When was the last time you were honest with God? Can you think of a time in the past six months or so? A time when you were so frustrated with God that you yelled? Cried? Maybe even swore a little bit? Or a time when you broke down and really prayed for what was on your heart, instead of what we all think “we’re supposed to pray for”? A time when we told God that we felt that the Lord of all the universe had “turned cruel to us, that we have been lifted on the wind, and tossed about in the roar of the storm.”
Job’s prayer has never been my prayer, even when I felt like it should be. Instead, I take on the tone of Martha in our Gospel lesson this morning. “God, I’m a little ticked, but I know that you’re going to do what’s best for me.” It’s almost honest, but I cover up my honesty with flattery. I’m not allowing myself to be honest before God, fully. To just be angry and emotional and let God deal with that. That’s scary. For some reason, I - and I don’t think I’m alone here - think that God is going to smite me for yelling or swearing.
Like God cares about the language I use in a prayer, and not how I talk and act for the rest of the day. Right…
But my reluctance to be honest with God says something about my relationship (and quite possibly our relationships) with prayer. That it’s a special sacred time, and that everything has to be just right or God won’t listen. That if I don’t take the time to flatter God, then whatever I have to say will be passed over in favor of one of the other billion people on this planet. That I have to craft my prayers like the ones on Sunday morning are crafted - with flowery language and a recognition that God is God, and I am not.
And yet…That’s not exactly what prayer looks like in our texts this morning. In fact, all three of our examples of prayer (one from Job and two from John) all begin with accusations. You did this God. Or you failed to act. God if you had just been paying attention, this terrible bad, no good thing would not have happened. Lazarus would not have died. My life would not feel over. There wouldn’t be a war looming in Ukraine. There wouldn’t be millions of starving children in this world. My grandfather would not have died when I was a baby. I’d still have the dog I grew up with. My friend would not have had to deal with cancer and the consequences of that for her whole life. I wouldn’t live in a world that has been broken apart by sin.
God, if you had been here, these things all would not have happened.
What if those were our prayers?
God I’m mad. no, not just mad. I’m pissed at what I’ve had to go through. God I’m sad. No, not just mad. I’m depressed. I’m grieving the loss of someone close to me, or someone far away. Where were you God? Where were you?
In this time of Lent, we are also entering into a time of honesty. As we journey ahead together over the next 40 days (give or take), we will spend a lot of time holding ourselves accountable to God. Where we have betrayed God, where we have turned away from God, and where we have killed God. But I think, before we get there, we need to make God accountable to us - to have these brutally honest prayers where we demand to know where God was and is in our lives.
Because it’s only when Mary accuses Jesus of failing to save her brother, that we see Jesus’ emotions. It’s there, in the face of the accusation - with no flattery that Jesus weeps. That the Word made Flesh reveals where God has been in the midst of this family’s grief - right there in the middle of it. That only by allowing herself to be honest and vulnerable before God, does Mary see that Jesus has been present in their grief this whole time. That God has been here in the face of this tragedy. And, I think, that God is present in all of our tragedies.
In Job, it’s Job’s honesty in the question that provokes a reaction from God. And God’s answer, in more or less sarcastic phrasing says, “I’ve been here since the beginning. I’ve been present in everything. Every gift of life, that was me. So don’t act like I was never there.” Ok, so maybe God is a significantly snarkier than my paraphrase.
But do we allow ourselves to feel God in our journeys? To see that God feels with us in our grief? And in our anger? And in our joys? Do we allow ourselves to be honest with God, and in our honesty, we become open to see God with us? I hope so.
Because when we are open to God’s presence here and now - when we enter into a relationship with God through honest prayers - we get to be a part of the resurrection that Jesus talks about when he says the those who believe in him will never die. Because being connected to God’s presence gives life on both sides of the graves.
And we get a foretaste of what the life on the other side of the grave is when Jesus commands Lazarus to come out of that tomb. That even death cannot stop God from being connected to each and every one of us. And when we reach the end of our Lenten journey, we see how our real and powerful and honest relationships with God will bring about new life for all of God’s people. Amen.
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