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Pentecost 19 Proper 22B October 3, 2021

Posted on October 3, 2021 by Beth Crane

Job 1:1; 2:1-10
Psalm 26
Hebrews 1:1-4; 2:5-12
Mark 10:2-16

Our opening reading today is from the Book of Job. Job is a good person of deep faith. He has a loving family and is well off financially. He is respected as a person who is just and compassionate. People seek his counsel. Satan, who in those times was seen as a kind of prosecuting attorney, feels that, if Job had a few challenges thrown his way, his faith would quickly evaporate, and he would curse God.

In the portion of the first chapter which has been omitted, several disasters have already occurred. The Sabeans captured Job’s oxen and donkeys and killed the servants who took care of them; a fire burned up the sheep and the shepherds, and the Chaldeans captured the camels and killed the camel drivers. Worst of all, a huge wind came across the desert, collapsed the house, and killed Job’s seven sons and three daughters.

In our passage for today, Job is stricken with sores that cover his entire body. In those days, such a skin condition was considered to be leprosy, so he is now ritually unclean and an outcast. As we look in on the scene, he is scratching his sores with a piece of broken pottery. His wife encourages him to abandon his integrity, curse God, and die. But Job will not abandon his faith. He says that we have to receive the bad that comes from the hand of God as well as the good.

We will be reading the Book of Job for three more Sundays. Does God send bad things for us to suffer? Just a few weeks ago, we read from the Letter of James, “Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift is from above, from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”In commenting on this passage, Beverly Gaventa says, “The writer insists that good gifts (and not temptations) come from God.” (Gaventa, Texts for Preaching, p.490.

We live in a fallen creation that is not operating in the way God would want it to operate. God’s shalom is not yet here. We are all working to build God’s kingdom of peace, harmony, and love. In Biblical times, people believed that good things happened to good people and bad things happened to bad people. As Christians, we know that that is not true. All we have to do is to look at the cross.

As we read the Book of Job, we will be asking questions such as, why do some people maintain their integrity even in the midst of hardship and suffering? Why do some people have faith that seems unshakeable?  Why do bad things happen to good people? Rabbi Harold Kushner wrote a wonderful book responding to that question. Thus far, Job has lost his children and all of his possessions. He now has leprosy and is an outcast. But he still will not curse God.

In our reading from the Letter to the Hebrews, the unknown writer, a person of deep faith, tells us that God has “spoken to us by a Son.”  Of the Son, the writer says,”He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being.” Jesus, the eternal Word, is God walking among us. The writer wonders why God would even care about us, but we know that God cares so much that God comes among us. The risen Christ is in the midst of us now, leading and guiding us. When we have times of suffering, we can look to him. He went through the worst experience possible, and through that experience he gave us new life. He made us his brothers and sisters.

In our gospel for today, our lord is facing the Pharisees, and they are asking him a question, not because they want to learn, but because they want to trip him up. Back in those times, a man could divorce his wife for something very trivial. She burned the supper or he didn’t like the way she kept house. A woman could not divorce a man even if he beat her. Women and children were chattel, objects, less than human.

Jesus presents an idea of marriage as a relationship between two people, two human beings, who become so close that they are like one flesh. That is the ideal we are all aiming for. However, there are cases in which a person is not able to keep his or her marriage vows. Domestic violence is one instance of this. There are valid reasons for the dissolution of a marriage. In this gospel passage, Jesus is raising marriage to its proper level as a partnership between two precious and beloved human beings. That is revolutionary thinking for his time.

But the next portion of the gospel is also revolutionary. Little children are trying to come to see Jesus. People want Jesus to touch these little ones. In those times, children were chattel, possessions, objects, expendable. Men did not pay attention to children in those times. That was women’s work. Children were considered a nuisance. They were at the bottom of the social scale. The disciples are trying to keep the children away. They are scolding the children.

And Jesus says something that turns the world upside down: “Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.”

Little children are open, receptive, trusting. That’s how we need to be with God. Open and receptive. Open to God’s love and joy and peace and healing. Listening carefully for the voice of Jesus, our Good Shepherd, calling us, leading and guiding us. Trusting in the power of the Spirit and the grace of God. 

Jesus, our Good Shepherd, lead us to those still waters and those green pastures where we may be still and know that you are God. Give us grace to build your kingdom of love and peace, in the power of the Spirit. In your holy Name we pray. Amen. 

