Ben Witherington on "Five Things Not to Say to the Grieving"

Ben Witherington recently lost his daughter who unexpectedly died of pulmonary embolism at the age of 32. She was found dead in her home in Durham, North Carolina, on January 11. On his blog, he shared his thought on how to deal with such devastating experience with a "good grief." You can read it here. What I find particularly insightful is his thought on "things not to say to the grieving." I've copied what he wrote below. The original posting can be found here.

When a person suffers the devastating loss of a loved one, you should — however well-intentioned you might be — keep your mouth shut.  Or at the very least, you should think long and hard before you say anything.  Here are some of the things I recently heard that did not help, and frankly were not true.

1. “The Lord gives and the Lord takes away.” Not a saying from God, rather it’s from the poorly-informed Job, who was later forced to revise his opinion.  As it happens, it was Satan who devastated Job’s life and family.
2. “You’ll get over it soon.” Wrong.  I hope I never get over the loss of my daughter.  I don’t want to forget her love, her smile, her joys, her sorrows, and so many millions of other things that formed the sum total of her life.  I do not intend to get over it. I intend to get beyond it by the grace of God, but in no way forgetting what happened to her at the end of her life in this world.   There will always be a Christy-shaped hole in my heart.  Period.
3. “Sorry about your lost loved one.” This is well meant, of course, but bad theology.  Christy is not lost.  I know right where to find her.  She is safe in the arms of Jesus.  One of our good Christian friends shared this experience with me from her charismatic prayer time, this week: “The Holy Spirit came upon the prayer so mightily.  My heart is not heavy, like it was before that prayer, and the witness the precious Holy Spirit gave us was that Christy truly has made it home.  I know she is home, but the prayer made it very real to us.”  Exactly right.  She has gone before us, but she is not a lost loved one wandering in oblivion.  She is a found loved one who has found her home in Christ.
4. “Well, at least you still have your son.” I am indeed very thankful our son and our Russian daughter are alive and well, but I don’t believe in compensatory theology.  Having other children does not make the loss of Christy any less hard to bear.  Each life is different, unique, special, and one life does not compensate for the loss of another.  As John Donne says, “Any man’s death diminishes me, for I am a part of mankind.”  All the more so when it’s a member of my own family.
5. “God will make up for this with a twofold blessing.” Again, I don’t think God is a practitioner of some sort of new math or compensatory calculus, running the universe.  God has not been a naughty boy taking away my sweet-pea named Christy, and he has nothing to make up for.   I certainly do believe God works everything together for good, for those who love him.

So I leave myself open to such working, trusting it will make me better, not bitter.

Seandainya Setiap Anak Muda Seperti Oma Hafini

Hari itu adalah jadwal saya untuk ikut serta di dalam pelayanan Perjamuan Kudus di rumah anggota jemaat yang sakit menahun. Kebanyakan dari mereka hanya bisa terbaring di atas tempat tidur. Itulah sebabnya para rohaniwan beserta Majelis Jemaat perlu mendatangi tempat tinggal mereka dan melaksanakan Perjamuan Kudus di sana. Ini adalah kali kedua saya terlibat di dalam pelayanan ini. Menariknya, saya selalu merasa bahwa sesungguhnya sayalah yang dilayani oleh oma-oma dan opa-opa yang semestinya saya layani. (Ya, inilah contoh keangkuhan seorang muda yang berpikir bahwa hanya yang sehatlah yang dapat melayani yang sakit. *malu*) Yang paling berkesan kali itu adalah ketika kami mengunjungi seorang oma berusia 94 tahun bernama Hafini. Meskipun usianya sudah sangat tua, otak oma masih tajam dan imannya teguh. Jarang sekali saya temukan yang seperti oma.

