Are You Able?
Job 38:1-7
Mark 10:35-45
Brock Babb, 40, Evansville, IN
Johnny Craver, 37,
McKinney, TX
Joshua Deese, 25, North Carolina
Joshua Hines, 26, Olney,
IL
Joseph Kane, 35, Darby, PA
Charles King, 48, Cleveland
Timothy
Lauer, 25, Saegertown, PA
Jonathan Lootens, 25, Lyons, NY
Keith Moore, 28,
San Francisco
Jonathan Simpson, 25, Rockport, TX
Each morning as I work my way through The New York Times
over a cup or two of coffee, I eventually get to the pages updating the news
from Iraq and Afghanistan and every day there’s a box printed there with the
heading “Names of the Dead.” It contains the most recent names released by our
government of military personnel who will return to their families in the form
of a folded flag and a few medals. No mention is ever made of the 20,000-plus
who have so far returned injured --- many without limbs or
sanity.
Although they who release the names wish that those
sacrifices of life be invisible to the rest of us, lest they stir political
trouble, I slowly read that list every day and pay them the respect of
meditating for a moment on each name and the information given about them; their
age, their rank and unit, and the hometown and family that will miss
them.
And I wonder what kind of questions we’re able to ask
ourselves about those deaths, and whether we’re asking the right ones. Are the
questions political --- like, are they about Republicans and Democrats; liberals
versus conservatives? Global geopolitics and national self-interest? Or are the
real questions spiritual --- like,
are they about seeing ourselves as others see us; about recognizing that
we are brothers and sisters of all who share the human journey, all children of
God by whatever name that God is called, who must learn to cherish rather than
destroy one another? It’s important for the people of God to know.
An emotionally disturbed milkman with an all-too-available
gun kills some school girls in a faith community known for its pacifism; or
elsewhere a student brings a gun to school and people end up dying. . . . And I
wonder what kinds of questions we’re able to ask ourselves about those deaths,
and whether they’re the right ones. Are the questions political --- like, are
they about gun control and provision of community services that might reach the
disturbed before the disturbed reach into the dark side of their disconnected
humanity? Or are the real questions spiritual --- like, are they about what
happens to the human soul when living in a culture that assaults us with
violence day and night in the form of ‘kill-or-be-killed’ video games,
television shows and movies, the lyrics of pop music, the easy availability of
guns, the aggressive recruiting of our children to send them to war? It’s
important for the people of God to know.
Full-page newspaper ads I see from time to time show a
young mother holding the hand of a little girl. With reference to breast cancer,
the message communicates that the woman is poor and without health insurance
and, because of that, will not live to see her daughter graduate, or get married
or have her own children. And I wonder what kinds of questions we’re able to ask
ourselves about that situation and whether we’re asking the right ones. Are the questions political --- like, do
those who have governed us and prioritized our national budget in recent decades
simply not care about the health needs of those in dire poverty and the working
poor. Or are the real questions spiritual --- like, is it a matter of doing unto
others what we would want done to us; of looking into the faces of the homeless
and the hungry --- of those who have a different life story to tell than ours
--- and seeing there, if not the presence of Christ, at least another fully
human being with the same wants and needs we have? It’s important for the people of God to
know.
Asking questions --- and often the wrong questions --- is a
common theme in our lectionary readings for today.
The story of Job has its counter parts in other traditions
of the ancient Near East, some perhaps pre-dating the Hebrew version. The prose
with which the story begins reflects those influences and creates the setting
for three rounds of poetic discourse as the character of Job and three of his
friends go back and forth debating why Job --- a faithful believer in God and
prosperous, upright member of the community --- has suddenly lost almost
everything and everybody who gave meaning to his life.
Job is angry at God and demands justice from the divine
power he had always thought to be just. His friends spout all the traditional
answers which orthodox religion gives to Job’s questions, presuming to speak for
God. But Job knows that there’s nothing he’s done to deserve what happened to
him. He wants an accounting from God for his suffering and raises those
questions which come to our hearts and minds when bad things happen to good
people, when hard times come to those we feel don’t deserve them.
