Arguing with God

Exodus 33:vs. 3 and 12-23

Jonah 3:10-4:11

Mark 7:24-30

Do you feel it is disrespectful to God and inappropriate to argue with God?  Why or why not?

Whether or not you, personally, think it is disrespectful to argue with God, many people do believe this.  Many people struggle with how to be respectful to God, especially at times when they have feelings of injustice or anger or pain which they feel they shouldn’t express to God. 

Yet, despite our own discomfort, scripture shows us example after example of people arguing with God.  Today we have three examples of that.   In the passage from Exodus, God refused to go with the people into the land flowing with milk and honey because, as God says, “I would consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people.”  Moses confronts this, giving good solid reasons for why God should recant in that decision.  Moses argues that God should show Moses what to do by being with the people.  Moses also says that the people will not know that they are doing the right thing if God’s presence is not with them.  And finally, Moses reminds God that the Israelites are God’s own people and that they therefore need God to go with them.  Moses argues with God.  Moses pleads with God.  Moses pleaded with God on other occasions as well, like when he begged God not to bring disaster on the people after they made the golden calf.  Moses said, “change your mind and do not bring disaster on your people.”  Moses went on to remind God that God promised to multiply Abraham’s descendants.  Moses pointed out that if God were to kill the Israelites now, that other nations would think less of God as being a God who just led God’s people out of Egypt in order to destroy them.   And again, Moses reminded God that the Israelites were God’s own people.  So we see that Moses regularly argued with God. 

In the second scripture for today we see that Jonah, too, argued with God.  Jonah was angry that God had told Jonah to deliver a message of destruction that he did not want to deliver and that now God wasn’t going to do the destroying God had promised to do.  Jonah felt that God had made a fool out of Jonah.  And Jonah was angry.  He yelled at God, argued with God and then he sat nearby to watch, waiting to see if God would then change God’s mind and destroy the city after all.  Jonah, too, a chosen prophet of God, argued with God.

In case we feel that Moses and Jonah somehow had authority as God’s special people to argue with God where we don’t have that authority, we have the gospel passage to look to.  Here we have a woman who was considered a nobody, because of her gender, because of her ethnicity or culture, and because of her religion.  She was a Syrophoenician, a woman, a person rejected and excluded by the Israelites.  Even Jesus begins by rejecting her, with the words, “it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs,” a comment that would have been considered even more insulting in Jesus’ day than it is in ours.  But this rejected, Syrophoenician, Gentile woman argued then with Jesus, saying, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”  So a third time we are shown people arguing, standing up for themselves with Jesus, and with God in the Bible.

These are not, by any means, the only examples in our Bible of people arguing with God.  Take, for example, the story of Job.  Everything was going badly for Job – everything.  Still, he insisted on not arguing with God about it.  He insisted on not talking to God about it.  He believed that this was the right thing to do, that it would somehow be wrong to speak out against something God had decided.  Finally, things got so bad that his wife encouraged him to speak out believing that God would then kill him, and that death was better than the living hell he was experiencing.  Finally, when death did seem a preferred alternative to his suffering, Job, too spoke out against God.  He, even more than the other scriptures I read to you today, argued and even railed against God with words such as “Why did you bring me forth from the womb?  Would that I had died before any eye had seen me, and were as though I had not been, carried from the womb to the grave.”  And even more “Withdraw your hand far from me and do not let dread of you terrify me. .. Why do you count me as your enemy?...I cry to you and you do not answer me; I stand and you merely look at me.  You have turned cruel to me; with the might of your hand you persecute me.  ..you toss me about in the roar of the storm.”  Job, too, then spoke out in anger to God.

The psalms also give many examples of people speaking out in anger or argument against God.  Psalm 4 begins, “Answer me when I call, O God of my right!...” 

And Psalm 79 “How long, O Lord?  Will you be angry forever?  Will your jealous wrath burn like fire?  Pour out your anger on the nations that do not know you, and on the kingdoms that do not call on your name.”

Psalm 10 - Why, O LORD, do you stand far off?  Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?

Psalm 22 - My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?   Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning?

Psalm 42 - I say to God my Rock, "Why have you forgotten me?  Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy?"

Psalm 44  - Awake, O Lord! Why do you sleep? Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever.  Why do you hide your face and forget our misery and oppression?

Psalm 74 - Why have you rejected us forever, O God?  Why does your anger smolder against the sheep of your pasture? Why do you hold back your hand, your right hand?  Take it from the folds of your garment.

So, if arguing with God is disrespectful, how do we understand these scriptures? 

One commentator explained it this way, “While many of these passages seem … downright disrespectful of God, they are an authentic representation of how the psalmist feels. Is it ever improper to have our prayer reflect the condition of our fallen heart?  In the past, I have tended to restrain my prayers out of respect for God. I am now coming to realize that my inauthenticity is actually an insult, not respect. God knows my heart, and my prayer should not be a facade. If it is, I am only fooling myself.”

I think it is also very important to take some time to look at how God responds when God’s people do argue.  Starting with the passages from Exodus, how did God respond when Moses argued?  Not only did God listen, but God relented, changing God’s mind based on what Moses had to say.  God honored Moses because of the arguments he was able to give God.  As Exodus 32:14 says, “the Lord changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people.”  And Exodus 33:17  “The Lord said to Moses, ‘I will do the very thing that you have asked; for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.’”  God knows Moses by name because Moses is authentic with God and has the strength, courage and wisdom to speak up and to tell God when he disagrees with the decisions God has made.  Moses found favor in God’s sight because God is proud of Moses’ ability to make good and sound points in his arguments, just as sometimes we as parents or teachers can find ourselves proud of the arguments our children put forth to convince us to change our minds. 

