Author: Steve Harsh

Steve Harsh, Ph.D., M.Div., is a pastor, teacher, and writer who uses the creative power of narrative to promote moral and faith development as the foundation of his preaching and teaching. Steve has been a pastor to six United Methodist congregations, been the Director of The Interprofessional Commission of Ohio, and taught preaching for twenty years as an Adjunct Professor at the Methodist Theological School in Ohio. He currently serves as a part-time preaching pastor at Northwest UMC in Columbus, Ohio. Steve lives with his wife Diana near Columbus, Ohio. Steve published his first book in 2011, Building Peace from the Inside Out: Stories for Peace Seekers and Peace Makers." It is available from lulu.com

Compassionless Leadership: Destruction of 500 Tons of Food

by Steve Harsh, posted in Christian Discipleship, Faith and Politics, Faith and Values

I am one who is certainly grateful that Jesus and the New Testament teach us that our God is merciful and gracious. I John 4:8 plainly states that “God is Love.” I John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins God is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

And Jesus taught and practiced forgiveness right up till the very end. He taught his disciples to forgive not seven times but seventy times seven. (Matthew 18:22). And Jesus practiced what he preached. In the throes of a most painful and gruesome execution he forgave one of the thieves crucified with him ( Luke 23:43), and even asks God to forgive the very men who nailed him to that cross (Luke 23:34).

But you know who he didn’t forgive? A bunch of goats! Now, before you call the SPCA on Jesus go read Matthew 25:31-46, and if it makes you feel uncomfortable, read it again slowly. And if it doesn’t make you uncomfortable read it two more times with an open mind and heart. This parable is, of course, not about four-legged goats and sheep, but about humans and how we treat those who by the world’s standards are “the least.” The goats in this parable are those who lack basic human compassion and concern for their fellow human beings.

Here’s what Jesus has to say about those people: “Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You who are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels, for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and did not take care of you?’ Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment but the righteous into eternal life.” (Matthew 25:41-46)

What made me think about that parable this week is a story in the news that has gotten much less attention than it deserves. Buried under all the coverage generated by the Jeffery Epstein saga, which is important, is a horrific report that makes me furious. Because of the deep cuts in USAID, which provided humanitarian relief to starving people in some of the world’s poorest countries, 500 tons of food already bought and paid for by American taxpayers to feed thousands of the “least” of our brothers and sisters will be destroyed. Yes, 1,000,000 pounds of food being destroyed while millions of children and adults starve to death.

That is simply criminal, immoral, and inexcusable! As I said at the beginning of this post, I am grateful for a merciful God. Because of that I do not believe in hell as a place of eternal punishment, but I am starting to rethink that. Forgive me for playing God, but I think there has to be a special form of punishment somewhere for those who cruelly withhold food from starving people.

In the parable of the sheep and goats the goats are accused of a passive failing to care for the marginalized people, but the MAGA cuts to USAID and the destruction of 1,000,000 pounds of food are an intentional act of cruel and inhumane treatment, and the Scriptures tell us that is the same as starving Christ himself. And to those Jesus says, “You who are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”

I’m not sure what this all means; so let me end with this frequent biblical admonition: “If anyone has ears to hear, let them hear.” (Mark 4:23 and several other verses). 

Pastoral Prayer, July 13, 2025

by Steve Harsh, posted in hope, prayer

Great and gracious God, as we worship today we all come with personal cares and burdens.  And on top of those we have been shaken by images we can’t unsee from the horrendous floods in Texas.   The innocent children killed trouble our hearts the most, but we also pray for all the others who have lost loved ones, homes, businesses, and livelihoods. 

In times like these we can’t help but ask the question people have been struggling with since the days of Job – where are you, Lord, when walls of water sweep little girls away?  Why do you let things like this happen? Why do you let cancer, war, and human cruelty destroy innocent lives?  If you are all-powerful and all-loving, why is there so much pain and suffering in our world?

As much as we wish you were a helicopter parent who would sweep in and protect us from anything terrible happening, we know that is not who you are, God.  You are a heavenly parent who has given us the freedom to make choices.  When we mess things up with selfish or short-sighted decisions, we would often like to give that freedom back to you. 

