Let the Mystery Be

 This morning I am pondering the mystery of life.   I have been fascinated by the Book of Job for many years.  It is something of a mystery why the book of Job was included in the canon of the bible as it puts God in a less than favourable light.  Job becomes the pawn in a celestial wager between God and Satan with dire consequences for Job and his family.  However, the story does have a happy ending for Job – if not for his children who perish. All that Job loses is restored to him including new children to replace those who perished  - as if a child you lose can be replaced by a new child or children - and he lives happily ever after and dies at a ripe old age of biblical proportions.

In the course of the story Job demands an audience before God and demands justice.  However, God is less than sympathetic to Job’s plight and states that God and God’s works are beyond Job’s comprehension.  Job humbles himself and admits to God that it is beyond his comprehension:

Then Job answered the Lord: “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. ‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. ‘Hear, and I will speak; I will question you, and you declare to me.’ I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; ⁶therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”     

It is hard for us human being to live in the mystery of life.  We can deny it as some people with a scientific bent try and believe that we will solve the mystery of creation.  Or, as religious people we can try and put God in a nice box that we define and tie up with a bright bow.  However, if we are honest and humble enough, as Job was, we can try and live in the mystery of life. On this subject I will quote Helen Luke, one of my favourite authors who is one of the great explorers of this mystery:

true mystery is the eternal paradox at the root of life itself—it is that which, instead of hiding truth, reveals the whole not the part.  So when, after having made every effort to understand, we are ready to take upon ourselves the mystery of things, then the most trivial of happenings is touched by wonder, and there may come to us by grace, a moment of unclouded vision. 

True paradox can be difficult to understand and to live with but it is in paradox that we can discover God.  I believe that we are called to let the mystery be in all its wonder and respond to God with praise and thanksgiving.  I will close with a verse from my favourite song on this mystery; Let the Mystery Be by Iris Dement:

Everybody's wonderin' what and where they all came from.
Everybody's worryin' 'bout where they're gonna go when the whole thing's done.
But no one knows for certain and so it's all the same to me.
I think I'll just let the mystery be.

May you be blessed by the mystery in your life.

 

Mephistopheles Today

I recently saw the movie Elvis which is the wonderful depiction of the life of Elvis Presley as envisioned by Baz Luhrmann.  There are many things which are commendable about this movie including the performances by Tom Hanks as Col. Tom Parker and Austin Butler as Elvis (no second name required in the title or the cultural). A few days after seeing the movie it came to me that what is portrayed is the legend of Dr. Faustus.

The story of Dr. Faustus originated in 15^th century Germany, purportedly based on an historical person,  Johann Georg Faust .  The story has been the basis for many versions over the centuries, in art, literature and plays.  In modern times, versions of the story have been told such notables as Goethe, Thomas Mann, and Christopher Marlow.  Intentionally or not, the story influenced the movie, Elvis.

The story of Faust, in outline, tells of the misadventures of a successful German scholar who is dissatisfied with achievements even thought he is distinguished in many areas of academic life including medicine, law and religion.   He determines that he wants to succeed in the practice of the black arts i.e., magic.  Faustus calls upon the Lord of Darkness and in doing so summons up Mephistopheles, one of the Devil’s servants.  He bargains with Mephistopheles and strikes a bargain that if Mephistopheles will serve him, the Devil will claim his soul after a set number of years - twenty-four in some versions.  Faustus has all that he desires for the time allocated, even summoning up the figure of Helen of Troy and generally causing mischief and mayhem.  As the end of the allotted time draws near Faustus believes that he is irreparably lost and his soul is claimed by the Devil.  It is interesting that in Goethe’s version he is forgiven through the intercessions of one of his victims. 

