Happy Ending?

•October 22, 2012 • 1 Comment

We all love a happy ending.  True love is found; problems are sorted; everyone is reconciled; the situation is saved; a job well done is completed.  It is the stuff of films.  Yet we long for it in “real” life too.

Job 42:1-6, 10-17

Job’s Reply to the Lord

No One Can Oppose You

42 Job said:

2 No one can oppose you,
because you have the power
to do what you want.
3 You asked why I talk so much
when I know so little.
I have talked about things
that are far beyond
my understanding.
4 You told me to listen
and answer your questions.
5 I heard about you from others;
now I have seen you
with my own eyes.
6 That’s why I hate myself
and sit here in dust and ashes
to show my sorrow.

A Happy Ending

10 After Job had prayed for his three friends, the Lord made Job twice as rich as he had been before. 11 Then Job gave a feast for his brothers and sisters and for his old friends. They expressed their sorrow for the suffering the Lord had brought on him, and they each gave Job some silver and a gold ring.

12 The Lord now blessed Job more than ever; he gave him fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand pair of oxen, and a thousand donkeys.

13 In addition to seven sons, Job had three daughters, 14 whose names were Jemimah, Keziah, and Keren Happuch. 15 They were the most beautiful women in that part of the world, and Job gave them shares of his property, along with their brothers.

16 Job lived for another one hundred forty years—long enough to see his great-grandchildren have children of their own— 17 and when he finally died, he was very old.

Job has, almost literally, been to hell and back.  A man, who has apparently done little wrong in life, he has suffered much, whilst all the time having his friends question and abuse him.

Through all this, he refuses to curse God.  He philosophically accepts it as his lot.  Then, as suddenly as it all began, it is over.  After a curious passage about catching a sea monster, which sounds rather like wrestling jelly, and a reminder that God is all-powerful and the creator of all, Job acknowledges that God is God, and will be God, Job’s problems disappear.

Wow!  How simplistic that seems, that after all the struggle, everything will just be ok.

Is that your experience of life?  Or are you caught up in the struggle, unable to see the end, or believe that everything will ever be alright again?

I suppose Job’s struggle can give us hope:

  • if we are caught up in the struggle, we can know that it is not about something we’ve done – or not done.  Bad things do happen to good people, just as they do to “bad” (and who decides who are which anyway?!)
  • God is in the struggle as much as he is in the good things of life
  • The struggle will one day, some how be over

That’s not to say that we will necessarily find ourselves wealthier and more blessed at the end.  This is where reading the bible as a whole, and hearing the different stories helps.  For Habakkuk, the struggle ends when he learns to live with the questions and ‘what ifs’

Trust in a Time of Trouble

17 Fig trees may no longer bloom,
or vineyards produce grapes;
olive trees may be fruitless,
and harvest time a failure;
sheep pens may be empty,
and cattle stalls vacant—
18 but I will still celebrate
because the Lord God
saves me.
19 The Lord gives me strength.
He makes my feet as sure
as those of a deer,
and he helps me stand
on the mountains.

At times that is all I can cling on to – that God has got hold of everything, even when I can’t understand it.  And to me, that is a happy ending. And I truly believe God loves each one of us as much as he loved both Job and Habakkuk.

If you’re not in that place, and I can understand if you’re not, I went to a very barren desert before I got there, know that wherever you are – God is there too.  However unhappy, however painful, however frustrating the place is – God is there too, holding on to you.

Lord,

I’m holding on to you,

I have nothing much else to hold on to;

I’m trusting you,

because I know I can.

I come to you in my struggles,

my disappointment,

my pain,

my fear,

my anger,

my disillusionment…

and ask you to hod me tight

Posted in bible, disability, God, hope, Lectionary, Religion
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Looking for the Best Seat

•October 17, 2012 • Leave a Comment

This is a re-blog from Lent this year, following the BigRead using Tom Wright’s Lent for Everyone – Mark. 

You walk into a room, and you look around for the best spot to sit. Near enough the heating to be warm, but not so near to be cooked; near enough a window for some air, but not so near that you’re in the draught; near enough the front that you can see, but not so near you might get dragged into the action; a comfy seat; just enough light… Everyone wants the best place.

The Request of James and John

35James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came up to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, will you do us a favour?”

36Jesus asked them what they wanted, 37and they answered, “When you come into your glory, please let one of us sit at your right side and the other at your left.”

38Jesus told them, “You don’t really know what you’re asking! Are you able to drink from the cup that I must soon drink from or be baptized as I must be baptized?”

39“Yes, we are!” James and John answered.

