[Propertalk] Sickly propers 23 b rcl

[Robert P Morrison]

This was produced, over a few days, while recuperating from throat and sundry other ailments, so the mental faculties aren't yet fully in place. Thus this will be looked at with whatever wits tomorrow may enodow me!  Sunday's yet a day beyond that!

Best wishes, and good luck!

Bob


THE EPISCOPAL PARISH OF ST. JAMES, LINCOLN CITY   THE NINETEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
JOB 23:1-9, 16-17     	         PROPER 23 B RCL
HEBREWS 4:12-16	        11th OCTOBER, 2009
MARK 10:17-31                          PSALM 22:1-15

	This past week I received the newsletter from the Edinburgh which tells of events in the Theological faculty. This issue contained an obituary for one of the Old Testament professors with whom I’d studied. One of my friends, now a Professor of Old Testament there, wrote that John Gibson was “‘A scholar minister of humour and passion’ who spent most of his working life in the University of Edinburgh, but for whom the wellbeing of the Scottish Kirk and nation, and proper education of its ministers (had) a high claim on his attention.”
	John Gibson was the general editor of a series of commentaries on all the books of the Old Testament. What struck me, though, was that “Professor Graeme Auld … recalls what John wrote, in his introduction to the Book of Job, in which (John) found ‘incomparable glories’:
	“’When we reach the end of this unique and scarifying and excoriating book, we will know that we have had an exceedingly uncomfortable and tempestuous ride. No book before or since has so remorselessly peeled away the levels of piety and hypocrisy, of self-pity and self-deceit, of meretricious groveling and heaven-defying arrogance with which, down the ages, humankind has tried to cover over the truth about itself.’”  1
	Reading Job, then, isn’t for those easily scared. Or is it? Maybe we need fear. What’s the function of being frightened? Is its purpose to help one to analyse who you and I are, how each of us relates to the world? Is it to heighten one’s awareness of the relationship we share with everything in the world – and beyond – to hold up a mirror so that we can see ourselves as we may prefer not to see ourselves? Is it the purpose of facing fear to help one develop into a more sensitive and sensible human being, made in the image of the Creator? Sometimes fear can do that. If indeed, it DOES peel back the veneer of our polite assent, our lukewarm responses which neither criticize what we know to be wrong, nor support what we know the be right; if, indeed, fear does that, then maybe we all need a healthy dose of it from time to time.
	Too often, I fear, we ARE lukewarm in our behaviour to others, and to opinions and actions. Too often we back away when we know, in our heart of hearts, that we should challenge. Too often we may be less willing to trouble the waters – oh, because we may not see that person again, or encounter that situation, or have to deal with that problem. Let someone else try to take care of it, we rationalize. That way we can avoid criticism, or loss of face, or of money, or respect. We can make the problem go away, from our own lives, at any rate, by NOT engaging that person or opinion.
	But today’s story from Job would have us do otherwise. Despite what he’d suffered; despite the speeches of his friends and family, Job wished to stand in God’s Presence and listen to what the Creator had to say, even if it meant hearing something unpleasant or accusatory. Here Job was willing to listen, to try to understand what’s going on, even if it was unpleasant, even if there WAS or IS no explanation.
	Whatever Job might hear from listening to God, it would be constructive, it would be practical, it would give him something on which to build in his life. And that’s precisely what the stranger sought from Jesus. We’re not told if he would have been prepared for criticism. It seems he simply wanted some sort of affirmation. He knew that he’d been keeping the commandments as closely as he could. He simply felt that he needed a better handle on how to make the law more personal in his life. And that’s what Jesus gave him – something concrete by which he could measure his devotion to God. “You don’t need to take out any ads,” said Jesus. “The community doesn’t need to know. Only you need to know how great is your devotion. Take what you have. Take EVERYTHING that you have, and dedicate it to the work of relieving poverty, and disease, and anxiety, and injustice in the world. Then you won’t need to worry about anything as you go about your daily ministry in following my lead.”
