October 21, 2012
Pentecost 21
Job 38:1-7
Mark 10:35-45
(prayer)
Well, God certainly has a sarcastic side, eh? Did you listen to how God spoke to Job: If you’re so smart, tell me how to create a universe? What measurements would you use? How deep should the foundations be? You must have been there when this world was created. No? Oh yeah, that was me! You are speaking words without knowledge.
The bible is filled with passages where God is described in terms of human characteristic (anthropomorphized): God has been described as angry, heartbroken, delighted. When we read this Job passage, we could add down-right snarky to the list.
And it seems that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree of life. Jesus, also, had a least one angry moment when he saw the blatant commercialism of the Temple. And we know that Jesus cried when a dear friend of his died. And certainly he had moments of pure delight as he met people and played with children.
In the second reading for today, there is a bit of that divine snarkiness again as Jesus spoke to James and John: Are you able to do what I am doing? Oh yeah, really?
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I have to admit that ‘sarcasm’ is my favorite kind of humour: I also like a good pun, but well done sarcasm makes me laugh. It can be a little dangerous of a form of humour, because if people take you seriously, you can sound pretty insensitive and callous. Sarcasm is not for every situation, that’s for sure. But when it is used, the purpose is to point to something beyond the words – the message is intentionally veiled, but unless you can see that part, the sarcasm can have no effect.
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Some of you may know bits and pieces of the story of Job.
He is described as the epitome of the upstanding and righteous person; Job is faithful without fault. And God is very proud of him.
Then we can read that God gets into a debate with a character simply known as ‘the accuser’ (in Hebrew: הַשָּׂטָן, ha satan). The argument goes that, of course it is easy for Job to be faithful and righteous, he has an extremely comfortable life – he has wealth and happiness – he has all of the comforts that can afford a life of faithfulness.
Last week, the gospel story in Mark was about a rich young man coming to Jesus, asking, ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?’. The answer was to ‘follow the commandments.’ ‘Well, I’ve done that since I was a boy!’ That man, like Job, had no need to steal or covet, he had all he needed. In our day and age, we know that the root cause of most crime and societal dysfunction is poverty. Wealth and privilege simply make living a better life, easier.
That was The Accuser’s point: If Job wasn’t so comfortable, he wouldn’t be so faithful.
Then, to paraphrase the book of Job, God says, “Oh yeah, wanna bet?”
“You’re on!”
The story goes that God, then, changes the circumstances of Job’s life: wealth and property gone; family dead; his health severely compromised. All he has left are a few friends, who seem content to insult Job about how he is responding to the whole situation.
You see, God was winning the bet. Job was remaining faithful. But his friends were quick to point out that all the evidence pointed to the idea that Job must have done something to lose favour with God – Job must not be faithful enough. When Job insists that his faith is a strong as it ever was, the friends then try to get Job to turn his back on God, who it appears doesn’t care about Job.
Job does not curse God, instead Job demands justice from God. It was out of deep faith that Job stood by his belief that God must have a just response to the situation. The reading today is the beginning of God’s answer to Job.
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The situation is more complicated that you realize. You do not have my capabilities, God says. You are going to have to trust that I have the big picture in control.
God spends the next several chapters of the text listing off the litany of things over which God has control like we begin to see in the first few verses of chapter 38. God’s claims-to-fame are mostly expressed in that sarcastic style: “Can you do [this]...?
In the end, Job accepted God’s authority over all creation, including him and his life – Job prayed for God to forgive the words and actions of the three friends and, eventually, Job became even richer than before, with a new family, even greater than before.
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As uplifting as this story is, I suspect that you might share an uncomfortableness that I have: how could God play so callously with Job’s life, just to win a debate? I know Job got a new family and new wealth at the end and is said to have lived a long and prosperous life, but ... what about the trauma in the middle?