But like earthly parents you know there is a time when children must be set free to make their own choices.  Hindsight is always 20/20, but no amount of blaming, no law suits can undo the consequences of our mistakes.  We can only learn from them and try to do better in the future. 

So we humbly ask, Merciful God, that you would forgive us where we have misused our freedom to choose.  Help us accept things we cannot change, and in our experiences empower us to be your presence through prayer and acts of service for those who are hurting next door, and in Texas, and around the world.

When we wonder where you are in the midst of tragedy, Lord,  remind us that you are always there in the form of helpers who comfort those who mourn, weeping with those who sob uncontrollably, in the form of first responders and volunteers tirelessly searching for the lost and missing. 

Thank you for being with us in every time of need, for being, as the Psalmist says, “close to the brokenhearted and saving those who are crushed in spirit.”  For all your mercies we offer our thanks, and especially for Jesus, who lived your presence as one of us, teaching us how to live, how to love, and how to pray.  Our Father ….

Northwest United Methodist Church, Columbus, Ohio, July 13, 2025

Where Oh Where is God?

by Steve Harsh, posted in climate change, Faith and Values, hope

As I have been shaken by the Texas flood tragedy this week my mind has wandered back to all the times I was responsible for a group of young people at camp or on mission trips. I keep wondering if I would have had the courage, composure, and strength to help save those children and youth entrusted to me by their parents if I awoke in a horror movie of rushing flood water filling our cabin?

I hear people asking as I do where is God in tragedies like this? Why did God let this happen? Why does God let cancer, war, and gun violence destroy innocent lives? Of course, I really don’t know any definitive answers to those age-old questions scholars categorize as theodicy, i.e. how do we explain how an all-powerful, loving God allows evil and suffering to exist in the world.

My answer for this week is that God is not a helicopter parent who swoops in to protect and prevent anything bad from happening to us, God’s children. There comes a point in every parent’s life where you have to let your children make their own mistakes and suffer the consequences. No amount of advice or warning or sharing our own past failures will stop a grown child from blazing their own path.

God has gifted us mortals with free will. Oh how many times I have wished I could return that gift which has allowed me to screw up so many times by pursuing my own pleasure, desires, and goals instead of a higher path.

I’m sure there were many times God wished people would not house innocent young girls in cabins on a flood plain. I’m sure God would have wanted and may have urged people in positions of authority to better prepare for floods like those on the Guadalupe River last week. I’m sure God shook her head in dismay when arguments prevailed that sirens and warning systems were too expensive.

I heard on the news tonight that some people who regularly camped in RV’s along the Guadalupe ignored warnings of potential flooding last week saying, “It floods here all the time.” Basing present precautions on past experience can be dangerous. We don’t live in pre-climate change times, and those of us who trust science know that we are living in a new normal where extreme weather events are more frequent and much more severe.

There will be finger pointing and blaming and many law suits filed because of this tragedy. None of those things will bring back any of the victims or ease the trauma of the survivors. The only redeeming quality of this disaster is that our free will enables us to learn from our past experiences. We can ask what would have helped make this tragedy less horrific? What needs to be in place to prevent or limit future flooding occurrences and to improve rescue and recovery operations?

Where is God in all this? Not zooming in like a master puppeteer to prevent the consequences of poor free will choices; not picking and choosing who will survive and who will not. No, God is there comforting those who mourn, weeping with those who sob uncontrollably, and giving strength to the brave first responders and volunteers who are doing the horrible/wonderful work of searching for those who are still missing.

God is there offering hope to the hopeless, absorbing the hate and pain of the angry, and sitting peacefully and patiently with those for whom there simply are no words – at least not yet.

“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” Psalm 34:18

Disunited We Stand

by Steve Harsh, posted in Christian Discipleship, Faith and Politics, Government Reform

President Trump’s Big Budget and Policy bill recently passed in the House of Representatives by one single vote, and that was with the considerable power of the Administration advocating for its passage. A procedural matter on that same bill just yesterday passed in the Senate 51-49. These razor thin margins remind us how deeply divided we are as a nation right now. But those votes also reminded me of a piece of early Ohio history that I just learned about five years ago.

This was actually my second reminder of this critical moment in my state’s history. Just last week Bishop Hee-Soo Jung preached at a Juneteenth worship service at our church. Bishop Jung is new to Ohio having been assigned to the Ohio Episcopal Area just nine months ago.

