Riding the Turtle - Job 42:1-6, 10-17, 1 Corinthians 3:10-11

I grew up getting my hair cut at an old fashioned barber shop;
one with the red striped pole out front
where the only decent style of cut for a boy was a crew cut.
I would go with my Dad on Saturday morning and wait my turn
until the barber would slap the leather chair with a towel,
and invite me to climb up.
It took no time at all to cut my hair,
because all it required was a few passes with the number three guard clippers.
When he was done I’d get a whisk of talcum powder
and a squirt of compressed air and I was good to go.
As I climbed down, the barber would give me two items:
a lollipop and a dime to “go ride the turtle.”

The turtle was a large plastic reptile with a seat in the shell that they kept in back.
I would climb into the seat and carefully slip my dime in the slot,
and for a couple of minutes I would gyrate slowly on the animal’s back.
Looking back, I realize that turtle was interminably slow.
Still, there was something about it that gave me comfort.
No trip to the barber shop was complete without that ride.

I don’t remember when I stopped riding the turtle –
if the barber quit offering the dime or if I quit accepting it.
It was inevitable, however, that would let my hair grow longer
and graduate on to faster rides.

I haven’t thought about that turtle for a long time,
but it all came back to me when I found the picture of the engraving
that you have on your bulletin today.
The title of the engraving is “The Triumph of Job” by Maerten van Heemskerck
a 16th century Dutch artist.

As you can see, Job is depicted in the engraving
as one who has come through his ordeal intact.
In fact, he has overcome all who either intentionally or unintentionally
caused him to suffer.
That includes Mrs. Job who told him early on that he should just curse God and die,
It includes his three visitors who kept insisting that Job was hiding a dark sin
and deserved his punishment.
And it includes old Satan himself, or as I’ve been calling him, the Accuser,
who is responsible for talking God into letting him test Job in the first place.
In the picture, Job is leading these five figures on what look like leashes.
He carries a banner of victory and he is riding on the back of a turtle, of all things!

I consulted Roger Elliott, our resident art historian,
and he told me that van Heemskerck was one of the northern Renaissance artists
who often used scriptural references in their art
and they were known to imbue everyday objects with hidden symbolic meaning.
So we can be pretty sure of the fact that Job riding a turtle means something.
We just don’t know what.

I looked it up on line and while I found no explanation of van Heemskerck’s work
but I did find references to the symbolism of the turtle in general.
In Hindu mythology, it is believed that the world is supported
by four elephants standing on a giant turtle’s back.
For Native Americans, the turtle is part of their creation myth.
Many cultures see the turtle as a symbol of a long life
and that would fit Job’s story since, after all he had lost was restored,
it is written that Job lived 140 years and died, “old and full of days.”
Of course, Aesop, the Greek writer who lived in 600 B.C.
had his famous fable of the race between the tortoise and the hare
which ends with the moral “Slow and steady wins the race.”
Maybe it’s the famous “patience of Job” that van Heemskerck had in mind
when he created this picture and put Job on the turtle’s back.

We’ve come to the end of our four week journey through Job.
We decided at the beginning not to look for answers in the story
but instead to allow Job to help us come up with some good questions.
The first week our question was this:
“Can there be a human being of such integrity toward God and people
that not even the worst imaginable experiences of life
are capable of destroying that person?”

The second week the question was:
“Is there anywhere so dark or so distant that God is not present there?”

Last week it was:
“What would it mean for me if I were to accept that I am not the center of the universe,
that God gives the gift of life, but does not make every move
base on whether I deserve to be rewarded or punished?

This last week we come back around to the question I told you I would get to.
Everyone who’s ever heard of Job assumes that Job’s story addresses the question
“Why do bad things happen to good people?”
Or, the corollary, “Why do good things happen to bad people.”

We come to Job’s story wanting it to tell us the reasons behind
the injustices we experience or hear about.
We want to shake Job and say “Come on man, tell us who to blame here!”
But in the end, the only wisdom Job can give us is found in his last address to God
when he says, “I have uttered what I do not understand,
things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.”

In the end Job survives with his integrity intact.
He stands before God still convinced that his friends are wrong,
that what has befallen him is not a punishment for some unconfessed sin.
But in the end he is moved to repentance anyway because he understands
that he has overstepped his bounds;
that he has assumed he could know the mind of God.
He has acted as though he was entitled to a backstage pass to creation.

So, as much as we would like it to be so,
we do not find in Job the answer to the question,
“Why do bad things happen to good people.”
Instead, we are invited to ask the question,
“HOW (not why) but HOW can we continue on with our lives
when bad things DO happen to good people (and vice versa)?”
“HOW do we pick up the pieces and continue on
when we witness or experience a terrible injustice?”

This is where I think the turtle needs to make an entrance.
I don’t know what was in Maerten van Heemskerck’s mind
when he created “The Triumph of Job.”
But for me the “Slow and Steady Wins the Race” allusion makes the most sense.
I’m sure it was probably me who quit taking the dimes for the turtle ride at the barber
because at some point I wasn’t content with a “baby” ride.
I wanted something faster, something with more of a thrill,
something that would give me the illusion that I was making progress,
I could get things done,
I could make it happen,
I could be in charge and keep on an onward and upward path all the way.

But then a child is born with a disability.
A diagnosis of cancer comes out of the blue.
A poor decision leads to a split second crash leads to sudden paralysis.
Bad things happen. They’re not punishment, they just happen.

If you’ve been thinking you’ve crossed all the “t’s” and dotted all the “I’s”
and that you’re too smart or too good looking or too religious
to face difficulty or hardship;
If you’re under the illusion that you’re in charge, you’ve lived a healthy lifestyle,
and that if you just move fast enough trouble can’t hit a moving target,
well, then, good luck with that.

But when bad things happen, and they will happen,
the key to overcoming the bad things,
the key to finding meaning even in the most difficult circumstances,
is putting your dime in the slot and riding the turtle.
You’ve heard it so much it’s seems trite, but it’s true.
Slow and steady wins the race.
One day at a time.
Easy does it.
Keep on plugging.
Don’t look ten years ahead or even two years or even two months if you can help it.
Just resolve to live this day, this hour, this moment as fully as you can,
and keep plodding along.

And know this: God is with you on that ash heap –
not to make your pain vanish,
not to trade healing for some promise that you’ll do better.
God is there with you on the ash heap, offering God’s presence,
offering God’s assurance that you are not alone.

Now, here’s a side note: If you have a friend who’s sitting on the ash heap
the best thing you can do is sit there with them –
don’t offer advice, just sit.

I remembered when I got to this point in my sermon preparation
that I was supposed to make this a stewardship sermon
since our Commitment Sunday is next Sunday and we’d like you to be generous.
So far I’ve not said a thing about making a pledge.
As I think about it though,
It would be tempting to draw an easy parallel from this last chapter of Job;
say something superficial like, “See, Job was faithful in his obedience
and God gave him even more stuff than before!”
But I think you’d be insulted by that.