	It’s that simple.
	Maybe there’s never been an easier time for this in our own lives. When the value of our resources has been turned upside down by economic pressures brought on by incredible greed and dishonesty by some, perhaps THIS is the time to evaluate how our own piety, and manipulation, and management, and compassion, and discipleship are all inter-related with the Christian Stewardship we say guides our lives as followers of Jesus in this community.
	Last week, I received an e-mail request to answer a survey. It was something in which I was interested, from a group of which I approve, but I stopped short at the question that appeared at the head. It said, “Do you agree to spend a reasonable amount of time completing this survey and to provide honest and thoughtful responses?” There was a place in which to mark “Yes” or “No”.
 	What a question?
	Can you imagine this happening when you’re involved in some business transaction? “Wait a minute! Are you willing to consider the implications of this quite seriously?” Imagine your attitude if your bank manager questioned your request to do something with an old or new account. Or your insurance agent. Or your travel planner. Or the person checking out your purchases at the grocery store. “Wait a minute. Are you sure you want these peppers? Did you look at all of them? Do you really need them? What are you going to do with them? Are you sure you wouldn’t rather have yams?”
	I’d imagine that checker might well be out of a job if that happened too frequently, so why should the designer and analyser of the survey expect me to react differently about a survey, no matter what the subject?
	However, that’s kind of like the Jesus question. That’s kind of what Job surmised – hoped – would happen in God’s Presence. “Are you serious about your life in terms of following My desires? Or are you simply humouring Me and trying to look good in front of your friends?” After all, there’s more than a hint of that in the way Job was addressing God.
	The point about all of this is that God doesn’t want to be humoured. God doesn’t NEED to be humoured. God has more than enough humour already, more and to spare.
	Don’t misunderstand, God loves a good laugh – take even a cursory glance around the universe and you’ll see that! But God isn’t the least bit impressed by being humoured, by being buttered up, by being told one thing simple to end the conversation, while all the time you or I know that we’re going to think, or say, or do something completely contradictory to what we feel like saying to God.
	God would rather have direct honesty, and be told that it’s incredibly difficult for us to think about giving up some of our accustomed habits and passions, simply in order to make sure that someone else’s life was made slightly more tolerable; that some child might not die of malaria; that some other child might have shoes – and, gosh, maybe even socks! – to wear, that wouldn’t let in the rain when he or she went to – where? Oceanlake? Taft? Across the country, or even across the world?
	Remember that netting we had hanging over the congregation last year? Twelve dollars protected a family of five. Twelve dollars – as much as I pay for the Chamber of Commerce lunch. Now THERE’S a questions for me. Whether would I rather go to the Chamber lunch or make sure that another family could sleep, and live, without having to fear malarian disintegration of the family? Which will I choose? 
	Let me ask the survey question again, or rather, let Jesus ask me, and each one of you, that survey question. Do I agree, you agree, to spend a reasonable amount of time completing my life, your life, and managing my resources, your resources, so that I and you provide an honest and thoughtful response to everything you and I see and hear around you and me?
	It may have been purely a timing error on God’s part, but Jesus wasn’t around at the same time as newspapers, never mind the internet. His face never showed up in the News Guard, or on the lap top screen of thousands of latte sipping aficionados at their favourite haunts. Jesus never needed that sort of black-slapping acknowledgement. And He told the disciples they’d never get it either – if they did their job right. God’s notice, God’s score-keeping was all that mattered. The task of discipleship and apostleship was to spread the word and to make sure that no life went untouched, no matter to whom the life appeared to belong.
