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First Sunday of Advent, December 1, 2024: Jeremiah 33:14-16; 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13; Luke 21:25-36; Psalm 25:1-9

Today we begin the new church year: our readings are now in year C of the common lectionary, not year B; they will be dominated by the Gospel of Luke, not Mark as in year B. So we will hear different voices.

The season of Advent with which the church year begins is a season of waiting, expecting, and preparing. It is not an easy season: you may be hearing cheerful carols in the stores, but our readings are a little less cheerful. Jeremiah is promising something good in the future: “The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah”. At the time Jeremiah was preaching, however, both the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel had been conquered by the Babylonians. Jeremiah’s charge was that this was because the people of Israel and Judah had abandoned the covenant with the Lord. Jeremiah’s promise is that the Lord will not fully abandon the covenant with the people of Israel. Jeremiah offers hope in a time of fear.

Paul is also offering hope, both that he will again see the people of Thessalonika, and that God will “strengthen [their] hearts in holiness”. Paul’s hope is both personal, for his valued relationship with the congregation at Thessalonika, but spiritual, for the health of the community and their growth in faith. He may have “joy” in them, but they still have work to do.

And then we hear the Gospel: our first reading for the year comes from the end of Jesus’ ministry, and he is preparing his followers for what is to come. He describes the signs that the Son of Man would come to redeem them. There would be “distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves”. “People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world”. And the disciples should watch the signs and know their meaning: just as the leaves on the fig tree promise the figs will come soon, so the signs will mean the Son of man is coming. Be ready!

When you are waiting for things to happen, you may be excited and happy, but also anxious: will it be what you expect? What if everything goes wrong? The mix of emotions is always there. And so it is in Advent: something will happen, but we don’t know what. We hope it will be good, but it may be hard.

Christians have read today’s passage in Luke (and similar passages) for 2000 years, and have always seen the signs promised. There are always people who live in fear and foreboding of what is to come in the world. What causes fear and foreboding varies, but it’s not exactly new! There are regularly natural disasters which cause destruction. Every few years the leader of some small sect or other will decree that the world will end on a particular date; sometimes their followers sell all their belongings in anticipation of the end. That we can read these passages today and see the signs is important, but what do we do with the knowledge that we are not the first to see the signs of the end times?

Maybe we need to think about the end times differently. Jesus is calling us to pay attention. Jeremiah is calling us to be faithful to the covenant, to turn to God. Paul is asking us to strengthen our hearts. All of these things are important whether the world is coming to an end or not. But Jesus also asks us to think about fig leaves. Fig leaves are a sign of life; the fig is one of the oldest cultivated plants in the middle east. The leaves portend fruit and life, not death or doom.

What we need to seek out are signs not of coming destruction, but of the new life: where do you see fig leaves? Where do you see people growing in faith, doing the work of the gospel? Where can you see the possibility that there is a “righteous branch” bringing justice and righteousness?

Make no mistake: there are terrible things happening in the world. There are wars in Ukraine, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Sudan… the list could go on. Climate chaos has caused flooding and drought around the world, leading to migration to places that seem safer, but leading many of those seeing migrants arrive to fear “invasion”. We should not forget these things.

These terrible things are not the whole story. Somewhere in the world a small child has been born who will change people’s lives. Somewhere near each of us there are people working to help those in need, visiting prisoners, helping migrants, feeding the hungry. These are fig leaves, and we need to notice them, and help them fruit in any way we can.

In the words of today’s collect, let us “cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light”.

Fig Leaves, image by Woodlot at English Wikipedia (Creative Commons license)

Last Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 29, November 24, 2024: 2 Samuel 23:1-7;
Psalm 132:1-13 (14-19); Revelation 1:4b-8; John 18:33-37

This Sunday is the last in the Church year: we begin the liturgical year next week, with the beginning of advent. For many years it was called Christ the King Sunday, though now it is more often called “The Reign of Christ”. As we end the year, we are reminded of the whole range of God’s promises to us and the wonders of God’s kingdom.

