How Will You Live?

Based on Luke 21:25-36

Christmas is coming! What an exciting, busy time this is. Some of the best music we sing is right now. All the decorations and parties, the anticipation of being with friends and family, giving just the right gift and receiving some surprising ones, Christmas carols, snow, there’s so much to like about the coming of Christmas. This is a time of great anticipation and preparation. It’s almost as if the holiday season just picks us up and takes us on a ride.

Christ is coming! This truth is a bit more uncomfortable for many. Some can’t wait for Christ to return. For many others, the bearer of this message is like the man walking the streets with the sign that says “The end is near!” To talk of Jesus coming back is a lot harder to get our minds around than the annual celebration of his first coming into the world as a baby born in Bethlehem. The church has been on tip-toe in anticipation for about 2,000 years waiting for his return. It’s hard to keep the anticipation level up with that kind of wait.

Besides, when the Bible speaks of the end times, it describes times that are very troubling before Jesus comes back. I remember being profoundly disturbed when I was younger and the topic of the rapture would come up, when all of a sudden people just disappear and the rest are left behind. I remember seeing bumper stickers that said “Warning: this vehicle will be unmanned in case of rapture.” In my young faith I would anxiously wonder, which will I be? The moment of truth: will I be left behind? The descriptions of a final battle between good and evil, the sun going dark like a lunar eclipse or the moon turning to blood like a solar eclipse, the world being burned up by fire, plague and war, it’s not a happy picture. It’s certainly not something to anticipate, right? It gets really bad before Jesus comes back, and when he does, everything is turned upside down and the End arrives. One day, the sun won’t come up and there won’t be a tomorrow. What then?

It was a normal spring day. People were going to work or school or heading out on their morning errands. At the water resources board, a couple who desired to tap water on their land and bottle it for sale were meeting with others who were concerned about the impact that might have. The person assigned by the board to be the arbitrator of the hearing introduced herself, shared the agenda and the process to work through the issue, and without warning, BOOM, a bomb blast from across the street shatters glass and knocks them out of their seats. A few seconds of collecting themselves and the people who were concerned about selling water are now concerned about their own safety. They exit out of the building and look at the Alfred P. Murrah building across from them. Half of the nine story building is gone. People are strewn about wounded and in shock. Emergency workers are pulling in from everywhere. The beautiful spring sun is occluded by thick, black, and grey smoke. Confusion, disbelief, and fear permeate the air. An average day in April turns into a horrific catastrophe where 168 people, including 19 children, were dead and over 850 injured, many of them permanently disabled.

As the dust settled, and the rain came to help wash away this terrible mess of destruction, love and support came from all over the nation and world to Oklahoma City. The stories of the heroes and survivors and victims were told. Countless numbers of people stuck between the links of hastily thrown up fencing all kinds of mementos and expressions of solidarity. Funerals were planned, of which 20% of the area population went to at least one. A huge memorial service, with prayer offered by Billy Graham, was a powerful testament to faith in the midst of broken hopes and dreams, and the power of unity and love against the forces of hate and division. A national memorial was constructed. The survivor’s tree, a huge elm located right next to the building yet somehow withstood the force of the blast, even though being embedded with concrete, steel and glass, expressed for many the deep roots of faith.

Life returned to normal. The regular day-to-day stuff of life worked its way on all who went through that experience. Back again were the days of average existence, the petty bickering, the soap operas of dysfunctional relationships, the everyday anxieties of life. And then it happened again that fall morning in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania six years later, when the act of terrorism in Oklahoma City seemed like a warmup to the main event. And the vicious cycle of catastrophe, rebuilding, and normalcy spins again. In the back of our minds, we wait with anxiety and discomfort for the next catastrophe to hit, those shocking events that eclipse the relatively minor disturbing events like we saw in Waukesha, Wisconsin a few days ago. Some of us wonder, are these shocking events signs of the End? Is Christ coming soon?

But there is a difference between catastrophe and The End. When the cowboy rides off into the sunset and the music comes up and the script comes across the screen The End, that’s true. The movie is over. Whereas the Greeks and Romans in Jesus’ day conceptualized time as an unending cycle of seasons, Jesus held the Hebrew understanding of time as a line that has a beginning point and an end point. There is a time when there won’t be another tomorrow. As Jesus put it, heaven and earth will pass away. But whether it is The End with capital letters or the end of your life, for every one of us the time will come when we won’t see another sunrise. What then?

I want to share a story told by William Willimon. “When I was serving a little church in rural Georgia, one of my members’ relatives died, and my wife and I went to the funeral as a show of support for the family. It was held in a small, hot, crowded, independent Baptist country church. They wheeled in the coffin and the preacher began to preach. He shouted, fumed, flailed his arms. ‘It’s too late for Joe,’ he screamed. ‘He might have wanted to do this or that in life, but it’s too late for him now. He’s dead. It’s all over for him. He might have wanted to straighten his life out, but he can’t now. It’s over.’ What a comfort this must be to the family, I thought. ‘But it ain’t too late for you! People drop dead every day. So why wait? Now is the day for decision. Now is the time to make your life count for something. Give your life to Jesus!’ It was the worst thing I had ever heard. ‘Can you imagine a preacher doing that kind of thing to a grieving family?’ I asked my wife on the way home. ‘I’ve never heard anything so manipulative, cheap and inappropriate. I would never preach a sermon like that.’ She agreed with me that it was tacky, manipulative, callous. ‘Of course,’ she added, ‘the worst part of all is that it was true.’”

When we consider the end, either the end of our own life or the end of everything when Christ comes back, there is a call to decision. And the decision you and I make in the face of the end makes all the difference. The decision will lead to fear or anticipation. Living with fear or living with anticipation, that is what is at stake. How will you live?

In the 1330s the Bubonic Plague broke out in China. In October 1347, Italian merchants brought the plague to Europe. In five years, one third of the population of Europe, 25 million people, died of the Black Death. An Italian writer of the times, Boccachio, wrote that its victims often “ate lunch with their friends and ate dinner with their ancestors in paradise.” Cyprian, a priest who had the challenge to guide people through an apocalyptic moment in history, where death was everywhere, noted that the plague killed Christians and pagans. But there was a difference in how these two groups faced this time of catastrophic disruption. While many fainted from fear and foreboding of what was coming upon the world, the Christians were able to stand up and raise their heads, because their redemption was drawing near. In the midst of unimaginable misery, Cyprian wrote: “We regard paradise as our country – we already begin to consider the patriarchs as our parents: why do we not hasten and run, that we may behold our country, that we may greet our parents? There a great number of our dear ones is awaiting us, and a dense crowd of parents, brothers, children, is longing for us, already assured of their own safety, and still solicitous for our salvation. To attain to their presence and their embrace, what a gladness both for them and for us in common! What a pleasure is there in the heavenly kingdom, without fear of death; and how lofty and perpetual a happiness with eternity of living! To these…let us hasten with an eager desire; let us crave quickly to be with them, and quickly to come to Christ.” How will you live?

