Continually Given to Good Works

“What must I do to inherit eternal life?” It’s a real question. And it’s a question that people throughout the centuries and throughout the world – including all of us at one time or another – have asked in some form. The questioner in today’s Gospel reading from Mark is sincere. Although wealthy, he reports that he has conscientiously followed the commandments dealing with proper human relations. Perhaps he is a searcher, someone who is dissatisfied with the life he knows and is looking for something deeper. And so he accosts Jesus on his journey, humbles himself at Jesus’ feet, and puts his question.

Why are we hearing this story now? We are more than half-way through the gospel of Mark. In the first half of the gospel, we watched Jesus heal, teach, and commission others to spread his message. Three of Jesus’ closest friends have witnessed his Transfiguration. Now, post mountain-top, Jesus and his disciples are headed for Jerusalem. Mark’s readers and we are allowed to listen in as Jesus prepares his followers for life without his physical presence. We hear Jesus teaching them what bearing the Cross really looks like, and how a community committed to him actually will live out its life.

Jesus reminds his followers that the realm of God is neither a place nor a political system. It is not “pie in the sky by and by.” Rather, Jesus has proclaimed that they begin living in God’s realm now, as they pursue a way of life that will enable them to live in God’s realm forever. As Jesus has taught his friends, in God’s realm, there is no one who is “the greatest.” Jesus has talked about marriage and divorce, encouraging them to live in faithful committed relationships and stable families. He has exhorted them to live as spiritual children, realizing their dependence on grace and each other and recognizing that all are members of God’s family. Now, speaking especially to those of his followers who are wealthy, Jesus takes up the questions of their relationship to their resources and, more important, how they are to use their resources.

“Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” So how does Jesus answer the man’s question? To our surprise, Jesus scolds the man for calling him “good.” In his scolding is an implicit reminder that all that is good in life comes from God. Jesus then reminds the man that the old rules of life, those that have governed the Jewish community for centuries, still hold. And notice that Jesus includes a rule not found in the original Ten Commandments: don’t get wealthy by fraudulent means.

Apparently, this answer doesn’t satisfy the man, as he continues to press Jesus. Jesus answers – but subtly shifts the question: he answers a slightly different question from what the man had posed. In his answer, he suggests that the goal of religious life is not “getting into heaven,” i.e., worrying about some life after this one. Rather, Jesus suggests that the goal of religious life is living in God’s realm now, i.e., beginning now to enlarge the self that the man will have when he comes to the end of his life. The man must not, Jesus implies, be overly concerned with self-preservation, with saving himself – what must I do. Rather, Jesus invites the man to cultivate lifelong wisdom, humility, passion for justice, lovingkindness, mercy, and hospitality. In inviting the man to “sell,” Jesus suggests that earthly possessions may become an obstacle in the way of pursuing such a way of life. Although he himself was an itinerant who owned nothing, Jesus knew – and cautioned the man – that the man was in danger of focusing on his possessions, on acquiring and maintaining them, rather than on his relationship with God and with other people. Finally, in inviting the man to “give,” Jesus reminds him of his obligation – and his joy – to make sure that others have adequate access to the goods of this world, to food, shelter, clothing, and all those other things that enrich life.

“What must I do to inherit eternal life?” This is not the real question. When you think about it, there’s nothing anyone can do to inherit anything. No, the real question for us is, how do we begin to live in God’s realm now, so that we may continue living in that realm when we pass from this life? In other words, how do we use our resources in a way that leads us to spiritual health and a larger soul? It’s a question all of us must grapple with, but it’s an especially daunting question for those of us whose monetary resources exceed our immediate needs.

So how do we live in such a way that our resources contribute to our spiritual health? Do we close all our bank accounts, draw out all our retirement savings, and give all the proceeds to charity – or to the homeless person in the next street? Traditionally, those who enter convents or monasteries do just that. Many courageous nuns and brothers go into poor neighborhoods and live simply, owning nothing, while working to end poverty and homelessness. For the rest of us, is Jesus suggesting that we go on welfare or join the homeless population?

There’s a part of me that would like to say “Yes, he is,” but I also know that there would be no Christian community without resources. So how do we live if we are Jesus’ disciples and truly want to become spiritually rich? To begin with, we are called to recognize the source of what we have. No one is self-made. Ultimately, all we have is God-given. Knowing that, we cultivate a sense of gratitude. And we can be conscientious in expressing our sense of gratitude. As spiritual teacher Henri Nouwen has taught us, ““Gratitude...goes beyond the 'mine' and 'thine' and claims the truth that all of life is a pure gift. In the past I always thought of gratitude as a spontaneous response to the awareness of gifts received, but now I realize that gratitude can also be lived as a discipline. The discipline of gratitude is the explicit effort to acknowledge that all I am and have is given to me as a gift of love, a gift to be celebrated with joy.”

