Sermon for October 29th 2006

Our service today included a Baptism and the Liturgy of Remembrance for the Saints who have preceded us in death over the past year ... The Children's Story was a reflection on the Mikvah that was common in Jesus day and how the process of bathing, changing one's clothes generally cleansing one's self to stand before God would be incredibly inconvenient if we had to do it every single time we walked into Church ... I mused that perhaps that was Jesus' and John's points when they brought into being the liturgy of Baptism. Maybe they wanted us be "cleaned" once and for all, and to draw into God's presence how we are, worrying more about being before God and less about what we look like ... (there's a place for being clean)

Then I offered the following as my reflection for the day ... some of my thoughts behind it will appear later in The Prairie Preacher Blog ...

For now - Shalom,

October 29th 2006

In the Old Testament – the Hebrew Scriptures there is a particular way of referring to God. There is much controversy around this simple four letter rendering of the name of God.

It is called the tetragrammaton – In the Hebrew texts it is the letters - Yod-Heh-Vav-Heh. To the writers of the King James Bible this word became Jehovah. In modern translations it has become Yahweh or The Lord. To those of the Jewish faith it is the one word that is never pronounced – in Temple readings the Rabbi will say something like “Blessed be the name …” or “HaShem” instead.

It is a word that is unutterable - the four consonants of the Name of God in Hebrew Scriptures are regarded as beyond our ability to speak them … So silence is used instead.

I offer this today because this is the context into which our readings from both the Book of Job and the Gospel of Mark arise … We have a dominant culture in which God is regarded as something WHOLLY other – a divine entity that is OUT THERE somewhere. And then we open the book of Job.

The story of Job is familiar. One day God and some of the inhabitants of heaven have a side bet about whether faithful old Job would still be faithful if he lost everything and was rendered poor and destitute. The text continues that even after Job loses everything, even after his wife tells him to simply curse God and die, even after his well intentioned friends come to challenge and question him – JOB stays faithful. But then as the book ends – God – Yahweh – HaShem wades in and confronts Job in person.

How dare you ??? Is the essence of God’s confrontation of Job … “were you there when ??? How dare you question me you little worm??” Thunders God … and Job for his part cowers and says – “oops, I was wrong to question God …”

And Job has his life restored and resurrected …

I’m partial to the last few chapters of the Book of Job. The words attributed to God are words that remind us of the awesome grandeur and splendour of Creation, but more than that, the words attributed to God remind us to look beyond the “woe is” me of the moment.

There can be little doubt that Job suffered. He lost his wealth, his health, his family – he lost everything. There is no way, nor any reason to diminish those losses – but sometimes what we need to do and be about is taking stock of what we STILL have.

It would be easy today to say – “oh great – there’s a winter storm warning for tomorrow …” and work ourselves into a lather about it. OR, we can take stock of our day and put on a pot of tea, get a good book, turn up the heat a notch and simply make the best of it …

At the end of the day, it’s about having the courage to look beyond the moment and re-prioritize and re-value what we have and take stock of what we still have, while not fretting over what we may lack, or that which we may have lost.

Job eventually did that … before the harsh words of God – the unapproachable entity who stepped into the moment – Job took stock of things and said – I know that you are all powerful:
what you conceive, you can perform.
I was the man who misrepresented your intentions
with my ignorant words. You have told me about great works
that I cannot understand,
about marvels which are beyond me, of which I know nothing.
Before, I knew you only by hearsay
but now, having seen you with my own eyes,
I retract what I have said, and repent in dust and ashes …

Powerful words … words of one who has struggled with suffering and loss and come to a place of acceptance of life in its fullness … it doesn’t make loss and struggle and suffering acceptable – but it reminds us that such things are part of life, and our call of faith is to not simply ignore such things, but to be there to care for each other when we encounter losses, struggles and suffering …

This theme is picked up in our Gospel reading when Jesus and his disciples are hurrying from one place to another and a blind beggar calls out … “Rabboni !! What about me?” he calls … The crowd was protective of Jesus and told the man to be quiet, and not to disturb the rabbi. But the blind man was persistent. He raised his voice – he called louder and Jesus heard him and stopped and healed him …

I like to regard this story in a metaphorical way. I’ve seen miracles. I’ve watched amazed as prayers for healing have answered. BUT, I’ve also been in places where prayers for healing have seemed to fall on deaf ears and gone unanswered.

I’m uneasy praying to God that someone would be healed, or would recover, or would experience the miraculous. It is setting us up for failure. It is setting us up for disappointment.
My hackles go up when I hear people say – “I’ll pray for you …” If the prayers seem to go unanswered, what does this say to us about our faith …

Instead I feel strongly that we pray that God’s presence and courage and strength be with us and with those we are remembering in prayer. We entrust our concerns into God’s keeping, knowing that miracles DO happen, but a miracle is NOT, and never has been a reward for faith.

Miracles are simply that – miracles.

The lesson in our story of the blind man on the side of the road is that motion of his eyes being opened, and him rising up and following Jesus …

Could the answer to our prayers be the opening of our eyes and our hearts and our souls to the FULL presence of the HOLY (of God) in our lives and our worlds, and to have the courage to receive, accept and live that Grace without fear … ???

Could the answer to our prayers, be the opening our being to the very presence of God in our lives and in creation and trusting God to be with us even in the long dark moments of loss, struggle and suffering??

Job called out to God and was transformed … and in time he rebuilt his life … Bartimaeus, sitting on the side of the road called out to Jesus and was transformed … and in time he rebuilt his life …

Is there a lesson there for us ???

Do we dare to call out to God, not looking for selfish things, but looking for, yearning for, calling for the presence of the Holy that will allow us to be transformed ??

Do we dare even ask ?? Perhaps it is in asking God to be present in our lives that we experience the greatest transformation of all … When we ask, we begin to live the words – “we are NOT alone …”

May it be so – thanks be to God …
Let us pray …