Having our Minds Blown

Last week I asked, “what do we think God was up to in Jesus?” and “what does that say about God?”  These are the questions at the heart of each of the gospels, and the whole New Testament really. This week our readings remind us that we often need to let go of our old answers before we can begin to grasp what is really being offered. Too often our old answers get in the way.

They got in the way of Job and his friends. Job knew God to be righteous, and as such rewarded the upright and punished the sinner. And Job was as upright as they came! And yet calamity had come upon him. His friends came to comfort him and ended up trying to fix his theology and pleading with him to confess his obviously many sins to end the calamity. Not great pastoral practice by the way. Job wanted none of it and demanded his time in court with God; and got it. But instead of being the prosecutor, he found himself on the end of God’s questions about creation and the meaning of life. He could not answer – he did not know how the universe runs. And then he responds… well how does he respond? Job 42:6 is probably the most contested verse to translate in the Hebrew Bible. Translators continue to struggle with it, in part because the old understandings keep popping up. Have a look in your bible. Some translations offered by commentators include, “I retract my words and repent of dust and ashes.” Or “I withdraw my case and am comforted.” Letting go is hard work.

Mark knew that when he began his gospel, “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 having their minds blown and that changing their hearts and lives. But first they too needed to let go of so much they knew and expected of God. The central section of Mark, (8:22 – 10:52) between the two stories of blind men being healed  is symbolic of this. The disciples, and we, are being healed of our blindness so that we, like Bartimaeus, might do what the rich man could not, cast off all that is precious and holds us back and follow.

So, what do we need to let go of/cast off, so that we might join Job trusting God despite the evidence, and with Bartimaeus follow on the way as disciples in these uncertain times?

The people on the podcast suggest that Hebrews offers more than one answer to that first question. With Job, it encourages us to ask the question, and to hold lightly the answers we come to. We are reminded that our understanding of the nature and way of God is in the end limited and flawed. God is God. But they are still questions we need to reflect on.

As I have said many times, the gospels address these questions through the story of Jesus; what he said and did, the people he mixed with, and his death, resurrection, and ascension. To put that more simply, Jesus is like God and God is like Jesus. As this week’s passage (Mark 10: 32-45) reminds us, these gospels are quite subversive. Jesus teaches about his upcoming death, and Jams and John respond by wanting to join Jesus in his all-powerful glory. Because surely that is what is next. God is all powerful? They are tired of being on the wrong end of power and longed to be at the head of the table. Surely following Jesus meant they would be powerful people. And they are not alone. Christians have sought that ever since. We still do. It comes through  when we read Jesus talking about serving, we read that in terms of being servants for Jesus, with Jesus the all powerful one and we being subservient to our God. And we miss what Jesus is saying. We are not so different to James and John.

The gospels offer a powerless God who in love for creation and for all humanity dies as a nobody on a cross, the symbol of absolute rejection and humiliation. Jesus teaches this is God at work. In this story he teaches that the Human One (Son of Man) does not come to be served but to serve. (10.45) God is powerless. God serves. Do we talk about God in that kind of way? But that is what Jesus is saying, and we are invited to join with God in Jesus. In this way God is faithful and breaks the powers that hold creation ransom, and frees creation so that life in all its forms, sustained by love, can flourish in right relationship with God, each other, and all of creation.  So who is God and what do you think this God is up to in Jesus?