Kami menemuinya di dalam kamar tidurnya. Meski ia terbaring di atas tempat tidurnya, wajah oma Hafini begitu berbinar-binar. Ia menyambut kami dengan senyum manis. Kulit wajahnya yang sudah penuh dengan keriput sama sekali tidak dapat menutupi sukacitanya ketika melihat kami. "Cu, siapa namanya?", tanya oma Hafini. Saya harus menjawab dengan setengah teriak karena pendengarannya sudah melemah. Oma sangat menyadari keberadaannya yang sudah tua dan lemah. "Sekarang jadi kayak anak kecil lagi. Mandi dimandiin. Makan disuapin. Kalo makan sendiri, tangan ngegeter. Kuping udah budek," ujarnya. Lalu ia menceritakan kepada kami bahwa ia sudah mejadi anggota gereja kami sejak berusia 20 tahun! Ia bernostalgia bagaimana dulu ia mengunjungi anggota-anggota jemaat yang sakit, jalan kaki beberapa kilometer di bawah hujan. "Tapi sekarang udah nggak bisa lagi," ujarnya sedih. Suasana pun mendadak hening ketika ia menceritakan tentang anak tunggalnya, seorang pendeta, yang telah dipanggil oleh Tuhan mendahului dirinya.

Ketika sudah waktunya mengambil bagian di dalam Sakramen Perjamuan Kudus, oma meminta kami untuk membangunkannya. Dengan bersusah payah ia berusaha untuk duduk di atas tempat tidurnya. Saya sangat terharu melihatnya. Sebelum ia memakan roti dan meminum anggur, ia memejamkan matanya dan mengucapkan doanya dengan penuh keyakinan. Saya tidak ingat doanya secara rinci. Tapi satu kalimat ini saya ingat benar, "Tuhan Yesus, terima kasih untuk tubuh dan darah Tuhan yang sudah Tuhan berikan buat saya yang berdosa."

Sepulang dari kediaman oma Hafini, hati saya penuh dengan sukacita. Menyaksikan oma yang tetap teguh beriman kepada Tuhan meski tubuhnya sudah lemah dan tidak berdaya betul-betul menyegarkan iman! Saya ingin menjadi seperti oma Hafini di usia tua saya. Saya sangat yakin bahwa kesetiaan oma kepada Tuhan bukanlah produk instan. Pasti sejak masa mudanya oma selalu berjuang untuk setia kepada Tuhan! Terima kasih, oma. Tanpa oma sadari, oma sudah menguatkan saya untuk lebih serius dan lebih setia lagi di dalam melayani anak-anak muda, entah itu di dalam konteks gereja atau pun pelayanan kampus. "Didiklah orang muda menurut jalan yang patut baginya, maka pada masa tuanyapun ia tidak akan menyimpang dari pada jalan itu." (Ams 22:6)

Ah, seandainya setiap anak muda yang mengaku Kristen memiliki semangat segigih dan iman seteguh oma Hafini...

At the Cross Is the Real World

Christ of Saint John of the Cross by Salvador Dali

We contemplate for a time the meaning of Good Friday, and then return to what is called the real world of work and shopping and commuter trains and homes. As we come out of a movie theater and shake our heads to clear our minds of another world where we lived for a time in suspended disbelief, as we reorient ourselves to reality, so we leave our contemplation - we leave the church building, we close the book - where for a time another reality seemed possible, believable, even real. But, we tell ourselves, the real world is a world elsewhere. It is the world of deadlines to be met, of appointments to be kept, of taxes to be paid, of children to be educated. From here, from this moment at the cross, it is a distant country. "Father, forgive them, for they have forgotten the way home. They have misplaced the real world." Here, here at the cross, is the real world, here is the axis mundi.