Instead, I simply want to say that when it comes to being a good steward
of what God has given you,
it makes sense to again use the image of riding the turtle.
Rockfish Presbyterian Church is 260 years old this year.
There were times in this church’s history that were lean indeed.
I’m guessing there were even times when somebody said,
“What’s the use? We ought to just close up and go worship with the Methodists.”
When Hurricane Hazel blew the roof off,
or the minister went for months without being paid,
surely somebody said, “Enough’s enough. God has deserted us. Why fight it?”

But through the dark times and through the good times,
the faithful in this church have kept putting one foot in front of the other.
They’ve stepped out in faith without fanfare or show and kept the doors open.
Because they knew what you and I know.
They knew that these are the people who will sit on the ash heap with us
when the days get dark.
These are the people who will not let us give up,
but will keep us moving forward inch by inch.

I do hope you will be generous in your pledge,
that sometime in the coming week you will acknowledge
that Jesus is Lord of your bank account as well as your Sunday mornings.
I hope you will commit yourself next Sunday to crawl up on the turtle’s back.
It’s not always the most thrill-packed ride,
but the turtle’s back is broad and there’s room for us all.

Journey to the Center of the Universe Job 38:1-10, 33-36, I Corinthians 2:1-10

This may come as a shock to you,
then again maybe not.
You are not the center of the universe.
You’re not even close.
That’s hard news to start a morning with but it must be said;
otherwise, we end up like Job.
Even worse, we end up like Job’s three so-called friends.

Now, this is tricky.
The fact that Job IS the central character of the story
makes him SEEM like the center of the universe.
He is the representative human being, after all,
the man whose reputation is so spotless
and whose integrity is so above reproach
that he is God’s darling and the Accuser’s gadfly.
In that great imagined scene in God’s throne room
the Accuser wonders aloud if Job’s good behavior might not be just an act
calculated to keep him on the receiving end of God’s blessings
If the blessings were to stop,
if Job were to suffer loss instead of experiencing gain;
if he were to get a nasty, disfiguring, chronic skin condition
instead of walking around the picture of health,
then he would surely crumble like a week-old birthday cake.
The Accuser proposes a test of Job’s integrity,
and God, aware of the stakes if the Accuser is right, goes along.

But Job is NOT the center of the universe,
nor are his three snarky friends who visit him
and try to convince him to just admit he’s done SOMETHING to deserve
losing his land, his ten children, his livestock and his health.
For THIRTY-FIVE CHAPTERS they go around and around –
the visitors accusing Job of a cover-up
and Job lobbying for a chance to present his case to God,
asserting his innocence and crying for justice!

FINALLY, in chapter 38, God appears to Job in a whirlwind
and invites Job to “gird up his loins like a man”
Now, even this opening address by God
makes Job appear to be the center of the universe.
The King is giving an audience to the lowly subject;
the Creator’s behavior appears to have been modified by the creature.
But, the fact God appears to Job is not to be taken as a sign of God’s weakness
and Job’s power.
instead, God comes to Job as an act of sheer grace.
God appears to Job NOT to answer Job’s complaint,
but to let Job know that, good as Job is, he is NOT the center of the universe.
He’s not even close.

I hope that at some time in your life
you have felt like the center of someone’s universe.
I hope you have felt the complete and unconditional affection of a Mom or Dad,
or that you have been the focus of unbridled love by someone you love back.
But as good as that feels
and as important as it is to have that experience,
it’s not a place to linger.
Being at the center of the universe for too long can be crippling.
You’ve seen parents who make their children the center of the universe –
either spoiling them with every advantage
or grinding them down with demands for perfection.
You’ve seen boyfriends or girlfriends who make their loved one the center
and end up either smothering them with too much attention
or jailing them with jealousy.

But the worst part about seeing yourself as the center of the universe
is that it begins to feel like you’re performing a gymnastics routine at the Olympics.
It seems like everything you do is judged,
and based on your performance you are either rewarded or punished;
and, in turn, you begin to look at every relationship
in terms of whether it makes you look good or bad,
whether it provides you with a net gain or a net loss.

Job and his friends had an understanding of God
such that they saw themselves as the focus of God’s attention’
they were the center of God’s universe.
They believed that everything they did was evaluated by God
and that if they were prosperous it was a sign of God’s approval
and if they suffered it was a sign of God’s displeasure.
The three friends believed that since Job was suffering it was because he had sinned –
somewhere along the way he had messed up, whether he knew it or not.
Job, on the other hand, was confident of his innocence,
so he demanded an audience with God to present his case.
Around and around they went for thirty five chapters,
until finally, in chapter thirty-eight, God has had enough.
God appears to Job in the whirlwind and says, “Guess what,
You are NOT the center of the universe, not even close.”

“Where were you when the foundations of the earth were laid?
“Where were you when the bars were put on the sea?”
Can you throw a lightening bolt?”

The thing we get hung up on is the same thing Job and his friends got hung up on.
We’ve got the steering wheel and we’re gripping it tight
and we’re spinning it first left and then right imagining ourselves to be in control.
But we might as well be holding a pot lid.
We’re only kidding ourselves.
The steering wheel is only a toy.
God is the one driving the world, not us.
God is the center of the universe, not us.
But that doesn’t mean we can just sit back and do nothing.
There’s plenty for us to do.

It’s like when I was a boy and I would go every summer with my family on vacation
riding four hours to Myrtle Beach, S.C. in the middle of July with no air conditioning.
I was the youngest, so I always had to sit on the hump in the middle in the back
squeezed between my older brother and sister.
Dad was driving so I didn’t have to worry about which road to take
or whether we needed to stop for gas. He took care of that.
But if all I thought about was how hot it was, or how unfair it was
that I always had to sit in the middle on that hump;
if we bickered about which radio station to listen to
or made fun of each other or just picked on each other out of meanness,
the trip was nearly unbearable.
But if we played the alphabet game or kept a list of different license plates
or played road sign bingo the time flew by and the trip wasn’t nearly so bad.

Job and his friends spend thirty-five chapters
debating driving techniques and rules of the road
when they’re not even the ones driving.
It’s no wonder that in Chapter 38 God sounds like God’s patience has run a tad thin.

Each week of the past two weeks, Job has presented us with a question.
The question Job raises for us today is this:
What would it mean for me if I were to accept
that life is not a series of rewards and punishments?
What if I acknowledged instead that life itself is a gift from God.
And there is to life an undercurrent of grace
and that undercurrent is always there whether I feel it or not,
whether I’m employed or not,
whether I’m in pain or not.

