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This sermon was preached on Sunday, June 24, 2012, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio, where Fr. Funston is rector. (Revised Common Lectionary for the Fourth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 7: Job 38:1-11; Psalm 107:1-3, 23-32; 2 Corinthians 6:1-13; and Mark 4:35-41.)
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Our first reading this morning is from the Book of Job, which in the Jewish organization of Scripture is part of the Ketuvim or “Writings” and is considered one of the Sifrei Emet or “Books of Truth”, which is really quite interesting since it is generally acknowledged to be a work of fiction. It tells the story of Iyyobh (“Job”), who is described as a righteous man and who becomes the subject of a wager between a character called “Satan” and another character called “God”. I put it that way to underscore that this text is not relating to us any historical facts about God, or Satan, or a man named Job; it is, rather, telling a story in which characters representing God, Satan, and human beings in general help us to understand something about reality.
So here’s the story. God and Satan make a wager that Satan can do nothing to the righteous man, Job, that will sway his faith in God. Satan then arranges to deprive Job of everything that seems to give value and meaning to his life – his family, his wealth, his social position, his health – so that he is left with nothing. Instead of cursing God (even though encouraged to do so by his wife), Job shaves his head, tears his clothes, and says, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there; the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” (Job 1:21)
Job is then visited by three of his friends who try to comfort him based on their individual ways of understanding religion and God. Each of these men bases his appeal on a particular religious premise:
First, Eliphaz comes with a faith that says the innocent never suffer permanently. He believes that Job is essentially innocent, but even the most innocent of humans must expect some suffering, even if only temporary. Therefore, he assures Job that things will get better soon.
Second is Bildad who is convinced of the doctrine of retribution. Given the demise of Job’s family, they must have been very wicked, but since Job is still alive and there must be some hope for him. He just needs to repent of whatever evil he must surely have done.
The third friend, Zophar, believes that Job is guilty of some dread sin because he is suffering and even worse, Job refuses to acknowledge it, therefore he is a far worse sinner than anyone could have imagined. Zophar offers no hope whatsoever.
Then a fourth character, Elihu, comes along. Elihu is angered by everything the first three men say, as well as by Job’s protestations of innocence; he seeks to persuade Job to focus on God and to realize that no one is ever able to understand God. True wisdom, he says, is found in the reverence of God.
But in nothing that any of these four men say does Job find much comfort; in nothing they say does he find an answer to what is his basic question: Why does a righteous person suffer? And why do the wicked seem to escape punishment?
Throughout the speeches of his friends, Job protests his innocence and demands, again and again, the right to present his case to God, to go to court with God and get an answer to his question: “Why is this happening to me?” When that appears to impossible, Job’s response is what one commentator has called “a powerful, evocative, authentic expression of man’s essential egotism.” Having seen and felt too much suffering, all Job wants is to see nothing at all; if he cannot present his case to God, he wants only to be enveloped in the blackness of the tomb, to be enclosed by dark doors that will remain shut forever.
And this, finally, is when God shows up. Not with an answer to Job’s self-centered, legal question, but in response to his withdrawal inward and turning out of the lights. “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?” God demands of Job, “Gird up your loins like a man, [and] I will question you.” (Job 38:2-3) Stop being a self-centered little worm; stop wallowing in self-pity; stop whining “Why me?” Look at the bigger picture!
This is not the answer Job expected; it is not the hearing in a court that Job had envisioned, where God would hear him and vindicate his cause. This is not the solution to his wanting to know why bad things happen to good people. God takes the focus away from the “up close and personal” issues of Job’s life and suffering, and instead presents the bigger picture of the whole of creation where God’s unfathomable being undergirds everything.
Job wants answers about justice but God goes into a rant about the creation: the sea, the stars, the sky, the earth, the whole shebang! As the speech goes on for several chapters, God will talk about all the wild animals, even the ostrich, who is incredibly foolishness but very very speedy. What are we to make of this? Job wants fairness; he wants what’s right! And God’s answer is, “Hey! Look at that ostrich I made! It’s stupid but, wow, is it fast!” What’s the point?
Well, the point is this – that Job is not the center of the universe . . . and neither are we. That’s why the Jews call this poetic work of fiction a “Book of Truth”. What Job learns, we learn – that we are not center stage in the drama of creation. The world is not ours; it’s God’s.
