The Whirlwind and the Lamb: A Homily for the 22nd Sunday After Pentecost

 Preached at All Saints, Collingwood, Anglican Diocese of Toronto, on 20 October, 2024, the Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost.

Readings: Job 38:1-7 (34-41); Psalm 104:1-9, 25, 37B; Hebrews 5:1-10; Mark 10:35-45

Who has put wisdom in the inward parts, or given understanding to the mind? Who has the wisdom to number the clouds? (Job 38: 36-37)

Three Sundays in a row now, we have heard readings from the Book of Job, which, as you may have noticed, I have been studiously ignoring.  Partly I’ve been avoiding Job because the gospel readings, as beating heart of our faith, should command our attention.   But, if I am honest, I’ve also been avoiding it because it is a difficult, even mysterious book of the Bible.  Like God speaking from the whirlwind, the book of Job does not give up its secrets easily.    Even so, what I hope to say to you today is that for all of its difficulty, Job encourages us with the promise that our lives, as painful and as incomprehensible as they may seem to us, are held in and surrounded by the divine love and wisdom of God

As I noted, the Book of Job is a difficult and challenging book.  It begins with Job, a genuinely upstanding and good man whom God loves and even admires.  However, God allows Job to be put into the hands of Satan, who appears to function here more as a courtier of God than as the demonic figure known to Christians.   God allows Satan to test Job, thus introducing the mystery of why God allows good things to happen to bad people, a problem known as “theodicy”.  

We all wonder how certain things can be allowed to happen, and not just war or famine.  A beloved and dear person comes down with a terrible disease, or a sweet child is killed in an accident, and we naturally reach for the question, “what did they do to deserve that?"

That question hangs over the middle part of the book of Job. His three friends, while well-meaning, try to persuade Job that he has somehow done something wrong and is being punished by divine justice.   Job stubbornly asserts his innocence, and insists that he has done nothing wrong.   Last Sunday, we heard Job say that if only he could get to speak with God, then he could prove that there was some miscarriage of divine justice:  “There an upright person could reason with him, and I should be acquitted forever by my judge” (Job 23 :1-9, 16-17).  At the same time, Job doubts that he will ever get his day in court, because he does not know how to find God:  “Oh, that I knew where I might find him, that I might come even to his dwelling!”

So the first thing we can say about today’s reading that is encouraging is that God shows up.  God does speak to Job, although Job does not get the day in court because God says, in effect, that God does not owe Job an explanation.   Essentially what follows is a longer version of what God says to the prophet Isaiah:  “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, (neither are your ways my ways” (Isa 55:8-9).   But, as they say, tone matters.  While God begins by telling Job to “gird up your loins” (essentially telling him to buckle up),  I think we could imagine God speaking to Job in several ways.

One way would be for us to imagine God speaking imperiously and arrogantly to Job, in the sense of “how dare you question me?” as if God was some toxic boss.  We could, but that would validate images of God that aren’t helpful to our faith lives.  Another way to imagine the voice from the whirlwind is to hear it as a voice that is challenging but also amused, perhaps even following phrases such as “Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements - surely you know!” with a gentle chuckle.  Perhaps I have in mind some of the passages from CS Lewis’ Narnia book, where Aslan speaks in a way that is majestic but also kindly. And if Aslan does show up in Narnia when he is needed, so too does God show up.  God has heard Job’s plea for an audience, but God is not going to give Job an easy or satisfying answer.

We ony get a sense of it in today’s first lesson, but God’s speech in these last chapters is replete with nature imagery.   These chapters range from the stars in the heavens to the depths of the sea, to the calving of mountain goats and deer to the strength of horses and the farsightedness of hawks.  There is even an entire chapter (Job 41) dedicated to Leviathan (whales), handiwork of which God is especially proud.    Like our psalm today, the effect of these chapters is to celebrate the complexity of grandeur of creation.   Forget for a moment that it is God who is speaking, and we could be listening to a nature documentary as narrated by a Carl Sagan or a David Suzuki.