Paul knew that he was not the center of the universe for his Corinthian friends.
I’m paraphrasing here, but what Paul basically said is this:
“I didn’t come to you trying to impress you with my speaking ability,
or my book-learning,
or my physical appearance.
I didn’t come pretending to be the center of your universe.
But I DID come to help direct you to the Center of the Universe,
that is, God, who is known to us through Jesus.

If you’re looking to avoid suffering, Jesus is not your guy.
If you’re thinking you can scam the system, rig your life somehow
so that you have only good and not bad.
Jesus is not the way.”
What Job finally found out after thirty-seven chapters
and what Paul suddenly saw on the road to Damascus
is that while we are indeed very special to God,
special enough for God to appear out of the whirlwind to Job,
special enough for God to become human in Jesus,
in fact, God is in charge. God is in the driver’s seat.
and you and I are in for one sweet and bumpy ride.

Feeling Our Way in the Dark Job 23:1-9, 16-17, 2 Corinthians 4:7-10, 16-18

Last Sunday we were introduced to Job.
We read of this imaginary scene where God, sitting on the throne,
surrounded by a host of attendants,
is approached by hasatan, the Accuser, who proposes a test of Job’s mettle.
The Accuser questions Job’s motives for his faith and integrity,
for his unfailing adoration of God.
Might it be, the Accuser suggests, that Job is only being pious and good
so God will keep blessing him with prosperity?
Will Job’s loyalty to God crumble at the first hint of trouble?
We discussed how Job serves in the story as a representative of the best of humankind.
and how the success or failure of God’s whole plan of creation;
of God’s desire to be in a covenant relationship with humanity;
rides on how Job performs under the Accuser’s onslaught.
We noticed that while God is traditionally blamed
for too easily accepting the Accuser’s dare,
in fact God does limit what the Accuser can do to Job,
AND God bets the farm on Job,
trusting this fragile, mortal human being to withstand the Accuser’s test.
Job left us last week with this question,
“Can a person, a mere mortal human being, possess such incorruptible integrity,
that not even the worst life has to offer is able to shake it?”
[REPEAT]

This week we move from the outer edges of Job to its dark interior.
Scholars believe that the book of Job began as a folk tale
consisting of only the first two chapters in which Job loses all he has
and the last chapter where everything is restored.
This was a wisdom story, they believe, the kind of writing we find in Proverbs,
where righteousness is rewarded,
where Job is the supreme example of one who meets extreme hardship
with extreme endurance and is summarily blessed with even more prosperity
than he had first enjoyed.

But at some point in the history of this simple story
someone came along and was not satisfied.
This person was not content with the simple “reward” theology of the story
and began to probe deeper
It’s as though the author said, “OK, here’s the story of the patient sufferer we all know.
I want to know about the struggles that lie beneath the surface
of such a breathtaking example of faithful endurance.”
So the author of our present story of Job split the original folktale in two
and sandwiched between the two existing crackers of prose
a nasty, processed cheese spread of poetry.
He introduced three so-called “friends” of Job: Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar,
who visit Job in his misery
and try to convince him to just confess to his sin and be done with it.
These “friends” even go so far as to tell Job, a grieving father,
that his children deserved death;
that even when he was prospering it was not because he was good,
but because God just hadn’t gotten around to punishing him yet.

The visits come in roughly three poetic cycles
and Job more or less answers each one,
doing his best to deflect the cruel blows the three deliver “for his own good.”
God doesn’t make mistakes, the three visitors all intone,
1 + 1 has got to equal 2, that’s all there is to it.
We know God rewards the righteous and punishes the wicked,
and you are obviously being punished,
ergo, ipso facto, presto change-o,
YOU, my friend, MUST BE WICKED!

Our passage today comes near the beginning of the third cycle of speeches
by the three vultures of good will.
Job is near hoarse from making his case that he does NOT deserve what he’s gotten
and he retreats into himself, away from those who harass him.
In his exhaustion he goes looking for God.
This is remarkable.
Earlier Job has referred to God as the Oppressor, the Enemy,
but there is still a part of him unwilling to believe
that the God he has cherished all his life is really behind his suffering.
As harshly as God appears to have behaved toward Job,
Job cannot accept that the devastation he’s suffered is God’s final word.
While he may have indeed felt “the hand of God” upon him,
Job just can’t believe that what he has experienced reflects God’s true heart.

If only Job could visit God in God’s private chambers;
have a chance to present his case rationally and reasonably,
surely God would vindicate him in his integrity.

You’ve got to wonder if the Accuser isn’t getting a little nervous about now.
Provisioned with only an unshakable confidence in his own integrity,
and a long-established knowledge of God’s trustworthiness,
Job has nearly uncovered the Accuser’s plot.
He is THIS close to figuring out that what he’s going through
is only a TEST of the Federal Broadcast Emergency Alert System
and not a REAL emergency.
What’s happened to him is not by the hand of God,
but a test of the Accuser permitted by God to vindicate Job once and for all.

Still, as close as he gets to the truth,
Job can’t quite get beyond the veil of his own mortality.
As smart and as faithful and as stubborn as he is,
he is, after all only human – unable to know the mind of God.
So, in the absence of a personal Divine epiphany,
all Job can experience is fear and awe
and a desire in his helplessness for deep darkness to swallow him whole.

I was invited once to go on a tour of a West Virginia coal mine.
I was with a group of ministers in a seminar on the forces that have shaped Appalachia.
It felt like a school field trip and I was cracking jokes with the others
as we got in the elevator cage to take us several hundred feet straight down.
There was a light in the cage and we had lights on our helmets
and when we stepped out of the cage we were loaded on a tram
that carried us through a tunnel for about a quarter of a mile.
Our guide then turned off the tram light and asked us all to extinguish
the lights on our helmets.
We did.
Several of us let out an involuntary gasp.
The blackness was total; a complete absence of light.
Not even a stray photon penetrated to where we stood.
I couldn’t have seen a white rhinoceros in front of my face
much less my hand,
and nobody was cracking jokes anymore.

Such deep darkness is disorienting, confusing.
If Job couldn’t get God to hear his defense,
then he wished for such a darkness in which to hide himself from God.
But given who Job is, it’s only a fleeting wish.
If nothing else, Job understands what the Psalmist expresses in Psalm 139.
Speaking to God the Psalmist says, “Even the darkness is not dark to you,
the night is as bright as the day.”

So even though Job’s momentary impulse was to pull up a thick blanket of darkness,
forget about God and trying to be faithful to God, and just go to sleep,
his core identity was still wrapped up in his love of God and God’s love for him.
Despite all the evidence his “friends” presented to the contrary,
Job would not allow himself to sink into the tempting distortion
that God had turned God’s back on him.


The question Job presents us with today is this:
“Can anything separate me from God?
“Is there anywhere so dark or so distant that God is not present there?”