Samuel starts, telling us that “he has made with me an everlasting covenant,
ordered in all things and secure”. In the psalm, we hear how David promised not to rest until he finds the ark of the covenant, where the Israelites believe the Lord lived. David would provide a home for it, so it would not get lost. After, the Lord makes a promise to David, “If your children keep my covenant and my testimonies that I shall teach them, their children will sit upon your throne for evermore.” The Lord has chosen Zion as his home, he “delights” in her. “I will surely bless her provisions, and satisfy her poor with bread.”

These are the promises that name the Israelites as the chosen people; these were stories that were told to remind them of their place in God’s kingdom. The covenant is a two way street for the Israelites: they must be faithful to the Lord, and the Lord will protect them. They need to repeat the stories because they fail, but when they return to the Lord, he forgives them.

In today’s Gospel we hear the story of Jesus and Pilate. When asked if he is indeed a King, he does not really answer. Instead he says, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”

Like so many of Jesus’ statements, this is a bit cryptic. There’s nothing about saving sinners, or bringing people to God. Insofar as Jesus has a kingdom, it is not defined by geography or even creeds, just a commitment to truth. It is not a kingdom defined by power as we know it in the world; it is a kingdom defined by understanding that we are all children of God. The truth is the commandments, to love God and love our neighbors as ourselves. In the words of Micah, whose teachings are echoed by Jesus, what the Lord requires is you “to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God”.

We live in a world where the truth is hard to come by, with other nations and corporations spending lots of money to tell us lies. And the rewards of this world seem so tempting: we are surrounded by people selling us things, from pills to make us thin to ideas that will (supposedly) make us rich. Some politicians promise that if the people we hate are taken care of, everything will be fine. The piles of stuff in the aisles of stores are a reminder of our crazy level of consuming goods. Where is truth here? How can we find it? How do we stay faithful to it? With all this stuff, what does it mean to do justice and love kindness?

John tells his readers that Jesus is coming with the clouds. “‘I am the Alpha and the Omega,’ says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.” The alpha and omega, the beginning and the end. The Lord is indeed the whole story. If we remember that the Lord is indeed the beginning and the end, we will generally be truth-tellers.

The reign of Christ is one where everyone always remembers that God is the beginning and end. With that, and in loving our neighbors as ourselves we are among the truth-tellers.

Twenty-fifth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 27, 10 November 2024: Ruth 3:1-5; 4:13-17; Psalm 127; Hebrews 9:24-28; Mark 12:38-44

Last week we heard Ruth declare that she would follow Naomi back to Naomi’s home in Bethlehem. This was a risky decision: support depended on being part of a household headed by a man, and Naomi and Ruth were both widowed. So they arrived in Bethlehem destitute. Naomi is working to link Ruth to the men in her family, who were obligated to protect them. But Naomi does not do this by demanding directly; she does it by making her relatives see their responsibility. In the sections we have not read, Ruth works gleaning in Boaz’s fields, and he is kind to her. When she lies at his feet on the threshing floor, she is asking him to take responsibility for them. And when the most senior relative refuses to marry her, Boaz does.

Reading this story this week, I am conscious of the vulnerability of migrants. Ruth and Naomi returned to Naomi’s place of origin, but needed to find protectors. It was not automatic. Boaz was generous to a foreigner, and also offered protection to Naomi.

Why is this story part of the scriptures? It is explained in the last sentence. The child born to Ruth and Boaz is grandfather to King David. Thus an immigrant, a foreigner, is a crucial link in the descent of Jesus. She was expected to return to her parents, but instead she followed her mother-in-law. While the Biblical genealogies omit women (and even in the genealogy that follows in Ruth 4:18-22, it is only fathers), here we have a whole book telling us the story of how one woman came to be a mother, in this case part of the genealogy of David. The story reinforces a key commandment in the Hebrew scriptures, which are full of reminders to be kind to strangers. For example:

You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. (Deut 10:19);

The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the native-born among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God. (Lev 19:34)

And do no wrong or violence to the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place. (Jer. 22:3)

Jesus picks up on this theme when he separates the sheep from the goats, and promises that those those who fed and welcomed him would inherit the kingdom. When they asked when they had done this, the response is ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me.’ (Matt 25:35, 40) It is not surprising that hospitality has long been seen as a central virtue.

Last week we were reminded that a key to understanding the commandments was to “love your neighbor as yourself”. This week we are reminded that foreigners, strangers, and aliens are all our neighbors. May live as if this was so.