So he has been studying the history of his new home state and reminded us in his sermon that in the 19th century enslaved people in the south thought of the Ohio River as the River Jordan and Ohio as the Promised Land because if they could make it to cross that river they were free.

I told the Bishop after the service of this critical incident in Ohio’s early history that could have changed all of that imagery and reality drastically.

I wrote about that chapter in our history which included a super close vote on approving the Ohio state constitution 222 years ago in an earlier blog post, and with our current political climate being what it is I decided to repost that piece to remind us all that we’ve been here before and that acts of solitary individuals can make a history-altering difference.

The post is from June of 2000 entitled “One Vote Really Matters.”

Until very recently if one of the most important names in Ohio history were to be a Final Jeopardy answer I would have been clueless. And I’m guessing that most of my fellow Ohioans who took the required Ohio History class in middle school would also not be able to identify Ephraim Cutler.

I would still have no idea of the critical role Cutler played in shaping the history of my state if a friend of mine had not recently moved to Marietta, the first white settlement in what became the Buckeye state. Because this colleague of mine now resides in Marietta she made mention on social media of David McCullough’s recent book about Ohio’s beginnings, “The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West.”

I am a big fan of McCullough and am very glad to be reading this book. I must say it started slow and took me awhile to get into it, but it was worth the effort for one of the most relevant stories in the book that lit up for me like a Christmas tree because of our most recent unrest about the evil of racism in our nation.

Cutler and his father were prominent leaders in establishing the first settlement in the 1790’s in the newly acquired Northwest Territory and because of their prominence in Marietta Ephraim was elected in the early days of the 1800’s as one of two delegates to represent Marietta and Washington County at the convention responsible for creating a constitution for Ohio statehood.

I was surprised to learn that one of the most heated debates at that convention held in the Territorial Capitol at Chillicothe was over whether slavery would be permitted in Ohio. And even more shocking to my naïveté was how close the vote was on the provision about slavery.

Ephraim Cutler was one of the most vocal opponents of the slavery provision, but on the day of the critical vote on that item Cutler was so gravely ill that he could barely get out of bed. His friends pleaded with him and physically helped him to get to the chamber for the vote, and it was a very important thing they did; because the proposal for Ohio to be admitted to the union as a slave state was defeated by that one single vote.

My mind is still blown by that piece of history. I am shocked at how close my home state came to being a place where human slavery was allowed. I have been self-righteously smug that we Ohioans are better than that, but we came within the narrowest of margins of becoming a slave state.

That history has helped me understand better the depth of the political divisions in our state and our country even today. I knew there have always been deep-seated disagreements about race from day one in these United States — which have never been united on that issue. But realizing how heated that debate was at the very inception of statehood here in Ohio helped me understand at a deeper level why it is so hard to resolve this issue.

Ephraim Cutler also taught me again that one life and even one vote can make all the difference in the world. Imagine what Ohio history would look like if we had become a slave state. Would we have joined the Confederacy? Would we have statues of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson being removed here in our state capital?

I thank God that brave pioneer dragged himself out of bed to take a stand for justice that day in Chillicothe. His bravery and integrity inspires me to do my part in that on-going struggle for America’s highest ideals today. I hope I do not soon forget who Ephraim Cutler was, and I thank David McCullough for telling his story. It has never been more important to study and learn from our history.

CARBON PAPER, FLOPPY DISKS, AND THE CLOUD

by Steve Harsh, posted in Communication, memoir

My son and his wife gave me a cool birthday present last year.  It’s a subscription to a memoir writing company, and it sends me a new question to respond to each week.  One of them recently stumped me for a couple weeks.  The question was: “What are your favorite possessions?  Why?”

I’m not a big possessions guy; so I had to think about that quite a while. What I finally decided is that my favorite things are my computer, iPad, and phone. That will sound very quaint to future generations I’m sure, and I know there are lots of negatives that come with too much screen time. I spend too much time on Facebook and trying to figure out Wordle, but at least for me the positives outweigh the negatives. 

I can’t imagine what amazing technological gadgets will be in use 20 or 30 years from now. We certainly had no idea in the year 2000 that we would have a pretty good camera in our pockets at all times and all the information in the world at our fingertips that we have in 2025.

