Hard Life

 Mark 6:14-29

The commentators were wondering this week what to do with this reading of the beheading of John. Its gruesome and violent and doesn't seem to lead us on a path of discipleship. Most were suggesting to look at Ephesians instead and then it occurred to me, isn't this the point.

We try and avoid hurt. We want a God who promises and easy way, a blessing filled life, after all there is such a thing called the prosperity gospel. That God will bless you if you live the right kind of life. And how many times have you run into people who have lost the faith because the going got tough? "I don't believe anymore because so and so died, was sick and what kind of a God would do that?" Where in the bible is this promise? Nowhere.

We read story after story of exile, death, and trauma in the New and Old Testaments. We forget a lot of the stories which talk about the hard times, and we would like to avoid them, stop our ears to them and get them out of the way. Yet this is life here on earth. We have to learn to keep the faith in spite of the hard times and learn what it might be teaching us instead. 

Immaculée Ilibagiza is one of those people who tried to open her inner ears to learn what hardship meant and to keep the faith. Her book, Left to Tell gives the story of what she learned as she hid with other women in a bathtub during the Rwandan genocide. She was the wrong ethnic group and even the pastor who hid these women would come in and tell them how awful they were because he listened to the propaganda from the government on the radio. Hers is a story of forgiveness and the depths of Gods love.

God in Jesus never promises us an easy life. One that is free from all the horrors of this world. What God in Jesus does is show us we are not alone in it. We are still listening and learning what God is saying in every struggle. For Immaculée it is a profound story of what forgiveness is and this story inspires others. She goes all over the country spreading the good news that in forgiving we are made free. 

The really hard part is in listening to where God is in the midst of our own turmoil. Maybe its in losing a loved one. Maybe its in financial struggle. Maybe its in losing a job and recreating your identity in that. Whatever it is listen, listen deeply to where God is and what God might be saying. Listen and hear the voice which loves you and claims you as God's child. What has this taught you, then share that good news because this world needs to hear it.