Twenty-fourth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 26, 3 November 2024: Ruth 1:1-18; Psalm 146; Hebrews 9:11-14; Mark 12:28-34

“Which commandment is the first of all?” The scribe’s question to Jesus is not a trick question, but it’s a hard one: the Torah contains over 600 commandments, and sorting them out is an intellectual challenge. Jesus answers in what have become familiar words, but were not when he said to the scribe,

“The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

The first commandment is known in Judaism as the “Shema”, from the first word of the commandment, “Hear”. (Deuteronomy 6:4-5). Faithful Jews will recite the Shema twice a day, at rising and going to bed, as an affirmation of their faith. If you are faithful, you love God completely, with heart, soul, mind and strength: this is not an easy faith. And so Jesus’ response is an entirely orthodox Jewish response.

The second part of his answer is less formulaic for first century Jews, but still orthodox: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself”. This too draws on the Torah, in Leviticus 19:18. It summarizes a whole raft of commandments which detail how one is to treat others. Similarly, Rabbi Hillel the Elder (who died about 20 years before Jesus) answered a similar question by saying, “That which is hateful to you, do not do unto your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn.”

It is worth paying attention to the fact that you love others as you love yourself. Loving yourself, treating yourself with respect, acknowledging your needs, is necessary to serve others well. Churches have not always been good at talking about this; women in particular are often urged to a sacrificial giving without respect to their needs. But taking care of ourselves does not necessarily make us narcissistic egomaniacs: it makes us healthy human beings. You cannot offer love to others if you do not offer it to yourself.

Over the past several weeks we had had some more challenging readings from Mark; he has repeatedly reminded his followers of the need to give up what they have to follow him. He tells them it will be hard, and they will suffer. Yet here, asked for the central commandments, he turns to love. The love here is not the soft pictures of romantic love, but the hard work of treating everyone we meet the way we would want to be treated. It does not come easily.

Our reading from the Book of Ruth offers a vision of another kind of love. In this case, it is the faithfulness of a daughter-in-law to her mother-in-law. Naomi is widowed, and her sons have died. She is too old to have more sons for them to marry. She wants to send her daughters-in-law home to their families of birth, so they can be married and have children. She has nothing to offer. And yet, despite repeated urging, Ruth refuses to leave her. In a lovely poem, Ruth makes a promise:

Where you go, I will go; Where you lodge, I will lodge;

your people shall be my people, and your God my God.

Where you die, I will die—there will I be buried.

Naomi and Ruth will support each other: in the end, Ruth will marry again, and have a son, so Naomi is protected in her old age. As we will see next week, the story is complicated, but here we have a simple statement of faithfulness. Ruth will not let Naomi return to her home alone.

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.

It sounds simple. It is the work of a lifetime.

Feast of All Saints, 1 November 2024: Wisdom of Solomon 3:1-9; or Isaiah 25:6-9; Psalm 24; Revelation 21:1-6a; John 11:32-44

Today we celebrate the Feast of All Saints, and tomorrow is All Souls: over these two days we remember those who have gone before us. Here in California, the Mexican custom of the Día de los Muertos has been widely adopted, with ofrenda, the altars with offerings and remembrances, not just at home but in schools and workplaces. The calaveras, the highly decorated skulls of the ofrenda, have been incorporated into American Halloween culture. I am always moved when I see ofrenda: they tell stories both about those who have died and those who remember them.

The point is, of course, that we remember the dead. In theory, All Saints celebrates those who are in some way saints, while All Souls celebrates all the souls who have gone before us. But whether saints or sinners, (or a mixture of both, like most of us) the dead may remain alive to us for years. We remember them, or the stories about them: some of those I remember died before I could really know them.

And so our readings today offer comfort not in memory, but in the promise of the future, what happens to the dead after they have died. The Wisdom of Solomon tells us that,

The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and no torment will ever touch them. In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died, and their departure was thought to be a disaster, and their going from us to be their destruction; but they are at peace.

From Isaiah:

On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear.

And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples,
the sheet that is spread over all nations; he will swallow up death forever.