Turning to the movie, Elvis, there are some details that do not fit the legend.  Elvis was not a successful person when the tempter arrives in his life.  However, the story is told through the eyes of Colonel Parker who is portrayed as an evil genius who guarantees Elvis the success and fame that he desires and which he delivers.  Elvis has opportunities to redeem his life (and soul) but Mephistopheles aka Col. Parker manages to ensure that Elvis is successful beyond his dreams at the ultimate cost of his soul.  Col. Parker ensures that the Devil claims his due gaining everything that he seeks i.e., the means to engage in the endless ‘games’ of chance that are the foundation of the Las Vegas enterprise.  Elvis spends his final days, captive in the hell on earth of the venue of the eternal Las Vegas Concerts, being denied his dream of seeing and engaging the larger musical world.   

The legend and the movie present the archetypal story of the person who sells his soul to the Devil for the material things of this world.  This was one of the temptations of Jesus in his time in the wilderness when Satan offered Jesus all the kingdoms of the world if Jesus would bow down and worship him.  What does it profit someone to gain the world but lose his soul?

The world seems to abound in many incarnations of Mephistopheles in many manifestations today.  Perhaps no more than in previous times, but that we are only more aware of it.  Is there a Mephistopheles in your life who is offering you the world only demanding your soul - something that many people do not believe they possess?  As Bob Dylan said, “you gotta serve somebody.  It may be the devil or it may be the Lord but you’re gonna have to serve somebody.”

If you face your Mephistopheles on our journey, may you be blessed to choose life.

If It Be Your Will

Those of us who believe in a God who is active in the world may be tempted to substitute our own will to that of God.  We assume that because we want something, God must want the same thing.  We can also believe that God will intervene and set the world right according to how we believe the world should be. 

How often are we tempted to demand that God do something.  We want God to bring an end to COVID – cast out the demon COVID and free us from being enslaved by it.  Why won’t God do this?  After all, Jesus cast out many demons in his ministry.  Why can’t he cast out the demon COVID?  Jesus was tempted by Satan to cast himself down from the heights and see if God the Father would send angels to save him – but he replied to the tempter, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.” 

There is a marvelous phrase I heard which describes this desire to have God do our bidding.  It is ‘God the butler’.  We want to keep God downstairs out of the way until we call on God to do our bidding – to serve us.  God does not work that way as Jesus shows us. 

The Society of Saint John the Evangelist sends out a word every day with a  short reflection on that word.  It is entitled Show Me a Word.  A few days ago, the word for the day was ‘will’:

We cannot control what Jesus will or will not do, and we will never fully know what to expect from him. But we can be assured that whatever he does or does not do will be consonant with the Kingdom of God. He acts in accordance with the divine rule, whose presence he embodies and whose coming he announces. Br. David Vryhof,

As much as we would wish and hope that we could control the world and have it run as we would like it to be run, God does not work that way and given what people are like it is probably a good thing. Does that mean that prayer is pointless?  After all, if God is going to do what God wants, what is the point?  I have asked myself that many times in my life and I always come back to the realization that I must pray and always know that I am leaving it in God’s hands and so I usually end my prayers with the acclamation, ‘Fulfil my requests as may be best for us’. 

 May God be with you and bless you on your journey.

Driven or Led

Last Sunday, we had the Gospel reading was the account of Jesus going into the wilderness following his baptism.  This was a time of preparation to begin his public ministry.  For those of us who are Christians, it is also is a summation of what we do in the season of Lent which is modeled after Jesus’ forty days and nights in the wilderness.  There is much which we can explore around this including what does it mean to be in a time of wilderness in our lives or what does it mean to do the traditional exercise of giving up something for Lent which, again is modeled on the forty-day fast that Jesus experienced before he had his encounter with that tempter extraordinaire, Satan.

What I invite you to consider today, whether or not you observe Lent, is the concept of following the spirit in your life.  Jesus was led or was driven – depending on which account in the Gospels your read – into the desert by the Holy Spirit after his baptism by John the Baptist in the Jordan River.  Do you have a sense that your life is being influenced or guided by what could be considered a spirit or force in your life?  You may not identify this as the Holy Spirit or God by any other name.  It can be considered as something which has guided you in following a path which seems to have been laid out for you at an early stage in your life.