In the place of Job’s egotistical death wish, God offers the splendor and vastness of life. In place of an inward focus toward darkness, God offers a grand sweeping view that carries us over the length and breadth of the created world, from sea to sky to the whole created cosmos, to the lonely wastes and craggy heights where only the grass or the wildest of animals live, where the ostrich runs swiftly, where God ” bring[s] rain on a land where no one lives, on the desert, which is empty of human life.” (Job 38:26)
Job and his friends were completely wrong about God. God is simply not in the business of rewarding and punishing individual human beings. God’s revelation to Job and to us is that the universe is far bigger, far stranger, and far more mysterious than we can imagine, and that God’s providential care is at the heart of all creation. The comfort for Job and for us is found in being reminded that we are one of God’s creatures in this web of creation.
Obviously, this is not the comfort Job had hoped for, but it is the comfort God offers. And it is the comfort Jesus demonstrates in today’s Gospel lesson. Asleep in the stern of a boat tossed in a wild and stormy sea, Jesus seems unconcerned about the comfort of the disciples who are with him. They wake him and, echoing the God of the story of Job saying to the sea, “Thus far shall you come, and no farther; here shall your proud waves be stopped,” he commands the waves, “Peace! Be still!” And turning to the disciples he asks, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” We can almost hear him say, “Haven’t you read the Book of Job?”
Back in 1735, the Anglican priest and founder of Methodism John Wesley sailed from England to Savannah, Georgia, with his brother Charles, also an Anglican priest. Their goal was to preach to the Indians and lead them to Christ. On the crossing, which took four months, there was also a group of Moravians. At one point, a storm came up suddenly and broke the main mast. John Wesley reported in his journal that while the Englishmen on board were terrified, the Moravians calmly sang hymns and prayed. Wesley was impressed by their faith in the face of a dangerous, life-threatening storm. He felt that they possessed an inner strength that he did not. He later wrote in his journal, “It was then that I realized that mine was a dry-land, fair-weather faith.”
The Book of Job and today’s gospel lesson encourage us to have more than a “dry-land, fair-weather faith.” They commend a faith in the God of creation who “know[s] the ordinances of the heavens . . . [and] establish[es] their rule on the earth.” (Job 38:33) The Book of Job encourages us to look beyond our own self-centered concerns, to see the broad panorama of God’s power, to find comfort in God’s creating and sustaining the splendor and vastness of life.
Little wonder that the Jews call this work of fiction, the Book of Job, a “book of truth!”
Let us pray:
Heavenly Father, you have created the world and filled it with beauty: Open our eyes to behold your gracious hand in all your works; that, rejoicing in the whole of your creation, we may learn to serve you with gladness; for the sake of the One through whom all things were made, the One whom even the wind and the sea obey, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Okay . . . . This makes me very uncomfortable on a Saturday morning! Jesus says this after condemning divorce and saying it would be better not to marry. The description of “eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven” is usually understood as a metaphorical statement of dominical authorization of clerical celibacy. I mean, really, can self-castration be anything other than a metaphor for voluntarily abstaining from marriage, family life, and sex? ~ Jesus’ description of the first two sorts of eunuchs is squarely within Jewish tradition. The Hebrew word usually translated “eunuch” (saris) describes two categories of sexually impotent persons: those born impotent and those subsequently rendered so. In Deuteronomy and Leviticus, men who are sexually impotent as a result of birth or of accident are denied certain rights and obligations and considered to be of inferior social status. Jesus, thus, uses of the word “eunuch” twice in a literal sense familiar to Jewish tradition, would he have suddenly changed gears and use it in a metaphorical sense meaning something quite different? This would not be typical of his style. ~ So who are those in the third category? I find it troubling that Jesus speaks in the present tense, referring not to some conditional future but to men living at his time: “there are eunuchs who have made themselves . . . .” Who are they? In Jesus’ society, deliberate castration was repulsive to all social instincts, contrary to the Law, or associated the idolatry of foreign religions. So one must ask: To what phenomenon could Jesus possibly have been referring? ~ Here’s the kicker . . . we don’t have any way of knowing. Jesus might have been familiar with the castrati priests of pagan cults, maybe that’s the reference. He was surely familiar with the ascetic Jewish sects such as the Essenes, maybe that’s the reference. There’s been a suggestion that because of his own celibacy (and that of his followers) that “eunuch” was tossed as them as a taunting jeer, maybe this is a response to that. There’s little, if any, biblical support for any of these suppositions, so it’s a toss-up! ~ My point is this: I don’t know what Jesus is talking about, but whatever it is it makes me squirm very uncomfortably! And guess what? That’s true of a lot of Scripture; there are a lot of things in the Bible that I don’t understand and that make me squirm. I read recently that any exegetical hermeneutic should include “a clear sense of the impossibility of closure.” This is one of those times when “closure” about the scriptures is simply not possible.