From Revelation:

“See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God;
they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.“

And then our Gospel, the story of the raising of Lazarus. For me, the thing in this story that sticks out is that Jesus grieves with Lazarus’ family. He is there. He is with us in our sorrow. We have the promise that “he will wipe every tear from their eye”, and we believe it because we saw him do it.

As Christians we believe that death is not the end. But that does not mean that we do not feel the loss of those who have died. So we remember those we have known, who have touched our lives. What makes their spirits live on? What do we carry from them?

It is good to remember, to mourn those we have lost. We say their names, and join them to other more public saints: Robert, Thorry, Kent, Lisa, Lee, Dolores, Lorna, Bradd, Julia, David, Kitty, Dora, Romina, John, Joan, Joann, Jean, Evelyn, Connie, Jan, Joseph, Joseph, Alice, Tom, Betty, Bill, Don, Sigmund, Clara, Clive, Don, Ann, Natalie, Diane, Hanne, Margo, Annie, Laura, Ray, and so many more. As we remember, though, we can also sing,

      But lo! there breaks a yet more glorious day;      The saints triumphant rise in bright array;    The King of Glory passes on his way.       Alleluia, alleluia!*

* From “For All the Saints”, The Hymnal 1982, #287

Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost, October 27, 2024, Proper 25: Job 42:1-6, 10-17; Psalm 34:1-8, (19-22); Hebrews 7:23-28; Mark 10:46-52

This week we read the third part of the exchange between Job and the Lord. In the first, Job’s “complaint was bitter”, and he imagined that if he could just find the Lord, the Lord would answer. But the Lord was seemingly nowhere to be found. Last week we heard the Lord’s answer to Job, which could roughly be summarized as “Who do you think you are? You may be good, but you didn’t create the world.” In this third installment, we close out the conversation: Job admits that he had “uttered what he did not understand”, and as a result he repents “in dust and ashes”.

In the way that the book of Job reads a bit like a fairy tale, beginning with “There once was a man…” it has a happy ending. The Lord restores the fortunes of Job, and he has more children, including three daughters who were the most beautiful women in the land. And Job lived 140 more years, until he died, “old and full of days”. It is a fairy tale ending to what has been a fairly dark tale.

In the midst of his apology to the Lord, Job says, “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you”. It is a fascinating statement: seeing is vital for Job. It is true for us: we don’t say “hearing is believing”, but we do say “seeing is believing”. It may not always be true: we all know there are things we don’t want to see. Or in the words of 1 Corinthians, “For now we see only a reflection, as in a mirror, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.” (1 Corinthians 13:12) Seeing, really seeing, is powerful. So Job “sees” the Lord in a new way.

Today’s Gospel is also about seeing. For the last few weeks Mark has been telling stories of Jesus trying to tell his disciples what is going to happen, and finding that they don’t get it. Today is a variation on this. Jesus, his disciples, and a large crowd are leaving Jericho. Bartimaeus is a blind beggar, and much the dismay of those surrounding Jesus, he starts calling out for Jesus, asking for mercy. The crowd tries to silence him: he is interrupting and making a scene. But Jesus stops, and asks for him to be brought forward. He jumps up, and Jesus asks a simple question: What do you want me to do for you? And he asks for his sight to be restored. It is immediately restored, and Bartimaeus follows Jesus.

There are so many remarkable things about this exchange. First, Jesus makes no assumptions about what Bartimaeus needs or wants: he lets Bartimaeus define his needs. And the request is basic: let me see. There is nothing self aggrandizing in the request, nothing fancy. Just, let me have my sight back. Yet in a way, Bartimaeus had “seen” Jesus before he could see: he knew who Jesus was. And then, when he is healed, there is no big speech, he just joins the followers of Jesus.

What is it we do not see? What do we try not to see? What is it we need Jesus to open our eyes to? What do we hear of the Lord but not see? That is a challenge for all of us.

Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost, October 20, 2024: Job 38:1-7, (34-41); Psalm 104:1-9, 25, 37b; Hebrews 5:1-10; Mark 10:35-45

We could call this week “clueless human” week, where we are repeatedly reminded of the gap between God and humans. But we are also reminded that even when we are clueless, God does not abandon us.