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Pentecost 20 Proper 22B RCL October 7, 2018

Posted on October 7, 2018 by Beth Crane

Job 1:1; 2:1-10
Psalm 26
Hebrews 1:1-4; 2:5-12
Mark 10:2-16

In our opening reading this morning, we are looking in at a meeting of the heavenly beings. God points out a man named Job, who is faithful to God and chooses good over evil. Satan, who at that time in history was seen as a kind of prosecuting attorney, challenges God. Satan is certain that, if forced to endure all kinds of challenges and tragedies, Job will eventually curse God. So God gives Satan permission to visit these trials upon Job.

Our reading ends with the very sad picture of Job sitting in ashes with sores all over his body. Job’s wife tells him to give up his integrity, curse God, and die. Job refuses to do so. In the course of doing that, he insults his wife’s intelligence, revealing the sexist views of his time. Women were considered to be less intelligent than men. But we must remember that the book was written about twenty-five hundred years ago. Let’s hope that we have made some progress on that issue.

Back in those times and even now, there is a belief that, if we trust in God and do God’s will, we will be healthy, wealthy, and wise. If we are faithful, we will be prosperous. This belief can be summarized as good things happen to good people; bad things happen to bad people.

Such beliefs fall under what I call BT, Bad Theology. We have only to look at the life of our Lord to see that good people indeed suffer. Jesus endured the worst possible death and humiliation that anyone could suffer in his time.  Many of God’s most faithful servants have faced great difficulties. Yesterday in our calendar, we remembered William Tyndale, who was killed for translating the Bible into English!

Job loses all his many possessions; his family and friends desert him, except for some so-called friends who spout Bad Theology to him, adding to his suffering. People laugh at him. Where once he was sought out for advice and counsel, people avoid him. And still he will not curse God. He will not abandon his faith. He will not give up hope. The Book of Job does not solve the problem of evil, but it does assure us that bad things happen to good people and that just because someone has great riches and power does not mean that that person is following God.

We live in a fallen creation. This world us not operating in the way that God would want it to. At the center of our faith is a cross, and, as we look upon that cross, we realize how far this world is from what God would call it to be. On that cross, some very powerful humans tried to kill the love of God.

We had another clergy conference this week on racial reconciliation. One of the books we were asked to read was White Like Me by Tim Wise. Tim is the son of a Jewish father and a Christian mother. He is white. He grew up in Nashville, and, for some reason, he had more African-American friends in school than white friends, that is, up through middle school. In middle school, he noticed that the classes were supposedly arranged according to ability, but the white students ended up in the accelerated classes and the African-American children ended up in the slower classes, no matter how intelligent they were.

When he got to high school, the system became even more rigid. There were college-bound tracks and vocational tracks. No African-American young people ended up in the college-bound tracks. At one point, early in high school, one of Tim’s closest African-American friends tells Tim that he will no longer speak to him because they are in different worlds. Simply because he was white, Tim had opportunities that students of color did not have.  When it comes to issues of race and gender and class, we are not on a level playing field.

In our gospel for today, the Pharisees ask one of those questions that indicate that they are not trying to learn anything; they are trying to trick Jesus.  In Jesus’ time, it was lawful for a man to divorce his wife for the most minor reason. He could divorce her if he didn’t like her cooking or if she didn’t keep house the way he wanted her to. The woman, on the other hand, did not have the same rights. She was his property. It was almost impossible for a woman to get a divorce for any reason.

In order to be responsible interpreters of the Bible, we must pause and say that when our Church barred divorced persons from receiving Communion, that was a misuse of Scripture. There are times when divorce or annulment of a marriage is warranted. Domestic violence is real, and it kills marriages. Also, some people can appear to be capable of holding up their end of a marriage commitment but, as time goes on, it becomes apparent that they do not possess that ability.

Jesus is telling us that marriage is a lifelong commitment, and he is also telling us not to treat any human beings as property. The reason we know this is that Jesus tells the disciples to let the children come to him. It is hard for us to believe, but in those days, children were chattel, possessions, and, worse, they were almost considered dispensable. 

A man of that time and culture would not spend time with children. He was too busy going about important business to waste his time with a little child. That was women’s work.