In an alternative reading, Jesus tells Peter to forgive “seventy times seven times.” Whether seventy-seven or 490 times, Jesus’ point is that forgiveness is continuous. It isn’t a once-over-and-done sort of thing; it is something that must go on and on and on. ~ Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a man I greatly respect, once said this about forgiveness: “To forgive is not just to be altruistic. It is the best form of self-interest. It is also a process that does not exclude hatred and anger. These emotions are all part of being human. You should never hate yourself for hating others who do terrible things: the depth of your love is shown by the extent of your anger. However, when I talk of forgiveness I mean the belief that you can come out the other side a better person. A better person than the one being consumed by anger and hatred. Remaining in that state locks you in a state of victimhood, making you almost dependent on the perpetrator. If you can find it in yourself to forgive then you are no longer chained to the perpetrator. You can move on, and you can even help the perpetrator to become a better person too.” ~ Note that the archbishop refers to forgiveness as a “process”. Again, a process is not a single instant. The dictionary tells us that a process is “a systematic series of actions directed to some end” or “a continuous action, operation, or series of changes.” Changing the other person, or getting him or her to change actions, behavior, or words isn’t the point of forgiveness; forgiveness is about changing oneself, one’s own life. As Archbishop Tutu said, “It is the best form of self-interest.” ~ Nor is forgiveness reconciliation. Forgiveness can lead to reconciliation, but not always; sometimes (for example, if the offender is dead, absent, or unwilling to communicate) reconciliation is impossible. Forgiveness, however, is always possible, even when reconciliation is not. ~ Do you need to forgive someone? Take the first step: move away from your role as victim. There are only 489 more steps to go!
This is Jesus at his organizational problem solving best. Some really good advice about settling internal church conflict: talk it out. Talk it out individually; if that doesn’t work, talk it out with a couple of other people; if that doesn’t work, talk it out in the larger community. And if that doesn’t work . . . here’s where I believe people misunderstand Jesus. ~ The last instruction is that if the obstreporous member remains unmoved, let him or her “be to you as a Gentile and a tax-collector.” This is usually read to mean that we should ostracize or excommunicate the offending member. But I think this may be a misreading! ~ The word here translated as “Gentile” is “ethnikos“, a derivate of “ethnos“. This is the very word Jesus uses in the Great Commission: “Porenthente oun mathetensate panta ta ethne . . . ” – Go therefore and make disciples of all nations. ~ And tax collectors? Jesus sat down to dinner with them (Matthew 9). Jesus said they would get into the kingdom of God before the chief priests and the elders of the people (Matthew 21). Jesus praised the tax collectors for believing John the Baptist (Matthew 21). He called Matthew the tax collector to be one of his central party. ~ So how are we to treat “a Gentile and a tax-collector”? By shunning . . . or by dining with them? By excommunication . . . or by calling them to closer communion with God in Christ? 
This has to be one of the most troubling bits of the Gospels. Jesus is not suggesting that one engage in self-mutilation. Any suggestion that a person should actually engage in this behavior is to be rejected. ~ Self-mutilation is a serious issue in modern society. Psychiatrist Karl Menninger suggested that self-mutilation might be an effort to heal oneself. He wrote that local self-destruction is a form of partial suicide to avert total suicide. It is now recognized as symptomatic of borderline personality disorder. So this is clearly an example of a bit of Scripture which is not to be taken literally! ~ So what is it? It is an example of semitic hyperbole. Jesus was a native speaker of Aramaic, although his words have been transmitted to us in the koine Greek of the New Testament. Speakers of semitic languages (Hebrew, Aramaic and Arabic) use hyperbole so often and in such grossly exaggerated forms that to an English speaker it almost seems to border on lying. We can assume that Jesus said this originally in Aramaic in which hyperbole was an accepted way of making a point. By exaggerating something beyond the bounds of rationality, Jesus catches our attention, stating truths in a “bigger than life” way and waking us up to the reality of our own misbehavior. ~ As G. K. Chesterton noted, Jesus was a master of the hyperbole: “Christ had even a literary style of his own . . . The diction used by Christ is quite curiously gigantesque; it is full of camels leaping through needles and mountains hurled into the sea.” ~ So, don’t tear out your eye or cut off your hand, but do be aware of your own sinfulness and misbehavior . . . and do something less drastic but effective about it!