We start with Job: last week we heard him complain, and ask the Lord for an explanation of his fate. This week the Lord answers. “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?” he starts.

“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding.

Who determined its measurements—surely you know!
Or who stretched the line upon it?”

That “surely you know” is a bit snarky: the Lord is not happy with Job’s questioning of his fate. But what is important is that the Lord does answer: he dignifies Job’s complaint with a response, even if it’s not the one Job wanted. Job has demanded answers, but those are “words without knowledge”. And he is reminded that while he may have been virtuous, he is not the creator.

James and John are also clueless, though Jesus is kinder to them than you might expect. The start of their exchange–“will you do whatever we ask?”–is not propitious. Jesus is smart enough not to say yes, but instead asks what they want. And they want to be guaranteed places on his right and his left when he comes to his glory. We should not be surprised that Jesus answers with another question: are you able to drink the same cup I drink, and share in my baptism? Sure, they say: and then Jesus allows them to share his life, which we know is not a cushy one. But Jesus notes that he can’t decide where people sit in heaven; that’s not in his job description.

James and John seem clueless, but they have just heard Jesus tell his followers that he would soon be killed. They have been listening to Jesus’s hard teachings about divorce, about money, and about family, and Mark tells us that his followers were both amazed and afraid. James and John want some certainty. And so do the rest of the disciples: they are upset not because they think James and John asked something inappropriate, but they all want the promise that James and John have asked for. Why should James and John win that place?

So Jesus has to stop and again try to tell the disciples: God’s kingdom is not like the earthly kingdom. In God’s kingdom, the great are those who serve everyone, not those who are served. This is not the first time Jesus has explained this to them, but it’s a hard lesson for them, and for all of us humans.

I really appreciate the way Mark lets us see the failures of the disciples, because however clueless they are, Jesus stays with them and helps them. James and John’s desire for certainty about the future, their quest for security when afraid, is deeply human. We’ve all done it at one time or another, held on to something that we are sure will make us safe, whether a job, or a friendship, or a belief. Jesus does not offer the safety we seek in the world. He does not offer the best seats in the house, but reminds us that it is in service to others, not in ruling over them, that we enter the kingdom.

If we have all, at one time or another, wondered why we were called on to suffer, or sought false security, we have mostly also managed the other side. The psalmist proclaims, “O Lord my God, how excellent is your greatness!” Whether it is the wonder of great music, or seeing the northern lights, or the joy of connection, we have all at times been with the psalmist.

When we are afraid and seeking security, it is reassuring to remember that God does not give up on us. The Lord answers Job, and Jesus does not reject James and John and the others. Because of that, there will also be times when we too can proclaim, with certainty or maybe just faith,

O Lord, how manifold are your works! in wisdom you have made them all;
the earth is full of your creatures. Hallelujah!

Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 23, October 13, 2024: Job 23:1-9, 16-17; Psalm 22:1-15; Hebrews 4:12-16; Mark 10:17-31

“And before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account.” Thus the Letter to the Hebrews lays out our vulnerability before God. We cannot hide: we are naked before God, and all our thoughts are visible.

Our reading from Job and the Psalm have a sense of that vulnerability, but also of isolation. Job has given up the patience with which he first bore his sufferings, and is crying out to God. He just wants a chance to place his case before God, certain that if he could, God will justify him. But no such luck: God is nowhere to be found. “If I go forward, he is not there; or backward, I cannot perceive him; on the left he hides, and I cannot behold him; I turn to the right, but I cannot see him.” Job’s despair is understandable.

A similar sense of abandonment shapes the psalm. You may recognize Psalm 22 from the Good Friday liturgy: it is the psalm that Jesus quotes when he is on the cross. The psalmist acknowledges both their sense of abandonment, but like Job, also their faith in God. “O my God, I cry in the daytime, but you do not answer; by night as well, but I find no rest. / Yet you are the Holy One, enthroned upon the praises of Israel.”

When I have gone through hard times, like Job and the psalmist, I have sometimes not felt the presence of God. In retrospect, I suspect that what is crucial is that God was not present in the way I expected, but was in fact present through those who cared for me. But it can be hard to recognize God in the mix of fear, grief, and anger that tends to overwhelm me in those difficult times.