Whatever that influence is, there may be times when it seems to take you to places that you don’t really wan to go.  This was the case, I believe, for Jesus when he was – according to the Gospel of Mark – “driven” by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness rather being “led” according to Matthew and Luke by that same Spirit into that very unwelcoming environment.

There are times when we are led or driven or encouraged to go places by that influence - be it conscience or guilt or whatever – that we don’t really want to go  to do things or go places that we know we should be that are not going in our mind to be all that welcome or welcoming.  It is helpful to reflect on these experiences and try to understand why we are being encourage to go there and what it is that benefit we might receive by following that encouragement.  If we are honest with ourselves, we will probably know in our hearts that this is what we are intended to do. 

I would encourage you to follow that influence and see what happens.  You may find that you are blessed on your journey.

Let the Mystery Be

This morning I am following up on yesterday’s sermon and pondering the mystery of life.  I based my sermon (which is posted seperately) attached) on the reading from the book of Job.  It is something of a mystery why the book of Job was included in the canon of the bible as it puts God in a less than favourable light.  Job becomes the pawn in a celestial wager between God and Satan with dire consequences for Job and his family.  However, the story does have a happy ending for Job. All that Job loses is restored to him and he lives happily ever after and dies at a ripe old age of biblical proportions.

In the course of the story Job demands an audience before God and demands justice.  However, God is less than sympathetic to Job’s plight and states that God and God’s works are beyond Job’s comprehension.  Job humbles himself and admits to God that it is beyond his comprehension:

Then Job answered the Lord: “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. ‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. ‘Hear, and I will speak; I will question you, and you declare to me.’ I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; ⁶therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”     

It is hard for us human being to live in the mystery of life.  We can deny it as some people with a scientific bent try and believe that we will solve the mystery of creation.  Or, as religious people, we can try and put God in a nice box that we define and tie up with a bright bow.  However, if we are honest and humble enough, as Job was, we can try and live in the mystery of life.  In my sermon I quote Helen Luke, one of my favourite authors who is one of the great explorers of this mystery:

true mystery is the eternal paradox at the root of life itself—it is that which, instead of hiding truth, reveals the whole not the part.  So when, after having made every effort to understand, we are ready to take upon ourselves the mystery of things, then the most trivial of happenings is touched by wonder, and there may come to us by grace, a moment of unclouded vision. 

True paradox can be difficult to understand and to live with but it is in paradox that we can discover God.  I believe that we are called to let the mystery be in all its wonder and respond to God with praise and thanksgiving.  I will close with a verse from my favourite song on this mystery; Let the Mystery Be by Iris Dement:

Everybody's wonderin' what and where they all came from. Everybody's worryin' 'bout where they're gonna go when the whole thing's done.
But no one knows for certain and so it's all the same to me.
I think I'll just let the mystery be.

Sermon October 25, 2015 Job 42:1-17

The book of Job does not come up in the lectionary very often, and I don’t believe that I have ever preached a sermon based on it, so I thought I would take this opportunity to use today’s reading as a basis for my sermon.  Indeed I don’t think that Job is one of the books that is often used for sermons.  I checked my source for sermon ideas and there were no sample sermons based on today’s reading from Job.

Indeed when you look at the book of Job it is surprizing that it actually is part of the canon and was included in the bible by the church fathers.   It may not be all that familiar to many people because of this so I thought I would spend a bit of time explaining the context for today’s reading.  The story of Job opens with an idyllic scene of a perfect life.  Job is the best of men living in the best of possible circumstances.  He is a man who has a happy family.  He is rich by any measure.  He has many servants and cattle.  Above all, we are told he fears God and live a blameless life — it is almost too good to be true.  This passage when we read it leaves us with a chill for we are certain such good fortune cannot last — conflict must arise otherwise there would be little point in telling the story.  As this account of a good man is included in Holy Scripture we except that God will enter the picture to save our hero from whatever evil befalls him as in the case of Esther or Isaac when he is about to be sacrificed by his father Abraham.  However, we discover that when evil does indeed enter to disrupt Job’s idyllic life, the source is not what we expect.