Second, as citizens of one of the world’s wealthiest nations, and as members of a culture that encourages us to amass vast amounts of physical possessions – indeed an array of goods unthinkable in the ancient world – we can begin to recognize the consequences for the earth of all our possessions. Just think about what goes into making the things that you own. And think about what happens to them when you are ready to throw them away! All of us need to learn to live more simply and to begin finding ways of life that are less destructive of our one and only planet, “this fragile earth, our island home.”

We can remember that ultimately we will all surrender every single thing that we own. And so, we can begin to use what we have more intentionally. Scrutinize your checkbook or your bank statement. When I do that, I cringe when I see, for example, how much I am spending on communication: on cable, internet, cell phone, and land line. Are you using your resources in ways that reflect your commitment to Jesus and growing a spiritually healthy soul?

We can commit to sharing what we have. When Jesus talks about selling and giving, what I hear is using intentionally and sharing. So ask yourself, who is benefiting from your resources besides you? Can you use some of your resources, even a small amount, to make life less harsh for others, to open doors for others, to partner with God in bringing about what in Hebrew is called tikkun olam, the repair of the world?

Finally, we are called to remember that we all have resources. Our “possessions” are all that we have been given, not only our physical possessions. And we all have resources beyond economic resources. Even if you are living paycheck to paycheck, even if you are retired, even if your health is limited, we all have resources. “No arm so weak but may do service here,” as the old hymn puts it. Besides our money, we have resources of talents and time. So, in addition to scrutinizing our bank statement, we must ask ourselves how we are using the rest of our God-given resources. Are we using all our resources in ways that contribute to spiritual health for ourselves and others?

The man in today’s gospel story chose to turn away from Jesus. We can hope that perhaps he thought about his choice and eventually came back to Jesus – maybe that’s how the later Christian community knew his story! However, we have promised to follow Jesus, to “obey him” as our Lord, as the baptismal covenant puts it. In having made the choice to follow, we can be assured of blessing and grace. We can be confident that God’s grace will indeed anticipate what we need and accompany us in our efforts to grow spiritually. With that confidence we can trust that our lives may truly “continually be given to good works,” and to enjoying God’s grace forever.

Why?

The dead ranged in age from 18 to 67. One of the first-year students was active in Future Farmers of America. Two had just started college. Another was studying chemistry and volunteered at an animal shelter. One of the dead was one of six daughters of a local landscaper. Another had just returned to college to study alongside her daughter. Another student had come back to school after recently turning his life around. The oldest of the dead was an adjunct professor who loved literature and was also an avid outdoorsman. Despite the best efforts of an Iraq war veteran to protect them, in all ten people died, and another nine were seriously injured.

By now you know that I am talking about the shooting at Umpqua Community College in Oregon. Along with the devastated families of the dead, perhaps you too are grieving. I can’t even place myself in such a situation or begin to imagine what those families are experiencing. Perhaps too you are thinking of those who died at Mother Emmanuel Church in Charleston, SC, or of the children in Newtown, Connecticut, or of those who died in a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, or of Gabby Giffords, whose rising Congressional career was tragically cut short in Tucson, Arizona by a deranged gunman. As those other tragedies flash by in your mind, perhaps you are tempted to ask what those who died or their families and communities did to bring about such suffering. After all, isn’t that basically what the disciples asked Jesus when they saw the blind man, “Rabbi,” they asked, “who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” And maybe, as you grieve, perhaps the only word that comes to mind is “Why?” Why do tragedies happen? Why do we suffer?

Why? It’s an age-old question. It’s the central question of the book of Job, but it’s not unique to Job. In fact, long before Job was composed, ancient writers of the Near East asked these questions. And every faith community since has some version of this question. Actually, the book of Job is a strange and difficult book. We will hear three more readings from Job in the coming weeks. It is part of what is called Wisdom literature, which includes the Book of Proverbs, the Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiastes, and other similar books. Often there is no mention of God in these books, as their goal is to teach us something about how to live moral and upright lives.

