Bless thou, the words of my lips and the meditations of our hearts that they be of profit to us and acceptable to thee, oh our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
There is a story told about the monk who once approached Buddha and asked:
Do the souls of the righteous survive death?
Characteristically the Buddha gave him no reply. But the monk persisted. Each day he would repeat the question and each day he would get silence for an answer, till he could take it no longer. He threatened to abandon the path to enlightenment unless this crucial question was answered, for to what purpose, he wanted to know, was he sacrificing everything to live in the monastery if the souls of the righteous perished with their bodies? Then Buddha, in his compassion, spoke.
You are like a man, he said, who was dying from a poisoned arrow. His relatives rushed a doctor to his side, but the man refused to have the arrow pulled out unless three vital questions were first answered.
First, the man who shot him - was he a white man or a black? Second, was he a tall man or a short man? And third, was he a fat or thin?
How many of us are in the same position as that monk? How many of us question God and refuse to go on in our faith walk until those questions are answered to our satisfaction? How many of us have had friends and family leave the church - leave the faith - leave God - because they have not received the answers they wanted to hear when they wanted to hear them?
Many people refuse to belief in God, they refuse to act as God wants them to act, until their questions are answered.
Lest we become too judgmental about these people, I want you to know that many of those who ask these questions are very sincere people. For them it is not so much a matter of avoiding God, or of refusing to consider the path of faith, as it is a matter of being convinced that they will not be wasting their time.
For many the questions that they have revolve around one simple matter, it revolves around the apparent success that evil people have in this world.
The sincere amongst the questioners are very concerned - they are concerned by the fact that while God is supposed to be a God of justice, the wicked do not seem to be hindered in their evil ways at all.
This was certainly the situation for some of the people of Israel during the time of the prophet Malachi, and it continues to be the situation for so many believers and, of course, for so many sceptics , in our land today.
They cry out - or they just plain assert:
It is vain to serve the Lord. What do we profit by keeping his command? Or by going about as mourners before Him? What does it avail us? The arrogant are happy and evildoers not only prosper, but when they put God to the test, they escape.
I admit that these are tough questions and statements. I can't count all the times I have heard them from both those who openly disbelieve, and from those who claim the name of God as their own.
What is in it for us? How do we profit if we do all that God says we should do? Why should we follow the Lord since we see that wicked people do very well, and that evil people all too often do not suffer?
These are tough questions - yes they are - yet I can't stop thinking that these statements and questions miss the mark - that when they are asked amongst believers these questions reveal a lack of understanding concerning God's ways, and that when they are asked by unbelievers, they reveal an unfortunate willingness to snuff out the light of hope in this world and have everyone dwell in darkness.
In the old testament reading of today, we have featured a group of people complaining to God and saying "what is the point of serving God - the wicked prosper, and the evil ones do not get punished."
There is a point to all this my friends - A point to our worship of God. A point to our serving Him and obeying his laws, even when all around us evil seems to prosper and wicked people seem to go off scott free.
Actually there are several points - but the one I want to high light today is one of the most fundamental ones - the one that we so often forget when we look out on the world and complain about how things are going and question what profit there is in following God.
That point is the one made by God through the prophet Malachi after he listened to the questions and doubts of his people:
There is a day coming sayeth the Lord, a day coming "when all the arrogant and all evil doers will be stubble. The day that comes will burn them up, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch - but for you who revere my name the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in his wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall. And you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet, on the day when I act."
That is the image that is provided to us in the very last chapter of the last book of the Old Testament - and it is an image that is repeated over and over again in the New Testament - there is a day coming when:
the wicked will perish, they will be ground underfoot, they will be burned up like so much straw and stubble, while the righteous, those who keep faith with God, those who attempt to follow in the path of Christ, will be spared as parents spare their children who serve them. They will be more than conquerors through him who loves them they will be richly blessed and live eternally.
There is a point to all this. A point to faith, a point to keeping the law of God, a point to believing. Even when the wicked seem to prosper, and the good seem to suffer and died without any kind of relief.
Those who righteous live by faith. Those who are evil - perish - at the last day. That is the long and the short of the point to all this.
I would be the last person to say to anyone, believers and sceptics alike - do not ask questions about evil, do not ask questions about the fate of the righteous.
Indeed I am convinced that between now and the time of Christ's return that there is a place for the questions we have for God, and that God has provided an answer for almost all of those questions within his holy word - and within the faith we have inside ourselves.
But that really is the secret of it all - and one must be willing to act in faith and live in faith before the answers to the questions of faith are revealed to us.
We must be willing to allow God to pluck out the arrows that poisons our lives, before we have all the answers as to who shot us, and why poison arrows are allowed in the first place.
Hearing about the judgement to come will avail us nothing as an answer to our questions unless we are willing to allow Christ to enter our hearts, and minister to us his life giving word, and share with us his life-restoring powers.
We all my friends end up this life the same way, we all die - whether young or old, good or bad.
The question we need to ask is not - why do the wicked seem to prosper? but rather - with whom do we want to be numbered?
The story is told of a village preacher who was visiting one day at the home of an elderly parishioner.
Over a cup of coffee, he ended up answering questions that were being put to him by the kindly old grandmother.
"Why does the Lord send us epidemics every so often?", asked the old woman.
"Well", said the preacher, "sometimes people become so wicked that they have to be removed and so the good Lord allows the coming of epidemics."
'But", objected Grandma, "then why do so many good people get removed with the bad?"
"The good ones are summoned for witnesses", explained the preacher, "the Lord wants to give every soul a fair trial."
God gives to all a fair trial, but even more - he gives to all a fair chance before the time of judgement: a fair chance to observe his life-giving laws, and to follow his Christ - the one who was willing to die so that we might live, willing to suffer so that we might not perish.
There is a point to all this - and there is an end.
Those who endure in faith will win their souls. Jesus came to tell us this and to ensure it.
Praise be to his life giving name. Amen
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