Os Guiness tells the story about what happened early in American history when the Connecticut House of Representatives was in session on a bright day in May, and the delegates were able to do their work by natural light. But then something happened that nobody expected. Right in the middle of the debate, there was a total eclipse of the sun, and everything turned to darkness. Some legislators thought it was the second coming of Christ. A clamor arose. People wanted to adjourn. People wanted to pray. People wanted to prepare for the coming of the Lord. But the speaker of the house had a different idea. He was a Christian believer, and he rose to the occasion with good logic and good faith. “We are all upset by the darkness,” he said, “and some of us are afraid. But the Day of the Lord is either approaching or it is not. If it is not, there is no cause for adjournment. And if the Lord is returning, I, for one, choose to be found doing my duty. I therefore ask that candles be brought.” And men who expected Jesus went back to their desks and resumed their debate. How will you live?

Christ is coming! Are you preparing? Are you anxious or anticipating? Fred Craddock observed, “today is a gift of God…tomorrow we stand in the presence of the Son of Man.” One day, the sun will come up one last time, and Christ will return. Until then, how will you live?

Ultimate Loyalty

Based on John 18:33-37

One of the interesting things about belonging to a church tradition that stretches back many centuries is that we have special days in our tradition that does not immediately connect with our lived experience. This is one of those days. This Sunday is the last one in the Christian year. Next Sunday is the first Sunday of Advent. On this last Sunday of the year, it is called Christ the King Sunday. The year ends with a day to acknowledge and celebrate that Jesus is the king, indeed the king of kings and lord of lords.

We call on Jesus by many names: savior, comforter, friend. We also call him lord and king. But what does it mean to call Jesus lord and king? For those who live in a kingdom ruled by a king, calling Jesus lord and king are terms people can relate to. But we live in a country that is not a kingdom. In fact, America specifically rejected royal rule. Our ancestors fought a war of independence to escape the monarchy. We live in a constitutional republic in which people govern by the consent of the governed. Rulership is not granted through bloodlines and divine right, but through elections. We don’t know what it’s like to live under the rule of a monarch. So, when we identify Jesus as lord and king, this requires of us the need to do some work on what that means since we don’t know what it is like to live in a monarchy. We are going to spend a few moments today to do this work, to reflect on what it means to claim Jesus as our king.

Kingship is the topic of the scripture we heard today. Pilate is trying to figure out who Jesus is and why the religious leaders want him dead. He isn’t getting anywhere with them, so he asks Jesus directly, “Are you a king or not?” Jesus gives an ambiguous answer, saying “You say I am a king.” Then he says his kingdom is not of this world. If is was, he would have his loyal subjects rising up to defend him. That’s obviously not happening. His loyal subjects, that is, his disciples, have abandoned him. So, he is a king but not of this world. I can imagine Pilate doesn’t quite know what to make of this, probably wondering to himself if he is talking to someone who is delusional. But if Jesus is just delusional, why are the religious leaders hell bent on having him crucified? For Pilate, Jesus must have been an enigma.

This talk of Jesus being a king didn’t start here at the end of Jesus’ public ministry. We can go back to the beginning and see that Jesus was identified as a king then. The wise men, who saw in the stars that the king of the Jews had been born, go to Herod to find out where the new king was born. Of course, Herod misunderstands right away about the nature of this kingship. He naturally thinks that a rival to his power has been born who will rise up and take his throne and rule over the land in his place. So, he plots to kill all the boys in the land to make sure this newborn king is exterminated. But his kingdom is not of this world. It is a different kind of kingdom. Jesus is not a king like the king of England or the emperor of the Roman Empire. The kingship of Jesus is different. How is it different?

First, let’s compare how kings are portrayed and how Jesus was in the world. Kings are portrayed as powerful and regal. They reside in palaces. They have a court. They control armies. Jesus does not look or act like a king, certainly the kind of king that the people in Jesus’ day associated with kingship. Jesus does come from a royal lineage. His bloodline traces back to King David. But Jesus has no wealth. He controls no land. He does not live in a palace. He has no royal court or army. Instead, Jesus is a traveling teacher and healer with a group of disciples. We are told that he grew up as a carpenter’s son. There is nothing about Jesus that would immediately make someone associate him as a king.

Except that Jesus acts like how a king should act. Jesus is doing things with authority and wisdom. He orders demons to depart. He uses his authority to forgive sins. He teaches with wisdom and authority. He commands the seas to be calm and the winds to stop blowing. He commands a person dead four days to get up and walk out of the tomb. There is no doubt for those who can get past Jesus’ appearance, background, and material circumstances that Jesus has authority. If the function of a king is to protect and provide for his subjects and to instruct with wisdom, then Jesus fits the bill. By his actions and the demonstration of his authority Jesus is a king. But where is his crown? Where is his palace? His army? His fancy robes and piles of gold? What kind of king is this?

It requires eyes of faith and the capacity to see beyond outer appearance to believe that Jesus really is a king. The religious leaders couldn’t get past their preconceived notions about what a king is supposed to look like, failing to see that Jesus really is a king. In spite of all this evidence that Jesus has authority, they just could not get their minds around the possibility that he actually was a king. They were trapped in their limited thinking. They couldn’t see it. But for those who could see it, the wise men, the disciples, it was clear to them that Jesus is a king, the king, the king of kings. And although they had their doubts, especially when they saw who they believed to be the king be abused by the authorities and then crucified, their doubts evaporated when they saw the resurrected Jesus, the one who even conquered death.

We believe that Jesus will return in glory someday. This is, by the way, one of the central themes of Advent which begins next Sunday. And when Jesus returns, it will be obvious that he is a king. He will come wearing a white robe with a host of angels, as our tradition tells us. We claim that one day every knee will bow, in heaven and on earth, and every mouth will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

But what does it matter? If we lived in a kingdom under the rule of a king and made the claim that Jesus is our lord and king, that could create a bit of tension. To whom do you give your loyalty? If Christians live in a kingdom under the rule of a king who does not claim his authority as granted to him by God, then that could lead to the need to make a hard choice. But we don’t live under the rule of a king. Does it matter that we claim Jesus as our king and lord even though we live in a constitutional republic? What does it even mean for us to claim Jesus as lord when in our society we don’t live under the rule of lords?

