Fair Enough

FAIR ENOUGH Lamentations 5:1-10 August 15, 2021 Many, many years ago I found a flyer in my mailbox one day. It was a notification that the city was considering zoning changes which would effect my property. I felt the changes wouldn't fit well with a residential area, and so I decided to attend the public meeting. I wanted to hear more information, and maybe speak my piece. When I arrived at the hearing, the room was packed with people against the change. The zoning commission made the decision not to listen to speech after speech - and challenged the crowd to select one person to speak on their behalf. The high school music teacher said, "Pick Rocky. He tells people what he thinks every Sunday. Use him." The crowd agreed, and just like that I found myself the unplanned spokesman for an entire group. One of the difficulties was trying to represent the concerns of everyone, while only being allowed to speak for myself. I had to take on concerns beyond my own, to do justice to the fears of the entire group. Each of the five poems in Lamentations features a different narrator. Poems one and two featured the city of Jerusalem speaking as God's favorite daughter. Poem three was an old, old man. Poem four was a man who had been fabulously wealthy. Today we begin the final chapter, poem number five. And, the narrator of poem five is a single man, who is speaking on behalf of all the people left behind in Jerusalem.1 He shoulders the burden of representing the interests of the nobodies. He is not an old man. Most likely, he was a child when the city fell. Probably, he was too young to do hard labor, and that's why he was left behind. The poem is written from the perspective of many years after the fall of Jerusalem. Probably 15 to 20 years later. The fighting has been done for a long time. And, those people who were of no value whatsoever, and were left behind, have settled into their new normal. The Babylonians did not want the city of Jerusalem rebuilt. They did not want the Holy Temple rebuilt. Let's not give the Israelite slaves in Babylon any reason for hope. So, for 20 years no construction and no improvements have taken place. The city looks exactly like it did on the day the walls came down. And, you might wonder - how? How did the Babylonians keep the scattered Jews from rebuilding? The Babylonians left a man behind as the Governor of Jerusalem.2 And, they left him a small group of soldiers. Their only mission was to keep the city devastated. One of the nicer homes in Jerusalem was rebuilt and updated, and the Governor moved in there. His family came to Israel and lived with him. Each of his soldiers was allowed to pick a house, any house, and move in. They were allowed to bring their families. In most cases this was a huge upgrade from their homes in Babylon. The price of the new home was to keep everyone else from rebuilding their ancestral homes. They could live in the city, but they had to lived in damaged and destroyed dwellings. Just north of Jerusalem is some prime real estate. Beautiful homes on large acreage. With fantastic olive orchards, beautiful streams and rivers, and incredible views of nature. Word was sent back to Babylon, to the mid-level aristocrats, that these homes are available. If your estate in Babylon is a 5 out of 10, you can have a villa in Israel which is 9 out of 10. Only the king of Babylon has a better home. So, Babylonian nobles begin to occupy the land north of the city. They lend their finances and political support to the cruel and oppressive Governor of Jerusalem. It is unclear whether the narrator was originally selected to speak to the Governor and beg for help on behalf of the left-behinds. That may or may not have happened. But, now, he's definitely been selected to speak to God on behalf of the left-behinds. You go talk to God, tell him how bad it is, see if you can get him to help us. The very first issue he brings up, at the top of his list is, God - why haven't we heard from you?3 He doesn't ask where God is, or if God is. He believes God is real, and he believes God is still in Jerusalem. But, it's been 20 years now. Have you completely forgotten us? Do you remember us? Why don't you talk to us? That is a healthy, and completely understandable question when tragedy strikes us. When something bad happens, we want God to immediately speak to us and give us answers that make sense. My life has just changed, in a very bad way. Tell me why. I have spent a lot of time with the Garner family this past week. Kim had a house full of people. And, at some point each of them asked - why? Why did this happen? I keep asking God, but I'm not hearing anything. I don't know how many hours of training I've received in dealing with grief. A lot. And, one of the points they have impressed over and over is - right after a tragedy people will ask that question, but they won't be able to absorb an answer. In the intensity of grief, don't talk theology. Work on practical problems. Are they fed, are they safe? Help them make decisions, help them keep appointments, help them formulate a practical plan for moving forward. But, don't have deep discussions about the Bible, or theology, or God's sovereignty. Because the pain of the moment will prevent those answers from making any sense. Grief overwhelms logic. I believe in those powerful moments, God doesn't speak clearly to us, because He knows we can't hear. So, He just wraps his arms around us, and waits for the right time. The elected spokesman begins working his way through the suffering of the group. God, we've lost our homes. Rich Babylonians are living in our ancestral estates, and we're reduced to living in burned