Sunday, June 21, 2015

Job, Peace be still, and World Refugee Day



Pent 4B-2015

This morning I take am going to take a few moments to tie together ideas from the poem of Job, Jesus words – peace, be still-, and the marking of today as National Aboriginal Day, and yesterday as World Refugee day.

Walter Brueggemann in his book The Word Militant, comments that reflecting on Job and the questions that arise from the story are freedom to those who are in exile.  As a professor of Hebrew Scriptures, one would expect that Brueggemann is referring to the Israelites as those in exile. Yes, true, however, he is clear that preachers today preach to those in exile.  We, due to culture and our lifestyles, are a people in exile – held by tyrants of consumerism and commercialism. 
You may already be saying, sure general society may be in exile, but, I am not in exile.  Job would not have considered himself in exile either, other than being unfairly punished by the lot that had fallen on him.  Job, in chapters 29-31, gives a long speech – out of frustration, where he cites his good actions – I was eyes to the blind, and feet to the lame. I was a father to the needy, and championed the cause of the stranger – Job is every bit confident in the self-affirmation of his righteousness, his faithfulness, and his participation in God’s covenant.  Throughout Job, Job cries an indictment on God, a suggestion that dares to pose the possibility that God has failed.
Has God failed?  It has been asked and wrestled with before Job and after: who sinned – they ask Jesus- this man or his parents that he was born blind; Rabbi Kushner asked in the title of his book, why do bad things happen to good people?

The beginning of the response to Job is what we heard read today.  God answers out of the whirlwind, Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? The chapters that follow are an ecological treatises of a creator God – a God outside of human understanding:  Have you commanded the morning since your days began, and caused the dawn to know its place….; have you entered into the storehouses of snow…which I have reserved for the time of trouble, for the day of battle and war…do you give the horse its might….Can you draw out Leviathan…? Job and Job’s complaints pale in comparison to the grand questions asked through the whirlwind. There is an air of insignificance to all that Job has deemed important.

Brueggemann preaches that the whirlwind obliterates and blows away many of Jobs, and thus our, all-consuming moral questions; concerns of failure, fault, blame, and guilt.  He writes, we are invited to a larger vista of mystery that contains wild and threatening dimensions of faith. The poem extricates Israel from the barrenness of moral explanation and justification and thinks instead of dangerous trust and affirmation in a context where we cannot see our way through. The world of Job is filled with wondrous crocodiles and hippopotamus –leviathans- along with cunning evil, deep, unanswered questions, and vigorous doxology.
Could the words of the poem of Job allow for us to live in the freedom of daring to accept and embrace living a life full of unresolvable questions and inexplicable happenings – and be okay with that - trusting in God’s mystery that the Mystery can obliterate all moral quandaries.
We are being pulled to a vista of a larger reality – a reality outside that of exile, outside our captivity of bondage to sin, outside of our very humanness.  As we are pulled outside of exile and captivity, we are opened to a world divorced from the unresolvable and inexplicable.

On another trajectory, which will connect in a moment: a colleague mentioned a commentary article she had read on the phrase Jesus says according to the Gospel of Mark; Jesus says, Peace, be still.  Could it have been that Jesus awoke –not because of the storm- but due to the state and anxiety of the disciples, revved up to full fright and chaos?  Could Jesus words, not have been directed to the storm, but, rather, to them?  Peace, be still. And as the disciples heard the words they regained composure, and in so doing the natural surroundings –the storm- followed their queue and turned calm?