Yet our Lord takes these little ones and cherishes them. And he tells us that we need to receive his kingdom with childlike openness and wonder and trust and faith. As we read the Book of Job, we can see that Job has that almost childlike faith. He will not give up on God. He trusts God.

Our Lord is also calling us to treat the most vulnerable among us with the same love and respect with which he treated those children.  Amen.

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Pentecost 19 Proper 22B RCL October 4, 2015

Posted on October 4, 2015 by Beth Crane

Job 1:1, 2:1-10
Psalm 26
Hebrews 1:1-4, 2:5-12
Mark 10:2-16

Our opening reading is from the Book of Job. In ancient times, people believed that good things happened to good people, and bad things happened to bad people. Even today, we see vestiges of these beliefs. If something awful happens, we wonder whether we did something to cause it. If we become sick, we think about how we should have exercised more, or followed a more healthy diet. Jesus tells us that the rain falls on the just and the unjust.

When his three year old son was diagnosed with a degenerative disease, Rabbi Harold Kushner wrote the wise book, When Bad things Happen to Good People. His thoughtful and prayerful struggle with this issue has helped millions of people.

In our reading, we learn that Job is a good man. But Satan, the adversary, the prosecuting attorney in the heavenly circles, is certain that, if God will allow him to afflict Job with bodily suffering, Job will lose his faith and curse God. We will be following his story for the next few weeks.

We all know how easy it is to have faith and hope and love when all is going well. But what happens to us when everything seems to go wrong? What happens to our faith? That is the question we will be looking at as we walk with Job.

The Letter to the Hebrews was written to inspire Jewish Christians in the early days of the faith. Their journey was not easy. They had left the established faith for what appeared to be a little splinter group. In our lesson for today, we read the words, speaking of Jesus, “He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word.”

Jesus was fully human, and he was fully divine. To put it more simply, Jesus was God walking the face of the earth. He has told us that he will be with us always, and he will be with us every step of the way. In fact he leads us because he is our Good Shepherd. This is good news indeed. Jesus is with us at this very moment, leading us and guiding us.

In our gospel, the Pharisees are trying to trip Jesus up. They ask one of those questions which is not really seeking knowledge. “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” In Jesus’ time, a man could divorce his wife for almost any reason, for example,  if he dd not like her cooking or  if he did not like the way she kept the house. Women were viewed as chattel, possessions. Like a piece of furniture or perhaps like a prized cow.

Women could not divorce their husbands, even if they were being beaten.

In this context, Jesus asks the Pharisees a question. “What does Moses say?” Moses allows a man to write a certificate of divorce. If a man wrote a certificate of divorce for his wife and her family did not take her in, she was forced to live out on the street earning her living any way that she could, often by prostitution.

And then Jesus says that Moses allowed for a certificate of divorce because marriage was not being taken seriously enough. He puts marriage on an entirely different, and higher, plane than his culture envisioned. Jesus describes marriage as a deep relationship of mutuality between two people. He is transforming marriage from a situation of a man owning property to a mutual relationship. Under the laws of his time, men were divorcing their wives just because they got tired of them and were marrying other women. In Jesus’ opinion, that amounted to adultery. Unfortunately, the Church sometimes takes things out of context, and  there was a time when people who had taken their marriages very seriously and were divorced for valid reasons were kept from receiving Communion. Thanks be to God, those days are past.

When our Lord takes the little children into his arms, he is carrying out another revolution. In those days, babies and children were not valued. Men did not spend time with children. That was considered a waste of time. By taking these little ones into his arms, and by saying what he has said about marriage, Jesus is telling us that everyone is precious. Women and children are people, too. God loves and values everyone. Everyone is of infinite value in the eyes of God.

Making the commitment of marriage and keeping it is not an easy thing. Nowadays, we know that there is such a thing as domestic violence, which can tear marriages and families to shreds. We know that there are mental illnesses which make it impossible for persons to have the ability to make and keep a commitment. These things were unknown in Jesus’ time. The fact that the Church kept people from Communion when they most needed reassurances of God’s love and the comfort of a faith community is very sad.

Though our gospel is about marriage, it also applies to other relationships, including friendships, our ties with colleagues at work, and the love that binds us together as a parish family. In all these relationships, we are called to value each other, to keep our promises, to be honest, and to support each other.

Jesus reminds us today that no one is inferior to anyone else. He calls us to approach him and each other with the openness and trust of little children.  Amen.

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