Richard John Neuhaus

A "Crazy" Gospel

"And while he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he was reclining at table, a woman came with an alabaster flask of ointment of pure nard, very costly, and she broke the flask and poured it over his head. There were some who said to themselves indignantly, "Why was the ointment wasted like that? For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii and given to the poor." And they scolded her. But Jesus said, "Leave her alone. Why do you trouble her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. For you always have the poor with you, and whenever you want, you can do good for them. But you will not always have me. She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for burial. And truly, I say to you, wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her."
Mark 14:3-9 (ESV)

Emmanuel Katongole writes, "Mary represents the 'rebel consciousness' that is essential to Jesus' gospel. Wherever the gospel is preached, we must remember that its good news will make you crazy. Jesus will put you at odds with the economic and political systems of our world. This gospel will force you to act, interrupting the world as it is in ways that make even pious people indignant."

There Is a Hope

This is just what I need to hear right now. There is a hope... There is a hope.. There is a hope!

THERE IS A HOPE
by Stuart Townend and Mark Edwards
Copyright (c) 2007 Thankyou Music.

There is a hope that burns within my heart,
That gives me strength for ev'ry passing day;
a glimpse of glory now revealed in meager part,
Yet drives all doubt away:
I stand in Christ, with sins forgiv'n;
and Christ in me, the hope of heav'n!
My highest calling and my deepest joy,
to make His will my home.


There is a hope that lifts my weary head,
A consolation strong against despair,
That when the world has plunged me in its deepest pit,
I find the Savior there!
Through present sufferings, future's fear,
He whispers, "Courage!" in my ear.
For I am safe in everlasting arms,
And they will lead me home.


There is a hope that stands the test of time,
That lifts my eyes beyond the beckoning grave,
To see the matchless beauty of a day divine
When I behold His face!
When sufferings cease and sorrows die,
and every longing satisfied,
then joy unspeakable
will flood my soul,
For I am truly home.

God, Theology, Theologian, and Prayer

Vladimir Lossky

'God is not the object of a science, and theology differs radically from the thought of philosophers. The theologian does not search for God as a man seeks an object; he is seized by Him as one is seized by a person. And it is because he has initially been found by God, because God, one might say, has gone forth to find him in the encounter of revelation, that he can then search for God, as one searches for a presence with all one's being (and so also with one's intellect). The God of theology is a "Thou"; He is the living God of the Bible, the Absolute, certainly, but a personal Absolute whom one can address intimately in prayer.' (Vladimir Lossky, Orthodox Theology)

From my limited exploration of Orthodox Theology, it seems that Orthodox Theology has a very strong emphasis on the deep interconnectedness between theology and prayer. The former cannot be understood apart from the latter, and vice versa. This is one thing which other Christian traditions can learn from the Orthodox tradition.

A Liberating Understanding of the Kingdom of God

I recently read an article written by someone who has been serving in a parachurch organization. In the last part of his article, he explains that the vibrancy of this organization in striving to obey God's will more than anything else is what makes him continue to serve with them. He concludes with the hope that the ministry of this organization will be greatly expanded.

To me, what is curious is the absence of the Kingdom of God in his reflection. So, it gives the impression that his ultimate concern is to expand, whatever this may mean, the kingdom of that particular organization. I guess it is not an overstatement to say that this kind of understanding is often found within local churches or Christian organizations. Some regard their own local ministry as fully identical to the Kingdom of God. When this happens, the consequence is, ironically, the dissolution of the Kingdom of God.

Oscar Romero's understanding is much more biblical and holistic. He eloquently writes:

It helps, now and then, to step back and take the long view. The Kingdom is not only beyond our efforts: it is beyond our vision. We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is the Lord's work. Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of saying that the Kingdom always lies beyond us. No sermon says all that should be said. No prayer fully expresses our faith. No confession brings perfection. No pastoral visit brings wholeness. No program accomplishes the Church's mission. No set of goals and objectives includes everything. That is what we are about. We plant the seeds that one day will grow. We water seeds already planted knowing they hold future promise. We lay foundations that will need further development. We provide yeast that affects far beyond our capabilities. We cannot do everything and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something, and to do it very, very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest. We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the Master Builder and the worker. We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future that is not our own.