Job 42:1-17
Mark 10:46-52
Today is Reformation Sunday, the day we celebrate that
because the Catholic Church at the time was going through a period of being stuck,
many people chose to leave that church and begin their own to continue to find
life, indeed to continue to find God
in their sanctuaries. Reformation Sunday
is the day we celebrate change, the day we honor movement, the day we raise up
a banner and say, “yes, we truly are the church reformed and always reforming (our reformation motto)
despite how challenging that is for each and every one of us at different times
and in different ways.”
Change. As both the
reformation and today’s scriptures show us, God calls us into change. God doesn’t and won’t just leave us
comfortable. God doesn’t call us to
be “comfortable”. In order to understand
this more fully, I want to take a moment to look more deeply into the book of
Job. Does anyone remember how the book
begins? It begins with a deal made
between God and Satan to “test” Job.
That test involved taking everything away from Job, little by little, to
see how he’d react.
Putting that beginning aside for a moment, let’s look at it
from Job’s perspective. Job believed
that if he was good, if he had integrity, if he was righteous that his life
would be rewarded. His friends thought
the same. They all thought that living
right equaled riches and prosperity in this life., and visa versa – that having
riches and prosperity was a sign that you were blessed by God. And so, even when things were not going well,
Job believed that if he continued to not argue with God, not confront God, that
he would again be rewarded. But as we
know, and as we see in this story, this is wong. Yes, many people whom we call “prosperity
Christians” continue to believe that God is Santa Claus, rewarding the good and
punishing the bad. But this is not an
accurate reflection, at all, of what scripture tells us, starting here with the
story of Job and continuing throughout scripture. God did not leave Job comfortable. Instead, Job faced hardships beyond his
imagining. He lost almost everything, he
suffered, despite his “righteousness”. Eventually,
God called him to change, to move, to see things in a different way. God challenged him to act differently. And as we know from the story of Job, he did
act differently. Rather than being quiet
and just accepting, he yelled out, he hollered out at God, and was rewarded by
God’s showing up and showing Job a new vision of who God was.
The Catholic Church also thought that if they just continued
on the same path, that they would continue to be powerful and “pleasing” to
God. But as we know, everything
changes. And if we aren’t actively
changing, transforming, striving to become more godly, more loving and more compassionate
to the needs of others, of all of God’s people, then we are changing for the
worse. Martin Luther challenged what was
happening in the church. He had no
intention of starting his own church in doing so. He simply called the Catholic Church to change
the ways in which it was hurting people and failing to take into account the
current needs of God’s people. He called
them to task. But they could not change
at that time. And because of that, they
lost a huge number of their people to the Protestant Reformation as people
discovered that if they were not going to be able to change their church into a
place where they could again find God, they would have to start something new
instead.
While all of our churches have changed much since that period
of time, we also know that at some level all of our churches also continue to
struggle with being stuck. Seven years
ago a columnist I follow named Regina Brett, a very faithful Catholic, wrote an
article calling the Catholic Church to reformation again. Some of what she wrote includes, “most
Catholics have already voted with their feet.
They have left or become “C and E Catholics.” I confess I’ve been tempted to quit for good. I’m not alone.” She continues, “The pope has called for a
year of faith”…”how about opening our minds to what else God might want to do
with us and with this church?...God is still speaking. Is anyone … listening?”
It is because of this refusal to listen to God, to God’s
people, and to be open to change that we had the Protestant reformation. Diana Butler Bass says, “Luther and his
associates were protesters rather than reformers—they stood up against the
religious conventions of the day, arguing on behalf of those suffering under
religious, social, and economic oppression. …In the United States,
Protestantism has often been torn between the impulse to protest (the abolition
movement, women’s rights movements, the Civil Rights movement) and the
complacency of content by virtue of being the majority religion. After all, if
you are the largest religious group in society—if you shape the culture—what do
you protest? Yourself?”
Bruce Epperly put it this way, “Reformation faith is forward,
rather than backward-looking, evolving rather than static, at home in this world,
rather than in a previous age or a heavenly realm.”
But the unfortunate truth is that Protestant Churches, those
who claim to be reformative, are “stuck” as well. Change is hard. And we are not keeping “at home in this world
rather than a previous age” with a great deal of success. As a result, there is a new movement “out” of
the Protestant Church just as in the Protestant reformation there was a large
movement out of the Catholic Church.
While Protestants used to be 2/3rd of this country, as of 2012,
they were at 48%. That number continues
to decrease and one article I read said with all the growing “nones” and
“dones” the percentage is now closer to 35%.