When I was a kid we had a World Book encyclopedia at our house. It was probably 15 or 20 volumes of maybe 200-300 pages each, and if what we wanted to know wasn’t in those very limited number of pages we had to take a trip to the local library to do more research.  Remember card catalogs?

I have always been a book lover and a few years ago books would have been my answer to this question about favorite possessions. But today I have a whole library of books on my iPad and access through the internet to almost any information I want. Sure, some of it isn’t accurate, but that is true in books too.

And what my computer and iPad also let me do is write my own blog, sermons, prayers, letters to the editor and to my congressional reps. I can journal or write anywhere in the world I happen to be with those devices. I can stay in touch with family and friends, read books, listen to audio books, watch sporting events, movies, play games, and get news and sports scores wherever I am.

Ok, that sounds too much like an Apple commercial I know. (And for future generations, if any read this, Apple is a tech company, not to be confused with the fruit of the same name. If you want to know how it got that name you can research it on whatever devices you are using now.)

I will finish this entry with a somewhat related story. In the early 1990’s I was writing my doctoral dissertation on the very first computer I ever owned. I was so grateful for that machine because it was so much easier to write, revise, edit, and correct what I had written than in the previous generation that included typewriters, carbon paper, correction fluid, and a lot of cutting and pasting pages together to write school papers or a 200 page dissertation.

But the computer was such a new thing then I didn’t fully trust it not to lose what I had worked so hard to create; so backed up my work at the end of every day on two square plastic things we called floppy disks, even though they weren’t floppy. And for safe keeping I left one of those disks at my university office, and carried the other with me home in my brief case.

Yes, I was a little compulsive, but you need to understand that I was working three part-time jobs while working on the dissertation whenever I could. So it took me 3 years to finish the darn thing, and I sure didn’t want to lose it or have the computer eat it. So here’s the punch line to this too-long story — I was at home alone one day in our parsonage in Sparta, Ohio when a really scary storm blew in. I don’t always head for shelter when it storms, but that day the wind sounded very serious; so I decided to go to the basement. I only took two things with me – our dog Cinnamon, and the floppy disk that contained my dissertation.

Today, because electronic devices have gotten so much smaller and are easily portable I could simply take my laptop, iPad, and phone with me, and instead of floppy disks that weren’t floppy today we can save things on the “cloud,” which isn’t really a cloud either.

No wonder we can’t communicate?

June 25, 2025

Prayer for Father’s Day 2025

by Steve Harsh, posted in Faith and Values, Gratitude, prayer, purpose

O Heavenly Father, we use many metaphors to describe your holy mystery, terms like Father, Mother, Parent, Spirit, Friend, all pointing to your very essence which is Love. Today we honor those who can be one reflection of your love, the men who are or were fathers to us, biological or honorary. Many earthly fathers or father figures are great sources of wisdom, encouragement, and love, and for them on this day especially we offer thanks and praise.

But, unfortunately not all fathers are created equal. Some, because of their own trauma, are less than Hallmark papas, and because of that this day can be difficult for some of us. Where there is strife or pain associated with such relationships we pray for comfort, forgiveness, and reconciliation where those things are possible. For others we simply ask for the serenity to accept the things we cannot change.

Ideally, we pray for the closeness that you, God, had with Jesus. He referred to you with the term of endearment Abba, which is translated in English as “Daddy.” For fathers and those who fill that important role we pray for the wisdom, closeness, and love reflected in your holy relationship with Jesus. We know none of us mere humans can achieve that depth of agape love, and we do not want to create guilt for our mortal weaknesses and failures. But in you, God, we see a model for the kind of parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle, or friend we strive to be for those young in years or new in their faith journey.

Whether we realize it or not all of us are mentors and teachers for young people who observe and imitate our words and actions. Help us, Heavenly Father, to be worthy models of integrity, courage, faith, and love in all we do. May all of us so live that our fathers and children will be proud of us, but most importantly that you one day will say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

We pray as we try to live, in the name of Jesus, who taught us how to live, to love, and to pray using these words: Our Father, who art in heaven . . .

