It happened again. I say again because a) it happens all the time and b) I know I have shared similar stories with you in the past.  A week ago Saturday I was having dinner with some people who didn’t know me very well, but knew I was a minister.  One of the Ladies got to talking about their recent trip to the Outer Banks.  Apparently while touring around the area she, her husband, and another couple who were locals, drove through a quaint little town named Tuckahoe.  Let me spell that for you TUCKAHOE.  She asked her friends if the sign ever got changed, if people ever added another line to the T to make it and F.  I’ll give you a second to figure out what that would spell.  The friends assured her that it happened with great regularity; seemingly every other week.  Now besides the two of us there were six other people sitting at the table, but guess how the story ended.  You guessed it.  “I can’t believe I just told that story in front of a minister.” she said with a half apologetic, half embarrassed tone of voice.  She didn’t seem to be embarrassed to tell that story in front of the other six folks why would she be embarrassed to tell it in front of me?  Oh yeah because I am a minister and apparently ministers have never heard those words, never use those words, never even think those words, and we apparently don’t appreciate a funny story when we hear it.  Like I said she didn’t know me very well. Had I been driving and come across the welcome to Tuckahoe signit would have taken me 2 seconds to start laughing, 5 minutes to develop a funny but not appropriate song, and about 10 minutes to convince my self that finding the nearest hardware store and buying a can of spray paint was a bad idea.  Oh I would never do it but I sure would think about it.      

            The woman telling the story was not that well acquainted with me and may not have been that well acquainted with scripture because those words appear in the Bible.  When I say those words, I mean those words you say or at least think when you hit your finger with a hammer.  Those words are what Old Testament Scholar Walter Brueggemann refers to as regressive speech and the Bible contains its fair share of regressive speech.  Regressive speech meaning communication at its most basic and crude level.  Oh you have never seen any of those words in the Bible because well meaning translators often clean them up for us so as not to offend anyone but if you read in the original language they are there.  Most people don’t use regressive speech in public because it is considered by many to be offensive but that anger and that pain that comes when you hit your finger with a hammer has to go somewhere doesn’t it?  If we keep it inside then we just may explode, worse yet we might dispel that anger physically toward some one or some thing we don’t want to hurt.  But appearance is everything and we don’t want others to think we are crude, have poor manners, or are out of control, and so most of us reserve regressive speech for when we think no one else is listening or when we are around the people who know us best and feel we can trust.  But how about with God, do you use regressive speech when you talk, when you pray to God?  Why not?  It is not as if God doesn’t know you are thinking it any way.  So why would you try to play games with God?  Why would you try to hide how you really feel, be it angry, outraged, offended, put out, or betrayed by what you perceive God has done, or allowed to happen?  God has gone to great lengths to be in relationship with us.  Wouldn’t you rather be honest and genuine before God instead of trying to play games and trying to psych God out?  It is ok I am pretty sure God can take it. 

            One of the ways I know that God can take it is because scripture and especially the Psalms are filled with people expressing the full range of human emotion before God.  Just a few moments ago we read one of those psalms.  The author of Psalm 13 is clearly in a tight spot and not very happy, you might even say angry with God for allowing this to happen.  The language of the Psalm is accusatory, almost as if the writer is putting God on trial and demanding that God offer a defense and further nudging God toward taking action.  What the psalmist is really saying is “It’s been far too long already God, how much more of this am I going to have to take?  Will you allow this to keep going forever?  Have you forgotten about me?  Don’t you remember me?  How long are you going to continue acting like you don’t know me?  How long must I continue to suffer, how long must I endure this pain, how long will that no good so and so prevail over me and mock me?  Think about it God.  I want answers and I want them now, so you better come up with some answers quick.  You had better put some light back in my eye, because the light is going out of my eye, and when the light goes out of your eye you die.  Dead people don’t praise you God.  Think about that.  So if you want me around to praise you, you had better do something quick.  You had better put some light back in my eye and quick.  Otherwise you are going to look like a fool.  What kind of message will that send to my enemies if you let them continue to torment me and I die.  You won’t look real great then will you?”  As you can see the author of this Psalm doesn’t hold anything back.  The author makes if very clear what is desired from God and is not above questioning God’s wisdom, and bargaining with God to get the desired action from God.  

            My guess is this kind of blatant honesty with God stretches most of us beyond our comfort zones and is not how we were taught to pray.   Most of the time we want to present ourselves to God as being more holy than we really are.  We dare not question God because that is just not right.  Most people want to believe in God beyond a shadow of a doubt.  The problem is there are numerous places in scripture that deal with those shadows and ask the hard questions of God.  Scripture invites us to not fear going into the shadowy places with God by our side.  Notice too God’s response to all of this.  God does not respond with lengthy explanations about why bad things happen to good people or explain why this individual has been allowed to suffer so long or even provide a list of ways to get around the problem. Neither does God condemn the person for speaking this way.  Instead, God is silent, but don’t mistake silence for inactive.  God continuously surrounds all of humanity with “steadfast love,” taking on our suffering and redeeming it. Having remembered the evidence of God’s “steadfast love”, the psalmist drops his case, turning his diatribe into a song of praise.   Whatever is on our heart God can handle it.  We may be angry with God, we may be frustrated, we may feel like the psalmist that God has abandoned us, we may even have doubts concerning our relationship with God.  We need to remember however doubt is not the enemy of faith. In fact, doubt and questioning can lead us deeper. There’s a difference between having faith about God and having faith in God. The latter can come only when we are willing to bring our questions and complaints to God in the context of relationship.  I am not suggesting you use those words, for no apparent reason, when you are talking to God.  What I am suggesting is that at all times we ought to be open, honest, and completely genuine in our relationship with God and if those words are on your heart then go ahead and use them when talking to God.  I am sure God can take it.  Besides there is no sense in trying to fool God anyway, God already knows we are not perfect and God loves us any way.  Trying to gussy ourselves up and pray what we think God wants to hear even when murder is on our heart doesn’t accomplish anything and it may even be harmful.  As I said earlier that anger and rage has to go somewhere perhaps the best place to put it is with God who can take it and deal with it, and make good out of it, even as God has made good out of us.  In Christ, God has not dealt with human evil, sin and suffering in some abstract, spiritual way. Instead, God took the extraordinary step of becoming human, and taking the pain of humanity onto himself. If we want to know where God is in the midst of suffering, we need only point to the cross — God’s definitive statement of “steadfast love” for the human race.

So yeah as one who has been redeemed by Christ I don’t go out of my way to use those words, but I know them and occasionally I even use them.  What can I say I am a sinner.  As far as being a minister goes it doesn’t make me any more holy than anyone else.  Being holy means being set apart, and while I do believe people of faith should act differently, we are all still human and therefore not any of us is perfect.  What makes us holy, what has set us apart is the steadfast love of a God who loves us so much as to die to take away our sin and make us clean.  God loves you and there is nothing you can do about it.  Therefore let us be genuine in our love for God and let us be genuine in our relationship with God.  Let us not go out of our way to be offensive toward God but let us neither try to deceive God.  Instead let us be honest with God.  And even when we are angry with God or feel betrayed by God like the psalmist let us not neglect to remember how God has blessed us in the past and give thanks.  Amen.