Many people are simply leaving the Christian church altogether, but
others are just leaving denominationalism, especially Protestant churches. They are fed up with many of what they call
“archaic” practices, and in some cases the archaic theology, in our
worship. They are seeking something
new. And while we could point out the
problems with “feel good” worship and with “entertainment” worship, the
churches that are not stepping forward into the future are simply not stepping
into a future at all. As I’ve mentioned
before, the number of churches that are closing in our country is
astounding. To put it in perspective, 9
Presbyterian churches a week are closing.
That is just the Presbyterian Church.
Other protestant denominations are all experiencing the same thing as
our younger members especially leave for more “progressive” worship styles or
leave the faith entirely.
God calls all of us to continue to move forward. Therefore God’s answer to Job, and Jesus’
answer to Bartimaeus did not just leave them where they were or call them to a
life of ease and comfort. Even as God restored
Job’s fortunes, God still did not leave Job comfortable. Job was a righteous man, beyond what we are,
beyond what we do. His integrity was
beyond question (even to himself), but Walter Brueggemann points beyond
"integrity" and "goodness" to a life of praise centered on
God's own goodness. "Yes, hang on to your integrity, Job, for it is never
questioned," Brueggemann writes: "But learn a second language. Learn
to speak praise and yielding which let you cherish your virtue less tightly"
(("A Bilingual Life" in The Threat of Life)). Job had thought that his happiness, his well-being
was dependent on his actions, and on his commitment to living with
integrity. But our identity, worth, and
well-being is not determined by our successes and failures, by our actions, by
our virtuous living, even, but by God's gift alone. And so eventually Job was given the sight to
see that his “virtue” and “righteousness” was not actually what mattered. Instead, it was his relationship with God that
mattered. It was not following the rules
to a tee. That is not how he would find
meaning and purpose or be “rewarded” with riches or goods. He had to think beyond the riches and goods
of this life to the real gifts of God.
Those real gifts of God begin with relationship with God. That is the gift. A gift deeply worth celebrating, and more,
worth cultivating.
Bartimaeus, too, was not allowed to just celebrate his new
sight. He was called to radical change
as well. He answered that call by
following Jesus after he gained his sight.
I have to say, I realize there is grief involved in
change. Always. And I need to acknowledge that reality. Carl Denis wrote a poem called Editing Job
that I think describes that loss well.
He wrote:
I'd cut the prologue, where God agrees
To let his opponent, Satan,
Torment our hero merely to prove
What omniscience must know already:
That Job's devotion isn't dependent
On his prosperity. And how foolish of God
If he supposes that Satan, once proven wrong,
Will agree to forego his spite against creation
For even a minute.
I'd keep the part where Job disdains
His friends' assumption that somehow
He must be to blame for his suffering,
And the part where he makes a moving appeal
To God for an explanation.
I'd drop God's irrelevant, angry tirade
About might and majesty versus weakness.
The issue is justice. Is our hero
Impertinent for expecting his god
To practice justice as well as preach it,
For assuming the definition of justice
That holds on earth holds as well above?
Abraham isn't reproved in Genesis
For asking, when God decides to burn Sodom,
If it's fair to lump the good with the wicked.
Let Job be allowed to complain
About his treatment as long as he wants to,
For months, for decades,
And in this way secure his place forever
In the hearts of all who believe
That suffering shouldn't be silent,
That grievances ought to be aired completely,
Whether heard or not.
As for the end, if it's meant to suggest
That patience will be rewarded, I'd cut it too.
Or else I suggest at least adding a passage
Where God, after replenishing Job's possessions,
Comes to the tent where the man sits grieving
To ask his pardon. How foolish of majesty
To have assumed that Job's new family,
New wife and children and servants,
Would be an ample substitute for the old.
Change involves loss.
It leads to grief. But still, the
question is, always, when we come to see who Jesus is, are we willing to go
through some grief in order to change our lives into those God calls us to live? Are we willing to change what feels
“comfortable and easy”? Are we willing
to let go of what we think we want, what we think will make us happy, and
instead to be open to the path Jesus wants us to go, to follow in the way, in
the path of a man who ends up dead before he ends up resurrected? Does our faith, does our encounter with the
living Christ make a difference for us?
The question on Reformation Sunday is, again: are we willing to give up
what is comfortable and easy as a church to follow Jesus? Are we willing to step out to hear what the people
of God, God’s children, all of God’s people really need to experience God’s
love, God’s grace and God’s presence in this place at this time?
That is the question that we are
constantly called to ask as we continue to seek to be a church that is reformed
and always reforming. Amen.
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