Then Jesus replied, “You certainly will drink from the cup from which I must drink. And you will be baptized just as I must! 40But it isn’t for me to say who will sit at my right side and at my left. That is for God to decide.”

41When the ten other disciples heard this, they were angry with James and John. 42But Jesus called the disciples together and said:

You know that those foreigners who call themselves kings like to order their people around. And their great leaders have full power over the people they rule. 43But don’t act like them. If you want to be great, you must be the servant of all the others. 44And if you want to be first, you must be everyone’s slave. 45The Son of Man did not come to be a slave master, but a slave who will give his life to rescue many people.

This story has echoes of the “Who will be the greatest” argument of Mark 9:33-41.  Jesus must have felt that he was banging his head against a brick wall – they were still failing to get the point…

God’s new thing was not about who was going to get the best places in heaven.  God’s ways are not about jostling for a nice position, they are about serving others.    The question should be not what favour Jesus will do for them – but what they are going to do for others.

The main focus of Jesus life was to show us how God would live – how we should live, not to bring comfort for eternity.  Following him means nothing if it does not make us act as he did…

Our Servant King, calls us to follow him, to daily live out lives as he did – in the service of others.

Are we looking for an easy life, eternal rest, or to serve others as God would?  That might not be a glamorous or easy life – but it is the one God calls us to, for that is how his new way will come. Will you join him?

Tom Wright’s prayer for today (p 105):

Help us, Lord Jesus,

servant and saviour,

to be grasped by your vision of God’s new world,

and to follow you in the servant-work

through which it is accomplished

 

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In It Too

•October 16, 2012 • Leave a Comment

When someone comes to our house, one of us has to answer the door.  But if you watch such programmes as Downton Abbey, they don’t open their own door, they have servants to do that.  The members of the Crawley family are far too important to be greeting everyone on the doorstep.  If you get to talk to them, the staff will show you in.  No one gets to see the family, without first going through the staff. And if you’re really not very important, the staff will deal with whatever it is you are there for.

http://www.itv.com/downtonabbey/about-the-show/

Hebrews 5:1-10

5 Every high priest is appointed to help others by offering gifts and sacrifices to God because of their sins. 2 A high priest has weaknesses of his own, and he feels sorry for foolish and sinful people. 3 That is why he must offer sacrifices for his own sins and for the sins of others. 4 But no one can have the honour of being a high priest simply by wanting to be one. Only God can choose a priest, and God is the one who chose Aaron.

5 That is how it was with Christ. He became a high priest, but not just because he wanted the honour of being one. It was God who told him,

“You are my Son, because today
I have become your Father!”

6 In another place, God says,

“You are a priest forever
just like Melchizedek.”

7 God had the power to save Jesus from death. And while Jesus was on earth, he begged God with loud crying and tears to save him. He truly worshipped God, and God listened to his prayers. 8 Jesus is God’s own Son, but still he had to suffer before he could learn what it really means to obey God. 9 Suffering made Jesus perfect, and now he can save forever all who obey him. 10 This is because God chose him to be a high priest like Melchizedek.

In the Old Testament, no “ordinary” person was allowed to bring their own sacrifice to God.  They were not considered good enough to be able to get that close to him.  So Priests were appointed to that task.  You took your offering to the Priest, and he would give it to God on your behalf.

Not just anyone could become a Priest, God appointed someone who was “fit for purpose”.  But even then, the Priests themselves were not perfect.  They still had to bring an offering for their own sin, as well as of those stood outside.  Until that was, Jesus…

But Jesus brought something totally different, for he was perfect.  He has direct access to God because there is nothing blocking the way between them.

But there is something else that Jesus brings:

Jesus also knew what it was to suffer – and in his case totally unjustly.  So when we are torn apart by suffering, both that of our own and that of others that we see, when we wonder what God is doing, and where he is, we can know that he is right in there in it with us.  Suffering is a lonely place to be.  If we feel that no one understands, it is because they don’t – they are not in the place we are, experiencing what we are experiencing.  But when we ask,

Where is God?

he is where you are, where I am.  Jesus knew crying and pain, and he cries with us in our pain.  God didn’t spare Jesus from suffering, it was part of his lot if he was to be fully human, as he was.

To me, that is what makes him a God worth following.  He is not aloof from his creation, but involved in the world. Knowing us, loving us, understanding us and our life.  Standing right there with us.  That, for me, is what makes the difference.

Thank you God,

that wherever I am,

however I am feeling,

whatever I am going through

you are there with me.

Thank you that you understand

pain,

tears,

suffering

and struggle,

because you have known it too.

Thank you that even when I can’t see you

or feel you,

you are in the midst.

Thank you.

Posted in bible, God, Jesus, Lectionary, Religion
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