Even though we don’t have to make a choice between being loyal to a particular king and king Jesus, making the claim that Jesus is our lord and king does raise the issue of loyalty. Some may find it ironic, but there it is, printed on our money, “In God we trust.” That reminds me of a sign I saw by a register at a convenience store many years ago that said “In God we trust, all others pay cash.” Do we trust God, or do we trust money? In our pledge of allegiance, we have that phrase “under God” added in the 1950s when we were engaged in the cold war against godless communism. One nation under God. That line in our pledge of allegiance taps into that issue of loyalty. We are loyal Americans. We pledge our allegiance to the flag of the United States of American and to the Republic for which it stands. And we claim that we are one nation under God. This suggests that God is above America in power and authority. So, where does our loyalty lie? It seems our pledge forces us to claim two loyalties, to the republic and to God who is above the republic. The phrase “under God” was added to show the Soviet Union that we as a nation believe in God. But saying that phrase also gives us an opportunity to acknowledge that our ultimate loyalty is to God. Because here is the truth. Nations rise and nations fall. America is a great nation. But even great nations fall. The kingdom of God is eternal, timeless, and unshakable. It will never fall. As Americans who claim Jesus as our king and lord, we are left making a choice of where we place our ultimate loyalty and trust. It doesn’t have to be a choice between loyalty to America or loyalty to God. But there is a choice between where we place our ultimate loyalty.

Every day, we can choose to be loyal to Jesus our king. We can choose to trust in Jesus as our protector and provider and serve him by following his command which is to live a life of love. That’s a good choice to make. We live in chaotic times. There is so much uncertainty about where everything is headed. The world is so different from what it was like just a few decades ago. The ties that bind our nation together are frayed and have been for some time. I for one take comfort in knowing that every day I have the opportunity to recommit myself to serve Jesus. There is so much going on in the world that is beyond our control. But we can control how we live our lives and who or what we are loyal to. We can choose to serve our lord and king Jesus and follow his command of love. It’s not easy. But it is in our power to choose.

This is why it matters to us that we claim Jesus as our king. As Americans, we will never really get what it means to call Jesus our king. But by making this claim, we are making a statement about first loyalties. We are loyal Americans, but we are first of all loyal to Jesus. In a world awash in change and instability, we claim our first loyalty to the eternal lord. It is in making this claim, that Jesus is Lord, and honoring that claim by faithful obedience to his command to love, that we find solid ground to stand on, that we can live a life that makes a difference, that makes it possible for this nation to be the best it can be. But most of all, it gives us the anticipation that one day we will stand before our lord and king and hear from him these words, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.”

Community That Lasts

Based on Mark 13:1-8

One of my favorite bends in the road is in northern Kentucky on I-71 northbound just before you get to the Ohio River. If you are driving at night, it is a bonus. As you go around the bend you suddenly find in front of you on the other side of the river the spectacle of downtown Cincinnati all lit up. Usually when you are driving toward big cities you see the skyscrapers from a distance. But with Cincinnati you are just driving along and then there it is in front of you. It always puts a smile on my face, and I am struck by the beauty of the skyline of those buildings.

I remember when I got to visit Great Britain. For someone who grew up near a city founded at the end of the 19th century in a state that was founded at the beginning of the 20th, everything over there was so old. We toured a church somewhere in England that had worship services held every Sunday in the sanctuary since 1058. Oak pews that were hundreds of years old. The indentations in the stone floor where generations of priests had stood behind the altar. It took my breath away and I marveled at all that had happened in that holy sanctuary.

Recently, Kim and I were walking on Gay Street over to the Palace and we walked past someone who had his phone held up like he was filming the tall buildings around us while talking to someone on the phone about them. His eyes were wide. For him, it was so cool to be walking in downtown Columbus that evening. We assumed he must be from the country or some small town and that this was his first time in the big city. Kim and I giggled about it. But I remember walking around with my head looking up the first time I visited Chicago or New York City. Being at the top of the Sears tower and watching clouds float by below us was amazing. Standing next to one of the World Trade Center towers, looking up, and not being able to see the top of the building because it went up so high was dizzying. These are impressive structures, skyscrapers. City skylines at night are beautiful. Being inside buildings that have been used for 1,000 years is memorable.

Jesus’ disciples were doing the same thing as they walked around the Temple with Jesus. It was an impressive structure. The walls were constructed of large and thick white stone blocks. The east side of the Temple was plated with gold. Being built on the top of a hill, people could see the Temple from miles away. And when the sun rose, and the light was reflected by that gold plate the brightness would make you have to avert your eyes. It was an impressive structure, and rightly so because in the holy of holies it was understood that God was present. Some believed the Temple to be the literal center of the universe. The building was built to impress. And the disciples were duly impressed.

But Jesus didn’t seem impressed as they walked away toward the Mount of Olives. Jesus said to his disciples, “You are impressed with that building? One day every one of those stones will be pulled to the ground and that building won’t be there anymore.” Oh, to have been there in that moment to see the expression on the faces of the disciples. To say that the Temple, that impressive edifice, the place where God lives, would one day be torn down must have been very concerning to those disciples. So much so that later some of them meet privately with Jesus so he can tell them what to look for before the end of the world because only in the end times would the Temple be destroyed.

We do get attached to our buildings. We all remember the horror of watching the collapse of the twin towers, not only over the loss of so many lives but the shock of seeing those buildings come down in billows of dust. The thought of the White House or the U.S. Capitol building having potentially met the same fate that September morning is disturbing. We expend resources and do the best we can to maintain the church building we are currently in even though it is a burden and takes a good bit of our resources. We do it because we feel we need a church building to function as a church. We need somewhere to gather, a sanctuary space that is beautiful, that helps us worship. So many holy moments have happened inside these walls. These structures are important to us.

Jesus challenges us to instead focus on building and maintaining community instead of building and maintaining structures. Jesus didn’t seem to be too concerned about maintaining property. There was that person who once asked to follow Jesus and Jesus responded that foxes have holes and birds have nests but there is nowhere for the son of man to lay his head. In other words, to follow Jesus meant to be always on the move and staying wherever someone would let you. Jesus never said no to a dinner invitation, probably because he didn’t have anywhere else to go to get something to eat. The main point I’m trying to make though is that Jesus was focused on two things: sharing his message and building a community of disciples who would continue to share his message after he was gone. Jesus was building a community of relationships, not a community of structures. And when he blew off the impressive structure of the Temple by telling the disciples that it would be destroyed someday, he was letting them know that their energy and focus ought to be directed at building something that won’t be destroyed and that would be a community of relationships.

As I said, when Jesus told the disciples that the temple would be destroyed, that prompted in them some curiosity about when the end of the world would come because that’s what the destruction of the temple would be like…the end of the world. They wanted to know what else to look for that would serve as an advanced warning so they could get themselves mentally prepared for what would be happening next. Everyone wants advanced warnings, from what the weather will be like in a few days to when will be the destruction of the planet, so that we can prepare.

Instead of talking about signs, Jesus first talks about false leaders who will lead many astray. These false leaders make claims about themselves that are not true. But desperate people will follow charismatic leaders who make boastful claims about themselves and who seem to have a plan to ease their desperation. We see this happening all the time. When the disciples brought up the scary topic of the end of the world, Jesus’ first concern was to talk about false leaders.

Leaders gather followers and they build a community. It has become a truism. A leader without and followers is just someone going for a walk. Leaders need people and together they build a community of relationships. But what kind of community is it? What holds it together?

