Wednesday, February 28, 2024

Do You Believe God Is Distant? Have You Felt Like God Has Put Up a Fence? Mark 12:1-12

 

Rev. George Miller

March 3, 2024

Mark 12:1-12

 

“God, the Lord is my strength, he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, and makes me tread upon the heights.” (Habakkuk 3:19)

 

Once upon a time, in the land of Israel, there lived a prophet named Habakkuk.  Legend has it that he was named after a plant that grew in the North.

 

Habakkuk loved the Lord.  But he felt restless.  He was a man attuned to the temperature of his time and he could sense that war is about to begin.

 

He sees the injustice.  He’s been witness to senseless violence.  He’s tired, so tired of the strife and suffering of the people.

 

But more than that, he’s tired with God.  He’s disappointed with the Lord.  He thinks God is just being deaf and acting lazy.

 

While other prophets place the blame on the people and want to blame the leaders, Habakkuk does something else- he places the blame on God.

 

Habakkuk doesn’t mince his words; he doesn’t play nice and gentle. 

 

He sees all the mess, all the chaos, all the fuss around him and he says to God very bluntly “How long?  How long are you going to let things keep going the way they are going?”

 

Habakkuk speaks directly to God and asks, “How long do I, how long do we, have to cry out for help before you hear us?”

 

“How many mothers need to see their sons die and how many fathers need to hear their daughters cry before you step in and do something?”

 

Habakkuk’s faith is unwavering; fearless.  His faith is formidable.

 

He fully believes in God.  He fully believes in the God of the Red Sea who heard the cry of the captives.

 

He believes that God is strong, God is capable, and God cares enough about the least of these. 

 

With that knowledge he says  “How long are you going to let sin surround us before you do what you are supposed to do?”

 

…and here is the cool thing.  God hears.

 

God hears Habakuk.

God acknowledges his concerns.

God accepts the challenge.

God responds. 

 

God says “Believe me when I say that I see; believe me when I say that I hear; believe me when I say that I know.”

 

God hears all the bad that Habakuk says about God and God says “Hold on.  Be faithfully patient.  And wait.”

 

“I know waiting is not your strong suit, but wait…and you will see just how much I do love, how much I do care, and how much I can do.”

 

And though this message doesn’t solve all of the current problems Habakkuk sees, it gives him space to breathe, time to reset.

 

And it gives him Hope.  Hope that God is still there; hope that God is still being God.

 

With that hope comes a sense of peace, and a sense of comfort.

 

At the end of his conversations with God, in which Habakkuk feels heard and comforted, he says-

 

“God, the Lord is my strength, he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, and makes me tread upon the heights.”

 

And that is so beautiful.

 

What else is beautiful is that through Habakkuk we have a biblical role model of how we can be honest with God, how we can say what we mean, we can discuss what distresses us…and God hears.

 

What’s so beautiful is that we can question, we can wrestle, we can even disagree with God, as long as we stay in communication and relationship with our Creator…

 

All of this leads us to today’s reading.  It is a reading I dislike, a reading that comes across as most uncomfortable.

 

For me, it doesn’t feel like it fits; doesn’t seem to reflect where we have been in our journey with Jesus.

 

This year we’ve presented a vision of Jesus who is right there, hands on, validating the life and intimate aspects of the human experience.

 

Jesus has been at our workplace, in our bedroom, in our places of mental disarray and medical issues. 

 

Jesus shows us again and again that the Lord is our strength, who makes our feet like the feet of a deer, and makes us  tread upon the heights.

 

When not visiting with us, Jesus has been telling parables about things we know.  Sowing seeds, planting crops, baking bread.

 

But here comes a parable in which the every-day person is presented as evil, the workers are the bad guys.

 

Modern theologians question if this story was even told by Jesus or if it was made up by Mark or inserted by someone else to make the religious leaders of their day look bad…and I may agree.

 

The story starts with a man who plants a vineyard, puts a fence around it, and then leaves for another country.

 

Right away, with the mention of the fence, there is a visceral reaction.

 

Sure, fences can be a good thing.  They can keep you safe, keep your dog from running into the street, but they also separate.

 

Right away, I think of my childhood neighborhood where we had a grouchy neighbor named Frank who was always complaining, always yelling at us kids when we played in front of his house. 

 

We’d be playing football, baseball, tag and at some point Frank would pop his angry head out the door and yell move away.

 

So this parable rubs me the wrong way, as if God is an middle aged grump who doesn’t want anyone to have fun.

 

What’s worse, though, is this sense of desertion. 

 

After this man puts up the fence, and leases it to the tenants, he ups and leaves, he goes to a different land, never to be seen again.

 

This does not strike me as the God in Genesis who walked with Adam in the cool evening breeze. 

 

This doesn’t sound like the God who sat with Abraham under the oaks of Mamre.

 

It certainly doesn’t sound like the God who wrestles with Jacob.

 

This does not sound like God is the Lord of our strength, who makes our feet like the deer, and our spirits tread upon the heights.

 

This sounds as if God is absent, uncaring, and too busy with foie gras and Cuban cigars to care about the people in God’s care.

 

Yes, there’s the wine press, yes, there’s the watchtower, but they seem more as a babysitter than the actual presence of the landlord.

 

So when his slave is sent to the people, they don’t respond so kindly.  Maybe what they really wanted was the man.  They didn’t want some peon coming along.

 

Maybe they really missed the man, maybe they wished there would be some more “water from the rock” and “manna from heaven” moments.

 

Maybe like Habakkuk, they felt the owner of the vineyard was away too long, and therefore too uncaring and far too inaccessible.

 

So instead of being like Habakkuk and using their words, they use their actions, they use their hands, they use their fists.

 

This is not to get the tenants off the hook, but what if part of what was really going on is that they really missed the man, they really missed his presence, they really missed his miracles?

 

What if what they are feeling is “Does it matter?  Does anything we do make a difference if the landlord is far far away, so distant, and so uninvolved in our lives?”

 

Like Habakkuk, like Jacob, I wrestle with this parable, because it feels upsetting that a fence has been put up and he went away.

 

And it so goes against what Jesus has been talking about. 

 

Throughout Mark, the God that Jesus seems to embody, seems to represent is a God who is very hands on, who is very present, who is very much there.

 

Throughout Mark, the God that Jesus seems to embody is one who has no fence, who is not Frank the neighbor, who is right there, right amongst the people be it work, field, home or graveyard.

 

The one saving grace is that this parable is not aimed at the every day person, this story was not told to point a finger at the average person just trying to make ends meet and see another weekend come along.

 

This parable was aimed at the chief priests, scribes and elders who were the head of the religious institution.

 

This was aimed at those who were supposed to know better and act differently.

 

Still, this scripture sits uncomfortably, and it leads more to a set of questions than to any kind of answer.

 

How do you perceive God to be?  What do you imagine your relationship with the Lord is like?

 

Do you see God as close at hand or do you see God as out of the country, and how does this affect your relationship?

 

Do you see God as active in your garden, or do you see God as walking away once it’s built?

 

Do you see God as putting up fences or tearing them down?

 

And if you believe there are fences that God constructs, what are their purposes and are they for good?

 

We ask these questions and we continue to speak with God as we make this Lenten journey, knowing that just as God heard the captives and God heard Habakkuk, God hears us.

 

May we each be able to receive an answer.  And like Habakkuk, may we each be able to say

 

“God, the Lord is my strength, he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, and makes me tread upon the heights.”

 

For that, let us say “Amen.”

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