It’s not pessimistic to admit that no life is without its troubles.
Live long enough and each of us will take a stomach punch or two
that will leave us flat on our backs gasping for air.
Sometimes I may wonder why I have it worse than someone else,
but then I look around and there is always someone who has it worse than me.

Paul writes to his friends in Corinth about the afflictions he has endured
in living out his calling as an ambassador for Jesus.
Like Job’s friends, some in the Corinthian church have tried to make Paul a scapegoat,
blame Paul for bringing pain and disgrace upon himself.
But like Job, Paul’s confidence in his own integrity is unshaken.
He uses a simple but powerful image for his work.
“We have this treasure [the treasure of the good news of God’s love]
we have this treasure in clay jars.”
In other words, we are but human beings,
fragile creatures subject to cracking and chipping.
We are fragile, some more so than others,
but God, for some reason beyond our understanding,
has chosen to endow us with a purpose and give our egg-shell lives meaning.
Don’t assume, therefore, that if you suffer, or if you feel betrayed,
or if you get let down or disappointed,
that it nullifies your God-given meaning and purpose.
Sickness, pain, betrayal and disappointment simply reflect what we should already know
that skin and bone are subject to decay,
that human reason is limited, human endurance restricted.
The treasure is INSIDE.
The outer nature is wasting away, but the inner nature is being RENEWED each day.
So long as we do not lose heart.
Even in the midst of Job’s profound loss,
even when it seems like everything has gone dark,
Job refuses to sit down. He continues to feel his way,
He keeps his foot on the familiar path
and God’s promise in his heart
and looks with hope for that which cannot yet be seen.

1 Wharton, James, Job. Westminster Bible Companion, eds. Patrick D. Miller and
David L. Bartlett. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1999, p. 4.
2 Ibid. p. 107.

The Accuser's Footprints Job 1:1, 2:1-10, 1 Cor. 3:10-24

Isaac meets Job and Job’s wife on the street corner and he says,
“Oy, Job, I heard the news!
Your company went bankrupt, your house burned down,
you lost your life savings in a real estate scam,
your dog got hit by an SUV
and your ten beautiful sons and daughters were killed in a night club fire!”
“Yes,” says Job, “That’s all true. But at least I have my health”
[poke in the ribs] “And my wife!”
It sounds like some sick, twisted kernel of a bad joke,
but that’s exactly where we pick up Job’s story in today’s lesson.
Job is presented to us in scripture as “a blameless and upright man,
who fears God and turns away from evil.”
In fact, we’re told, “There is none like him on the earth.”
But, we might conclude after reading Job’s story,
if this is what good will get you, we might as well be bad.

Job is the star of one of those books of the Bible
most of us know about but few of us have read.
He’s like Jonah in that most of us have heard of him through literary references
and popular metaphors – “He’s got the sufferings of Job”
but we don’t really know the heart of the story –
what it means to tell us about God and about ourselves in relationship to God.


The truth is, Job doesn’t really tell us much.
That is, Job doesn’t really give us many answers about God.
That’s what often disappoints people who manage to slog through the whole book.
They come to the end and there’s this remarkable poem in which God confronts Job
and basically says, “Who are you to complain to me?”
And then all of Job’s livestock and all of his children come back to life
and he lives happily ever after.
But the value of Job is not in the answers it gives about God.
The value of Job is in the way it helps us frame our questions to God.
And these are not simple questions.
These are questions that haunt every generation,
and they are as relevant now as they were to the original author.

If my courage doesn’t fail me,
I plan to preach from Job through the end of this month.
If I can pull it off, I’m going to follow the lectionary through Job
looking at some of the questions Job raises and presenting Job’s questions
not so that we can necessarily formulate the “right” answers,
but so that we can learn how to ask the same questions
in a way that is relevant and contemporary and meaningful to our lives.
Of course, we won’t forget in the process that we have information about God
that the author of Job didn’t have.
We are beneficiaries of the concrete example of God’s love in action
through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
This legacy we bear as heirs to the Kingdom through Christ
will give us a leg up as we try to wrap our limited human minds and language
around the mystery of God.


Most of us assume that the only question raised in Job
is “Why do bad things happen to good people?”
That certainly is ONE of the questions, but it’s not the only one.
As we go through Job we’ll look at that question,
but there are other questions to ask as well.

The story of Job opens as any good story opens,
with “Once upon a time.”
That’s not an exact translation, but it might as well be.
The land of Uz might as well be the land of Oz.
It was a fictional place meant to evoke in the reader’s mind
the most ancient place and time imaginable.
And Job is not meant to be understood as an historic figure.
Like Adam and Eve he is representative, an amalgamation of all human kind.
We can tell by the fact that he has camels and sheep AND he has oxen.
Camels and sheep were the livestock of nomads.
Oxen were the livestock of settled farmers.
No real person would have all three.

The story then progresses like the script of a B movie.
Charlton Heston playing God, sits on the throne like a good Near Eastern despot
and the council of heavenly beings are gathered deferentially around God’s throne.
Suddenly, the door flies open and in comes Yul Brenner
with those naturally pointed ears,
walking the fine line of arrogance and obedience in God’s presence.
He is “hassatan,” the satan, or the Accuser.
This is where we have to pause and clarify the identification of “satan.”
The New Testament identification of Satan as a distinct being who is the source
of all evil is a later theological development not relevant to Job’s story.
In Job’s story, “satan” is a title, not a proper name,
and it is best translated as the accuser,
the one who’s job it is to wander the kingdom
making sure that there is no treason afoot, no plots being hatched against the king.
To put him in terms of “Law and Order” or some other television drama,
he would be the Prosecuting Attorney.

Our text today is a repeat of a similar scene that comes in chapter one.
In the first scene the Accuser comes back
to make his report on the state of the kingdom.
Before he can open his mouth, though, God blurts out like a proud parent,
“Did you see my servant Job? He’s one of a kind, he is!
He fears God and turns away from evil.
He is everything I hoped for when I created human life.”
No story is worth reading if it doesn’t contain a little tension, the promise of conflict.
The Accuser, who’s probably had it up to here with God’s bragging about Job
says in the first scene, “Yeah, well who wouldn’t be perfect?
You’ve pampered him like some overpaid pro athlete,
who wouldn’t love that?
I’ll bet If you were to just take away a couple of his camels
or blow down a barn or two he’d fold like a two dollar umbrella,
call you every name in the book!
If the story presents Job’s character as good in the extreme,
then it also presents the calamity that befalls him in equally extreme terms.
It’s important to note that it’s not God who afflicts Job.
God give the Accuser permission to use the Accuser’s power,
but God sets a limit saying, “Do not stretch out your hand against HIM.”
This may seem like splitting hairs, but it’s important.