Northwest United Methodist Church, Columbus, Ohio

Biblical Reflections on Greed and Social Justice: A Note from Amos and Jesus to the U.S. Congress

by Steve Harsh, posted in Christian Discipleship, Faith and Politics, Government Reform

I’m at a loss as to what to say with regard to the Big Hateful Bill the Republicans in Congress just passed by one lousy vote. I don’t understand how those 215 people who voted for this bill to literally take food and healthcare from the most needy Americans and give that money to the most wealthy 1 % of our population can live with themselves.

But since greed and hate have been around as long as humans have I think these these words from the Judeo-Christian Scriptures should speak loud and clear to our 100 Senators who now have the fate of this cruel and ugly bill in their hands.

“Listen to this, you who walk all over the weak,
    you who treat poor people as less than nothing,
Who say, “When’s my next paycheck coming
    so I can go out and live it up?
How long till the weekend
    when I can go out and have a good time?”
Who give little and take much,
    and never do an honest day’s work.
You exploit the poor, using them—
    and then, when they’re used up, you discard them.

God swears against the arrogance of Jacob:
    “I’m keeping track of their every last sin.” (Amos 8, The Message)

Or since so many of you Senators claim to be Christians, how about these words from Jesus himself:

“You who are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels, for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and did not take care of you?’  Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’  And these will go away into eternal punishment but the righteous into eternal life.” (Matthew 25:41-46 NRSV)

Happy Motherly God‘s Day

by Steve Harsh, posted in Aging to Sageing, Faith Development, Gratitude, Women's Rights

My home of origin in the 1950’s and 60’s was a very traditional patriarchal family. And the church family I grew up in was likewise dominated with patriarchal theology and structure. I can’t go back and change any of that, but I regret that my foundational values and theological constructs were void of any feminine images and qualities.

This reality for me was complicated by a strained relationship with my father. My dad survived a painful childhood with an abusive, alcoholic step-father and a near-death experience as a 24 year-old pilot in World War II. No one had discovered PTSD in those days, but I’m sure my dad was a classic case. He compensated by living by a very strict and literal adherence to conservative theological and cultural norms.

I never questioned my father’s love for me, but it always felt conditional on my living up to his high expectations and obedience to his rules. Theologically for me this meant the patriarchal image of God was filtered through my relationship to my earthly father. It never occurred to me or anyone in my circle of influence to question the God as Father theology I learned at church.

One of my regrets about this is that I felt much more comfortable with and closer to my mother but had no model for seeing her as the image of God. She was a good subservient wife as was expected in the culture we lived in, but there was also a quality of unconditional love and acceptance about her that was lacking in my dad. If I had a problem or screwed up, as I did often, I would always go to my mom and confess because she would calmly help me deal with the situation where my dad would either verbally or non verbally convey disapproval. That’s who my parents were. There’s no judgment in that now, although there was for many years as I tried to liberate myself from the conservative world my dad lived in.

My point here is that I wish someone had suggested to me that God is also an expression of the maternal, loving qualities we rightly or wrongly have attributed to the feminine. Because no one dared to think outside the patriarchal box I lived many years of my life with a fear of a judgmental God. And the larger church and even the liberal seminary I went to in my early 20’s was still a prisoner to the male-dominated images of God.

The entire faculty and 96% of my seminary class were white males. That began to change dramatically in the 1970’s after I graduated as women and people of color were added to the seminary community. That’s wonderful, but I missed it! I worked with several great senior pastors in my ministry, but again all white and male.

Finally in the early 2000’s when I was about 60 years old I joined a congregation with a wonderful, creative, vibrant female pastor. I went on to work part-time in retirement with her and other women, and it has opened a whole new world of theological depth and understanding to my image of the divine as full and inclusive of all of God’s creation. I still am blessed to hear the word proclaimed many Sundays and Holy Days from a unique female perspective. Most of the current devotional and theological blogs, podcasts, and books I have benefited most from in the last few years are created by female writers, pastors, and theologians.

And so this Mother’s Day I am giving thanks for all the women who have helped shape my life. Grandmothers, mother, aunts, colleagues, friends, wives, preachers, political leaders and more. Let’s celebrate that special capacity so many women have to nurture, soothe, love, and bless us with those God-given qualities the world so desperately needs right now.