This is a weird little fish tale peculiar to Matthew’s Gospel. The temple tax about which it is told is a requirement drawn from Exodus 30:13: “Each [man] who is registered shall give: half a shekel according to the shekel of the sanctuary (the shekel is twenty gerahs), half a shekel as an offering to the Lord.” While Exodus does not make this an annual levy, most Jewish men paid the tax each year, including Jews who lived outside of Palestine. The tax provided a significant portion of the revenue needed to operate the Jerusalem Temple. There is an entire tractate of the Mishnah (Shekalim, fourth tractate in the order of Mo’ed) devoted to this tax which rather establishes its importance. Unlike Roman taxes, this tax was paid with patriotic pride by the Jews until the destruction of the temple by the Romans in A.D. 70. ~ Jesus asks Peter whether earthly kings tax their sons, to which Peter replies in the negative. Jesus seems to be implying that he, as Son of God, the King of the Temple, is exempt from the tax. However, were he to refuse to pay it, he would create a scandal, perhaps people would take his refusal to mean that he didn’t support or approve of the worship of the Temple, or that he was not loyal to the Jewish religion. They might get the idea that he didn’t think others should pay the tax. ~ So Jesus provides a way for Peter to pay the tax for him that underscores his divinity – the coin to pay the tax for both them miraculously appears in the mouth of a fish. That’s the weird part of the story. Like his walking on water and calming the storm at sea, this episode demonstrates that Jesus is the Lord of nature, but I don’t really think that’s his point here. Rather, I believe he is simply doing something that will leave an indelible impression on his disciples. ~ So there must be some lesson here for them (and for us). I think there are two. This story underscores Jesus’ humility before and on behalf of others; he declines to scandalize the community or to be a stumbling block for others. In this story he is an example of the humility we are called to exhibit, of the way in which we are to act on behalf of others, in which we are to the give up our own rights and interests for the good of others. We may not be able to produce valuable coins from the mouths of fishes, but we are able to give for others’ good even if we are not required to do so, especially when we are not required to do so!
Before I went on holiday to Canada over the past ten or so days (which is why there hasn’t been one of these meditations since June 10), a parishioner told me that his regular attendance at church the past several months is because of a sermon I preached from which he took the message, “Christians go to church!” I seldom remember my own sermons well enough to know which one or what line someone might be referring to when they tell me something like this, but I’m nearly certain that it wasn’t on this text. However, that would be the message I would preach were this to come up in the Lectionary readings for a public worship service. ~ I suspect that my parishioner was referring to a sermon in which I may have used this old chestnut of an illustration: A member of a certain church, who previously had been attending services regularly, suddenly stopped coming to church. After a few weeks, the pastor decided to visit. The Pastor found the man at home alone, sitting before a blazing fire. Guessing the reason for his Pastor’s visit, the man welcomed him, led him to a comfortable chair near the fireplace and waited. The Pastor made himself at home but said nothing. In the grave silence, he contemplated the dance of the flames around the burning logs. After some minutes, the Pastor took the fire tongs, carefully picked up a brightly burning ember and placed it to one side of the hearth all alone. Then he sat back in his chair, still silent. The host watched all this in quiet contemplation. As the one lone ember’s flame flickered and diminished, there was a momentary glow and then it’s fire was no more. Soon it was cold and lifeless. The Pastor glanced at his watch and realized it was time to leave; he slowly stood up, picked up the cold, dead ember and placed it back in the middle of the fire! Immediately it began to glow once more with the light and warmth of the burning coals around it. As the Pastor reached the door to leave, his host said with a tear running down his cheek, “Thank you so much for your visit and especially for the fiery sermon. I shall be back in church next Sunday.” ~ That’s what the mutual encouragement that Paul describes is all about, keeping the embers of faith burning. As my parishioner said, “Christians go to church!”