These readings are not particularly comforting; nor is the Gospel. We start with the story of the rich man, who is told that he has to sell all he has and follow Jesus. As I examine my books especially, that is hard to read. Yet when Francis of Assissi heard this gospel, he did give up his goods and follow Jesus. I can confidently tell you, on my authority as a historian, that Francis is in a very small minority. And yet my monastic friends tell me that there is great freedom in not having things.

Jesus does not stop there. He explains to the disciples that they have to cut themselves off from their families to follow him. To say this is hard is an understatement! Sure, riches are promised in both this world and the next. But thinking about the fates of Jesus’ followers, they got the persecutions Jesus promised in this life. Again, I think we can confidently acknowledge that relatively few Christians over the past two thousand years have followed this.

“The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow”. Thus the Letter to the Hebrews. If our readings from the Hebrew scriptures speak to our experiences of feeling abandoned by God, those from the New Testament speak to the choices we need to make when doing our best to follow Jesus. Those choices are not easy.

There is another part to the story. We know that even when God feels furthest away, God is present. And we know that while we will, like the disciples, often fall short of what we should do to follow Jesus, we can be forgiven, we can try again. The love of God is expansive, and Jesus asks us to separate ourselves from those things that stop us from showing that love in the world. We do what we can.

Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 22, October 6, 2024: Job 1:1; 2:1-10;
Psalm 26; Hebrews 1:1-4; 2:5-12; Mark 10:2-16

There are weeks when I wonder what the people who organized our lectionary were thinking, and this is certainly one of them. We start with Job, who will be our companion for the rest of October. This is the beginning of the story, a fable: Once a upon a time, there was a man in the land of Uz. In the section we skipped, we learn that Job was a wealthy man. He had seven sons and three daughters, and “seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, five hundred donkeys, and very many servants”. One day the “heavenly beings” presented themselves to God, and with them was one called the “Accuser”, also called Satan. His exchange with God is similar to the one we read today: God touts how faithful Job is, the Accuser says, well, sure, he hasn’t suffered, it’s easy to be faithful when things go well. So God gives the Accuser power, but says he can’t physically touch Job.

So suddenly one day, a string of disasters lead to the death of all Job’s livestock, and the death of all his children. Job’s response is to tear his robe, shave his head, and fall on the ground, saying, “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.”

And then comes the passage we have here. The Accuser suggests to God that Job can still pray because he hasn’t physically suffered, so we get the sores all over his body. And still he does not curse God.

Job is the story we use to talk about the problem of undeserved suffering, if any suffering is ever deserved. Why, in the words of Rabbi Harold Kushner, do “bad things happen to good people”? Kushner points out that we have two choices: we can think of God as a master manipulator who decides who suffers and who doesn’t, or we can think of God as an observer who will accompany us. I can’t imagine a God who spends their time micromanaging the world, so like most Episcopalians, I choose to think of God as one who observes and accompanies us.

This week I read an interview with Munther Isaac, the pastor of a Lutheran church in Bethlehem.* While the West Bank has seen less violence than Gaza, attacks on Palestinians there have grown. When he was asked about hope, he said he didn’t think about hope right now: “We are just trying to survive and live day by day”. And then he said this: “We pray for deliverance, but the Bible doesn’t promise deliverance. It promises that God will be with us.” It is good to remember the difference..

If Job draws our attention to the problem of suffering, Mark draws our attention to the challenges of faithfulness. Here we have Jesus on divorce, in a passage that has often been weaponized against people, whether those who are divorced, or gay and lesbian Christians. If Job is about suffering, this passage has caused suffering.

But it helps to see it in context: the Pharisees set Jesus up with a question: “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife”. They want to trip him, to show that he is not faithful to the law. Jesus does his usual thing, of asking them a question in response: What did Moses say? Moses allowed men to get a certificate of divorce and divorce their wives. Jesus then says, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you.” Instead, he suggests the spirit of the law is different. He then speaks of the way marriage joins two people together, becoming one, and says “what God has joined together let no one separate”. These are the words we use in the wedding service, words that affirm marriage as a sacred institution.