OMG: Good Friday Sermon, 2025

by Steve Harsh, posted in Lenten devotion, Sermon

OMG – a common abbreviation used these days on social media and many users don’t know it, but it’s really a prayer, a lament.  It means “O My God,” and in our Good Friday context the emphasis is on the little word “My.”  Because even when we doubt and feel God is absent, we still own and affirm the relationship. My kids are still My kids even when they do stupid stuff I don’t agree with – same with friends, spouse, and colleagues.  Real relationships and friendships have no expiration date, and certainly there is none with the eternal God of all creation who has been with us since the day we were born and will be with us for all eternity after our short sojourn on this earth is over.  

Another common lament today is “Life sucks and then you die!”  That one is not in the Bible, but it could be in the book of Lamentations. When Jesus says from the cross, “My God My God why?”  Hear the My and not just the forsaken.  And of course the lament of Psalm 22 is followed immediately in our Bible by the most familiar Psalm of the whole 150.   Psalm 23 begins with “The Lord is MY shepherd.”

As we remember the brutal crucifixion of Jesus tonight I invite you to make that experience real.  Feel it in your gut.  Imagine or remember a time when you were in unbearable pain – either physical or emotional, and Jesus was certainly in both – a time when God feels as far away as the planet Pluto – at the death bed of someone you don’t think you can live without – when you hear a terminal diagnosis from a doctor – or your heartbreaks over a shattered relationship, or a job loss, or your financial security disappearing, or hearing on the news about unspeakable human cruelty.

Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel in his book “Night” relates an incident when he was a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp when a young man was hung and all the other prisoners forced to watch.  Someone asks Wiesel, “Where is your God?” and his answer is, “Right there on the gallows.” Whatever and whenever we suffer God suffers right along with us.

One of my favorite descriptions about human lament is the one Brian and Barbara just sang for us, “Day is Done,” by Peter, Paul, and Mary.  I asked for that song because of these lyrics which say, “Tell me why you’re crying my son; I know you’re frightened like everyone. Is it the thunder in the distance you fear? Will it help if I stay very near – I am here.” And if you take my hand my son, all will be well when the day is done.”

We really want to believe that “all will be well when the day is done,” but we don’t know how long that metaphorical day will last or if we can last that long. But what we do know is that it helps to have someone very near.  It helps to be able to share out loud what our pain is with someone we trust and know will listen and just be present as long as we need them. 

I just learned about a quote from Fred Rogers recently in our Books to Bridges book group.  Mr. Rogers said, “What is mentionable is manageable.” “What is mentionable is manageable.”

Pain that we try to carry alone can suck the very life out of us, but if we can talk about it the power it has over us is shared and diminished – it becomes manageable.

Another lament in Psalm 13 begins with these plaintive words: “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?   How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I bear pain in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all day long?”   The point in sharing these cries for help is not to depress us but simply that it’s OK to lament, to doubt; those feelings are part of the human condition. No matter how strong your faith is it is hard when the foundations of your existence are shaken like an 8.0 earthquake.  Even Jesus who had more faith than all of us put together cries out “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” which is even more powerful in the Aramaic that Jesus would have spoken: “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?”    

And as you heard in our scripture from Psalm 22 tonight we know where Jesus got those words.  Jesus knew his Scriptures very well, and he knew his people for centuries had been no strangers to devastating loss.  They were experts at lament.  We even have a whole book called Lamentations in the Hebrew Scriptures, which is our Old Testament, devoted to nothing but laments.  And part of the prophet Isaiah’s description of God’s Messiah is that he is a suffering servant who “… was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with grief.”

Ps 22 is typical of another source of laments the Hebrew people used in public worship. Do you know that there are more psalms of lament in the book of Psalms than any other type of Psalm? One of my favorites when I’m having a no good, terrible, awful day is Psalm 130.  It’s called “De Profundis” in Latin and says, “Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord.  Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications!”  Out of the depths loosely translated means “we are in deep do do.”