God used the vision of a sheet filled with unclean animals to get Peter’s attention. “Here,” said the voice, “eat this stuff!” That would certainly have gotten my attention! I eat all sorts of things Jews would consider “not kosher” – pork, ham, bacon, crab, lobster, clams, black pudding (I love black pudding!), haggis; none of that would have gotten my attention. But a commandment to eat from a sheet filled with eels or snakes or lizards or insects of any sort would definitely have done so. So I can understand Peter’s rather negative reaction! ~ This vision was metaphorical or allegorical or a simile or something like that. (You’d think a one-time English major could keep those straight.) God wasn’t really telling Peter to eat those things; God was making a point about people. God’s point was to make Peter understand that God had nothing against gentiles, that all are equal in God’s sight. (I’m not sure how, as a gentile, I feel about being represented by eels and whatever, but I suppose God can use whatever metaphors God chooses. . . .) The lesson, obviously, was that Peter ought to be as accepting and admit gentiles into the Christian fellowship. ~ When the voice said to Peter, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane,” those words were meant to have application far beyond Peter and Cornelius (the specific gentile who was about to come seeking baptism). There’s a lesson there for us, too. In Christ, God has made every person in the world equal before him without regard to nationality, ethnicity, race, sex, sexual orientation, hair-eye-or-skin color, right- or left-dominance (and even the ambidextrous)! As Paul wrote in yesterday’s epistle lesson: “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” (Gal. 3:28). Therefore, we Christians must treat every person we meet with dignity and respect. It’s more than too bad that we don’t; it’s sinful! ~ I may not be willing (or even able) to eat eels or snakes or insects. In fact, the very idea of eating eels makes me go, “Ewwwww!” and get slightly nauseated. But I had better learn to accept every human being as my equal before God, or I suspect that I will not be allowed to stand there myself.
I try really hard not politicize these meditations, but I cannot help but think of the political rancor in our country during this election season, particularly the signs that have been paraded at so-called “tea party” rallies by persons who self-identify as “Christians” or more particularly as members of the “Christian Right”. There’s been plenty on the Left, as well, but it is from the Right that the most vile “hate speech” is heard. Just yesterday I saw a news item that Terry Jones, the pastor of the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida, the same fellow who threatened to burn a Qur’an several months ago, has now hung an effigy of President Obama on a gallows in front of his church. How can someone who presents himself as a Christian pastor do that? Especially in light of these words from Jesus? Especially in light of the words from Paul which are also in today’s Daily Office reading: “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” (Gal. 3:28) One hastens to point out to “Pastor” Jones that President Obama (despite the rantings of the far Right and no matter how one may feel about his politics) is a baptized Christian, a brother in the Lord, a fellow member of the church universal. How on earth can this man do this? ~ A couple of days ago some members of my parish and I were talking about the festival held each spring in an Ohio village near our town. It celebrates something like the return of the swallows to San Juan Capistrano in California, only in this case it is the return of the turkey vultures to Hinckley, Ohio. (You read that correctly . . . turkey vultures.) For some reason I once learned that turkey vultures (and other types of buzzard) defend themselves through the use of projectile vomiting. It occurs to me on reading this text from Matthew and considering our political discourse (especially antics like these of “Pastor” Jones) in its light, that the projectile-vomiting turkey vulture just might be the mascot of present-day American politics. May God have mercy!
The writer of the Gospel according to Matthew may have intended this story to show Jesus’ power over nature underscoring his divinity, or at least his status as a major prophet. But I have often thought it might be considered from an allegorical perspective, as well. ~ As Jesus walks upon the waters, he transcends that which would overwhelm him; the physical act represents the indispensable gift of grace, the ability to rise above the negative elements and events of one’s time. His defiance of the natural order symbolizes his life lived according to standards higher than any human code of conduct; his reaching out to Peter and inviting him to do the same demonstrates the extending of grace to others. ~ Madeleine L’Engle once wrote, “Peter was able to walk on the water until he remembered he didn’t know how.” The hand of grace extended to us is what gives us the ability to set aside the memory of not knowing how, the ability to rise above the flood that would otherwise inundate us. ~ Creedence Clearwater Revival sang a song entitled Walk on the Water in which the singer tells of seeing a man walking on the water of the river near his home, a man calling out his name and saying “Do not be afraid.” The singer’s reaction is exactly the wrong one! “I swear I’ll never leave my home again . . . I don’t want to go; I don’t want to go. No, no, no, no. I don’t want to go.” ~ Staying at home, cowering in fear, is simply not an option. The only option is to seize the hand of grace and forget that we don’t know how to walk on the water.
