, not also have kept this man [Lazarus] from dying?” (John 11.37). It would not have been an unexpected thing to say, neither 2000 years ago, nor today. The scene and the question from the Jews raises questions associated with grief and with perceptions of God. In the modern context we could raise questions of mental pathologies, and there is a missional context to this matter as well. Where is God, and where is the power of God?
Grief is profoundly present in this text, as it is in life. Most of us understand that we grieve all sorts of things; people and places. In grief there is sorry and anguish. Usually the more we have treasured something the harder we will grieve it. While sorrow gets the most press, “powerlessness” is equally a profound part of grief. When we are not able to reverse or change a situation, we are powerless. Loss reminds us that we are not the masters of life; not even the masters of our own life. Whether we weep, or whether we kick up a stink and throw all our toys out of the cot, we remain without the power to put things back how they were. Humans don’t like to be stuck in this situation. If we don’t grieve well, we do the only thing we can; which is to whinge and to blame god. What a disappointment this god is.
Powerlessness is often present before people realise it. Yet powerlessness precedes Grace. Powerlessness can be overcome in an act of surrender, which is a primary spiritual axiom. Surrender of the will led to the conversion experience of St Augustine of Hippo when he was living in Milan. Contemplating his own helplessness Augustine read of the inner conflict; “if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me” (Romans 7.20). That is a terribly religious sounding sentence but it does acknowledge “what we want” and “what we get” are not necessarily the same thing. The powerlessness we feel in grief is an invitation to set God in charge of our lives. The pain of grief and powerlessness is overcome in the act of surrender. Keep in mind that surrender; allowing God to direct your life, is frightening. It’s only for people with courage.
A false god is exposed in John’s gospel. A false god has had his pants pulled down here; You healed the blind man, why didn’t you prevent Lazarus from dying, is the allegation.It is familiar rhetoric. How often we hear today; “if your God is so great, why doesn’t God do xx?” The false god is the one who behaves like a magician and is the creation of a human with false expectation. The magician God is a nice thought, probably a little juvenile, but largely unsustainable while we live in a suffering world. Suffering makes benevolence relevant, but does not share the same space. One excludes the other. Belief in a benevolent god is not sustainable in a suffering world. A god created in our image will cause us disappointment.
We all have perceptions of God that either need fine tuning or killing off. It was the Buddha who said; “if you meet the prophet on the road, kill him.” Such a prophet comes about through false information, information misunderstood, projection of ego, or the manifestation of anxiety. It doesn’t really matter – the outcome is a false god who is usually ‘up’ there and who won’t perform or do magic tricks on command. A god who can fix things would be nice. I think a BMW motor car would be nice. A M3 sedan would do the job. But I’m not going to get one am I. Giving up and letting go of the impossible is a significant step in overcoming disappointment. We learn that there is nothing to be disappointed in – because ‘what we hoped in’ was never there to start with.
I’d love a dollar for every time I’ve had the following conversation;
Old mate: I don’t believe in your God. How can that even exist with all the suffering in the world (reels off a list; usually crusades, war and cancer). I cant believe in that crap.
Me: Do you mean a god upstairs who can’t be bothered intervening in those things.
Old mate: Yeah
Me: I don’t believe in that either. Where did you get that idea?
Old mate: (now confused) aren’t you a priest?
Me: Yes, I believe so. I see it more like faith being an investigation into the meaning of life, and that which might be beyond the tangible and material.
Old mate: shakes head – usually finds a reason to leave)
Me: wonders why I’m so scary?
A God who is an abstract mystery is a presence and not a figure. It is only the figurehead magician god that disappoints. The God who is an abstract mystery is invitational and does not disappoint. If there is a ‘great beyond’ then it is an abstract mystery. For those who are serious about the investigation; the power of God comes to you at some point. The apostle Paul worked this out; that we cannot earn or deserve God’s grace, that we can only surrender and ask for mercy. “The only thing that counts is faith working through love” (Galatians 5:6). Perhaps this is not only the avoidance of disappointment in God, but the commencement of surrender and humility which are the tenants allowing the power of God to enter our lives.
Although John’s community probably did not have mental health in mind, there is a useful hermeneutic built into the text for today’s reader: “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man, not also have kept this man [Lazarus] from dying?” (John 11.37). Could we interpret that to have an air of entitlement about it? You did this for them, what about the same (or more) for me? Entitlement is a pre conceived disappointment. Applying that to God leads to a hard “no.”
Entitlement is a feeling of being deserving of privilege or special treatment. It is a desire for recognition not yet earned. The trouble with entitlement is that it damages relationship; familial, personal and professional relationships. Entitlement has multiple causal factors.
- Being over indulged as a child, and having others cave in to demands, which establishes a pattern of behaviour.
- Personality disorders. Entitlement is especially evident in Narcissistic (NPD) and Anti Social (ASPD) personality disorders where people have a distorted view of self and others. Often characterised by a disregard for rule / law, and anger when reprimanded.
- Victimhood. Entitlement becomes a way of putting wrongs right. They are only perceived wrongs, but it is seemingly true for the person involved. Entitlement is also a form of posturing when long term resentments are held.
- Heavy drug use exacerbates feelings of entitlement. Neural pathways are altered within the brain; and the drugs can be either prohibited or pharmaceutical. The perception of self in relationship to others is chemically changed.
- Common social beliefs such as “you can be anything you want” or “you can have whatever you want” also create a general haze of entitlement over communities, especially those easily influenced. Beware of unrealistic stylised life coaches, parents, and numpties who are sales-people in disguise. They are selling disappointment by promising that which can’t be given.
In the modern context the text from John draws our attention to the concept of entitlement. There are multiple causal factors, but entitlement takes us in the opposite direction to that of an abstract God of mystery and love. If we bring entitlement to the divine, it is a recipe for disappointment.
Finally this is a missional text. Jesus weeps with Mary and with the Jews. God weeps with us. Life is difficult. To share in someone else’s sorrow, to hold their pain in the palm of your hand, to listen and to be truly present and interested in what they say and mean – is extreme mission. We are invited to offer the marvellously simple gesture of silence and empathy. It is a ‘soul-intimate’ relationship. We, the church, can connect with others if we meet them in their pain and loss. If we weep together. In so doing we are mightily connected, spiritually, socially, and relationally.
I doubt it is possible to fail as a church community if we are all on-board with the spiritual axioms of surrender and humility. The power of God is released in surrender, not in demand. I doubt it is possible to fail in mission and build the church if we hold one another’s difficulties with care, love and respect. I doubt we could bake a bad theological cake if we just present God as an abstract mystery, one that will reveal self to us. The less entitlement we have, the more sensible and realistic we’ll get.
Perhaps the wider community are only disappointed in a false god. They believe we have this false god chained up in the church somewhere. But what if we let the real God out of the cage? What if we truly lived a life in which Jesus says; “come out” and “unbind him.”