The surprizing thing about the book of Job is that Job becomes a pawn in a celestial wager between God and Satan.  Now it must be understood that this was before Satan had been expelled from heaven after his revolt against God. 

He is one of the ‘heavenly beings’ who come to present themselves before God.  It is, in effect, like a royal court appearing before a king.  Satan, which appropriately means ‘the accuser’, lives up to his name and holds that Job’s fear of God and blameless life mean nothing as Job has never been put to the test.  Satan bets God that if God permits him to send troubles into his untroubled life Job will curse God.  

Satan does an exemplary job of troubling Job, killing his children, and destroying his property and still Job does not curse God.  Satan ups the ante and with God’s permission Satan attacks Job’s person ‘inflicting loathsome sores on Job from soles of his foot to the crown if his head’ — yet still Job’s faith in God holds firm.  Job is further inflicted, however, rather than Satan this time, it is with a visit from so-called friends who insist that Job’s troubles must be due to Job’s own action.  Job demands an opportunity to appear before God to seek justice.  God permits this, however God attacks Job’s impertinence in questioning God’s actions as a mere human is not in a position to question the creator of the universe.  Job wisely defers to God’s omnipotence and Job’s fortunes are restored and more.  He is blessed with possessions and children albeit not the same ones.  In addition, as a bonus, Job’s erstwhile friends are punished.  

This is where today’s reading begins.  God requires that Job’s three friends, Eliphaz the Temanite and Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite make restitution to Job for their betrayal of his friendship.  The ending is happy, at least from the author’s perspective.  All is restored or replaced that was taken away from him by the celestial wager between God and Stan.  He has thousands of sheep, camels, oxen and donkeys.  He has a new family with seven sons and three daughters.  

Unfortunately it was not so well with the Job’s original children who were killed as part of Satan’s test of faith, but apparently in that time what was important was to have children so Job’s lineage would be assured.

As you can see this book does not put God is a good light.  So the question we must ponder is why was it included as a book in the bible?  I believe there are at least two reasons.  First, there is the question of faith.  Despite everything that God has apparently put Job through, Job’s faith is not broken.  His faith in God as his Redeemer is unshakeable.  This is a lesson  which is very applicable to us today as it has been universally for people.  It is inevitable that we all are going to suffer losses in our life.  A loved one is going to die; our health is going to betray us; we are going to lose a job at a critical time.  We have the question, why do bad things happen to good people?  How do we maintain our faith in a loving God at these times?  It may have been easier in Job’s time as God was understood to be wrathful and vengeful at times ever to God’s people.  Fortunately our trials will not be as severe as Job’s but they may seem so at the time.  We fortunately have the love of God as shown in Jesus Christ.  We know that the love of God is there to sustain us even though it is sometimes hard to recognize.  

The second reason for Job is the great mystery of life.  We human beings are God’s greatest creation.   We have many gifts that God has given us; intellect, reason, questioning hearts and minds, the desire to know God and the belief that we are able to discover and discern who and what God is.  We have created science which has done much to unravel the mysteries of the universe.  Science and scientists have discovered so much of how the universe works that they are beginning to believe that they will discover everything and will be able to explain everything.  They may even imagine they have discovered what they are calling the “God particle” which they think may be the source of everything. 

However, as much they have and will eventually discover about all of God’s creation, they will reach the limits.  We human being are limited and we will never fully know God and the mind of God.  To think otherwise is hubris. 

