The Park Forum

Links for today’s readings:

Sep 30  Read: Lamentations 5 Listen: (2:03) Read: Romans 3 Listen: (4:30)

Scripture Focus: Lamentations 5:20-22

Reflection: A Terrifying, Absent God

By Erin Newton

I have been teaching a study on Job and horror. Initially the combination raises a lot of questions and concerns. How can these two things go together? Are we allowed to talk about the places in the Bible that absolutely terrify us?

As I prepare each week, it becomes increasingly clear that the emotions of being afraid or terrified are quite common in the Old Testament. We like to think that it was the raging seas or the catastrophic floods that encapsulate all that is terrifying in those books. But what I have found, and what has been pointed out by other scholars, is that one of the most terrifying realities, or at least perceptions, is the terror of being alone, forsaken by God himself. 

When you think about the book of Lamentations, we often assume it’s just a long poem of sadness. We see it as a cry from the prophet to God about all that is wrong in the world. While that is not untrue, I want to highlight for a moment the scary aspect of a world where God does not see you.

Job often cries out asking God to look away, give him less attention. But there is also the terrified pleas for God to show up and give him an explanation. Lamentations has that same sense of terror. The book closes with this dreadful thought—what if God is done with us? What if we’ve gone too far? What if we have outrun his love? What if we are alone?

If this was our only book in the Bible, we’d all be a miserable lot. Thank God for the testimony of so many others! We know we are not alone. We know we cannot outrun the love of God. We know that Lamentations is voicing the terrifying doubts and worries we all have and we know that it is not the last word. 

But the cry is familiar: Why do you forsake us for so long? When we are suffering, when the world continues its merciless series of catastrophes and abuse—it feels like time is at a standstill and that God is silent. 

Do we close the book of our faith with these final words of Lamentations? Absolutely not! Immanuel has come. God With Us is here. Despite the dark nights and shrill winds that obscure our ability to hear God, we are not alone.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Call to Prayer

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Readers’ Choice is Here!

This month, we reshare your favorite Park Forum posts from this year. There’s still room for more. Tell us about one we should include.
What posts nourished your faith?

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Read more: Prescription for Peace

There are many saying the wounds of sin are not serious and “No harm will come to you.” Promising false peace is…deceptive and dangerous

Links for today’s readings:

Sep 29  Read: Lamentations 4 Listen: (3:42) Read: Romans 2 Listen: (4:13)

Scripture Focus: Lamentations 4.13-15

Reflection: Bloodshed and Bloodguilt

By John Tillman

Jeremiah said the priests and prophets shed the “blood of the righteous.” Is this bloodshed literal or metaphorical?

In this context, it is probably both. Bloodguilt is a person’s moral responsibility before God for unjust deaths that one caused or failed to take reasonable action to prevent, especially when one had a duty to act, such as under the covenant or, by analogy, modern legal systems.

You don’t have to literally spill blood to have bloodguilt. For example, Jeremiah narrowly escaped “bloodshed” by the religious leaders, but they didn’t try to cut his throat. They tried to drown or starve him in a muddy cistern. (Jer 38.6-13)

Bloodguilt is often implied for non-violent offenses involving neglect, such as deaths deemed preventable if covenant responsibilities had been followed faithfully. For example, when foreigners, widows, orphans, or the poor starve to death because the community fails to care for them as directed, God demands an account. (Is 1.15-17; Eze 22.7-12; Jer 22.3-17; Prov 24.11-12)

In Jeremiah’s poem of lament, these priests become pariahs. They stagger around blindly, covered in blood that makes them unclean. People shout at them to go away and shun their touch.

In real life, before the fall of the city, these priests probably looked normal. Their robes would have been immaculate and people would have been honored to be in their presence. But in Jeremiah’s vision, the truth is revealed. When their wickedness and bloodguilt become visible to everyone, they are shunned.

We do not live under the covenant that Jerusalem did, but that does not mean we don’t have responsibilities as God’s people to preserve and protect life. There are at least two ways to think about this.

First, consider the log in your eye. Are we taking seriously our responsibilities to take reasonable measures to prevent loss of life? What are we, personally, and through our churches and governments, doing or not doing?

The second is, are we holding accountable those who shed blood either maliciously or through incompetence or carelessness? Are we shunning and calling them out for their sins or going along with them as normal?

Like Jeremiah, we do not incur bloodguilt for things we have no power to stop or for things we oppose, yet fail to stop. However, whether people are being shot in the street or starving in the street, let us be found doing what we can and holding accountable those who are negligent or complicit.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Request for Presence

Let all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you; let those who love your salvation say forever, “Great is the Lord!” — Psalm 70.4

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Readers’ Choice is Coming!

Readers’ Choice is when we ask you to share your favorite Park Forum posts from this year. What posts challenged you?

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Read more: Justice That Protects Even Criminals’ Lives

The life of the criminal matters to God…Let us ensure that we maintain justice that protects life, including the life of the criminal.

Links for today’s readings:

Sep 28  Read: Lamentations 3 Listen: (5:10) Read: Romans 1 Listen: (5:02)

Scripture Focus: Lamentations 3.19-23, 32-33

Reflection: Time to Make the Mercy Known

By John Tillman

“Time to make the mercy.”

This inside joke between my wife and me mashes up “His mercies are new every morning” with an old Dunkin’ Donuts commercial. (NIV uses “compassions” instead of “mercies”)

In the famous “Time to make the donuts” commercial, Fred the Baker exits and enters his door at all hours. Exiting, he says, “Time to make the donuts.” Entering, weary and worn by weather and work, he says, “I made the donuts.” This continues repeatedly until he meets himself coming in the door, saying a final time, “I made the donuts.”

I don’t remember when I first made this little joke, but it was probably inspired by the old worship chorus, “The Steadfast Love of the Lord.”  It has been a consistent, light-hearted way to keep this verse and thought alive in our hearts. It refreshes me to picture God, laboring as the baker (perhaps with some flour on his clothing and sweat on his brow) to make afresh new mercies for each day.

But the mercy that Jeremiah spoke about is not some light and fluffy donut.

Would you have guessed (if you didn’t know) that this encouraging line comes from a book of poems called Lamentations? Probably not. Separated from its context, the phrase sounds so cheery it can seem trite.

When things go awfully, horribly wrong in life, encouragement from people who seem to never have had anything go wrong doesn’t help. When someone whose worst day ever was spilling their coffee or dropping a donut tells us, “His mercies are new every morning,” it’s understandable to roll our eyes. When Jeremiah says it, we can trust it.

Jeremiah said that God does not “willingly bring affliction or grief to anyone.” But he also said God has “broken my teeth with gravel” and “all that I had hoped from the Lord” is gone. From this painful and broken place, Jeremiah speaks about God’s mercies, compassion, and loyal love.

The mercy Jeremiah described saved him from being consumed or crushed in his pain. God’s mercy is “battle-tested” by Jeremiah and many before us. It is tough enough for the toughest things we will face.

Not only do we need that kind of loyal love and mercy, everyone around us does too. God has already “made the mercy” through Christ’s cross. It is finished. 

It is time for us to make Christ’s mercy known.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Request for Presence

Be seated on your lofty throne, O most high; O Lord, judge the nations. — Psalm 7.8

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Readers’ Choice is Coming!

Readers’ Choice is when we ask you to share your favorite Park Forum posts from this year. 
What posts comforted you?

https://forms.gle/Kj12Ziy4C9gQg8Xm7

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