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QUESTIONS GOD ASKS US. #3 – #Where is your brother (sister)?”

Genesis 4:9: “Then the LORD said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?” He said, “I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper? . . . Your brother’s blood is crying out from the ground.”

It seems clear to me that God is still asking all of us this question. It also seems clear to me that the crushed lives of many of our brothers and sisters are still crying out for God’s justice.

In a conversation last night, my grandson made a very astute observation. He said, “It is so hard for all of us Americans to think in terms of ‘us’ as we think about how things are affecting ‘me and mine.” He is so right, isn’t he? Let’s just consider one example; the one that confronted me as I listened to the wisdom of my grandson, and thrilled at the wonder of his bright and beautiful little girl playing in the floor near us.

As I thank God for the little brown skinned baby born in a manger in Bethlehem so many years ago, and think that I surely would have given up my bed and room for this needy couple, do I also think about, and care about, the little babies being born on the other side of my town today? Or, and on the other side of the world? Do I think of them as “born unto you this day,” as a part of the “us” whom God cares for? As I think of how horrible Herod was to that baby and his family, do I also think about, and care about, what the people I vote for in my town, state, and nation are doing to make the lives of these newborns better, or far worse?

In short, is God still asking me, and you, “Where is your brother, where is your sister?” Are any of their lives crying out to God because of how I don’t think of them, and don’t care about them, even though God sees them as a human “in the image of God?” Do I really think God will be pleased if my answer is “I do not know” what is happening to them, am I their keeper?” That answer probably wasn’t adequate two thousand years ago as Jesus lay in an animal feeder, and it probably isn’t adequate now either.

Here is another question we are told that God has asked of our fellow humans? Genesis 3:13 says God asked: “What is this you have done?”

That may seem like a strange question, but in the context two things seem to make it very relevant. First, this human couple stamped with “the image of God” are presented as wonderful, but with very limited understanding of God and of themselves. They only know God is present when God comes to be with them in a special way. They also think they can hide from God. They are child-like in terms of experience even though they are adults.

Before we write this off as no longer applying to us 21^st century sophisticated humans, you might ask yourself the question that I am asking myself. When I am making choices, how often do I really let myself be conscious that God knows what I am doing right now? When I have already made choices to act, how often do I let myself be conscious that God knows what I have done? Those are not rhetorical questions about your theology or philosophy concerning omniscience. Rather, they are simple questions about what you and I really let ourselves experience as we live our lives? Do we allow ourselves to consciously choose to live in the presence of God as we think and act?

Second, my personal experience, and my guess is yours as well, is that I am often quite unaware of “what I have done.” No, I don’t mean I can’t remember acting. I am growing older, but I am not quite there yet. I mean, I often have no idea, and do not contemplate, what the consequences of my actions really are. Equally importantly, I often do not ask God what they are either. How do they impact God and God’s purposes? How do they impact other humans—those close by, or those far away, those very different from me in terms of privilege or resources, or those yet to be born? How do they impact the creation that God has given us to steward? How do they impact my own character?

I suspect that one of the reasons I am often unaware of the consequences of my thoughts and actions is that I often do not really want to know. Am I willing to ask God to make me more aware of the consequences of my thoughts and actions day by day? I find this a bit more daunting than I like to admit. But I am working on it. How about you?

Having noted some of the questions recorded in the Bible that various people have asked God, I thought it would be interesting to think about some of the questions we are told God asked humans.

In Genesis 3:9, God asks “Where are you?” When this question was first asked, the humans were hiding from God, one another, and self. This question from God is a good one for me to entertain. I imagine that it is for you as well. Haven’t we all tried to hide parts of ourselves from God at times?

“Where are you” in your relationship with God? Is it open and honest? Are there things you are right now attempting to hide by avoiding them in your thoughts and prayers? Are there thoughts, actions, or intentions that cause you to avoid thinking about God when you are entertaining them?

“Where are you” in your relationship with the other humans in your life? Are these relationships open, honest, and authentic, or are you attempting to hide who you really are?

“Where are you” in your relationship with yourself? Are you willing to look at yourself as honestly and directly as you know how, or are there lots of things you would rather not think about or face about who you are, how you are acting, or what you are really wishing for?

When God asks “Where are you?” it is never a threat. It is God saying, “I see the distance. Will you come closer? I like being closer to you.”

As I noted in my last blog, I find the words “My God, My God, Why have You forsaken me?” coming from the mouth of Jesus to be terrifying. If Jesus, the most trusting and most trustworthy human who ever lived, experiences being abandoned by God right when he longs for that reassuring presence the most, what does that mean for the rest of us? No wonder the prayer coming from Jesus’ mouth is so often explained away by Christians rather than faced squarely. This explaining away occurs despite the fact that both Matthew and Mark record these words with the same matter-of-factness that they record the fact that the Roman soldiers enjoyed torturing Jesus. Jesus tells God that he feels abandoned by quoting the words of another servant of God who had experienced the same awful feelings centuries earlier (Psalm 22).

Having said that, and with no intention of downplaying any of Jesus’ despairing cry, I also find this terrifying passage reassures me even while it terrifies me. Here are four reasons why.