            With Jonah, God wasn’t changed or convinced by Jonah’s arguments.  God didn’t say “yes” to Jonah’s appeal that God destroy the people of Nineveh.  But neither did God leave Jonah alone, or just say “too bad for you!” or even get angry with Jonah for speaking his mind.   Instead, God talked with Jonah, showed Jonah that God has the same compassion for the people of Nineveh that Jonah had for a mere bush.  God was present with Jonah and offered care of Jonah, even as God disagreed.  Jonah’s angry prayer, while not eliciting the answer he hoped for, none the less continued and deepened Jonah’s relationship with God.

In the story of the Syrophoenician woman we see a similar response as the one given to Moses.  Jesus is impressed with her answer and changes his mind, giving her what she has asked for because of the eloquence of her argument.  “For saying that, you may go – the demon has left your daughter” he says.  So Jesus shows us a God who stays in the conversation – God continues the conversation and even allows God-self to be bent by the arguments.

With Job, we are given a combination of these responses.  God does argue back with Job.  But God also returns to Job ten-fold the blessings of Job’s life.  But for me, the most important part of Job is that God responds most profoundly by simply showing up.  God doesn’t smite Job or leave Job in silence or alone.  God takes Job’s words and the arguments of Job’s mouth as an invitation to be in deeper relationship with Job.  Job is real with God, and God returns the favor by being real and tangible for Job.

And finally, with the psalms…We are not given a glimpse into the reaction of God to the psalms, but we are invited to pray them ourselves – with all of the emotions that they express: we are invited to express our anger, our sorrow, our fear, our gratitude, our joy and love – we are invited to pray or sing the psalms and express all that we are to God.  We are invited to be authentic with all the feelings and thoughts that we have - the arguments and anger as well as the submission and joy.

The important thing here is this: God calls us into genuine relationships.  God really, truly, wants to be with you exactly as you are.  God loves you for all of who you are, completely as yourself, fully as the person, the individual that you are.  But we tend to think that we have to be different than our genuine selves for God to truly love us.  Or we think it is impolite to express all of what we really feel and all of who we truly are.  And that is not only wrong, but dangerous.  For as I’ve said before, the parts of ourselves we squish down are the very parts of ourselves that tend to manifest in dangerous, threatening, violent and yes, even evil, ways.  Because of our fear, we all tend to wear masks, masks that cover who we really are – not just from those around us, not just from ourselves but even from God.  These masks hide the deeper truths of who we are and keep us from being fully the people God calls us to be.  Whether these masks are obvious or not, they exist, and they exist for us all.

I found myself thinking about the movie Don Juan DeMarco.  In this movie, a teenager tries to commit suicide and when confronted by a psychiatrist he tells the doctor that he is Don Juan.  The teen is, of course, committed to the mental hospital.  He was wearing a mask, as the Don Juan in the stories does, but the mental hospital takes it away from him.  He is very angry about this and says to the psychiatrist, “Think how you would feel if you were made to take off this mask that you are wearing?” 

Later in the movie the doctor and Don Juan have another conversation in which the Doctor asks Don Juan if he knows who the doctor is.  Don Juan replies, “You are Don Octavio de Flores, the uncle of Don Francisco de Silva.”

The Doctor responds, “And where are we, here?”  To which Don Juan responds, “well, I haven’t seen a deed but I assume that this villa is yours.”

The Doctor continues, “What would you say to someone who was to say that this is a psychiatric hospital and that you are a patient here and that I am your psychiatrist?” 

Don Juan answers, “I would say that he has a rather limited and uncreative way of looking at the situation.  Look.  You want to know if I understand that this is a mental hospital.  Yes, I understand that.  But then how can I say that you are Don Octavio and that I am a guest at your villa, correct?  By seeing beyond what is visible to the eye.  Now, there are those of course who do not share my perceptions, it’s true….but I see people and this situation for what they truly are…glorious, spectacular, radiant… and perfect - because I am not limited by my eyesight.”

That is the way that God sees us.  That is also the depth to which God sees us.  And if we don’t voice all of who we are to God, that doesn’t prevent God from knowing those feelings and thoughts are there, more fully than we ourselves know them.

In Mitch Albom book, Have a Little Faith,  (p.181) Albom is interviewing or spending time with his life-long Rabbi, and the Rabbi, whom he calls “the Reb” shares with him that when his daughter, Rinah (which means Joy) was four years old she suffered from a terrible asthma attack that took her life.  When the Rabbi was asked about how he responded to this, how he responded when his little girl died so suddenly, he honestly and openly shared, “I cursed God.  I asked God over and over, ‘Why her?  What did this little girl do?  She was four years old.  She didn’t hurt a soul.’”  Albom asked the Rabbi, “Did you get an answer from God?” 

“I still have no answer,” he replied.
“Did that make you angry?”

“For a while, furious.”

“Did you feel guilty cursing God – you, of all people?”

“No,” he said.  “Because even in doing so, I was recognizing that there was a greater power than me.”  He paused.  “And that is how I began to heal.”…His faith soothed him, and while it could not save little Rinah from death, it could make her death more bearable, by reminding him that we are all frail parts of something (much more) powerful.”

That arguing with God, that talking to God, that authentic relationship with God, that is the start of healing, no matter how God answers your arguments or your prayers.  Many times (as we’ve seen from the Exodus and Mark passages) the answer won’t be “no” but instead God will respond with delight and joy in our requests.  Other times, the answer will be “no” but even then, even when the answer is “no” we deepen our relationship with God by being authentic.  God can handle our thoughts and feelings.  And God knows what they are even better than we know them ourselves.  What a comfort then, to not have to “hide” them from God, but to just be wholly ourselves in a loving relationship with our God. 

Amen.