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Putting
Away Bitterness Sermon by Brigid A. Boyle July 13, 2003, Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill Numbers 20:1-13 "Put away from you all bitterness …” We all know at least one, probably more. Many families have one. Many workplaces, neighborhoods and social circles have one. I know one, in fact, I know several, hailing from several of the aforementioned arenas. The one of whom I speak, is the one who is bitter, angry at the world, sour, negative, and resentful. You know the type. She rarely fails to criticize the way her kin look or dress, commenting on the weight you haven't lost or letting you know that the particular shade of green doesn't really work for you. His most steady topic of conversation is his own misery, the way he has been mistreated, the way his opinion has been disregarded, the way his life is worse than yours or anyone else's. She has only the smallest of capacities for joy and would rather complain about the amount of work she did, the amount of work others did not do, and criticize anyone who won't complain with her. He comments on the inconvenient show time, the traffic, the uncomfortable seats, the terrible way things are and the better way things used to be. You know them. I know them. In fact, now and again, I can be one. I suspect you can too. And so this word for this day, what I pray is the gospel’s take on the reality of bitterness, comes to us each one. Bitterness has at its linguistic root the meaning “cut” or “bite.” It is that sour-ness that cuts into a person’s outlook on life, that resentment which holds them so tightly as almost between biting teeth and so shapes life’s interactions the same. It is the anger that comes out like arrows in bitter words murmured and mumbled, the intensity of barbs hurled, both intentionally and not that attack and hurt. It is the unpleasantness that takes the shape of angry whispers and acerbic attitudes among equally critical partners, the resentment that catalogs every offense and wallows in fiercely-defended grudges. More than simply a negative outlook on life, it is bitterness. With these words I mean not to point a finger at those who have become embittered by and with life and with a sweeping generalization cast quick judgment. That would, of course, be both much too easy a response and much too naïve an understanding of this particular human condition. For bitterness arises not so much from a conscious choice one makes in a personal vacuum as it does from the response one has to the experiences life has to hold. What I mean to say is that there is enough in the world, in any of our lives, to make bitterness very tempting. I think of the illness that strikes innocents with unrelenting vengeance and leaves so many to raise their hands in anger at the world. I think of the accident which takes, without rhyme or reason, the one whom this world seemed most to need and leaves behind one who cannot help but to see all that is around through the dark glasses of pessimism. I think of the repeated events that only deepen the conviction that there is little that is good in the world: of the plan for the perfect family shattered by the fist in the air or the hand to the face, of the mismanaged and miserable workplace environment that turns day after day into a battle not to find satisfaction but simply to get out of bed. I think of the countless twists and turns in our lives, in all lives, which, if they had their way, would leave us in their wake simply to be bitter. But there are those, too, who come by this outlook on life not by way of events or incidents, but by way of something less easy to define or explain. Perhaps it is the bitterness that comes by contagion, from existing side by side with the most critical there is, and so being infected by the same as times goes by. Bitterness has a dangerous and powerful way of taking hold of other people. Or, if not by contagion, maybe it is simply the sense that your plight must be worse than anyone else’s or just an inability to let go of the fear or anger or frustration created by unnamed events long forgotten, but with the result, in any case, of resentment which refuses to be reconciled. The point is that bitterness is so very real for us. But never does diagnosis of the problem alone suffice for proclamation and so we look to these pages of this our sacred story both to see, in them, ourselves and to discern, from them and by God’s grace, a hint of what the gospel’s response might be. And we turn to the story of the Israelites in the wilderness of Sin. It had been about two and a half months since the Israelites had been freed from slavery in Egypt. They had moved through the wilderness avoiding Pharaoh’s capture, they had crossed the Red Sea as the Lord parted the waters and then back into the wilderness in search of the Promised Land. Only a handful of days had passed before bitterness reared its head. First, it was as drinking water seemed hard to find and then, as hunger drew nigh. Recalling little of God’s provision in days past, the Israelites quickly were made as sour as the water was from the rock when it was first drawn. “If only,” they complained, “If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.” With no reference to the great freedom granted them, the mighty gift of a promise given, with no recollection of the near history of God’s presence and action in the most ordinary of things, the Israelites quickly took to what amounted to whining in the wilderness, yielding, as they would do over and over as these pages turn, to the temptation of resentment and bitterness. The