That’s all well and good, but then Jesus suggests that those who remarry after divorce are committing adultery. This is the logical consequence of his teaching on marriage. And yet, I don’t think we should read it literally. On a certain level, a second marriage is a betrayal of the promises made in the first. But Jesus recognizes that humans sometimes suffer from “hardness of heart”. Divorce represents a failure of the hope and promises which people bring into a marriage. That is true, and we should not pretend otherwise, however right in other ways a divorce might be. We are, Jesus said, people of hard hearts. Yet this is not meant to exclude or punish those who divorce and remarry: we have hope, after all, that our hearts can open. At the center of Jesus’ ministry is a message of love and radical inclusion. We can acknowledge failure and move forward in hope.

And Jesus follows this with an opening, welcoming the children who have pressed around him. He invites the people around him to come to God not as sophisticated adults, but as children, with open hearts. Children approach the world with wonder and excitement. We can try to do so too.

Somehow, covered with sores, Job still praises God. Like a child, his heart is open. Following Jesus requires us to try to soften our hearts, to open them to the love around us. And to remember that while we may not be spared suffering, God is with us.

* “Palestinian and Christian in a Violent Time“, Interview by Elizabeth Palmer. The Christian Century, October 2024, 48-53.

Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 21, September 29, 2024: Esther 7:1-6, 9-10; 9:20-22; Psalm 124; James 5:13-20; Mark 9:38-50

Three years ago this week in the liturgical year, I started writing these reflections. I have missed a few, but almost every Sunday for the past three years I have written something that bounces off the scripture readings for that day. I have now written through the three year lectionary cycle. My reflections are just that, someone sitting with scripture and trying to make sense of it. Some readings speak powerfully to me, others leave me wondering what I could say. I have been reminded repeatedly how much I am fed by the Hebrew scriptures, and not just the gospel. I probably repeat myself, because I have my pet ideas.

My reflections are always shaped by the state of the world. My first was one very much a “just coming out of COVID” one, reflecting on prayer as a way we stay connected. James’s command to “pray for one another” made me think about the previous 18 months of isolation, grief, and fear. We prayed a lot, but what for? If you don’t think that God is sitting there waiting to hear your prayer and answer your requests, what is it it does? I still think the way we are connected to not just God but to each other is the real gift of prayer. The reminder of our relationship to others, to the world, and to God is so important.

I was struck looking back at my first post that I completely ignored the rest of the week’s readings. And yet the story of Esther is a great story, and the reading for today is the basis for the Jewish celebration Purim, where people get dressed up and really party. That is not and obvious response to the story. Esther, a beautiful young Jewish virgin, is selected by King Ahasueris to replace his former queen, Vashti, who had not obeyed his order. Haman, the King’s advisor, has planned to kill all the Jews and seize their money. Esther learns of the plot, and we read here how she tells the King of it, and saves her people. At the same time, Haman is hanged, and the officials who had planned to kill the Jews are themselves killed. So the Jews are saved, but many others die. And the Jews were to remember this forever, as a a time of “feasting and gladness”.

There are many things I love about the story of Esther, which is very much a story of the marginalized turning the world upside down, triumphing over a corrupt official. In the seventeenth century, one of the responses to a misogynist pamphlet is called “Esther hath hanged Haman”. But reading it today, with a war in the middle east that began when one group carried out a brutal attack on Israelis, I am wondering. That war has led to the almost complete destruction of Gaza by the Israeli military, including schools, hospitals, and homes, and now significant damage in Lebanon. Is total destruction necessary to preserve a people? Do you have to destroy one group of people to protect another? Is there a way to get out of this cycle? How do and should our ethical obligations intersect with political and military calculations? These are not questions with one answer, and people of faith will come to different conclusions.

Pray for one another, James tells his readers. As we do, we are connected. For almost a year, I have been praying for the Israeli hostages in Gaza, but also for the people of Gaza. For years I have prayed for the hungry and homeless, for refugees and migrants, to remind myself of the needs of the world. I have also prayed for friends, for those who have been very ill or have died. At first I found it strange to pray for those I did not know, but as I have done so, I have felt my heart grow.

We are told often how divided we are in the US right now, and almost everyone feels it. I have read impassioned suggestions about how we heal the divide. One way to start is to seriously pray for one another. Pray for one another, and pray for everyone. It is not always easy, but it is what we are told to do.