\u201cGod is good,\u201d murmured the Imam as he stepped to the microphone, to which we people of diverse faiths and experiences responded in our hearts, \u201cYes, God is good, and this is not what our God intends for us.\u201d
\nThe occasion was a neighborhood meeting in 2008 following the murder of Ahmednur Ali, one of our Augsburg students \u2013 a young Somali-American who broke up a fight while he was tutoring children at the local community center and was gunned down outside the center.\u00a0 The meeting was to address safety concerns in the aftermath of the shooting, and we all experienced first-hand the wrenching emotional impact of this shooting on our lives together.\u00a0 Though we intended to talk about more security cameras and heightened safety patrols, instead we listened to urgent longing for community.\u00a0 Instead of hearts breaking apart, the Imam broke our hearts open to a new path forward.\u00a0 In that spirit, our community came together to rededicate itself to the well-being of our neighbors \u2013 yes, to more security cameras and personnel, but even more urgently to finding common purpose in the health, safety and well-being of our neighbors and neighborhood.\u00a0 God is good, indeed.<\/p>\n
\nHere, in these first days of our Lenten journey, it can be difficult to affirm that God is good. Horrific school shootings, polarized wrangling over the fate of immigrants, abusive behavior that traumatizes victims \u2013 you can make your own list of the many ways in which evil rears its ugly head again and again.<\/p>\n
\nAnd even in the arc of the Lenten season, bookended (as we read this morning) by Jesus being cast out in the wilderness and tempted by Satan and on Good Friday by the shame and pain of Jesus\u2019 death on the cross.\u00a0 Where is the good in that?\u00a0 God is good?\u00a0 What evidence is there for that claim?\u00a0 Recall that we don\u2019t even use the word \u201cAlleluia\u201d during Lent, surely a sign that good is subsumed by the temptation and shame and pain and ashes of our human condition.<\/p>\n
\nAnd yet we faithful disciples \u2013 with all our own frailties and doubts and sins \u2013 must murmur together, even in this season of penitence, \u201cGod is good, and this is not what our God intends for us and for the world.\u201d
\nI think the writer of the Gospel of Mark understood this challenge for God\u2019s faithful people.\u00a0 Mark\u2019s spare telling of the story of Jesus\u2019s baptism in the River Jordan and his being cast out into the wilderness \u2013 as opposed to the much more detailed accounts in Matthew and Luke \u2013 makes the point that there is an order in God\u2019s mind to how God\u2019s faithful people shall live in the world.\u00a0 First, we are baptized \u2013 as Jesus was \u2013 named and claimed as God\u2019s beloved child. And then, and only then, are we sent as God\u2019s children into the wilderness of the world, to face the inevitable temptations and tensions, to be tended by angels and to be equipped to do God\u2019s work in the world.\u00a0 God is good and therefore we live as those marked by God\u2019s goodness.<\/p>\n
\nI have found further insights into this tension between God\u2019s goodness and the brokenness of the human condition from theologian Miroslav Volf (who teaches at Yale University). Volf, in a series of essays in Christian Century, argues that humans tend to equate good and evil as two forces fighting for power and authority in our lives.\u00a0 Volf claims that this is a false equivalency:\u00a0 \u201cThe goodness of creation\u2014its continuation in Adam and Eve coming together and opening up the world to the experience of new generations\u2014is more basic than the reality of sin and evil.\u201d\u00a0 For the faithful, we believe that in creation God put an original and abiding goodness in our souls and in our baptisms that goodness is renewed.\u00a0 In other words, God is good and all that God intends for God\u2019s people is, according to Volf, is \u201ca reality more basic than lives twisted by sins committed and endured.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nHere is how that insight of the fundamental goodness of God shaped my perspective on the murder of Nur Ali ten years ago and since\u2026<\/p>\n
\nTen years ago, someone broke the commandment, \u201cYou shall not murder,\u201d and now I know why God gave Moses the great gift of these commandments. Offered in a specific context to the Israelites, God spoke these commandments directly to God\u2019s people so that they might know that they were chosen, that God loved them, that God wanted them to flourish.\u00a0 And in following the commandments, the Israelites would live into God\u2019s will, God\u2019s reign, God\u2019s intentions for God\u2019s people.<\/p>\n
\nWith a nod to our own faith tradition, Martin Luther also is helpful here in his explanation of the sixth commandment, \u201cYou shall not murder,\u201d when he says: This means, \u201cwe are to fear and love God so that we do not hurt our neighbor in any way.\u201d\u00a0 Simple and yet so remarkably helpful.\u00a0 To kill someone is about much more than the sinful act of murder \u2013 the law covers the murderer \u2013 it is about our neighbors and our neighborhood.\u00a0 It is about the pain and fear and injustice \u2013 it also is about the compassion and consolation and remembering.\u00a0 It is about God in our midst, equipping the baptized, allowing us to go on, keeping us strong even when we don\u2019t believe we can go on because we are sad and desperate and frightened.\u00a0 The commandments are about a loving God with us.\u00a0 God is good \u2013 and the commandments tell us so.\u00a0 A remarkable gift.<\/p>\n
\nAnd it is God\u2019s gift that I was firmly focused on as I led a mourning community in the midst of an anxious and frightened neighborhood.\u00a0 Someone broke a commandment and we lived in the aftermath.\u00a0 It is clear to me that God does not give us commandments primarily to convict the sinner \u2013 we all get that, we\u2019re broken, we don\u2019t live up to the rules, we struggle to hold it all together.\u00a0 God gives us commandments so that we might know the sort of lives God intends for us to live together.\u00a0 God gives us commandments so that we might know that God is good \u2013 and live as if it were so.<\/p>\n
\nThis is what I hold dearly on my Lenten journey. As those named and claimed in our baptisms \u2013 pronounced beloved of God \u2013 we are called to witness to the good news: God is good \u2013 as Jesus traverses the wilderness with its wild beasts and healing angels. God is good \u2013 as Jesus hangs on the cross, inviting the criminals at his side and the relatives at his feet to be with him in paradise.\u00a0 God is good \u2013 as school communities grieve lives taken violently and too soon.\u00a0 God is good \u2013 as we all seek to rebuild the contours of a civil society.\u00a0 God is good \u2013 as we experience together broken commandments and promises.<\/p>\n
\nGod is good \u2013 \u201crepent, and believe in the good news,\u201d Jesus proclaimed after his baptism, for God\u2019s reign is at hand, on earth as in heaven. Amen.\u201d<\/p>\n
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