Lord, of course, graciously heard their complaint and provided manna and quail to ease their hunger. Even given assurances that such provisions would continue, along with directions for a measured collection and consumption, the Israelites still failed to get it right, still failed to remember the truth and history of their God who had given them so much. They kept leftover food (when they were instructed not to) and they looked for food on the Sabbath (when they were asked not to) because, I think, at least some held onto a bitterness that would doubt all that claimed to be good. By story’s end, of course, the Israelites did get it right and so ate manna for the 40 years they remained in the wilderness. Nevertheless, the 40 years would not be without other occasions on which they would yield to bitterness, I'm sure, and not without the ear of God always turned to hear and respond. Throughout the Old Testament, the Lord’s response sometimes came in the form of gracious provision; other times it came in the form of frustration with the Israelites inability to see the bigger, better picture and their consequent mistrust. In whichever case, the Old Testament shows us those who, like some of us, have been cut to the core with a sourness which now affects so much of what we do, who have, like others around us, been held in the teeth of a biting resentment which refuses to let go. Consider the psalms; there we find bitterness brought on by the attack from enemies too great to endure, by the conclusions drawn of so much wickedness around, by the suffering inflicted which is simply intolerable. So the question for us this day has to do with what the gospel’s response to such bitterness might be. What is there to say from the perspective of the Christian faith to this undeniable temptation seemingly inherent in the human condition? In the first place and with reference to many of the companions in scripture of whom I just spoke, there is a sense in which the expression of our bitterness before God is an expression of deep faith. For to be so honest as to articulate profound feelings of anger and resentment requires a great trust in the one to whom the words are spoken. So to rail at the Almighty begging relief from misery, pouring out frustration and sadness, hurling questions of causality into the air, can and in most cases ought to be a part of faithful living. But, and this is the point on which things turn, there is a difference, a real and substantial difference, between the kind of bitterness we find, for instance, in faithful expression, say of the Psalms, and the kind of bitterness we find rearing its head in day after day encounters and events. One finds its place in prayer and the other finds its place around the dining room table or in the meeting room or even in the church parking lot. It is to this infectious pessimism that Paul speaks in his letter to Christians in Ephesus, “Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger …” Recognizing that, as humans everywhere will yield over and over to the temptation of bitterness, his word is one which charges them to stop, to cast away all the resentment and the malice and to live differently. But yet his words serve not simply to forbid for the sake of forbidding, not simply to stop for the sake of stopping. They are not words which are meant to call those who would hear simply to lighten up. Paul’s words and my words on this day bidding bitterness be set aside are grounded in something much deeper than so simple a directive. They are grounded, as I see it, not so much even in a superficial “Count your blessings, Count them one by one” sort of way, but in the notion of Christian vocation, or calling. Most often, you and I would consider vocation as that work which we are to do in the world, the unique purpose each one is given in the world. But there is more to vocation, I think. It is not only the unique work we are given to do in the world, but the way in which we are called, vocare, to live and act and be in the world each of our days. Vocation comes as a gift of God to us and, although our salvation depends not on our ability to excel in our particular vocation, there is a sense in which we are given a responsibility, as those whom God has given his life to redeem, to be faithful to that vocation. You and I have been called to live our days in the light of the grace we know in Jesus Christ, you and I have been put in a particular time and place with a particular responsibility to proclaim something, in what we say and what we do, of this great love. Said a young person to me at the end of a workcamp some years ago, after we had all complained and even become bitter about the amount of rain which fell our way during the week, “Each of us are given a time and a place to live. For some, the time and place was maybe only two years, being born and then dying in a concentration camp. For some, it is living in a falling-down house in rural West Virginia. But we have been given so much,” she said through tears, “and we have a responsibility to do more than complain about the rain.” We have been given so much, you and I, and we have a responsibility to do more than complain about the rain. We have a responsibility to live and act in the light of Jesus Christ, holding fast to that which is good and rendering to no one evil for evil, strengthening the fainthearted, supporting the weak and helping the afflicted, honoring all people, and loving and serving the Lord rejoicing in the power of the Holy Spirit. By God's grace, then, may we put away all bitterness, that we might be who we are called to be, through Jesus Christ. Amen. |