In the space of ten minutes Job gets word that everything he owns has been wiped out
including his ten beautiful children.
Any normal man would crumble. It would be a devastating blow.
But Job responds out of his deep faith.
“The Lord gives and the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord.”
Then, as we read, the Accuser returns in a repeat performance of the earlier scene.
God can hardly contain God’s glee.
“Did you see my man Job? He’s STILL blameless and upright.
He PERSISTS in his integrity despite what you did.”
“Yeah, well,” says the Accuser, “Anybody can lose what they have and survive.
But if Job himself were to suffer agony, THAT’S when he’ll break for sure!”
Again God gives the Accuser permission to act,
but again God sets a limit. “Spare his life.”
Job develops horrible sores all over his body,
and he sits on the ash heap scraping at them with a piece of a broken clay pot.
Still, however, his integrity is intact – his outer actions a reflection of his inner faith.
Even his wife, who’s horrified by his misery, urges him to curse God
so God will strike him dead and end his pain.
But even then he keeps his mouth shut.

It’s hard not to read these opening scenes of Job’s story
as an indictment against God.
At first glance God comes across as a spoiled child
eager to take the Accuser’s dare to just to liven things up
regardless of the consequences to an innocent man.
But look closer.
In God’s praise of Job, God is saying, “This is why I created human beings,
to live in perfect harmony with me and with each other.
Job is my crowning achievement; the heart of my heart.”
But the Accuser isn’t buying it.
At least he can’t help but play Devil’s Advocate.
It’s possible Job is as good as God thinks,
but isn’t it also possible that Job is just going through the motions,
PRETENDING to love God, so God will keep giving him stuff?
Maybe it’s all a sham.
Maybe God’s grand experiment with human kind;
this great desire to have a covenant people is an utter and complete failure.
If Job, who is God’s best and brightest, is a fake,
then God might as well take his loss and write it off on his taxes.
Even Job’s own wife indicates that life is only worth living,
that God is only worth loving as long as you’re getting some kind of payoff.
What about Job? What does Job REALLY believe.
Will that belief hold up under extreme duress?
Do you see what this means?
It means that from the very beginning,
God has at much at stake in this test as Job does.
And God is putting the Divine reputation in a vulnerable spot.
God is staking the success or failure of the grand experiment of all creation
on the integrity of one fragile human being.

So the question, at least in this first part of Job’s story,
is not, “Why do bad things happen to good people?”
The question is, “Can there be a human being of such incorruptible integrity
toward God and people that not even the worst imaginable experiences of life
are capable of destroying that person?”

That sometimes may seem like an academic question. But not this week.
It’s the very question that has been played out in media outlets.
We’ve watched this week with horror and fascination
as the peace loving and peace living Amish people of Lancaster Co, PA
have dealt with the intrusion into their quiet community of unspeakable violence.
I won’t recount the crime here.
Suffice it to say that some Amish school children suffered terrible violence.

A stunned reporter was shown interviewing the grandfather of one of the children.
“Have you forgiven the man who did this?” she asks, almost in a confrontational tone.
The grandfather replies, “Yes, in my heart I have.”
“How can you do this?” the reporter challenges.
“With God’s help,” the grandfather replies.
A rabbi who has written a book on forgiveness was asked later
if he thought it was psychologically healthy to forgive so soon
or if it is a sign of denial.
The rabbi said, “This forgiveness does not happen in a vacuum.
It is the result of a daily practice of forgiveness in little things.
The little things prepare you for the big things.”

Paul writes to his friends in Corinth.
“You build on a solid foundation, that is, Christ.
In the end your building will be tested with fire.
If you have built with stone or with gold it will withstand the heat.
If you have built with straw it will be consumed.
So I leave you with this question. It is Job’s question,
but I urge you to make it your own.
Can I, with God’s help, live with such incorruptible integrity
toward God and people that not even the worst imaginable experiences of life
are capable of destroying me?”

Jealousy Unbecoming Numbers 11:4-29, Mark 9:38-41

Little Tommy received a very official looking letter in the mail.
It read: You are hereby ordered to cease and desist any retail, wholesale, or free
distribution of any liquid that has the look, taste, color, effects, or any other
qualities approximating what is commonly known as water (H20).
Disciple Water Distributors (known hereafter as DWD) has sole rights
to distribute water in your area, and your current establishment
at 415 Olive Tree Lane is in violation of those rights.
If you do not immediately cease and desist your illegal activities
DWD will have no other option but to sue
for maximum compensatory AND punitive damages.

Little Tommy couldn’t believe his eyes.
All he wanted to do was help alleviate the thirst of his neighbors
in the midst of the terrible drought that had gripped the whole region.
He wanted to fight the injunction, take it to the elders and get a ruling
But his father was a businessman who knew the ways of the world.
He knew a large concern like DWD had a huge legal team with bottomless resources,
and he knew it was fruitless to fight.
It hurt him to do so, but he advised Tommy to just close his free water stand
and consider it a lesson learned.
Tommy protested, “But Dad, there are so many thirsty people who pass my stand.
Disciple Water Distributors isn’t providing cups of water anywhere near here.”
“I know,” his Dad said. “The fact is, they aren’t distributing water anywhere!
But they purchased the exclusive rights to do so
and they keep saying it will happen any day now.”
“Run along,” Tommy’s father told him.
“Forget about the thirsty people. They’re not your problem now.”

That’s seems like a ridiculous scenario.
But it’s not far from the picture Mark paints
as he carries Jesus and his disciples down the road to Jerusalem.
Peter has already been singled out by Jesus
as being an impediment to Jesus’ mission
so Mark makes sure to let his readers know that Peter wasn’t the only one.
John exhibits jealousy unbecoming a disciple
when he reports to Jesus how he and the other disciples had TRIED to stop
someone they had seen casting out demons in Jesus’ name.

John apparently expected Jesus to give them an “A” for effort,
since they had at least TRIED to stop the unknown exorcist
from performing unauthorized acts of compassion.
But their inability even to do that
was simply one more example of how ineffectual
AND how misguided they really were.
Clearly the disciples didn’t get it.
They didn’t yet understand Jesus’ mode of operation.
They were still following the old manual that contained detailed instructions
on how to build fences;
how to keep the Jewish identity pure and undefiled from outside influences.
They saw Jesus as a new Moses and they were acting under the assumption
that they were, by extension, the new Israel.
They were like Joshua in the passage we read from Numbers,
only Joshua’s motive in reporting unauthorized prophesying by Eldad and Medad
was to protect Moses’ role as the sole arbiter of God’s Spirit.

The disciples motive in trying to stop the unknown exorcist
was to protect their own rights as the exclusive franchise for deeds of power.
But that’s what’s so pathetic about the disciples’ attempt.
Just a few paragraphs earlier in Mark’s gospel
we read of a man who brought his son to the disciples to be cleansed of demons
and they had been unable to do anything for the boy.
Yet here was someone OUTSIDE their group,
doing in Jesus’ name the VERY THING they couldn’t do.
Furthermore, in the paragraph just before out text today
Jesus places a child in front of them and talks about “receiving” others in his name.
Yet, here the disciples are trying to exclude someone.
They’re still following fence building instructions
while Jesus is trying to get them to read the manual on building bridges instead.

