The God Who Disturbs and Vexes Us

Disturb us, Adonai, ruffle us from our complacency;
Make us dissatisfied. Dissatisfied with the peace of ignorance,
the quietude which arises from a shunning of the horror, the defeat,
the bitterness and the poverty, physical and spiritual, of humans.
Shock us, Adonai, deny to us the false Shabbat which gives us
the delusions of satisfaction amid a world of war and hatred;
Wake us, O God, and shake us
from the sweet and sad poignancies rendered by
half -forgotten melodies and rubric prayers of yesteryears;
Make us know that the border of the sanctuary
is not the border of living
and the walls of Your temples are not shelters
from the winds of truth, justice and reality.
Disturb us, O God, and vex us;
let not Your Shabbat be a day of torpor and slumber;
let it be a time to be stirred and spurred to action.
(from The Amidah for Shabbat)

I first prayed this prayer a decade or so ago. It has stayed with me ever since and has been on my heart and in my head these days of pandemic and of social unrest and dis-ease.  

My ordained life began on a college campus as Protestant Campus Minister; I was blessed to have a Roman Catholic priest and a rabbi as close colleagues. Since then, and especially because of my deep affection for the Old Testament, I have continued to be blessed to be near rabbis and to find ways to collaborate. I value those friendships. 

A decade or so ago I attended the retirement celebration for Rabbi Seth Bernstein in Worcester; Seth and I had done some team-teaching in both of our congregations and for a Worcester Senior Education Program called W.I.S.E. for a dozen years or so by then. He was committed to interfaith work and he was an esteemed colleague. Anyway, this prayer was part of the liturgy to say goodbye and I kept the bulletin and I've had a kind of "holy envy" of this prayer ever since. Asking God to "vex and disturb" us is so Jewish! It's not completely un-Christian to be sure but I think that it's a bit more jarring for most Christian pieties. (We tend to ask God to ground and center us and quiet our minds...which also has a place, for sure.)

Lately, this has been calling to me in an even deeper way as I reflect on white privilege and the racist structures upon which it has depended for four centuries. I need God to disturb...and vex [me] at times when I am tempted to ignore what is happening in our world. I need God to disturb and vex our politicians, and Church people. We need to feel annoyed and frustrated and worried enough to channel all of that into action and change. 

In my "day job" as Canon to the Ordinary in the Diocese of Western Massachusetts, I have to deal with angry Episcopalians from time to time. (Not as often as my boss, the Bishop.) But when bishops speak out (as the New England bishops recently did, for example, about the revolting display of false piety by the president at St. John's Episcopal Church, holding up a Bible like a prop) let's just say they sometimes take it on the chin from the "faithful." The "faithful" don't like being vexed, or disturbed. They don't like their bishops to be too "political." 

I am so glad I'm not a bishop! Really. I don't mind conflict or push-back or healthy disagreement, but I do not always have the patience to go back to the very beginning. Back to "thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven" and "Jesus is Lord" which is to say that Caesar is not. Which is to say that Christianity is not about a disembodied spirituality that has nothing to do with the city, i.e. the polis.  This is not a new idea. It goes all the way back to the Book of Revelation and the new Jerusalem and to Augustine who wrote The City of God. I want to be able to not simply thank these people for sharing but tell them that faith that is disconnected from the real world is not faith at all; it's the opiate of the people. I want to say that when the president of the United States of America clears a peaceful crowd that includes Episcopalians handing out water bottles with tear gas for a photo op in front of their church, with a Bible held high, that he has moved into our territory. Literally. He has moved politics into the religious sphere. He walked onto our porch...

And that is very dangerous. That is what the First Amendment is really about: protecting people of faith from the politicians trying to manipulate and use religion. I find myself wondering if we prayed more for God to disturb and vex us if we'd be better prepared for bishops and canons and preachers to follow suit, in the name of the living God.

I wonder, if we learned to pray this kind of prayer if we might remember that religion is not a-political. In normal circumstances, it is non-partisan. But let's be honest here: nothing about these days feels normal. This is not about democrats versus republicans. This is about human decency. This is about the moral courage to say "enough is enough." This is about respecting the dignity of every human being and working for peace on earth and good will to all.

This is about standing together against a man who is is dividing this nation rather than helping us to bind up the wounds of a nation. And naming that is holy work, even when it is hard work. 

Disturb us, O God. Vex us. Stir us to action! Do not let those who think spirituality can be separated from respecting the dignity of every human person control the theological debate. Wake us up!