Psalm 63:1 echoes the same song: “O God, You are MY God; early will I seek you; my soul thirsts for You; my flesh longs for you in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water.” I’ll bet most of us have been in such a dry and thirsty land or may even be there right now.  That’s the message of Good Friday.  I still remember vividly one such time in my youth.  It was my Boy Scout Order of the Arrow initiation.  I was maybe 13. I was led out along with my fellow scouts in total silence and darkness until I was tapped on the shoulder and told to stop and sleep right there, left alone in a strange, dark woods overnight with only a sleeping bag. I had no idea if anyone else was close by or where I was. It was the most alone I had ever been at that stage of my life

Kate Bowler, one of my go to devotional sources, wrote this blessing two years ago in 2023, but it is even more relevant today and is part of her Lenten devotions for 2025. 

It’s called “A Blessing for when you need a little hope.”  “These days feel heavy and dark, like hope packed up and left, and forgot to send a postcard. We cry: Where are the good things? And honestly, where are the good people— the sensible ones fighting for what matters? Why does it feel like bad stuff always elbows its way to the front, pushing everything good to the sidelines? We’re tired. Exhausted, really. Desperation is knocking, and it’s tempting to surrender. Blessed are you, who see the world as it is: the sickness and loneliness, the injustice that never seems to end, the greed and misuse of power, the violence and intimidation, the mockery of truth, and disdain for weakness, and worse— the seeming powerlessness of anyone trying to stop it. Blessed are you, worn down by hard-earned cynicism, running on fumes, with no promise of a destination. Maybe hope isn’t so distant. Maybe it’s there—small, persistent, and stubborn. May you grasp something in the heaviness. A glimmer of what could be, and walk, step by step, toward the possibility that goodness exists. Hope is an anchor dropped into the future pulling you forward, toward something better— even if it doesn’t feel like it right now.”

Yes, my friends, there is always hope somewhere.  Even “O My God, My God” still claims God as ours.

 This Good Friday feels more real to me because we are living in a time of great uncertainty in our country and our world.  No matter what your politics you know these are unsettling times.  But we aren’t the first to feel this way.  The women at the foot of the cross and the other disciples hiding out somewhere had no idea what their future held – and neither do we.  I invite you to put yourself in the crucifixion story – pretend we don’t know what happens on Sunday morning, and enter fully into the forsakenness of that moment with Jesus and his followers and friends.   

What do we do when life seems hopeless, empty, dark, alien, and full of fear and uncertainty?  Like Jesus we can call out “O My God, help us!” and God will answer.  Maybe not immediately; we may have to go through a long Saturday of uncertainty, as long as that Saturday lasts, but there will be an answer because God does not forsake us, just as God did not forsake Jesus.

Even here in the darkness we remember that God so loved the world that God sent Jesus to love and save us. When all else fails it is that love that is eternal.  God so loved the world, and as author Sarah Bessey says, we are called to love that world too and everyone in it, even, Sarah says, knowing that it will break our hearts – knowing it will break our hearts.  To love means risking, being vulnerable, feeling pain — but a broken heart is so much better than not having a heart at all. 

Good Friday 2025, Northwest UMC, Columbus, OH

Prayer for a Dying 401-K

by Steve Harsh, posted in Faith and Values, hope, prayer

O God of the universe, my retirement funds are in the dumpster, they’re dropping faster than that first big stomach-churning drop on those big roller coasters. I’m so old I don’t know if those funds will have time to recover even if the market does, and I’m scared.

The other stuff I depend on for my well-being, e.g. Medicare and Social Security is also under attack from rogue billionaires in Washington who have no idea what life is like for us common folks. Without medicare I would not have been able to get the life-saving cancer treatment I just finished, and things are much worse for others who are uninsured or underinsured.

But you know all that already, O Holy One, and you know I’m better off than millions of others who are living in fear of real poverty or arrest and/or deportation to a hell hole in El Salvador just because they are the wrong color or dare to exercise their right to free expression.

My friends are losing their jobs as the economy craters. Public and higher education are under attack. I know you don’t intervene directly in human affairs. You have blessed (or cursed) us with free will; so I just pray for strength, courage, and faith for all of us to support and love one another no matter how deep this economic hole becomes.

No matter what happens to our standard of living our standard of loving can thrive and grow because it is not founded on the whims of human greed, but on the bedrock of your eternal love that nothing in all creation can ever take from us.

Clinging to that assurance our fears for the temporary stuff of this life fade as we affirm our real confidence in what it says on the money we used to have, “In God We Trust.” Amen