There are three reasons Jesus gives his disciples
for building a bridge to the unknown exorcist.
First, if somebody’s doing a deed of power in Jesus’ name
he’s not likely to turn around and speak ill of Jesus anytime soon.
The second reason is an extension of the first.
It’s a fundamental truth that if somebody isn’t overtly against you
then you might as well assume he’s for you.
In other words, as long as someone’s acting like a friend, don’t make him an enemy.
The third reason Jesus gives his disciples for building a bridge instead of a fence
is that they themselves are going to be on the receiving end of acts of compassion.
So the smart thing is to PROMOTE acts of compassion wherever you can,
not set up roadblocks,
because you never know when YOU’RE going to need mercy.
You never know when YOU’RE going to need help with your own demons.

That last point was brought home to me once
when I visited St. Andrews College in Laurinburg, North Carolina.
It’s a Presbyterian related college that has been in the forefront
of making their campus and their classes accessible to the disabled.
Only, they make a point of not calling those who are blind or in wheel chairs “disabled.”
Instead they call those with full physical function the “Temporarily Able-Bodied.”
We’re all at best only temporarily able-bodied
or temporarily free of grief,
or temporarily comfortable in our own skin.
Why in the world would we want to build a fence against anyone
who might, at some point, be able to help us in what is sure to be a time of need?

Today is World Communion Sunday.
I’m proud to say that this observance began seventy years ago
in the Presbyterian Church though from it’s very beginning it was designed
to be an ecumenical event.
It is a day when we very intentionally remind ourselves that we as Presbyterians
or we as Protestants
or we as Americans
or we as Westerners
do not have the exclusive franchise on Jesus
or on acts of compassion in his name.
It is a day we remind ourselves that the big tub of Legos God gives us as the church
is intended not for building gates or fences or walls, but for building bridges.

Today we receive the Peacemaking offering. It’s a bridge building offering.
25% of what we receive will stay in Nelson County
to be used by Blue Ridge Medical Center in their free dental care program
helping children have healthy smiles.
25% will stay with our Presbytery and Synod for peacemaking initiatives.
50% will go toward national and international peacemaking programs
that aim to help groups and nations turn swords into plowshares.

But in addition to offering our money,
the Peacemaking offering is an opportunity for us to offer ourselves
to the ethic of building bridges instead of fences,
to commit ourselves to walk a path of humility and cooperation
instead of building barriers of belligerence.

Making enemies is easy.
Making friends is much harder.
But making friends BECOMES easier when we realize
that it’s not our job to jealously guard the name of Jesus. God can do that.
And besides, as the letter of Ephesians tells us in chapter two,
Jesus is our peace; in his flesh he has…broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. 15He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity…, thus making peace.
If that’s what Jesus is all about.
If Jesus has already laid the bridge foundation,
who are we to build a fence instead?

A Capable Christian Proverbs 31:10-31, Mark 9:33-37

A capable wife, who can find?
The mayor and his wife were walking down the city street
picking their way over broken concrete past a construction project.
A man’s voice from high on the scaffolding called out to the woman.
She looked up, shaded her eyes, and waved excitedly. “Oh, Hi Tom!”
The mayor looked askance at his wife
and when they had proceeded down the street he asked her, “Who was that?”
She said, “Oh, that was Tom, my ex-boyfriend.”
The mayor paused, hooked his thumbs in his suspenders and said,
“I guess if you had married him you’d be the wife of a construction worker.”
She thought a moment and replied, “No, if I’d married him, he’d be the mayor!”

The poem we read from Proverbs could be titled “Ode to a Capable Wife.”
I have never used it as a primary text for a sermon,
though I HAVE read it from time to time at a memorial service
as a tribute to a woman who has died.
The problem with this passage is that, if taken at face value,
it presents a daunting job description.
It seems to have loaded every component of family life onto the back of the wife
and left the husband free to hang with his buddies
smoking the hookah down at the city gates.
I’m part of a lectionary study group of other ministers that meets every Tuesday.
There are five of us, two of whom are women.

I have to warn you that in our discussion this past Tuesday
each of the women had only negative things to say about this passage,
shaking their heads and clucking their tongues
at the chauvinistic, paternalistic, stupidistic drivel it contains
and the heavy burden of responsibility it lays
on any woman who takes it seriously.
One of my colleagues was reminded of a classic bit of feminist commentary
written by Judy Syfers for Ms. magazine back in 1971.
Syfers, thinking of a recently divorced male friend who was looking for another wife
realized, as she thought about it, that she would like a wife, too.
She entitled her essay on the subject, “Why I Want a Wife.”
Here’s some of that essay:
I would like to go back to school so that I can become economically independent, support myself, and if need be, support those dependent upon me. I want a wife who will work and send me to school. And while I am going to school I want a wife to take care of my children. I want a wife who will take care of my physical needs. I want a wife who will keep my house clean. A wife who will pick up after my children, a wife who will pick up after me. I want a wife to go along when our family takes a vacation so that someone can continue care for me and my children when I need a rest and change of scenery. I want a wife who will not bother me with rambling complaints about a wife's duties….
You get the idea. Seyfers ends with the question,
“Who wouldn’t want a wife?”
It would be easy to just skip over this passage, ignore it and go to something else.
OH how that would be easy!
But, faint hearts never preached good sermons, so I decided to give it a shot.
As in every diligent study of scripture,
it’s important to look not only at the content of the selected passage
but at it’s literary structure and it’s context.
Sometimes the literary structure and context tell you nothing new,
but in this case literary structure and contexts are loaded with information
about how to interpret this passage.
For example, we can’t tell this by reading an English translation,
but this poem is what’s called an acrostic.
There are twenty-two letters in the Hebrew alphabet
and each line of the poem in Hebrew begins with each letter of the alphabet.
That explains why in English the poem seems to contain
an overwhelming laundry list of responsibilities for the “capable” wife.
The author had to come up with twenty-two of them.
Think of what it would be like if we were to write such a poem with our alphabet.
A “A capable wife who can find.
B Better than a shiny new pick up truck, she is.
C Couldn’t get along without her constant reminders.
D Dippin’ snuff is her favorite thing in the whole world.
E Everybody says she cleans up real nice….”
Well, you get the picture.

The second thing we learn about this poem by looking at it’s context
in the book of Proverbs is that it acts as a bookend.
The book we know as Proverbs is a collection of three different types of writings.
holding these different writings together is the overall theme of wisdom,
and wisdom is personified in Proverbs as a woman.
The book begins with parents instructing their son
on how to start a household using the feminine principle of wisdom.
Specifically, he is told what qualities to look for in a new wife.