These false leaders make it about themselves. They claim that they are the saviors, that they can fix it, that they have the answers, the solutions to your problems. They claim that they can lead us in fighting back against our enemies who are trying to take something from us. These false leaders say that they will protect you and keep you safe from all the evil in the world.

One false leader in particular went by the name of Bar Kochba, which means in Hebrew “son of a star.” He led the Jewish revolt against the oppressive Roman empire that ultimately led to the destruction of Jerusalem, including the temple, around 70-72, about 40 years after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension. More modern examples would be Jim Jones and David Koresh. There are many cults that have come and gone. There are always people who are willing to follow one of these cult leaders. But cults come and go. And in the case of the cults of Jim Jones and David Koresh the end is abrupt and deadly.

What so many of these leaders have in common is that they say they can read the signs of the times and know how the world will come to an end. They can answer the question that the disciples asked Jesus. You want to know the signs of the coming of the end of the world? These false leaders have answers for you. These are the leaders, the ones who can answer those questions and claim that they can lead us through to the other side of destruction, that Jesus warns his disciples not to follow.

In the end, all these false leaders distract from what should be the main focus. Rather than predicting the end of the world, fighting back against the enemies, protecting the community from the evil outside world, the focus should be loving God and loving your neighbor as you love yourself. That is the kind of community that Jesus was building. Not to focus on building impressive structures. Not to focus on who can answer our questions about the signs of the times and who will keep us safe from the evils of the world. The focus should always be on loving God and loving neighbor.

After warning the disciples about not following the false leaders who make it about themselves and focus on the wrong question, who focus on interpreting the signs of the end times rather than focusing on loving God and neighbor, Jesus speaks about these signs of the end times by describing what is common to the human experience since the dawn of humanity: war, earthquakes, and famines. How are these signs of the end times? People have always fought each other. Earthquakes happen naturally. Famines, either as a result of natural causes or as a tool of war, is nothing new. Why does Jesus point to these common sources of human suffering as signs of the end?

Jesus says that these common forms of suffering are but the beginning of the birth pangs. That is so evocative that Jesus brings in the experience of childbirth with this talk about when the end will come. Childbirth is a natural process. There are visible signs that a woman is pregnant. Although, I have learned the hard way never to assume that a woman is pregnant. You witness the signs. And when the time comes for delivery, there is a great deal of pain. But the pain is tempered with the anticipation of new life. And it is a natural process that unfolds. It is not to be resisted or controlled. Birth just happens.

When the disciples asked Jesus about the signs of the end, Jesus’ response was to tell them that there is not anything really to know or to resist or manipulate. The end will come. The new life that God is making possible will happen. What the disciples need to do is trust the process and instead focus on loving God and loving neighbor.

This is the community that we build as followers of Jesus: a community that loves God and loves one another. By building and maintaining this community, we can trust that we can endure war, earthquakes, and famines. We are building a resilient community. This community of Jesus followers will endure long after the communities of false leaders fade. As we live together focused on loving God and loving neighbor, we trust that the process God has initiated a long time ago will unfold and that in due time there will emerge new life, even a new world.

Every Moment Matters

Based on Mark 12:38-44        

        All Saints Day, which is November 1st, has been a tradition in the church for many generations. Its purpose was to be a kind of “catch all” day to recognize the heroes and heroines of the Christian faith. A lot of these heroes and heroines have their own day. For example, Saint Mark is on April 25th, Saint Mary Magdalene is July 22nd and Saint Luke is October 18th. But there have been so many saints over the years that there just aren’t enough days to include them all. So, the church set aside November 1st to recognize all the saints. It has been our tradition over the past many years to let this be the day that we remember our family and friends and members of our church who have died since last All Saints Day.

I want to tell you a story about one of my heroes of the Christian faith, Saint Francis. One day, someone saw St. Francis hoeing in his garden. This person asked St. Francis, “Father, if you knew that you would die today at sunset, what would you do?” St. Francis responded, “I would finish hoeing my garden.” Isn’t that a wonderful perspective on work and life? St. Francis was such at peace with God that he saw no need to do anything before meeting with God. He was ready to go, doing whatever he had put his hand to that day. Even the chore of hoeing the garden was an act of devotion to God.

Compare that story with the person who ran up to the preacher one Sunday following church, anxiously telling him, “That lady there says she saw a vision of Jesus at the altar! What should we do?” And the preacher responded, “Look busy.” Maybe this kind of response would be a more common one than the one St. Francis gave. If someone told you that Jesus was showing up any minute, that would likely stir up in us a feeling of anxiety and the need to be doing something impressive or important if we knew that Jesus was about to show up or that our life was about to end. We certainly would want to be on our best behavior.

I remember getting asked that question once when I was young. It was likely at some evangelistic meeting. The evangelist asked us kids, “If you knew Jesus was coming to your house tonight, what would you need to do to get ready?” My response was as if someone important was coming to my house. I would need to hurry home and clean up my room. I would want my mom to make the best meal she knew how to make. I would invite my friends over. I would get a haircut and get new clothes to wear. I would make sure to be on my best behavior. I may even come up with a short list of questions I always wanted to ask Jesus. I would do everything within my power to present a good impression, to show Jesus that I had it all together. Hoeing the garden would not be on the priority list. I wonder what that’s about? To think that someone could impress Jesus seems a bit vain.

Hear these words from Psalm 127: “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives sleep to his beloved.” Here is another passage about vanity. It comes from a whole book about vanity, the book of Ecclesiastes. From chapter 3 we find: “What gain have the workers from their toil? I have seen the business that God has given to everyone to be busy with. He has made everything suitable for its time…It is God’s gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil. I know that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it; God has done this, so that all should stand in awe before him.” St. Francis saw no need to try to impress Jesus. He would keep on doing what he was doing: hoe his garden. Getting your house all clean and trying to impress Jesus with a good meal and a list of thoughtful questions…for what purpose? Really, when it comes to impressing God, that seems backward. God will always be more impressive. Why would we ever think that God would be in awe of us? Rather than trying to impress God, the prudent action is to stand in awe before God.

But those teachers of the law that Jesus saw parading about the village wanted people to stand in awe before them! That was Jesus’ critique. They wore those fancy robes, demanded the best seats at dinner, offered long prayers, with the expectation that everyone else would be impressed with their holiness. They wanted to be seen as people who have it all together. Everyone else was beneath them. They were so entitled, as Jesus saw it, that they would devour widow’s houses. What does that mean? I take it to mean that they would demand of widows to give all they had to the temple, only to use that money to purchase for themselves those fancy robes. How pretentious and vain.

The truth is that none of us need to stress about impressing God with our holiness and having our lives together. Nor do we need to stress about impressing other people. Each one of us are precious to God. Each one of us is important to God, just as we are. And every moment of life we receive is a gift. Why waste it doing things to try to impress people or to impress God? As the writer of Ecclesiastes would say, using our limited time that way is vanity.

