Matthew tells us that the people who heard Jesus' cry of abandonment when he uttered it misunderstood him, or mis-heard him. They thought he was calling the prophet Elijah to help him. In all the years that have passed since the crucifixion, Christians have struggled to understand what Jesus said.
Oh, we know the words. We're not confused about Elijah. We know Aramaic, Greek, and Hebrew. What we wonder about is whether Jesus felt abandoned by God, whom he called Father, Abba. Or whether he used the words of a Psalm he knew ended with an affirmation of faith: "Praise God... for God did not despise or abhor the affliction of the afflicted. God did not hide from me but heard me when I cried out...."
I grew up in a conservative church, and the practice of arguing the fine points of doctrine was drilled into me. Did Jesus feel abandoned by God as he hung in agony on the cross, or was he, in the process of dying, affirming his faith in the One from whom he came and to whom he was returning, the One about whom he had just said, "As the father has loved me, so I have loved you"? At this point in my journey I believe both are probably true.
Jesus' cry of abandonment "My God. My God, why have you forsaken me?" is the only one of the seven words from the cross recorded in more than one Gospel. Actually cries of perceived abandonment by God run all through Scripture. Psalm 22 from which Jesus quoted is not an aberration. Psalm 10: Why, O Lord, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble? Psalm 13: How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?
There is Jeremiah: O Lord, you know; remember me and visit me.... Why is my pain unceasing, my wound incurable, refusing to be healed? Truly you are to me like a deceitful brook, like waters that fail. And, of course, there is the entire book of Job.
I believe Jesus in his cry of abandonment was taking his place with the suffering people of all time who have cried out to God in their pain, their desperation. Sickness, sorrow, and loss have always been part of the human experience. The same thing is true of loneliness and fear of abandonment. Our culture has become expert in what therapists rightly call denial, and skillful in anesthetizing our pain with drugs, alcohol, or frenzied activity. Sometimes I take a window seat at Starbucks, watching the people pass by on Broadway—jaws clenched, eyes straight ahead, cell phones at the ear, fingers working the tiny keys of the blackberries. It's just too painful to recognize the emptiness of so many lives, the wreckage of so many dreams. Better to stay busy and avoid the possibility of facing our brokenness or feeling our pain.
The simple truth is that acknowledging our brokenness is where the journey toward wholeness begins. I speak from personal experience—my own and that of people who are my friends or church members from my past and present. What is it in our culture or in our personalities that tells us it's better to pretend everything's fine than to admit we're having a tough time? What is it in our culture or in our personalities that insists we can handle everything ourselves, that it's a sign of weakness to ask for help? It used to be that it was mainly men who acted that way, but recently it's become an equal-opportunity pattern.
"My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" Have you ever felt that way? I know I have. I've used those words, or words very much like them. When you think about it, those words are an expression of faith. They are not addressed to the wind, or to a great void. They are addressed to God. My God, My God, why...? People of faith have often raised the questions of theodicy—that is, questions about the relationship between God and human suffering. Such questions are usually about Why or How.
There's often the question that begins "How could God allow...?" as though God were a giant puppeteer, pulling strings, deflecting tragedy from certain people or groups, wrapping supposedly deserving people in a protective cover to keep them from the pain of living.
The questions of why and how don't always have answers that satisfy us at every level. Jesus' cry of abandonment doesn't answer those questions, but it points to faith. For me, faith allows for the possibility of mystery, the spaciousness of truth yet to be revealed. But what I have come to understand, or more truthfully, what I have come to experience, is the truth of God's promise to be with God's people always, to be with us always.
Isaiah understood that: When you pass through the waters, I will be with you...because you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you. The Psalmist knew it: Though I walk through the valley dark as death itself, I will fear no evil, for You are with me. And the last word from the cross tells us Jesus knew it too.
According to Matthew and Mark, even in death Jesus shared fully in our humanity and showed the way to be authentically who we are. He gave voice to his brokenness, laid bare his vulnerability. I know for me I need a place of safety if I am to talk about my brokenness, about what is painful in my life. I hope you have a safe place for sharing your sense of abandonment by God when those feelings come.
For many people their safe place is a twelve-step group or the office of a therapist. It may be a group of friends who have been meeting for lunch or coffee over a long period of time. For too many people their place of safety is not their church. Too often churches are the last place people feel comfortable discussing their humanity with all its flaws and weaknesses as well as their strengths. Too many churches are marked by cold formality and an emphasis on propriety. Too many churches traffic in gossip, criticism, or condemnation, especially of people who fall outside the boundaries of conventional morality.
The challenge and opportunity for the Christian Church in our time and place is to be a witness to God's healing, transforming presence in all circumstances, even when we don't feel that presence. Last week Rutgers Church placed some advertisements in different publications, listing our services for Holy Week. Those ads began with the question "Looking for more meaning in your life?" After we placed them, I began to wonder what would happen if someone read the ads and came to one or more of our Holy Week services. I'm trying to be more aware of that possibility in planning worship and in preaching.
More meaning could include honesty about doubt, about fear, about sadness, about being out of control. More meaning could include feeling safe in the Jesus community instead of feeling judged. More meaning could include being free to wonder if or how God is present in our world and in our lives.
Anne Lamott in her wonderful book Traveling Mercies tells about a little girl who got lost in home town—lost in a way that symbolizes what so many people feel: she couldn't find her way home. Lamott writes that a helpful police officer placed the little girl in the front passenger seat of his patrol car, hoping she would recognize a familiar landmark. Suddenly the little girl sat up straight and said to the officer, "There's my church. You can let me out here. I can always find my way home from my church."
May all our churches be places that point toward home in the truest sense of that word. May we hear Jesus' cry of abandonment and let it free us to accept the fullness of our humanity. And may we live—and die—trusting that God is always with us, loving us with a love that will never fail.
Thanks be to God.