That is what the author of Job was attempting to express.  He was facing the mystery of all.  Job was granted his audience with God and came to acknowledge that God was beyond his understanding.  Today we know much, much, more of God’s creation than people knew in the time that the author wrote his account of one man’s attempt to understand the unknowable.  As much as we know and will ever know, God will remain the ultimate mystery.  To quote Helen Luke, “true mystery is the eternal paradox at the root of life itself—it is that which, instead of hiding truth, reveals the whole not the part.  So when, after having made every effort to understand, we are ready to take upon ourselves the mystery of things, then the most trivial of happenings is touched by wonder, and there may come to us by grace, a moment of unclouded vision.”  We can have the faith that Job had and proclaim as Job did, “For I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth; and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see on my side, and my eyes shall behold, and not another”.  Amen

Taming the Wild God

²⁶Surely God is great, and we do not know him; the number of his years is unsearchable. ²⁷For he draws up the drops of water; he distills his mist in rain, ²⁸which the skies pour down and drop upon mortals abundantly. ²⁹Can anyone understand the spreading of the clouds, the thunderings of his pavilion? ³⁰See, he scatters his lightning around him and covers the roots of the sea. ³¹For by these he governs peoples; he gives food in abundance. ³²He covers his hands with the lightning, and commands it to strike the mark. ³³Its crashing tells about him; he is jealous with anger against iniquity. “At this also my heart trembles, and leaps out of its place. ²Listen, listen to the thunder of his voice and the rumbling that comes from his mouth. ³Under the whole heaven he lets it loose, and his lightning to the corners of the earth. ⁴After it his voice roars; he thunders with his majestic voice and he does not restrain the lightnings when his voice is heard. ⁵God thunders wondrously with his voice; he does great things that we cannot comprehend.  (Job 26: 24-27:5)

Last week I heard someone on the radio (I don’t remember the context) speaking about taming the wild God.  My thought on this was that this is exactly what religion attempts to do—tame God.  Religious doctrine must, perhaps of necessity, define God.  For most Christian denominations it is the Trinity of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Whenever we fallible human mortals try to define God we are in effect trying to tame him or her or it and make it in some respects a house pet.  In that respect we do create God in our image or at least in an image we can get our minds around and define God as something which we approve of.  When we say God is this God is that we are saying that God is not something else. 

One of the dangers in doing that is that is that we will want to have God at our beck and call.  That has been called ‘God the Butler’.  We keep ‘Him’ downstairs conveniently out of the way when it doesn’t suit us or is inconvenient to have Him around.  Then we ring for Him (or even Her) when we want something.  God is then at our beck and call.  God help God if God doesn’t live up to our demands or even expectations.  Then we say, “Well if God can’t do what I want or need Him to do then what kind of a God is that?”  The conclusion to that can be, “There is no God”. 

One of my favourite books of the Old Testament, if not the whole Christian Bible is the Book of Job.  It is also one of the more controversial and I am surprized that it made it into the canon.  It puts God/YHWH into less than a shining light.  God and Satan (before he was thrown out of Heaven) have a bargain that allows Satan to do pretty much what he wants to Job — who is described as “blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil.”   The object of this little bet is to see if Satan can get Job to curse God.  Satan does his best (or worst from Job and our perspective) and yet Job is faithful.  However, he demands a hearing before God.  God justifies his actions by saying that Job is a mere mortal and cannot know the ways of God:

6Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind: 7“Gird up your loins like a man; I will question you, and you declare to me. 8Will you even put me in the wrong? Will you condemn me that you may be justified? 9Have you an arm like God, and can you thunder with a voice like his?

This is a hard truth but truth none-the-less.  We can’t comprehend why God acts the way we believe God does.  Jesus presented God the Father as a God of love but this world of God’s creation is unfathomable.  God is unknowable and as much as we would like to tame Him/Her and explain why good things happen to bad people and vice versa there is mystery in life that is beyond us.  We have scientific understanding for those things that the opening quote from Job that credited God.  However, that does not take away any of the mystery of creation and the wonder which is still there if we are open to it; “At this also my heart trembles, and leaps out of its place”.

All we have left is the eternal why—why is there evil in the world of God’s creating; why doesn’t God answer prayer the way we want God to; why isn’t God behaving like God should?  Beyond all these questions we have Job’s response:

25For I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth; 26and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God,

Thanks be to God.