First, I find it comforting to know that when you or I are experiencing none of God’s presence at all, it may not mean that we have been unfaithful and are experiencing what we deserve. (At other times it might be what I deserve.) In fact, as it was for Jesus, it could be because we have decided to be faithful despite all the really outrageous injustice and hatred going on all around us. This was certainly the case for Jesus wasn’t it?

Second, I find it comforting to know that expressing my frustration with being unable to experience any of God’s presence right when I want it most does not separate me from Jesus. It allows me to be in his company.

Third, yes, Jesus who knew the Psalms quite well, did know that the Psalm that began with a horrible experience of God-forsakenness did not end there. After rehearsing how bad things were, the Psalmist claimed that God finally acted in ways that the Psalmist could celebrate. And, after rehearsing how God did finally act, the Psalm ends with a powerful staccato phrase – “He did it!” Perhaps you too have gone through some horrible times that included a lack of any sense of God’s presence, but you can now look back and see that later on you began to see God act again. If so, you know two things. First, that outcome did nothing to change the fact that what you experienced of God’s absence was horrid and terrifying. And, second, you can also be thankful that God did show up later in ways that reassured you that God is good and active. Neither of these experiences cancels the other. They are just both true.

Fourth, and to me most puzzling and yet most reassuring, is a truth that none of us will ever completely get our minds around. But perhaps we can let our hearts rest in it. God didn’t just start paying attention later. At the very moment Jesus was really and truly experiencing God’s complete and total absence, God was acting to open up new possibilities in Jesus’ relationship with God and through Jesus for the entire world. The writer of Hebrews 5:7-9 puts it this way:

⁷During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. ⁸Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered ⁹and, once made perfect (or, “once completed”), he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him. 

This moment of abandonment turned out to also be a central part of God “perfecting” or “completing” Jesus in a manner that allows him to be the one through whom God saves the rest of us from our self-destruction and from being destroyed by others. The moment God was absent was also the moment God was very active.

At least for me, this “God and Father of our Lord Jesus the Messiah” (Ephesians 1:3, 17) is the only way I see for this world to make any sense. The ways of Jesus’ God both terrify me and are the only assurance I have ever found.

Let’s return to the “Why” question in the Bible that is probably the most troubling one to many who seek God and to many who are trying to follow Jesus the best we know how. It first occurs in Psalm 22:1 and then again in Mark 15:34—“And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?’ which means, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’” Both the Psalmist, and Jesus, profess life-long trusting in God as well as life-long participation in the faith of those Jewish believers who preceded them. And yet, both the Psalmist, and Jesus, experience the terror of not experiencing God at all when God’s presence is most wanted and the felt-need is the deepest.

No wonder the prayer coming from Jesus’ mouth is so often explained away rather than faced squarely. Jesus, the most trusting and most trustworthy human who ever lived experiences being abandoned by God when he most wants to be reassured of God’s presence! Ouch! What hope then is there for a person like me—or you?

Think about each word in the phrase. “My”—Jesus is still talking directly to God and claiming God as his God. “God”—the one who is supposed to be in charge of history and overseeing our lives during troubled times. “Why?”—this experience just doesn’t seem to make sense to these two faithful Jewish believers. “Have”—present tense, this is a deeply felt “right now” experience.  “You”—of all my relationships, “you” were the one I thought would always be there when I most needed you. “Forsaken”—abandonment by those you love and by those who love you is one of the deepest wounds we humans can experience. “Me?”—the Psalmist, and especially Jesus, rightly wonder how this can happen to someone who trusts God so much! It seems that even though Jesus clearly saw the cross coming, he did not expect this experience of feeling totally abandoned. It is very real, and it is really hurting. “Why?”

As Paul Harvey used to say so dramatically—“And, now for the rest of the story . . . .” – next time.

“So, where is your God?” or “Where is this active and communicating God you keep talking about now?” These are taunts many of us have heard when evil is winning or suffering is intense. This seems to have been true for many of the biblical writers as well (see for examples: Psalm 42:3; 79:10; 115:2; Isaiah 36:13-20; Jeremiah 17:15; Micah 7:10; and Malachi 2:17).
But sometimes, this “Where are You, God?” comes from those who love God and are attempting to be trusting and faithful. A Psalmist who is dismayed at what is happening in the “church” and “nation” of his time cries “Lord, where is your steadfast covenant love” (Psalm 89:49)? And, we hear the writer of the latter part of Isaiah saying: “Where is he who brought them up out of the sea with the shepherds of his flock? Where is he who put in the midst of them his Holy Spirit, who caused his glorious arm to go at the right hand of Moses, who divided the waters before them to make for himself an everlasting name? . . . Where are your zeal and your might? (Isaiah 63:11-12, 15).

I am sure that one of the reasons these examples of questioning God were saved for us is because we all have such questions at times. Having them recorded in the words of those who wrote our Scriptures gives us permission to be honest too. And, it is in this honesty, that God is given room to be with us “here” again. It doesn’t mean the evil or the suffering are always immediately dealt with, it does mean that the channels for communication between us and God are opened up.

So, don’t be afraid of your questions. What child doesn’t have important questions for even the most caring and loving parent?
And, with a bit of wry humor, perhaps we should always be honest about a different “where” question another Psalmist asked long ago; one most of us children at some point ask concerning both our biological parents and our God. “Where can I go to get away from you for a while” (Ps 139:9).