One of my favorite guidelines for finding a wife is in Proverbs 11:22 which says,
“Like a gold ring in a pig’s snout is a beautiful woman without good sense.”
After all the instruction, the book ends with our poem,
a tribute to a mature wife who is the crowning glory to a mature man.

Now, recognizing the literary structure of the poem
and being able to put it into context still may not make you feel all warm and fuzzy.
Some are offended by what they see as the poem’s focus on “works righteousness”
that is, the implied message that your value as a human being or a child of God
is only as great as what you are able to accomplish;
how many things you can get done in a twenty-four hour period.
That is certainly contrary to the gospel of grace,
the message of Jesus that says we are valued not for what we do,
but for who we are in God’s eyes.
We’re not saved by works but saved by faith.

Still, to those who complain about this passage I would encourage a closer look,
a more careful study not of the excesses but of the essence of the poem.
The poem elevates some very important character traits;
traits that are in woefully short supply in our culture.
It elevates trustworthiness, industry, honesty, dignity, kindness, generosity.
These are traits echoed in James’ letter as he writes of wisdom
not from below (envy, selfish ambition, boasting, falsehood)
but wisdom from above (peacefulness, gentleness, humility, and mercy).
It’s not just a capable wife who is called to exhibit these traits.
These are traits that should be evident in the mature Christian.
Not that we’re all mature Christians,
but shouldn’t that be what we’re aiming for?

It’s almost embarrassing to read again of the immaturity of Jesus’ disciples
who got into that argument on the way to Capernaum.
“Who is the greatest?”
What knuckleheads.
Standing right next to the man himself,
hearing Jesus’ predictions of suffering and sacrifice,
and still they get into it about who’ll have the best parking place
and who’ll have the most direct access to power.

It’s clear that Jesus was upset by this.
He didn’t just give them a talking to.
He SAT THEM DOWN and gave them a talking to.
He gently hooked a nearby child, pulled him close and gave him nuggies.
You want to see great?
Here, this is great.
I’m here to turn great on it’s ear.
If he’d been the writer of proverbs or James he might have said to them.
Chasing after greatness is folly.
Allowing God to make you great,
THAT is the beginning of wisdom.

Our culture is all about chasing after greatness;
greatness, that is, defined by fame and celebrity,
or expensive cars and a big bank account.
Kathryn came home Thursday talking about a faculty meeting
at the high school where she teaches English.
The on-campus police officer was telling them how to spot signs of gangs.

On one level it puzzles me that teenagers in rural Virginia from working class families
so desperately want to emulate poor urban teens in Los Angeles.

Experts say it’s because they feel disconnected and want to belong to something.
I suppose that’s true.
But I think it’s also because they see membership in a gang
as a path to greatness, greatness at least in terms of notoriety.
You and I know that’s folly.
Apparently they have no one at home teaching them the path to wisdom.
They watch television, they listen to music, they read magazines
each of which tells them that greatness comes through fame and fortune.
Greatness comes through being the meanest guy on the block.
Greatness comes through being outrageous or acting like you don’t care.

But wisdom, the wisdom of Proverbs, the wisdom of James, the wisdom of Jesus
is that greatness comes through trustworthiness, industry, honesty,
dignity, kindness, and generosity.
It’s nothing fancy. It might not get you in the newspaper.
but then again it might.
An article appeared back in May in the New York Times,
certainly a leading national newspaper.
It was about Joann Ferrara, a physical therapist by training,
who decided to start a ballet class for some little girls who just didn’t fit
into a regular ballet class.
These little girls have cerebral palsy or some other congenital weakness.
Some wear leg braces. Some are on walkers.
But Joann wanted them “to feel the joy sheer joy of movement
and to be proud of themselves.”
She recruited high school students as buddies
to give whatever physical support is necessary.
When Monica, age 5, began the class, her left side was so weak
that she was barely able to use a walker.
Heather O'Halleran, 16, Monica’s buddy, has been so persistent with her
that Monica is just about ready to stand with the use of a cane,
and doctors hope that she will walk one day without any help.

Outside of this article I don’t know Joann Ferrara.
I don’t know if she “rises while it is still night and provides food for her household,”
or if she has ever “considered a field and bought it,”
or if she has ever “made linen cloth and sold it.”
That’s all beside the point.
But she does indeed exhibit the qualities the scripture writers hold dear:
trustworthiness, industry, honesty, dignity, kindness, generosity.
And I will guarantee that at the end of her class’s ballet recital
when the last note has played, and, with the help of buddies
the last bow has been taken
her children will rise up – on braces, on walkers, on the wobbly legs of a new colt
and their parents, too, will rise up – up on tiptoes, up on clouds
they will all rise up and call her blessed.

A capable Christian, who can find?


Kilgannon, Corey. Given a Chance to Be Little Ballerinas, and Smiling Right Down to Their Toes, New York Times,
May 5, 2006.

A Capable Christian Proverbs 31:10-31, Mark 9:33-37

A capable wife, who can find?
The mayor and his wife were walking down the city street
picking their way over broken concrete past a construction project.
A man’s voice from high on the scaffolding called out to the woman.
She looked up, shaded her eyes, and waved excitedly. “Oh, Hi Tom!”
The mayor looked askance at his wife
and when they had proceeded down the street he asked her, “Who was that?”
She said, “Oh, that was Tom, my ex-boyfriend.”
The mayor paused, hooked his thumbs in his suspenders and said,
“I guess if you had married him you’d be the wife of a construction worker.”
She thought a moment and replied, “No, if I’d married him, he’d be the mayor!”

The poem we read from Proverbs could be titled “Ode to a Capable Wife.”
I have never used it as a primary text for a sermon,
though I HAVE read it from time to time at a memorial service
as a tribute to a woman who has died.
The problem with this passage is that, if taken at face value,
it presents a daunting job description.
It seems to have loaded every component of family life onto the back of the wife
and left the husband free to hang with his buddies
smoking the hookah down at the city gates.
I’m part of a lectionary study group of other ministers that meets every Tuesday.
There are five of us, two of whom are women.

