Being Blown Away

This can be listened to here

Gate Pa – Year B, 30^th Sunday in Ordinary Time, 2021

Readings:

Psalm                         Psalm 34:1-8

First Reading:               Job 42:1-6, 10-17                               

Second Reading:          Hebrews 7:23-28                               

Gospel:                          Mark 10:46-52     

What I want to say:

John continues to explore what God was up to with Jesus. One way of answering that is that Jesus is like God and God is like Jesus – what does that do to your thinking about the life of faith.

Job invites us to hold lightly all that we think we know about God and to find comfort in the uncertainty. And then to live in hope.

Reminds me of Mark 1:15 – let your mind be blown

Bartimaeus comes at end of central section turns the story towards Jerusalem and highlights disciples’ blindness

Their minds have not been blown yet, they have not been re-oriented by Jesus and are still trying to use their old formulas to understand what is going on

On contrast Bartimaeus not only has his physical sight restored, but acts as true disciple, leaving all he had of any worth to follow Jesus up to Jerusalem and the cross

What I want to happen: 

Invite us to be like Job and Bartimaeus, who leave behind all their certainties about God’s actions, and courageously live simply knowing that God is faithful. What does it mean for us to be true disciples today?

What are we being invited to leave behind, and where might we follow Jesus to?

The Sermon

       1.     Introduction:

I love the book of Job. I think it is one of my favourite books in the Bible. It is part of a group of books called the wisdom literature. These include Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations, some of the Psalms, Job, and some other bits and pieces.

These books are based on the writers’ observation of life rather than divine revelation (prophets), or the story of God’s interactions (History books); particularly their observation of  when old answers no longer work and when evil and misfortune occurs with no apparent cause. What is the meaning of life when God is no longer playing by the rules and is seemingly absent?

James Crenshaw describes this as

“a change in God seems to have occurred:  Human constancy is met with divine inconsistency, faithfulness with fickleness. Faced with this new situation, the believer struggles to grasp the meaning of the new face of God and to recapture the previous relationship of mutual trust. This religious quest to understand the experience of God-forsakenness.”

How do we live in relation to God and to each other is such times? These books offer a whole variety of answers which is significant. They invite us to hold lightly to all we think we know about God.

In these uncertain times with Covid- 19, climate change, and struggling churches, I can’t think of a more important set of books.

        2.     Job

As we have heard over the last two Sundays Job discovers that no answer is ever adequate because God is beyond our understanding. This week Job is told that his crime was not that he questioned God or the old formulas about God, but that he used those old formula while questioning God.

Those formulae provide the theology of much of the Old Testament and were all pervasive in the time of Jesus. They still are today. Everyone knew that because God is moral and just God rewards the moral and just with long life, many sons, health and wealth. And God punishes those who are immoral and unjust. As we saw in the conversation around the rich man’s dialogue with Jesus about inheriting eternal life, the wealthy were seen as rewarded by God and the poor and sick as punished by God. To be honest that is still taught today in too many churches. So, Jesus’ comments about how hard it is for the rich to enter heaven shocked. They still do today in some quarters.

These old ways of seeing God might even be seen to be in play in how some of Job is translated.

Job 42:6 is one of the, if not the most, contested verses in the Hebrew Scriptures. The NRSV translates this as “therefore, I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” This translation almost affirms the old theology. But it is disputed by many scholars.

Other translations offered (and talked about in the Working Preacher podcast for this week) include “I retract my words and repent of dust and ashes.” Job just let’s go of all the old ways of understanding the ways of God, even repenting in dust and ashes. Another is “I withdraw my case and am finally comforted” More than letting go Job finds comfort in the unknowing.

Job finishes with everything restored, which has just felt wrong to me and many others. But maybe this is not God going back to the old ways, but Job, comforted and now at ease with God, courageously re-embracing life and having the courage to start again. You don’t get ten more children without some effort, and some hope for the future. And God chooses to bless Job, not because God must, but because God can.

I wonder in what ways might we be invited to be at ease with not knowing and still courageously embracing life? What does that even mean for us?

       3.     Mark’s story

The story we heard from Mark is a really important story. It comes at the end of the central section and acts as a pivot. It began in chapter 8 when Jesus heals a blind man brought to him by others. This first takes two attempts to heal him; people look like trees moving around after the first attempt. Then Jesus teaches about his upcoming death and resurrection three times. The first leads to a heated conversation with Peter, the second to Jesus wondering what his disciples were talking about in response and finding they were discussing who was the greatest, and Jesus teaches about being a servant. There is the Transfiguration, other healings, some tricky questions about divorce and Jesus blessing some little children. Then two stories just before what we have heard.

In the first a rich man asks about what he must do to inherit eternal life? And at the end of the conversation Jesus invites him to “Go sell all you have and give to the poor and come follow me”. But the rich man can’t, and leaves dismayed. Which leads to teaching about the rich and eyes of needles. Hold that story in your minds for a moment.

Then, after Jesus again teaches about his upcoming death and resurrection James and John ask for a favour, to which Jesus replies “What do you want me to do for you?” And they think they ask for seats of power.

All this time Jesus has come closer to Jerusalem. Now, as Jesus is leaving A blind man, Bartimaeus calls out “Jesus, son of David have mercy on me.” The title used for the first time, on the lips of an outcast. It will be used again as Jesus enters Jerusalem, and mockingly alluded to above his head as he is crucified. The crowd shush him, but he will have none of it. Then Jesus calls him. Bartimaeus leaps up and leaves his one valued possession behind, his cloak. Jesus asks, “What do you want me to do for you?”  Exactly the same question Jesus asked James and John. But Bartimaeus simply asks to see. Unlike all who have gone before in this central section, he then follows Jesus on the road to Jerusalem and all that will happen there. He is the model of try discipleship. He alone can see.

       4.     Mind Blowing

Mark began his gospel with, “Now is the time! Here comes God’s kingdom! Let that blow your mind and change your hearts and lives. And trust this good news!” (Mark 1:15). The rest of the beginning of the good news about Jesus Christ, God’s Son, (Mark’s Gospel) is about the disciples struggling with all that is happening, and having their minds blown. It takes a while before they are re-orientated to what Jesus is asking. Bartimaeus embraces it immediately. His mind is blown, and he can see, changing his hearts and life. He let go all he thought he knew and expected of God. And found God in this Galilean rabbi

1. What do these stories offer us in these uncertain and troubling times? 
2. In what ways are we like the disciples, or even Job’s unhelpful friends, locked into old ways of thinking and unable to see what Jesus is on about?
3. What does it mean for us to be like Bartimaeus, true disciples, today?
4. What are we being invited to leave behind, and where might we follow Jesus to?