In all the days of life, I encourage us to take on the attitude that is expressed in Psalm 127, Ecclesiastes 3, and in this little story about St. Francis hoeing his garden. Let us be fully present each moment, doing what we are doing with diligence and gratitude. There is no need to dwell on the past or be anxious about the future. Simply live in the present moment, do what you are doing, and be thankful. Live for the moment. Understand that every moment is holy, is a gift, is an opportunity to express devotion to God through the task at hand. The past can’t be changed. The future is yet to arrive. All we have is the present and we have control over how we live in the present moment. Live for God in the present moment and be thankful.

There is a story I ran across regarding the making of parachutes in WW II. These parachutes were packed by hand in a tedious, painstaking, repetitive, boring process. The workers crouched over sewing machines and stitched for eight hours a day. The endless line of fabric was the same color. Then they folded, packed and stacked the parachutes. All that was left was for someone to pull the rip cord.

How did they stand it? They withstood the tediousness of the work because every morning before they began their work they gathered as a group. One of the managers reminded them that each parachute would save someone’s life. They were then asked to think, as they sewed and packed, how they would feel if the parachute was strapped to the back of their son, their father, their brother. These laborers worked sacrificially, unerringly, uncomplainingly, because someone connected what they were doing to a larger picture, to a larger mission that involved the saving of lives. Maybe even the lives of those they loved.

Every moment of your life and whatever you are doing, from household chores to doing “church work,” is all a part of a greater plan, of God’s plan for your life. There are no insignificant moments, even the tedious ones. Of course, it may seem that most of what we do in a day seems rather insignificant. But it’s all a matter of perspective. Think of the widow’s mite. It wasn’t much but it was all she had. And she offered it. Jesus acknowledged how much that insignificant amount was, declaring that it was not insignificant at all.

If you look at a brick wall, you see lots of individual bricks. Each brick looks about the same. If you were bored, you could stand there and start counting how many bricks make up the wall. That would get tedious pretty quick. If you stand back and look at the wall as a whole, the bricks all sort of blend in together. If you took out just one of those bricks, it would weaken the entire wall. Every brick is important. Every brick fits in its place. Every brick belongs. Every moment of your life is like one of those bricks. Lay your bricks, one at a time. And trust that as you lay your bricks, as you build your life, one moment at a time, just as everyone else is building their lives, that somehow God is involved. Trust that God, through our lived-out moments, is building a house, a world house, with many rooms, spacious enough for every life, for every saint, to inhabit for eternity.

What is Essential

Based on Mark 12:28-34

    Earlier this week, I was attending a learning event offered by United Way. The topic was on the challenges of high school graduation rates that are lagging, especially for young people of color. In the conversation, someone talked about the opportunity non-profits have as we emerge into this pandemic changed world. He said it is like we have a clean slate, an opportunity to do things differently rather than go back to the way things were before the pandemic, ways that were not helpful. His example was that before the pandemic non-profits tended to work in silos, offering their service without much coordination with other non-profits who offered different services. But when the pandemic hit, the demand to respond in ways that carried people through the pandemic required coordination and collaborating to meet the challenge. The panelist asked, why would we want to go back to the way things were when we have the opportunity to continue to work collectively moving forward?

Mainline churches like ours are in the midst of a long-term crisis and disruption to the way things used to be for the church, that is, in the 1950s-60s, when being a church going Christian was a social and cultural norm. That hasn’t been the case in the United States since the beginning of the 70s. The pandemic really forced change on the church and revealed again how much we have lost over the decades, a loss of resources and energy, and in light of the pandemic the need to re-assess how we “do church” when we couldn’t gather in person. Even as we have been coming back to in person worship for some time, we still feel this sense of crisis, that we can’t go back to the way things used to be. The world is different, and we find ourselves as a church to again focus on what is essential to being church in the 21st century, almost post pandemic world. 

We have been here before. In the 18th century, the Church of England priest John Wesley looked around at the state of the church and the state of society and what he saw was dysfunction and pettiness in the church and a society filled with depravity and needless suffering. The church and society needed reforming as Wesley saw it. He and his collaborators were convinced of the need to get back to the essentials of what Wesley called scriptural Christianity. He wanted to see the church get back to what the church was all about, not in the fifteenth century when the Church of England came into existence when Henry the VIII decided he no longer desired to have the pope tell him whether or not he could get a divorce and marry someone else. Wesley wanted to get back to the essentials demonstrated in the book of Acts, the primitive church. He wanted to be part of a primitive church that was relevant to the society of 18th century industrial revolution Britain, a society in the midst of great crisis and disruption.

Over and over in the course of history we see how social crisis and disruption creates opportunities to start fresh, to no longer maintain a status quo that simply does not work because it doesn’t fit the challenges of the times. Crisis and disruption force us to set aside secondary things and get back to what matters most, the essentials that respond to the core needs of the human experience.

It is here that our time of crisis and disruption connects with what was happening when the gospel of Mark was likely written. It was a time of disruption for Israel, an existential crisis demonstrated by the destruction of the Temple by the Romans. You think it was bad when we couldn’t gather for in person worship. The sacred place where Jews would go to offer sacrifices on high holy days had been destroyed. The status quo was deeply disrupted. Judaism was forced under these circumstances to rethink how to carry on the tradition without a temple. Secondary issues had to be set aside in order to get to what was essential and still be a Jew.

If we keep that sense of crisis in mind when we look at this passage from Mark, it helps us get a better picture of what is being said between the lines that serves as a guide for the people in those days. But it also gives us help as we navigate through this time of crisis and disruption and we find ourselves in need of setting aside secondary things and instead focus on what is essential to still be a Christian.

Before we jump in, let’s look at what has been going on before the scribe asked Jesus this question.

Jesus is at the temple being grilled by the religious leaders: first, the chief priests and elders, then the Pharisees, last the Sadducees. They all take their shots at Jesus. The chief priests and elders, the guardians of the Temple, start off by asking Jesus who he thinks he is. They question his authority. The Pharisees, a group more concerned about how to live a righteous life, ask Jesus a political question about whether it is righteous for a Jew to pay taxes to Caesar, the source of their oppression. The Sadducees, an elitist and overly educated group of people, ask Jesus a theological question about the resurrection, a belief that Sadducees did not hold but Pharisees did believe in. Authority, politics, and theology. Those were the issues raised by these different religious leaders as they confronted Jesus while they were gathered at the Temple, the center of the Jewish tradition.