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What we have here is a story, not an historical account. All of the central aspects of the story are interpretations of the facts of what are happening. The three friends offer what they see as the reasons for Job’s plight. The story teller gives us a divine motivation for what happened, but the basic history of the story is that:
There was a man named Job. He lived a good life, but then deep tragedy struck his life. His friends tried to convince him to either confess his unrighteousness to God (because it was Job’s fault) or to curse God (for being unworthy of devotion). Job refused to do either, instead holding fast to his faith in God, even to the point of demanding justice. In the end, Job’s faith is what stands out. It gets him through the tragic times and when his life improves, his faith journeys with him to his final breath.
Okay, as stories God, it’s not the greatest to learn about God’s compassion in the touchy-feely sense, but it does express God’s confidence in the integrity of the created order.
A moral to the story can be to say that: “Seek to remain faithful even in difficult times; God will always be faithful to you.”
The original hearers of the book of Job certainly would have gotten that message.
“God will always be faithful to you!”
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As I noted earlier, last week the Gospel reading was also from the Mark chapter 10; it was a lesson about the sacrificial nature of discipleship. It ended with a proclamation by Jesus’ disciples that the have given up everything to follow him. Jesus then spoke about the blessings of God that outweigh what they have sacrificed. Jesus’ memorable final line of that conversation: 31...many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.
The lectionary skips over three verses to get to today’s reading. Those verses describe that Jesus and his followers begin their fateful journey to Jerusalem. The author of Mark, even hints at the events of Holy Week as this journey begins.
Presumably it is on the way to Jerusalem that John and James make their special request of Jesus:
‘Since you have promised us all great rewards and blessings in heaven, could we get seats of honour in your heavenly kingdom. We have been with you since the beginning, when you asked if we wanted to follow you and fished for people. We left our family, our work, everything we knew. Can we have the number two and three seats beside you?’
Jesus hints that his own sacrifices are still not an end. And he questions whether even these two long-time loyal disciples are prepared to sacrifice along with him.
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The conversation was loud enough that the other ten disciples found out what was going on and they were upset with James and John. The text doesn’t tell us whether they were mad because John and James were being selfish and putting themselves above the others, or because James and John thought to ask first.
Jesus responds to this tense situation like he always did, he told a parable, a lesson-story:
‘Think about the nations of the world, Caesar and the other leaders rule with a heavy hand – they are tyrants. They see themselves as better than everyone else and feel they deserve anything they want. Well...it is not so among you. That is not the way I want you to behave; that is not the way I want you to be. Just a few days ago, I spoke about the first being last and the last being first. This is what I meant: whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.’
Jesus’ message and actions were intended to reach and influence and serve ‘many’ not just a ‘few’.
It sounds easy. But in reality it is not: servanthood doesn’t always come easy – most people, I believe, prefer to be in control, rather than serve. If we are all honest, we probably have to admit that.
Our culture is ascension-based: it’s all about advancing one’s self. We seek to acquire more time; we look to the bigger house, more toys. Our economy is never content with maintaining what we have – if it doesn’t grow, it’s bad. This past Friday, the Wall Street stocks took a bit of a tumble because some company’s earnings reports were lower than expected. Microsoft, General Electric and McDonalds are all still profitable, but because they weren’t profitable enough, the Dow Jones sunk over 200 points and had its worse day in over four months.
But it is not so among you.
That’s the vision of the culture that surrounds us – personal, selfish advancement must be perpetual.
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We have the choice to be counter-cultural.
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Ah, choice.
It can cause us so much grief.
Oh, how much easier life would be to not be faced with choices of how to live, how to connect, how to find balance. And yet, even as we choose a faith that guides us, the path is still for us to travel, including the choices (some really perplexing and hard) along the Way.
Can we choose to ‘drink the cup Jesus drinks’?
Can we choose to accept that selfish personal advancement will not be the dominating motivation of this life?
Are the lives of others important to us - to the point that we can accept that our well-being is tied up with their well-being. You see it is not about setting aside our own needs – it is about living as partners not as tyrants.
Each day, we will experience a number of opportunities to make this choice in small or big ways.
And at each of those moments, you can ask – is it so with me?
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Let us pray:
God, we can be demanding and often we want to be assured of the path before us. Remind us that you are with us always and maybe that is enough to know. Amen.
#684VU “Make Me a Channel of Your Peace”
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