In today’s reading, God finally responds to Job and his
friends in the ‘voice from the whirlwind.’ God never really responds to the
questions Job has been asking. Presumably, they’ve not been the relevant
questions, however humanly logical they seem.
Bernhard Anderson, in a text widely used in undergraduate
courses entitled Understanding the Old Testament, notes that in Job the mystery
of suffering is left rationally unanswered, as it is finally unanswered in the
Bible as a whole. For the crux of the human problem, according to
“Were you around when I created the universe?” God inquires
of Job. “Do you know how all things are knitted together? From the few years of your life’s
journey are you able to see things in eternal perspective?” Job replies by
simply yielding to the wonder and the mystery of it all.
Following the recent killing of young girls in their
schoolhouse, news writer Laurie Goodstein (NYTimes) observed that the Amish
community was more resigned than angry. “They accept these tragedies,” she said,
“as the will of God, an approach to life they call yieldedness.” They quickly
knocked the schoolhouse down and plowed the site back into a field from which
new life might spring. Together they will quickly raise a new schoolhouse in a
new spot. And they quickly started a charity fund to help not only the victims’
families but also the widow of the gunman.
“This is imitation of Christ at its most naked,” said Tom
Shachtman, author of a recent book on the Amish. “If anyone is going to turn the
other cheek in our society, it’s going to be the Amish,” he said. . . . “[they]
walk the walk as much as they talk the talk.” Rather than dwelling on
unanswerable questions, perhaps irrelevant questions, they are able to draw
strength from their community of faith and simply continue on their journey and
help others make it through their journeys. Perhaps there’s much wisdom in
that.
In today’s Gospel reading we find the disciples still
unable to ask the right questions even after several years of mentoring by the
Jesus they now followed on his way to
The questions James and John ask indicate that they
expected the unveiling of God’s kingdom to be that of a triumphal kingdom
modeled along the lines of the only models they had --- kingdoms of this world
that were ruled by exercising coercive authority over others and advancing their
self-interests through the love of power rather than the power of love. And so
the only questions these disciples were yet able to ask were about being
co-chairmen of the board when Jesus took over the company.
It was such an embarrassing request, as it turned out, that
in his version of the story, Matthew has the request originate from their mother
because . . . well, you know mothers! The offense taken by other disciples after
finding out what had been asked was due only to their same interest, not wanting
to be left behind when positions of privilege were being assigned. They, too,
were not yet able to envision what God’s kingdom of love and justice would be
like and, therefore, ask the wrong questions.
Jesus attempts to set them straight by responding in three
ways: that a place in God’s kingdom will involve suffering; that God alone
determines our status in the kingdom; and that leadership in God’s kingdom means
being a servant of others. Jesus himself came not to be served but to serve and
even give his life for others. Those who follow Jesus are to model his example
of serving others, not the world’s example of ‘lording it over others.’ The
right questions have to do with whether the disciples were able and willing to
do that. And we are confronted with the same questions: are we able and willing to do that. It
is “with deeds of love and mercy [that] the heavenly kingdom comes,” say the
words of a well-known hymn. And so it is our task as God’s people in this time
and place to discern what God wants us to be doing by way of serving others and
preparing our hearts and minds for such service.
Next Sunday we will begin using the renovated chapel and
fellowship hall next door and the education and office floors of our church
house. Bring your kids, your neighbors, your friends and come at 9:30 for the
tours and parties so that you get used to coming at 9:30 again. Church school
classes will begin meeting at 9:30 the following week, November 5. You’ll see
nicely renovated spaces, hopefully functional for at least the next 30 years of
this congregation’s ministry. But the hallways and classroom walls you’ll see
are as yet lifeless and sterile, mere museums of fresh paint. They are eagerly
waiting to come alive with signs that our church is alive, that together we are
able to continue the journey of faith to which Jesus calls us and to which
generations before us in this place have responded: “We are able!” For that journey, today’s gospel lesson
gives us good directions.