What I find interesting is that in times of disruption and crisis, leaders, those who are the guardians of the status quo, first respond to the crisis by obsessing over who has authority and other secondary concerns. I think back to the worship wars of the 80s and 90s when there was a strong push to make worship more contemporary, with modern music, drums and guitars, pastors who wore blue jeans, and questioning who had the authority to offer communion and how it should be done. Living through the worship wars, I remember the debates about who had authority to change worship styles or who could offer communion. I remember the loud shouting over the appropriateness of these changes in worship style. What drove the worship wars in the first place was the felt need to connect to a certain generation, namely baby boomers and early Generation Xers like me who were not really interested in traditional forms of church. The thought was if churches could change how they do church that this would draw people back to church and thus restore the power and influence of the church in American society. In the time of crisis, the first move was to argue over authority and the secondary issues of the proper and permissible ways to worship God in the church: ordained or lay leadership, organ or guitar, Fanny Crosby or Amy Grant. The essentials of what it meant to be a Christian in the late 20th century was overlooked. And the disconnect continued. Yes, churches that offered contemporary forms of worship grew and still do to this day while churches that are more traditional like ours continue to decline. But that’s often because people leave more traditional churches for more contemporary churches. The actual number of Christians and overall attendance in worship has been steadily declining for decades. Nothing has really changed. And younger generations are more disconnected than ever. Is it because the essentials have not been tended to and instead energy is directed toward secondary things?

After Jesus had been through this gauntlet, a scribe who had witnessed all of this found in Jesus a wise teacher. He deserved an opportunity to answer a sincere question, a question that cut to the heart of the matter. He asked Jesus what is the most important commandment. With that question, the scribe is taking the conversation to a deeper level. He is pushing aside arguments about authority, politics, and theology and instead wants Jesus to address what is essential to the Jewish tradition.

Jesus goes directly to the Shema, the prayer lifted up by every righteous Jew at sunset and sunrise, taken from Deuteronomy 6:4-5: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.” Then Jesus adds the command found in Leviticus 19:18, “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

The scribe affirms what Jesus says. His response to Jesus that obeying these two commandments is more important than offering the ritual sacrifices is a scripture informed view, which Jesus and the scribe knew, especially Hosea 6:6, “For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.”

That verse from Hosea I imagine became an anchor for Jews in Mark’s day when they were living after the destruction of the Temple by the Romans. They had no way to offer the sacrifices. What are they to do? Hosea, this scribe and Jesus point out what is essential. It is not the sacrifices, nor for us is the worship style. It is staying in love with God and expressing that love in our neighbor relations. That is what is essential for Jews: to love God and love neighbor. It doesn’t take a temple to do that. It didn’t ultimately matter that the Romans destroyed the Temple and literally erased Jerusalem from the map. That didn’t stop them from loving God and loving their neighbors. Of course, Jesus also takes it to the next level by calling on his followers to also love their enemies, which would be those Romans.

This essential teaching of loving God and neighbor also creates an opportunity to be more inclusive of who can be a part of this tradition. The sacrificial system and the Temple itself prevented Gentiles from being included. Now that this system has been dismantled because of what the Romans did, this disruption opens up a possibility to expand the circle of inclusion. Gentiles can love God and neighbor too.

But here’s the thing: living up to these essential commands to love God and neighbor is really hard sometimes. Maybe loving God isn’t that hard, although our recent exploration of Job gave us opportunities to name those times in our own lives where our relationship with God has been tested. When it comes to loving our neighbors though; that can be hard.

I wonder if when we face times of disruption we tend to first obsess on secondary things because it’s easier than getting at the essential issue. It is easier to argue over authority and power. It is easier to argue over politics. It is easier to argue over theology. It is easier to offer ritual sacrifices, or in our case to show up for worship on Sunday morning. All of that is easier than loving God and loving our neighbors as ourselves. Living a life of love is harder than tending to and fighting about secondary things.

The essential things are not always the easiest things to do. But we must strive to tend to the essentials regardless. For us as Christians our essentials have been named in different ways. John Wesley offered those three simple rules that have been expressed in a modern way as do no harm, do good, and stay in love with God. But we really can boil down our essentials into one word: love. It is that simple and that hard.

When the scribe made his response, Jesus said, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” Where is this kingdom the scribe is not far from? Is it a place, a region of territory under God’s rule? Maybe Jesus means to say that the reign of God is some future reality when Rome and all the other emperors and despots will be brought low and only God will rule the earth. But maybe what Jesus was telling the scribe was also something that Mark’s church needed to hear and that we need to hear today. What if the reign of God is made real when people express love for God and neighbor? The scribe was not far from the kingdom of God because he had named what it takes to realize that kingdom. All that was left for the scribe to do to enter that kingdom was to do the things, to love God and neighbor. To obey these two commands is to live your life under the rule of God, Roman oppression or otherwise. No matter what crisis and disruption, to love God and to love neighbor remains as what is essential. This was true in Jesus’ day, in Mark’s day, in John Wesley’s day and in our day. The crises and disruptions are different throughout history, but the essentials remain the same. I find comfort in that and I find an anchor to hold on to in these storm-tossed times. It may not be easy. But at least it is clear and something that we can do. We can always love. And that is enough to occupy our energy.

Lessons From Job

Based on Job 42:1-6, 10-17

Today we come to the end of the book of Job and hear Job’s response to God’s response. It has been quite a journey for Job. Having lost so much and burdened with unimaginable suffering, Job has had to contend with three friends who tried to reason with him. But as each one made their case that surely Job had done something to deserve all this suffering, Job would argue back, making it clear that he had done nothing wrong. His responses to his friends were filled with angst, bitterness, sometimes with a tinge of despair. He cried out to God, demanding to be heard, to make his case, to even put God on trial.

Finally, God responds to Job’s cries and venting. But God doesn’t answer Job’s “why” questions. Instead, God details how God created everything that exists, and not just creates but sustains creation, from worlds to baby ravens. Rather than answering Job’s question of why God brought all this suffering on him, God reminds Job of who God is, the one who creates and sustains all life, including Job’s. Job still doesn’t know why he had to suffer so much. But it is made clear to Job how awesome, powerful, and providential that God is. God had not abandoned Job, but was there all along, knew everything that had happened to Job, and sustained Job even as he cried out in anger toward God. God’s grace and mercy bathed this whole terrible and traumatic experience of apparently to Job random and unjust suffering.

So, what is Job’s response? He finally has his audience with God. The one who Job was convinced had either made a mistake or who was uncaring, perhaps even cruel, the one who needed to be held accountable for what had been unleashed on Job, he finally has God’s attention. Job now has his chance to tell God face to face what he really thinks of this whole situation. What does Job say?

He starts by summing up his understanding of God’s response. In a short and sweet summary, Job says, “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.” Job had gotten the message that God had a hand in making everything that exists in the universe. And further that God’s creative activity was not done randomly, but that God did this in an ordered way, in which everything fits together. And God didn’t just create everything and then sit back and watch how everything works out. No, God’s creativity was done with purpose, the purpose of demonstrating who God is, the one who cares for and provides for all that God has made. That God created anything at all, and maintains all that God has created, was done for the purpose of revealing who God is: creator, sustainer, restorer. That’s what Job got out of God’s response.

Job then takes the first two sentences of God’s response and reacts to them. The first sentence is: “Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?” It’s God basically telling Job, “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Job admits as much, saying that he did utter things that he didn’t understand. He talked about God without knowing the whole picture. The ways of God are too wonderful, too complex, for Job or any of us to fully comprehend. That is, after all, why God is God. Aspects of God will always be a mystery to us. And Job acknowledges his presumption, of thinking he understood God when he didn’t.