Reflecting on Job, I am reminded of the hundreds of people who confess their “goodness” to me – listing the organizations they are a part of, the people they have helped, their stellar church attendance, their living a good life and not actively hurting anyone, admissions of not breaking the 10 commandments (that is according to the list, not the specifics of Luther’s reflection in the catechism).  We do the Job recital so very well.
We are good church goes, good people.  And we easily fall into questioning why so called bad things should happen to us. Our goodness, also stands over and against those who are deemed delinquent ---
As I said earlier, today is National Aboriginal Day, yesterday was World Refugee Day.  I am quite positive that I could incite a massive storm on either topic – First Nation’s rights, bringing refugees to Canada….
In fact two weeks ago a pastor from the peninsula and I almost had it out, but, it wasn’t worth the argument after the first bit of repartee – over a comment that the government has monetarily spoiled the Indian- and the waves on the sea loomed large.  And mention refugees who look different, dress different, speak different, and worship different- holy smokes there is thunder and lightning.  People get right snappy; full of angst, anger, bitterness, blame, self-righteousness, and the world gets into bigger turmoil, a harder hate, more insular – war continues, more peoples are forced to flee their homes and countries, in a helplessness brought on by the fear of “good” people who watch on in a growing frenzy of uncertainty.  Unfortunately fear from “good” people gathers other “good” people who join the snowballing drama. And surrounding nature imitates and empathizes with the anxiety, exploding – in storms of the century, in ice melting fastest enough to throw the world into another ice age, in mudslides devastating entire habitats, droughts to kill off every living creature in an area, and disease that spreads faster than wildfire.  To this Jesus wakes from the stern of the boat, gets off the cushion and says – honestly, I think he yells in a voice so big everything has no choice but to listen and stop dead in its track: into the frenzy Jesus yells -  PEACE, BE STILL!

Where were you when the foundations of the earth were laid?
Who do you think you are?

We are a people who are told again and again, holding in faith, and risking to trust, in the One for whom even the wind and the sea obey.  To our core we dare to believe that the world can be set free from bondage to sin, humanness, and exile.  We dare to believe that we are not simply good people, rather, we are redeemed, by a mystery beyond our comprehension and because of this are invited to participate in the mystery.  We are “yelled at” to live out of an understanding of peace be, still! 
Peace, be still! What does that look like? What does that mean?
It means dispelling anxiety and fear in a world that gets revved up on both.
And we do it, not of our own accord, but, with the conviction that we are not a boat idol in a sea of waves during a storm … it is as a camp song so loved by campers goes: I saw Christ in wind and thunder. Joy is tried by storm. Christ asleep within my boat, whipped by wind, yet still afloat, joy is tried by storm.
Christ is present. We can be present – if we keep our heads and wits about us; rather, than dabbling in questions of whether Christ caused the wind and thunder, and whether or not this is on purpose, did we do something to deserve it; and why is Jesus asleep in the boat, not watching us all the time, seemingly not caring– peace, be still.
We can be present to walk side by side with refugees who have come to Canada, we can hear their stories, and help to bring further family members from chaos to peace.  Keeping our wits, we can speak out insisting on the government and our communities to welcome the stranger, to settle the refugee and asylum seekers, to admit that we live on land not our own – and to wrestle with what that means; do you dare to consider the possibility of giving back that which was stolen? 
Most of all, do you dare to be pro-active in deflating anxiety?  Do you dare to be courageous and brave, righteous and faithful, by directly facing fear, confronting it, and telling it to go ….. oh wait I’m in church, I can’t say the words that finish that phrase---  but, you understand, right?
It is an uphill battle.  Anxiety and fear are pervasive. 
That is why the story of Job is retold and the sea is calmed in Mark – we are reminded that in the big picture our understanding is very limited; our moral reasonings amount to little – we get ourselves into knots that a few questions in a whirlwind can turn into dust in seconds; and in the end amidst the chaos, anxiety, and fear - Christ is asleep in our boat. Does Christ need to wake up and tell us, peace, be still, or can the Christ, the Word that was in the beginning with God, rest in our hearts, and emanate in the breath of life – to be about being calm despite the frenzy – and in so doing calm the sea: flattening consumerism, making straight commercialism, equalizing all people, so that land is shared, war obliterated, and peace brought into fullness.
This is living into the mystery.
Thanks be to God.

Sunday, June 14, 2015

Grokking is covenant relationship

Today's sermon was a reflection on ethics and trees - a walk between the book ends of the tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden, and the tree of life in Revelations; including mention (based on the birth pangs of creation in Romans) that human relationship, and the lack thereof, hold trees in bondage to sin.

Later reflection from a listener, was introducing me to a new term - to GROK
With a reference that the congregation was encouraged to  grok

To GROK-  is to understand something so deeply that the observer becomes the observed; to understand intuitvely/empathetically/communicate sypathetically with; the deep connection is an experience of enjoyment

God Is Known- Eye to Eye, Heart to Heart

  The following lines from today’s scripture weave together in my mind.   I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their he...