out shacks and shanties. When a Jewish family gained a piece of property, it stayed in the family forever. You only lost your home if you amassed so much debt you were forced to sell. Losing your home was considered one of the most shameful events possible.4 The spokesman didn't do anything wrong, but he still feels this shame. When life was good, he ignored widows and orphans. Yes, God kept saying take care of widows and orphans. But, they just never made it to the top of the list of concerns. Now, he says to God, I have become a widow and an orphan. I'm living on the street like the abandoned children I refused to acknowledge. And, I get it. No one should live like this. I know I didn't hear you, but - I hear you. One hundred and fifty years earlier, a different army, the Assyrians, had lay siege to Jerusalem. King Hezekiah and his prophet Isaiah knew the attack was coming. One of their concerns was water for everyone. He had an emergency team begin digging through rock and stone to build a water tunnel from a spring outside the city, into the city. It's called Hezekiah's water tunnel, and it's still there today. The spokesman cries to God. The Governor has put a tax on water.5 We need water to survive, but we can't afford the tax. God - this is the most basic of all human necessities, and we're dying here. During the siege all the wood in the city was burned to keep warm. There isn't one stick of wood anywhere in the city. So, now, at night we freeze. Here's the bigger problem. There is free water, and free wood outside the city. But, we can't leave the city. It's not safe. Thieves, robbers, and murderers watch the city gates.6 If anyone leaves the city to find food, or water, or wood, they are attacked and murdered. We can't live in the city. And, we can't live out of the city. And, we've begged you to show us what to do, but all we hear are crickets. And now, our young men have begun raising their hand to Egypt. That is, they are signing on with the Egyptian army as soldiers for hire.7 They are abandoning their families here, to go to war for the Egyptians. And, they are the first ones the Egyptians send into battle, when the fighting is the most fierce. Our young men are slaughtered as if they have no value at all. And then, the Egyptians pick up the pieces. Our men get one lousy loincloth to wear. Their skin has sunburned over and over, and then finally burned black - like they were caught in a fire. Our children, our next generation, are burning up and dying in foreign lands. Do you remember us? Can you hear us? Meanwhile back here, before the war, men of low quality, and low character, had sold themselves into slavery. They had so mismanaged their lives, being a voluntary slave was their only option. Now, these men are going to the estates and villas north of the city, and sign contracts to become land managers for the Babylonian nobles.8 They come into the city at sunrise and gather us up, and make us work for nothing. I am suddenly a slave to a former slave. I have shouted at you with anger - why? Did you even hear me? God, if you don't hear anything else, hear this. It's not my fault. I was just a kid when the city fell. I was too young to fix any of the problems you were angry about. I wasn't a priest or a prophet. I wasn't government official. I was too young to take care of those who couldn't take care of themselves. Man, I couldn't take care of myself. But, here I am suffering for my parents mistakes. And, it's not fair. This is not my fault. And, that is one of the biggest issues both Christians and non-Christians have with God. Why isn't he more fair? Kirk Garner ran miles and miles, every day, just so he wouldn't have a heart attack young. He loved his wife and daughter, and was completely committed to his family. He was a model employee. There are horrible, horrible men who live to be 90. How is it fair for Kirk to die so young? I believe God doesn't answer prayer, until we are ready to listen. When we're screaming, shouting, and demanding - we aren't listening. It often takes time to reach the place where we are willing to hear. And, when we finally get there, one of the things God says is - was it fair for Jesus to die for you? Do you really want to have this discussion? Until you and I are ready to talk about our individual role in the suffering of Christ, we're not really ready to talk about fair. Now, after a tragedy some people can reach readiness soon. The majority of us take a long time to get there. Some of us never do get there. So, until we're ready to listen, we need to stop asking why aren't you more fair? Instead, we need to ask, 'God, I am in the middle of massive suffering. I need to know. Do you still love me? God will answer that question immediately - no matter who you are. Of course I love you. Look what my Son did for you. And, that's fair enough. 1 Raymond B. Dillard & Tremper Longman III. An Introduction to the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994), 310. 2 Norman Gottwald, New Interpreter's Study Bible (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2003), 1151. 3 Shinman Kang & Pieter M. Venter, "A Canonical-Literary Reading of Lamentations 5," Hervormde Teologiese Studies, 65 no. 1 (2009), 46-50. 4 NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2013), 1329. 5 Gottwald, 1151. 6 R. C. Sproul, general editor. New Geneva Study Bible (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1995), 1254. 7 NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, 1329. 8 Gottwald, 1151. --------------- ------------------------------------------------------------ --------------- ------------------------------------------------------------ 2