The book of Job is essentially a fable. It is intentionally not set in any recognizable time or place. Like the opening of Star Wars – long ago in a galaxy far, far away – it’s intended as a universal story, applicable to everyone. It begins and ends with a frame story. In between the frame are many dialogues between Job and his friends – his tormentors, some would say – as wells as complaints from Job to God, and God’s final answer to Job. Today, we’ve heard the opening scenes of the frame story, in which the Lord has convened a heavenly council. The Adversary has posed a challenge to the Lord concerning the steadfast commitment of Job. An aside here: Satan here is not the devil of later popular lore. This Satan, rather, is a kind of check or challenger to the Lord. The Adversary, the word used in the Jewish Publication Society translation, is one of the Lord’s councilors whose role is to make sure that the Lord considers all angles of a situation. So today, we hear the Adversary’s suggestion that Job would forsake the Lord if any harm came to Job’s body. It would be as if you lost your faith if you came down with shingles. Next week we’ll hear Job’s complaint that God has abandoned him. Two weeks from today we’ll hear God’s response to Job’s questioning, and, finally, three weeks from today we’ll hear the end of the framing fable.

As a fable with much embedded dialogue, the book of Job raises many difficult and important questions, even for us Christians. Perhaps the most serious question is, why do we have faith? Why indeed do we hold fast to a belief in God? Isn’t that what Job’s wife is really asking when she says, “Do you still persist in your integrity? Curse God and die.” Job holds fast to his commitment to God. But why? What has his commitment given him? When he was wealthy and happy, was it his faith that blessed him? Does faith save us from suffering? Clearly, Job, as well as the faithful Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust, the innocent people who have been condemned to death, and the families of victims of mass shootings would emphatically say no, faith does not save us from suffering. So what good is faith? Why does Job, why does any of us, believe? Is belief just a habit, something we’ve always had without thinking or questioning? Or do we believe, as the Prosperity Gospel suggests, so that we might be wealthy and happy? If we’re not wealthy and happy, is it because we don’t have a strong enough faith? At some point in our lives – perhaps at many different points, perhaps even in response to personal tragedies – all of us must grapple with these questions – and there are no easy answers.

The story of Job also raises the question of why people suffer. Do people bring their own suffering on themselves? Are they responsible for the bad things that happen to them? That was surely what the disciples thought when they posed their question about the blind man. And wouldn’t we agree? We moderns don’t believe in fate, so it must be our own fault when something bad happens, right? The book of Job says emphatically, “No!” Despite all the attempts of Job’s “friends” to get him to justify his suffering by “confessing his sins,” Job steadfastly maintains his innocence – and is ultimately vindicated. And in our hearts we know that Job is right. In truth, most of what people suffer it totally undeserved. None of the people who died in Oregon deserved to die. None of their families deserved to have to mourn their deaths. Gabby Giffords did not deserve to be shot in the head. The children and teachers in Newtown did not deserve to die. Suffering and death simply are.

However, the book of Job also reminds us that we don’t have to accept suffering stoically or uncomplainingly. As we will hear next week, Job vigorously questions God and complains to God. Job knows that God is part of what’s happening to him, and Job expects answers! Towards the end of the book, Job succeeds in getting God to answer him. And does Job get the answers that he wants? For many of us, as we’ll hear in two weeks, Job does not. Spoiler alert! Speaking out of the whirlwind, God will say, “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?” God then goes on to thunder questions back at Job, “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth…. Who determined its measurements – surely you know….” Can you make it rain, or send forth lightening, or create dust storms? Did you create the animals? Whether or not we want to hear it, God reminds Job that the nature of God is a mystery, that truth is more complex than we with our limited minds can comprehend, and that ultimately humans cannot know the reasons for suffering – or often for anything that happens to us.

So what can we take from the story of Job? There are no easy answers to the questions this book poses. However, even if we find God’s answer in chapter 38 unsatisfactory, we can be assured of this: God is present in the complexity of our lives, in our griefs and sorrows. God doesn’t cause our suffering – please no trite sayings, “God doesn’t give us more than we can bear,” or “God needed another angel in heaven” – but neither is God divorced from our sufferings. God is with us in our suffering. While life offers us no guarantees, Job reminds us that nothing can separate us from God’s love. Other books of the Hebrew Bible affirm God’s nearness in our suffering. What is more important for us Christians, we believe that in Jesus God experienced all that we humans experience, including suffering and death, and that eventually all our suffering will be redeemed through Jesus, as we will hear repeatedly in the Letter to the Hebrews this month. And we cling to the hope that in God’s good time, we will be reunited with those we have lost, and that all creation will be made whole.

Meanwhile, we pray for forgiveness for the sufferings and wrongs that are within our responsibility, most especially for those we have inflicted on others. We pray for the grace to trust in God’s love for all of us and to have compassion for those who suffer and mourn. Perhaps most important, we pray for the energy to do what lies before us to mitigate suffering: to seek sensible gun laws, to work for the end of capital punishment, to broaden the availability of mental health services, and to actively work for justice. As we live out own brief lives, may God help us to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God, as children worthy to bear the name of the Prince of Peace.