Homily: October 28:Ordinary Time
Proper 25 – Supply at Our Savior
Preface
Let me open with a somber disclaimer. I had prepared this homily before we heard news about the massacre in a synagogue in Pittsburgh. We seem to be living in a time when violent and angry events dominate and are escalating daily. The worst anti-semitic act in American History is a deeply alarming event that demands a response from us. I considered scrapping my homily and just speaking to the Tree of Life Congregation massacre. This homily starts from a description of a senseless collection of violence and evil and moves in stages to evoking the Glory that only God can bring. I decided that the best course of action was to let my originalprepared homily be my initial first response to yesterday’s news.
Conclusion of misunderstood OT book – Job
This week we come to the end of a series of four readings from the book of Job. We have also had during this time readings from the letter to the Hebrews and we will have several more from that letter before we are done with it for the time being.
I want to look for a moment at this first reading – the book of Job. It is a notoriously misunderstood book in the bible. I think unfortunately not appreciated in its entirety from beginning to end. And today I think it has a message for us as this congregation turns to a new chapter in your corporate life together.
We heard the first reading from Job on Oct. 7, the last time I was at Our Savior but we didn’t have a sermon that day - the young people focused on St. Francis. They did a magnificent job by the way. But it meant I didn’t have a chance to say anything about Job. I probably would have.
The book is in form a narrative – like a short story. It has a beginning, an ending, and the words and actions of a series of characters in between.
Nowhere in the lectionary that I’m aware of do we hear from the opening pages of Job. They are perplexing. They don’t fit very nicely into the theology of the rest of the Bible. And it portrays God in a not so nice sort of way. God is portrayed as a character who is more than happy to absolutely ruin Job’s life and allow a bunch of folks to die – all for the sake of a bet he has with one of his circle of counselors. The bet is, essentially, that Job is only faithful because he has had such a good life.
In the space of a single day Job loses all his wealth, his servants all die, and 10 of his children die. After the terrible events that ruin Job’s life, he sits shiva with his “friends”.
“In the Book of Job, it was stated that Job mourned his misfortune for seven days. During this time, he sat on the ground with his friends surrounding him.[Job 2:13] This account bears similarities to the maintained tradition of “sitting shiva” for precisely seven days.” [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva_(Judaism)
After a time of mourning when words were not really possible, 3 friends of Job begin to try to “comfort him” with words of explanation for how such horrible evil could happen to Job. The biggest part of the book is this series of friends arguing with Job – trying to comfort him. We don’t read those passages in church. I think we avoid them because they sound like words that you and I have heard and hear in church all the time.
What follows Job’s great loss then is a series of arguments that Job’s friends have with him about the true meaning of his catastrophe.
- people get what they deserve
- Perhaps it was Job’s ancestor’s who sinned
- God is just and Job must have done something to offend God
Then, for the last 2 weeks we have heard from ch. 38 – specifically from a shadowy figure towards the end of the book (of Job) – the character Elihu.
Elihu was one of Job’s friends — not one of the three who had come to comfort Job at the beginning of the book, but one who arrives later and offers the last and longest single speech to Job. … In Job 32—37 Elihu offers a response to Job that lifts up the Lord, condemns Job’s three friends, and rightly confronts Job. ref
… Elihu condemns Job’s friends and Job’s claim of being without sin, declares God’s justice, condemns Job’s attitude toward God, and exalts God’s greatness. Elihu’s four-part speech is followed by God breaking His silence to directly answer Job.
Then we hear from God!
That’s where we are today. God rather harangues Job for his insolent back-talking. Or, at least, he harangues Job to get his attention. He says to Job, “Hey, I’ve got this covered. I’m God. You’re not. It’s gonna be just fine – but it’s going to be beyond your understanding.”
What I want to pay attention to today is the overall structure of the narrative.
One way of looking at Job is as a snapshot of a period of loss, mourning, and redcemption. A classic sort of rite of passage Job suffers as big a loss as one could without also dying. He goes through a long period of asking, “What is God doing? I mean really?” And then God touches him, speaks to him in a way that he can recognize. And he knows that God is God.
What I suggest to you is that you have gone through a kind of mini-version of that process during this time between rectors. A time that is coming to an end even as we speak.
Rite of Passage at Our Savior
You as a congregation are coming to the end of an important time in your life. I understand that your new rector is already in town and her first Sunday will be next Sunday. You have spent a period of time in between rectors. A big chunk of the year 2018 has been spent in between. I spend some time in my classes on religion emphasizing the importance of in between times. They are formally referred to in religious studies as liminal time. It is the time when you have stopped one period of your life but have not yet begun the next period.
The bulk of the book of Job is a liminal time.
It turns out that liminal times are particularly important. In its simplest way I think of it as a time when God has a particularly easy time of making a mark in our lives. God is certainly always present and some of us are more keenly aware other times of absence and others times of presence. But liminal times are typically times when God gets through to us as God got through to Job at the end of his liminal time.
For example the transition from childhood to adult hood is a classic time that human beings have marked with ritual actions the liminal time when one becomes the next stage. Classically for boys on the way to becoming men it’s a time when their voice cracks. It’s no longer a child’s voice but not yet a man’s voice. For a long time I have looked back at that period as the time when I first became aware of God calling me to ministry.
It’s also the nine months of pregnancy. There is the time before pregnancy and the time after but that in between time, that’s a remarkable time. It’s – well – a pregnant time.
My own experience has been that another very important in between time is the funeral or memorial service at the time of death. Like Job. Although the death has happened there is still an almost tangible presence of the person and afterwords one has at least in some sense said goodbye.
What I am aware of however is that funerals are a very important time when God is at work in peoples lives. They are open to it. They are vulnerable. They are open to God‘s touch.
You have spent the last 9 months in an in between state. There has been an ending. You have had a rather short liminal period. And you are about to begin a new something.
Typical for parish in transition:
- the shock of ending
- What did we do wrong?
- Taking stock of who we are (profile)
- Hope and expectation for redemption
- Often in my experience, a congregation discovers a wealth of talent and energy that is not connected to clergy. A kind of wow, we can do this.
- all too often that is forgotten as soon as the priest shows up
- Often there is an uptick of prayer, of spiritual life, of experiencing the nearness of God’s work
Jesus Prayer cf. Gospel
Jesus message to us in the pivotal passage in the gospel of Mark today provides my suggestion to you as a congregation. I’m tempted to try to make it my charge to you. Pray. Pray. Pray.
Bartimaeus has heard that Jesus is coming to town and he cries out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” And of course Jesus does. This passage has been used in the Orthodox tradition as a formulaic prayer that can be repeated throughout one’s day so as to fulfill Paul’s command to pray without ceasing. It is known as the Jesus Prayer.
Pray without ceasing, expecting God to speak to you – whether it’s a booming voice as he seems to speak in the book of Job or it’s a still small voice as he did to Elijah, but pray, pray, pray.
All Saints
This week is All Saints Day. You will celebrate next Sunday with your new rector.
- let it be a celebration of your renewal of prayer life
- let it be an empowerment of the resources you have found within yourselves
- May it be a suitable conclusion of this in-between time at Our Savior
And with the prayer for All Saints Day I conclude:
Almighty God, you have knit together your elect in one communion and fellowship in the mystical body of your Son Christ our Lord: Give us grace so to follow your blessed saints in all virtuous and godly living, that we may come to those ineffable joys that you have prepared for those who truly love you; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.
Appendix
- increase in us the gifts of faith, hope, and charity
- And Job died, old and full of days
- For it was fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, blameless, undefiled, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens
- Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar
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