I have to warn you that in our discussion this past Tuesday
each of the women had only negative things to say about this passage,
shaking their heads and clucking their tongues
at the chauvinistic, paternalistic, stupidistic drivel it contains
and the heavy burden of responsibility it lays
on any woman who takes it seriously.
One of my colleagues was reminded of a classic bit of feminist commentary
written by Judy Syfers for Ms. magazine back in 1971.
Syfers, thinking of a recently divorced male friend who was looking for another wife
realized, as she thought about it, that she would like a wife, too.
She entitled her essay on the subject, “Why I Want a Wife.”
Here’s some of that essay:
I would like to go back to school so that I can become economically independent, support myself, and if need be, support those dependent upon me. I want a wife who will work and send me to school. And while I am going to school I want a wife to take care of my children. I want a wife who will take care of my physical needs. I want a wife who will keep my house clean. A wife who will pick up after my children, a wife who will pick up after me. I want a wife to go along when our family takes a vacation so that someone can continue care for me and my children when I need a rest and change of scenery. I want a wife who will not bother me with rambling complaints about a wife's duties….
You get the idea. Seyfers ends with the question,
“Who wouldn’t want a wife?”
It would be easy to just skip over this passage, ignore it and go to something else.
OH how that would be easy!
But, faint hearts never preached good sermons, so I decided to give it a shot.
As in every diligent study of scripture,
it’s important to look not only at the content of the selected passage
but at it’s literary structure and it’s context.
Sometimes the literary structure and context tell you nothing new,
but in this case literary structure and contexts are loaded with information
about how to interpret this passage.
For example, we can’t tell this by reading an English translation,
but this poem is what’s called an acrostic.
There are twenty-two letters in the Hebrew alphabet
and each line of the poem in Hebrew begins with each letter of the alphabet.
That explains why in English the poem seems to contain
an overwhelming laundry list of responsibilities for the “capable” wife.
The author had to come up with twenty-two of them.
Think of what it would be like if we were to write such a poem with our alphabet.
A “A capable wife who can find.
B Better than a shiny new pick up truck, she is.
C Couldn’t get along without her constant reminders.
D Dippin’ snuff is her favorite thing in the whole world.
E Everybody says she cleans up real nice….”
Well, you get the picture.

The second thing we learn about this poem by looking at it’s context
in the book of Proverbs is that it acts as a bookend.
The book we know as Proverbs is a collection of three different types of writings.
holding these different writings together is the overall theme of wisdom,
and wisdom is personified in Proverbs as a woman.
The book begins with parents instructing their son
on how to start a household using the feminine principle of wisdom.
Specifically, he is told what qualities to look for in a new wife.

One of my favorite guidelines for finding a wife is in Proverbs 11:22 which says,
“Like a gold ring in a pig’s snout is a beautiful woman without good sense.”
After all the instruction, the book ends with our poem,
a tribute to a mature wife who is the crowning glory to a mature man.

Now, recognizing the literary structure of the poem
and being able to put it into context still may not make you feel all warm and fuzzy.
Some are offended by what they see as the poem’s focus on “works righteousness”
that is, the implied message that your value as a human being or a child of God
is only as great as what you are able to accomplish;
how many things you can get done in a twenty-four hour period.
That is certainly contrary to the gospel of grace,
the message of Jesus that says we are valued not for what we do,
but for who we are in God’s eyes.
We’re not saved by works but saved by faith.

Still, to those who complain about this passage I would encourage a closer look,
a more careful study not of the excesses but of the essence of the poem.
The poem elevates some very important character traits;
traits that are in woefully short supply in our culture.
It elevates trustworthiness, industry, honesty, dignity, kindness, generosity.
These are traits echoed in James’ letter as he writes of wisdom
not from below (envy, selfish ambition, boasting, falsehood)
but wisdom from above (peacefulness, gentleness, humility, and mercy).
It’s not just a capable wife who is called to exhibit these traits.
These are traits that should be evident in the mature Christian.
Not that we’re all mature Christians,
but shouldn’t that be what we’re aiming for?

It’s almost embarrassing to read again of the immaturity of Jesus’ disciples
who got into that argument on the way to Capernaum.
“Who is the greatest?”
What knuckleheads.
Standing right next to the man himself,
hearing Jesus’ predictions of suffering and sacrifice,
and still they get into it about who’ll have the best parking place
and who’ll have the most direct access to power.

It’s clear that Jesus was upset by this.
He didn’t just give them a talking to.
He SAT THEM DOWN and gave them a talking to.
He gently hooked a nearby child, pulled him close and gave him nuggies.
You want to see great?
Here, this is great.
I’m here to turn great on it’s ear.
If he’d been the writer of proverbs or James he might have said to them.
Chasing after greatness is folly.
Allowing God to make you great,
THAT is the beginning of wisdom.

Our culture is all about chasing after greatness;
greatness, that is, defined by fame and celebrity,
or expensive cars and a big bank account.
Kathryn came home Thursday talking about a faculty meeting
at the high school where she teaches English.
The on-campus police officer was telling them how to spot signs of gangs.

On one level it puzzles me that teenagers in rural Virginia from working class families
so desperately want to emulate poor urban teens in Los Angeles.

Experts say it’s because they feel disconnected and want to belong to something.
I suppose that’s true.
But I think it’s also because they see membership in a gang
as a path to greatness, greatness at least in terms of notoriety.
You and I know that’s folly.
Apparently they have no one at home teaching them the path to wisdom.
They watch television, they listen to music, they read magazines
each of which tells them that greatness comes through fame and fortune.
Greatness comes through being the meanest guy on the block.
Greatness comes through being outrageous or acting like you don’t care.

But wisdom, the wisdom of Proverbs, the wisdom of James, the wisdom of Jesus
is that greatness comes through trustworthiness, industry, honesty,
dignity, kindness, and generosity.
It’s nothing fancy. It might not get you in the newspaper.
but then again it might.
An article appeared back in May in the New York Times,
certainly a leading national newspaper.
It was about Joann Ferrara, a physical therapist by training,
who decided to start a ballet class for some little girls who just didn’t fit
into a regular ballet class.
These little girls have cerebral palsy or some other congenital weakness.
Some wear leg braces. Some are on walkers.
But Joann wanted them “to feel the joy sheer joy of movement
and to be proud of themselves.”
She recruited high school students as buddies
to give whatever physical support is necessary.
When Monica, age 5, began the class, her left side was so weak
that she was barely able to use a walker.
Heather O'Halleran, 16, Monica’s buddy, has been so persistent with her
that Monica is just about ready to stand with the use of a cane,
and doctors hope that she will walk one day without any help.

Outside of this article I don’t know Joann Ferrara.
I don’t know if she “rises while it is still night and provides food for her household,”
or if she has ever “considered a field and bought it,”
or if she has ever “made linen cloth and sold it.”
That’s all beside the point.
But she does indeed exhibit the qualities the scripture writers hold dear:
trustworthiness, industry, honesty, dignity, kindness, generosity.
And I will guarantee that at the end of her class’s ballet recital
when the last note has played, and, with the help of buddies
the last bow has been taken
her children will rise up – on braces, on walkers, on the wobbly legs of a new colt
and their parents, too, will rise up – up on tiptoes, up on clouds
they will all rise up and call her blessed.

A capable Christian, who can find?


Kilgannon, Corey. Given a Chance to Be Little Ballerinas, and Smiling Right Down to Their Toes, New York Times,
May 5, 2006.