The second sentence God spoke was, “Hear, and I will speak; I will question you, and you declare to me.” It was God telling Job, “Now it’s my turn to talk. I have some questions for you, and I want you to answer them.” Then, as we know, God’s barrage of rhetorical questions communicated to Job just how awesome, powerful, and providential God is, that everything in creation has God’s fingerprints on it, that God knows what is going on, and that God acts to provide for all that exists. Job’s response is that he has heard what God was saying. But not only has Job heard God, he now sees God in a different light. His understanding of God, his perspective, has been broadened. He doesn’t only know about God he knows God in a deeper way. Their relationship has been established because God has graciously revealed a bit of Godself to Job so that now Job more clearly sees who God is. And this new understanding, this broader perspective, prompts Job to confess his repentance.

In both of his responses, Job is basically saying that he admits to his prior ignorance. After this experience of God, Job revealed his character by humbling himself. He was willing to admit that he had made a mistake, that he didn’t know everything about God. Having gained a new perspective about God, he had the capacity to repent, to leave behind his old beliefs about God and to embrace a new understanding, not based on what others have told him, but by his own direct experience of God.

Perhaps most of all, Job came to terms with the fact that, at least for now, he isn’t going to get all his questions answered. Why God allowed such suffering to pour down on Job will remain a mystery for him. But even though Job’s questions aren’t going to be answered, he now knows deep in his heart that God cares for him and provides for him. Even when he was crying out against God and railing against God, God still cared for him and sustained him in his grief. God never abandoned him. For whatever reason, whether God was complicit or not, Job knows that God cares about him and about every little part of all of creation.

Now, with this response of humble confession from Job, his confession of a deeper knowing of God, a deeper and stronger relationship with God, then God responds again. God does not respond with words toward Job this time. God does have a few words to say to Job’s friends, however. God was not happy with them. But for Job, God responds by doing what God does, which is restoration. God restores Job’s blessings of material wealth, a big family, and good health. How does God do it?

The restoration of Job doesn’t just fall from the sky or rise up from the ground. It didn’t just magically appear. We are told that Job’s family and friends started coming around. They had a banquet for Job. They consoled him in his suffering. They gave him money and rings, restoring his fortune. Apparently, Job’s relationship with his wife was restored because Job received more sons and daughters. In time, he was able to build back up his livestock. He got his health back, able to live to a ripe old age, another 140 years, and got to see four generations of his offspring. God restored Job’s fortune, not with the wave of God’s magic wand but through Job’s family, his friends, his wife, and his own efforts. With the co-operation of many people, God restored Job. God, working through all those people and through Job himself, made Job better off than he was before his great suffering.

So, what are we to make of Job’s story? What are the lessons? I suppose there are many lessons. It’s a big and complicated book. We have only been exposed to a few snippets over the past few weeks. If you dig down deep into the speeches of Job and his friends, there is a lot of issues that are brought up. All through the book, Job is challenging the standard view of his day about God, justice, the linkage of sinfulness and suffering, and more. The big question of why bad things happen to good people runs throughout the book. But, of course, that’s the “why” question that God doesn’t answer. So, what can we take from this story that we can apply to our lives today? I have thought of three takeaways.

One lesson we can take is that our perspectives are limited in comparison to God’s perspective. I know that sounds obvious, but we sometimes forget obvious things. We forget how broad and deep God’s perspective is. God is everywhere in the universe. God is present and aware of everything that happens, everywhere, every second, from right here to the farthest reaches of the universe. Our minds literally cannot conceive how vast God’s awareness is. I believe that God not only knows everything that is happening all the time everywhere in the whole universe, but that God also knows every possible future happening. In every instant in time there are multiple possibilities of what might happen next. This is very basic but later today you will make choices about how you will spend your afternoon. God knows all the potential choices you might make. That’s just one example of how much God knows. We often speak of how God is all knowing. That means that God knows all that can be known, including all the possible futures that might unfold based on the choices we make or the random events that happen. It just boggles the mind. Because God knows everything that is happening in the universe and everything that might happen in the future, God’s perspective is total and clear, without confusion. This is good news for us. Whatever happens to us, good or bad, and whatever choices we make or others make for us, God knows about it, God knows what might happen next, and God, through the Spirit, is always present and trying to influence each of us to make the best possible choice and respond to what happens to us in the best possible way, so that the best possible outcome manifests itself. What I am trying to say is one of the lessons we learn from the book of Job is that we don’t know the whole picture, or why things happen, or what might happen in the future, but God does know, and God is always at work to influence the best possible outcome in every situation.

Here’s a second takeaway. Even in times of great loss and suffering, God is with us. When we are faced with the reality that there is so much of our life that we cannot control, that life happens to us, that situations are inflicted on us, nevertheless, God sustains us. That’s maybe the biggest lesson Job learned and it’s a lesson that we can hold on to. It is this lesson that keeps our chins up, that empowers us to keep moving forward instead of collapsing into despair or bitterness, or become frozen in fear. To claim this lesson that no matter what God is with us and sustains us, provides for us what we need moment by moment, this is what helps us be resilient when life gets hard. With God, we can get through anything. That is good news.

Finally, a lesson we can take from Job is that healing and restoration can come to us when we stop trying to figure things out and instead submit to the mysteries of life. We have to make peace with the fact that there are a lot of things that happen to us that we will never understand why it happened. We will not know the reasons for everything that happens in this life. Why did he die and not me? Why am I suffering from muscular dystrophy? Why do children suffer with cancer? Why would a white man, a U.S. citizen, feel so threatened by Jews that he feels the need to get a semi-automatic rifle and go in and shoot a bunch of people gathered in a synagogue? There are a lot of questions that we will not get answered. And even if we did, how does that help? The pain remains. The suffering, the brokenness, the sorrow and grief, none of that goes away when “why” questions are answered. God doesn’t go away either. God is still in relationship with us, still providing for us, sustaining life. For that we can be grateful. We can be grateful for those people in our lives who can be with us like God is with us…no matter what. In times of suffering, loss, tragedy and grief, we don’t need answers. We need friends. If you are suffering today, please know that you are not alone. God is with you. And hopefully you have friends who will stand with you. Do you know someone who is suffering? How can you let them know that you are there for them and will stick with them no matter what?

Holding the Tension

Based on Job 38:1-7

You have heard this story before. A famous person, a superstar athlete, the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, gets pulled over by the police for some moving violation. As the officer explains what the driver did wrong and starts writing up a ticket the driver says, “Hey, don’t you know who I am?” They say that with the implication that the law doesn’t really apply to them, or they deserve a break. It’s a power move to avoid being held accountable for their actions. I doubt if such a move works that often. But it doesn’t hurt to try I suppose.