But the difference between these last chapters of Job and a nature documentary is that here, God is the creator and the architect of all: from hawks and whales to stars and galaxies (as well acknowledge in our Eucharistic Prayer).  In other words, nature is creation and creation is full of God’s presence, and we must trust that God is both present and benign.  Note that God does not feel the need to explain Job’s current misfortune, any more than God needs to justify earthquakes and cancer cells.  It is enough for Job, and perhaps for us, to know that we not are alone in a random and meaningless universe, where our cries go unheard and where our suffering can never be redeemed.  At the end of the day, the consolation of the Book of Job is that God is present and God shows up.

Let me finish with some thoughts how the Book of Job speaks to us as Christians, and it’s simply this.  If the God of the universe is present to Job in whirlwind, how much more present is Jesus, the Son of God, present to us?   Take today’s gospel.  James and John, who Jesus nicknamed the “Sons of Thunder” (Mk 3.17) want the God of the whirlwind.  They want to be raised up in the whirlwind, to have seats in the heavens and to be masters of the unverse, something that Job never dreamed to asking for.  And instead Jesus tells them that the way of God is to serve others.a message of humility that we could never reconcile with the God of the whirlwind.

Sometimes, mostly around Christmas, we talk of the Incarnation, the mystery of God becoming flesh and dwelling among us.   Job invites us to consider that mystery from another angle, to think of God stepping out of the whirlwind and to sit with us and console us, as Job’s friends tried but failed to do.   The God of the whirlwind felt no reason to explain human suffering.  The Son of God comes to be with us, in a way that Job’s friends could never do for Job.   In his humility the Son of God, the Son of the Whirlwind, accepts service and suffering on our behalf, so that he might save us.  

The Book of Job is thus I think an important part of our Christian Trinitarian faith.   it tells us that the God who made the heavens and the stars was also born under one star in Bethlehem for our sakes.  It tells us that while the universe may seem vast and indifferent to our loneliness and suffering, we are not in fact alone.  The universe is full of God, God is with us, and God loves us, for the God of the Whirlwind is also the Lamb of God.

“What’s In Your Wallet?” A Homily for the Twenty-First Sunday after Pentecost.

 Preached at All Saints, Collingwood, and Good Shepherd, Stayner, 13 October, 2024.

Readings (Yr B Proper 28B):  Job 23:1-9,16-17; Ps 22:1-15; Her 4:12-16; Mark 10:17-31 

Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” (Mark 10.23)

The rich man  in today’s gospel reading provoked an interesting discussion in our bible study last Wednesday as we veered from the bible to economics.   One person in our group said that she found it offensive that so much wealth in today’s society was concentrated in the hands of a few.  Another person, a recently retired banker, countered with his strongly held belief that if people had good ideas and worked hard, then they should be rewarded with wealth.  On the other hand, this gentleman did admit that today’s gospel did make him uncomfortable because he felt that Jesus was speaking directly to him.

Well, if today’s gospel made this gentleman uncomfortable, I daresay that he’s in good company.  Retired bankers, folks who rely on wealth managers, or even priests with a flash Audi in the garage may find that today’s gospel hits a nerve.  It’s often said that Jesus has far more to say about what we do with our money than about what we do with our bodies, and for those of us who have both money and a desire to follow Jesus, then we might well be made uncomfortable.   

“You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money[a] to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”  

This text is so challenging and that the temptation for each of us is to defuse it somehow, to redirect it or qualify it. So we might say,  Does this apply to all of us?  Our just to the wealthier among us?  To someone else?  It’s often argued that Jesus is saying this because he sees one specific defect (“you lack one thing”) in an otherwise good and pious man.   After all, the argument goes, Jesus doesn’t require other followers to sell all that they have.   Generally he says things like “Love God with all your heart and soul, and love your neighbour as you love yourself” (Mt 22:34-40).

So you can see how we might sidestep today’s gospel by saying that it only applied to a particular person with an inordinate attachment to his wealth, and surely doesn’t apply to the rest of us, at least not so stringently.  Or we might argue in self defence that scripture is all over the map when it comes to wealth.   Nowhere in the Old Testament does it say that you have to sell all you have.  After all, doesn’t the book of Job end with Job getting twice the possessions he had in the first place? (Job 42:10-17).