	Louie Crew of New Jersey, whom I’m honoured to be able to count as a friend, wrote that what someone said the other week brought “to mind a story of Bayard Rustin, gay and a major advisor to Dr. (Martin Luther) King. One day Rustin was in the Wall Street area visiting an ally. After his meeting, Rustin entered an elevator on a floor very high up. The other fellow on the elevator was reading a newspaper and said to Rustin, ‘Boy, shine my shoes.’
	“Rustin knelt on the floor of the slow, creaking elevator and used his own handkerchief to shine the man's shoes.
	“As they reached the bottom floor, the man held out two bits for Rustin. 
	“‘I do it only for love, not for money,’ Rustin replied.” 
	Louie ended, “I like to think the man told it on himself after this encounter with the Holy Spirit.”  2
	“I do it only for love, not for money.” What a marvelous emptying of himself. He could have snarled and snapped. He could have asked the other man to wait on him. He could have done any number of things to place himself at the centre and to preserve his position. But he didn’t. Without a word, he ministered, even if the request was meant in a demeaning way. Rustin raised the act of service to a new level.
	At the beginning of last week, a conference was held at Trinity Church in that same Wall Street where Rustin had been forty years earlier. Sister Ana Martinez de Luco was one of those who spoke. She “works with the homeless of New York City and is homeless, herself. 
	“‘My decision is to follow the Jesus who chose to be poor,’ she said. 
	“Not everyone at the workshop agreed with Sister Ana’s representation of homeless life, however, with one workshop participant taking exception with her ‘glamourization’ of life on the streets.
	“‘I don't expect other people to live like me,’ Sister Ana responded later. ‘I think all of us, within ourselves, have a lot of possibility. I am so convinced that sharing is a very human thing. It gives much more joy and satisfaction than the possession aspect of having everything in my home, the best, the latest fashion.’
	“She sees the global economic crisis as a good thing, because, she said, ‘it’s time for a new economy in the world where humans are the center.’ To change the global economy, to eradicate poverty, Sister Marie Elena said that, ‘we need an educated citizenry.’ 
	“It’s a call to education and action that the workshop participants take seriously. 
	“‘I just want to know more and more,’ said Steven Rufe, a sophomore at Gwynedd-Mercy College and a PGJ intern. ‘I’m big on educating. If I can’t go to Africa and put bread in a child’s hand, then I can tell someone [here] about the child who needs bread.’
	“Heather McGinness, who works in fundraising and public relations for the Sisters of Notre Dame, said the workshop will help her explain to donors why the international work her organization does is so important.  
	“‘I think people don't realize the connectedness, the interdependency of [the global economy],’ she said. ‘I feel like my job is more important now, because I really have to get this message out.’” 3
	The first and third reading today both talk about our longing to stand in God’s Presence, and to hear some word of affirmation about what it means to be God’s obedient servant.
	It’s not only hopeful, it’s corrective for our souls to know when things are going right. And it’s corrective to our souls also to discover when we’re NOT doing things as well, or as fully, or as lovingly as we might. That too is correction. And when we face it in the spirit of Job, knowing that God will not blast us, even when we’re off track or slacking off, but that God WILL offer practical, concrete advice to re-form our own pilgrimage as well as enrich the lives of others, then we can seek God’s answer without fear. Both Job and the stranger, whom Jesus may never have seen again, had their lives laid bare in front of God. Pray for yourself, and for me, that we might have this experience also. And pray that we may be able to face the practical advice constructively, and not leave with heavy hearts.

NOTES:
1 	Graeme Auld, et al. In Memoriam: The Reverend John Clark Love Gibson. New College Bulletin 2009, The University of Edinburgh, page 5
2	Louie Crew, Diocese of Newark, lay deputy to General Convention lcrew at andromeda.rutgers.edu
3	NEW YORK: Workshop explores the global economy By Nicole Seiferth, October 09, 2009
http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81803_115455_ENG_HTM.htm  - Nicole Seiferth is assistant editor for web and parish publications at Trinity Wall Street. 

 



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Robert P. Morrison
The Episcopal Parish of St James,
PO Box 789
Lincoln City, Oregon, 97367

541-994-2426 (Church)