I thought about these situations when a person with power tries to avoid answering for their actions when reading God’s response to Job’s long and anguished demand to be heard. Job wants God to answer for Godself, to be held accountable for the unjust suffering that Job has endured. As I read God’s response, I could almost hear God basically saying to Job, “Don’t you know who I am!?” God doesn’t try to justify what happened to Job. Instead, God goes on about how powerful and full of understanding God is in comparison to Job. God doesn’t deserve to be held accountable by anyone, especially Job. Who does Job think he is? Doesn’t he know who God is? At least, that’s an impression I got when reading through the passage we have before us today.

Then, look at how God’s response starts, when God says, “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?” In other words, God tells Job, “You don’t know what you are talking about.” It reminds me of what Job said to his wife after she said the only two sentences she gets in the whole book. She said, “Do you still persist in your integrity? Curse God and die.” But Job responds by saying, “You speak as any foolish woman would speak.” In other words, “You don’t know what you are talking about.” This time it’s Job who is being called a fool. Turnabout is fair play I suppose.

But let’s look closer at God’s response. As we pay attention to the questions God asks, how God frames God’s response, we may see that God’s intent was not to humiliate Job or make some power move to avoid being held accountable. As I see it, what God is attempting to do is to help Job get a bigger picture of who God is. God is stressing the truth that God relates intimately to all creation. You may remember last week, Job was feeling abandoned by everyone. His three friends were no help. They didn’t understand or sympathize, but accused Job of hiding something. Surely he was being punished for something. His friends were not consolers, but accusers. He was calling out to God but there was no response. He was alone in his suffering and misery. He was wondering, “God, where are you?” Well, God finally responds. And in these questions that God peppers Job with, God asks, “Job, where were you? Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?”

I’m not going to re-read the questions God asks. We only heard a few verses of chapter 38. If you go back and look at the whole chapter, and on through chapter 39, you will see how God’s response to Job delves into great detail about parts of creation, and how creation works, implying that God is behind it all and caring for it all, from preventing the ocean from overwhelming the dry land to feeding the birds. It was God who laid the foundation of the earth. It was God who determined how big the foundation would be. It was God who sunk the bases of the foundation into whatever is underneath the earth. Remember, we are going off the belief held in those days that the earth was a flat table. It is God that tells the clouds to rain. It is God that causes lightning bolts to fly. It is God who puts wisdom into the mind. It is God that provides food for lions and ravens.

Through all these rhetorical questions, God is making the point over and over that God intimately knows every aspect of creation. God had a hand in its making. God is present and active in every part of creation. When Job was asking his question, “Where are you, God?” God’s response is, “Everywhere!” But God isn’t just everywhere, observing everything. God is intimately engaged in everything that happens in creation, even when we don’t sense God’s presence or see God’s activity. Just because we don’t sense God’s presence doesn’t mean God isn’t there. And God is influencing every situation. God is not a passive observer but an active participant in the ongoing processes of creation throughout the entire world, indeed, the whole cosmos. This is not a power trip, of God saying, “Don’t you know who I am!?” Instead, this is a detailed account from God of how intimately engaged God is with every aspect of the creation, even to the detail of measuring the foundation, opening the clouds so rain comes down, and making sure baby ravens are fed. 

But there is something unsatisfying about God’s response to Job. Job was wondering where God was because he wanted God to answer the question of “why.” Job wanted to know from God, “Why am I suffering like this? What did I do to deserve this? Why are you doing this to me, God?” In God’s response, God does not answer Job’s “why” questions. In fact, God does what Jesus often did when people asked him a question. He responded by asking them a question. So annoying! What’s with the questions, just give me the answer! Here, God doesn’t answer Job’s questions. God does not justify God’s actions that contributed to Job’s intense suffering. God doesn’t say, “The reason why you are suffering so much is because I wanted to show Satan how pious and holy you are. At least I didn’t allow Satan to kill you.” God does not share with Job the conversation God and Satan had. The reason for Job’s suffering remains a mystery for Job, an unanswered question.

But God does make it clear that God is not only intimately present to all of creation, but also provides for creation, actively engaged in all the processes of creation, from the making of worlds to the feeding of birds. Nothing is too big or too small for God’s intimate attention. And that includes Job. God knows intimately what Job has experienced. God has sustained Job all this time that Job was railing against God and crying out in lament. God made space and gave Job the capacity to express his anger and despair. God heard every word. And God kept giving Job the breath and the voice and the brainpower he needed to keep speaking those words of anger and despair toward God. God enabled Job to cry out to God. God never made Job shut up. God never took away Job’s voice. And that is grace.

Job’s lament is justifiable. The indescribable loss and suffering he had to endure is beyond our experience, and for that we can be grateful. Gratitude is what God is trying to remind Job of as God offers the long-awaited response. When considering the vastness of God’s creative work, and how God is present and active in all of it, even in our own lives, is something to be grateful for. Sometimes, life is simply brutal. Although not at the same level as Job, we experience times of devastating loss. We are confronted with a terrible illness that sends us to the hospital, and perhaps even prompts us to consider the real possibility of our own death. There are times in our personal life, our family, and in our community and nation, where lament is called for. Our whole nation entered into a time of lament after the attacks on 9/11. But in our collective grief over all that was lost that September day, not only the loss of life but the loss of our sense of security, there was also much that prompted gratitude. People lined up to give blood. Outpourings of support for the emergency workers in New York City gave them a bit of relief. We saw so much of the best of our common humanity in the days and months after. God was in the midst of all of that, prompting, influencing, making possible, all the individual acts of kindness, support, and healing. What we experienced then, Job was being encouraged to do by God, which was to hold together the tension of lament and gratitude; naming the hurt, crying out with sorrow, even rage, but also being grateful: for community, for life, for the rising of the sun and the calming grace of a full moon, the brilliant show of a lightening filled sky, the sparrows flitting around the bird feeder, the bees getting heavy with pollen from the sunflowers, all made possible by God’s hand. The holding together of lament and gratitude: there is wisdom in that.

Rather than brush Job off as a foolish man, God not only responds to Job but responds in a way that helps Job gain understanding and wisdom about God and how God relates intimately with all of creation, tending and caring for every bit of it, even in times of great loss. God is not absent. God is intimately present. That’s what God is telling Job, without answering Job’s question of “why.” When it came to answering Job’s question, “Why did I have to suffer for no good reason?” God does not answer the question. The mystery of why bad things happen to good people, of why God allows evil and suffering to happen, remains an unsolved mystery. The ancient mystery of theodicy, if God is all powerful and all loving, then why is there evil, is an unsolved mystery in the book of Job. God shifts the focus away from “why” questions and instead focuses on God’s intimate knowledge, loving care, and constant presence in all of creation. God shifts the focus away from the question of “why” and instead moves us to wonder, awe, gratitude, and praise.

How does Job respond to God’s response? That’s for next week’s sermon. What is your response? What do you lament today? What are you grateful for? Let’s take a moment and have a conversation with God. We know that God is with us. So, in the quiet of your heart, speak to God what you lament today. And then speak to God what you are grateful for today…