You can see how these sorts of appeals to verses in Scripture where Jesus is mercifully absent might absolve our consciences. In fact we could go on to play this game and say, well yes, the first Christians “would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need” (Acts 2.45), but that was because they expected Jesus to return at any moment.   After a few centuries, the church got on with things, which meant acquiring money and property, and without money and property, well, how can the church function?

Phew. We’ve managed to argue our way to a sensible place where wealth has a purpose in the church and we can be comfortable.  But notice how, to get there, we’ve had to distance ourselves from Jesus, and get away from his gaze.

Well, yes, to be sure, money and property can be helpful to our faith lives.  Last week, Joy and I were on retreat at the Ignatius Jesuit Centre near Guelph.  Over five days we spent time in silence and in prayer, we met with spiritual directors, and we learned how to listen carefully and attentively to what Jesus might be saying to us.   We enjoyed the five hundred acres of forest and farmland that the Centre sees itself as called to steward and protect.   At the end of our five days, the Director of the Centre spoke to us all and said, in effect, “I hope that you’ve been blessed by this place and what we’ve offered, but it costs money to do what we do, and if you could help us, we’d be very grateful”.

The Director certainly knew his audience.  After all, most of us had driven to Guelph in privately owned cars.   We all could take a week out of our lives and pay for that time.  We all wanted to draw closer to Jesus in our prayer lives and to appreciate the chance to be in a beautiful part of creation.  And now we were being asked to make this possible for others so they could also come closer to Jesus.  I’m sure I wasn’t the only one on that retreat  who added a small monthly charge to their credit card once I got home.

Now you all know that doing church costs money.  Thus Thanksgiving you got a mailing with the usual envelop for a seasonal gift plus a little envelope to help pay for the new defibrillator.  So you know this, dear saints.   You know that doing church, keeping a place open and functional so it can help others come to Jesus, does cost money. 

My point today is that once you come to Jesus, once you stand in his loving gaze, well that’s different and that’s private.   What happens then is between you and him.  To paraphrase scripture, Jesus knows how attached your heart issues to your treasure.  Spending time with Jesus can loosen your heart’s grip on your treasure, if you are willing to risk spending time with him. 

What happens next is between you and Jesus.

In one of his most powerful parables, the story of the Good Samaritan, there is a very specific mention of money.  When the Samaritan takes the injured man to an inn, he gives the innkeeper two denarii, a sum equivalent to two day’s wages, and then asks him to keep a record of any additional charges, to be paid on the Samaritan’s return (Luke 10.35).    Jesus never tells us if the Samaritan was wealthy and could easily afford this charity, or if he was poor and could ill-afford it.  The important thing, I think, is that he was willing to put his money to work for the kingdom of God.  The Samaritan knew that his money could not save him, and he also knew that his money could help others.   His heart had compassion, because his heart was not tied to his treasure.

This Thanksgiving, it is tempting to be a little complacent and to be grateful for the good things we enjoy.   There’s nothing wrong with gratitude, but can we also be thankful that we have opportunities to put our wealth to use to help those who may have less cause to be thankful?   David Penhale has written a good piece in our most recent newsletter on some of the Primate’s World Relief and Development Fund’s projects, and that may give you some ideas.   Or, if a few dollars is all you can spare, you will certainly find something at Giant Tiger to put in our food pantry.   

Like the rich man in today’s parable, Jesus will meet each one of us on our life’s road.   He will always look at us with love, for guilt isn’t his way.   But his loving gaze can help us see if our hearts are locked away in our wallets, and can free us from that attachment. The encounter with Jesus may make us uncomfortable, but it will help align our hearts, and our spending, more closely with the kingdom of God.

With The Jesuits: Fall Scenes at the Retreat Centre

 This week I'm on retreat at the Ignatius Jesuit Centre just north of Guelph, ON, and popping online just long enough to share some of the natural beauty of this place as we edge into fall.    Besides being a spiritual destination for pilgrims and retreatants, the place is also a working farm and rents space to local growers and nurseries.