“Reflections About Life”
Doug Lambert 10/10/2021
Psalm 22 and Job 23
In February 1942 the allegedly impregnable Singapore garrison was overrun by the Japanese army resulting in 80,000 British, Indian and Australian defending troops becoming Prisoners of War and remaining so until the Japanese surrender three and a half years later. It was a time of courage, cowardice, cruelty, starvation, and triumph of the human spirit. Those who survived were never the same again.
About 50 years ago I had the privilege of reading a diary kept by one of those Australian POW’s, a bloke called Ivor Hangar, who at that time worshipped with this congregation. The diary was a simple notebook written in pencil. I could not help noticing that there were intervals between the entries; just a few days, or weeks, sometimes several months. There was one entry which really stood out in the midst a spate of silence, alongside the date it just read “dear God, how long”. That simple phrase encapsulated all the pain and trauma of men confined in seemingly hopeless circumstances.
That incident came back to me as I read Psalm 22. Inherent in the diary is the longing to be released from an awful predicament, the unstated but inevitable questioning as to God’s role in all this. The psalmist voices similar torment, declaring that he has served God faithfully, so what about some quid pro quo. He continues in like manner for all of 21 verses. He recalls God’s past actions in delivering Israel and implies that this continued silence has God denying his own nature and past actions. The psalmist observes that he has trusted in God from birth and in like manner his ancestors also trusted in God and they were not disappointed. So now the psalmist believes he is justified in his present distress to call for some response from God.
This apparent silence from God is matched by human derision of Job, another underlying theme in the book. Indeed it is not until you get to Chapter 42 that the retributive form of justice promoted by Job’s friends is the subject of any explicit questioning by God.
The book of Job is structured as a dramatic presentation featuring a just God who nevertheless presides over catastrophe and disparity. Job believes that if he could just gain a personal audience with God, put his case face to face, man to man, then he would be satisfied. Note that he does not talk of restoration or redress, simply for his name to be cleared. He holds to his own integrity, being unwilling to confess to sins he did not commit. Job does not anticipate that God would deign to debate with him, rather that God would listen to his address and out of the encounter Job believes he would be vindicated. Throughout this period there is the initial empathy of his friends which eventually becomes a critique and then brutal character assassination. Job perceives God as distant, but a deity who carries through whatever he has set out to do.
These were hard matters that the psalmist and Job put to God. Hard matters Job’s friends were unwilling to face, hence they avoid addressing the actual issues and choose to probe Job about which sin may have caused the suffering.
Suffering, and the difficulty of the actual issues, is not something to be ignored, since such suffering is a very real part of the human condition. One can almost express some empathy with Job’s friends, there is comfort in searching for specific causes to traumatic events. Such attribution serves to insulate us from some, or all, of the pain. It can also provide a wholly unwarranted reassurance that disaster will not happen to us.
Out in the patio area there are some memorial trees one of which is in memory of Sally Jones, a little girl who died of leukaemia. A blond haired bundle of joy and innocence who was part of this congregation. Love, medical science, prayer, sheer willpower, were unable to prevent the disease running its fateful course. You can bring to mind other painful catastrophic events, some quite personal.
These situations prompt questions about the moral judgement of God. Surely a just God would protect his innocent people from undeserved suffering? We are led to consider our image of God, because much of the answer to the dilemma is found in our concept of the nature of God. I personally cannot conceive of God in terms of some cosmic deity dispensing pestilence and pleasure at whim. To me, that is a primitive concept which jars against my own experience, and knowledge of the scientific world. Neither does it sit very comfortably with any intellectual analysis of the biblical text. There can a good deal of life experienced in terms of, “this is not how it was all meant to be”. The Kingdom of God in which all are welcome is a long time coming for many of our fellow earthlings.
These readings help us to see how faith attempts to keep alive an assurance of God’s presence even when God seems far removed. Furthermore, mercy, justice, and peace are not just abstract concepts, they have to be lived if they are to have any relevance, and applied at the practical level to all of those aspects of life in which we have some influence. They are the functional foundations of the kingdom of God here on earth, foundations which can only be formed by people like us.
In 2021 we interpret scripture and follow the teachings of Jesus as a 21st century community. Our whole understanding of mankind, earth and indeed the universe itself is vastly different to that of our first century forebears. We do not believe that the earth is flat, nor that it is the centre of the universe with the sun and stars revolving around it. We do not believe that babies are born malformed because of some misdemeanour of the parents, nor do we believe that cyclones and bushfires are a sign that God is punishing his people. We know about bacteria and germs; we know about gravity and quantum theory; we know about DNA and the potential for genetic mishaps; we have some understanding of mental health matters.
Acting in love and compassion for others even when that act is rejected is part of what makes us wholesome human beings.
Hebrews 4: 12 - 16; Mark 10: 17-31
The parable of the “Rich Young Ruler” can be found in all three synoptic gospels, however only in Matthew’s version is the man young, and only in Luke is he a ruler. In Mark’s version it is a mature wealthy adult. It’s a good example of how we tend to merge the various versions of bible stories. This is a familiar story sometimes used as a basis for assertions that wealth is an absolute barrier to entering heaven, but as we shall see to draw this conclusion is to miss the whole point of the story.
The man poses a direct question of Jesus, asking what he must do to inherit eternal life. The reply from Jesus is clear and probably what other teachers of that era would have said, “keep the commandments”. At the same time Jesus moves the focus away from himself and towards God “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone” thereby putting the questioner a bit on the back foot. He nonetheless responded positively, saying “Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth”. He is confounded when Jesus tells him to sell all, give the money to the poor, and come with us.
Some social context might be helpful in that real wealth in Israel was largely bound up with land ownership. Subsistence farmers were continually in and out of debt and with no local Westpac or NAB branch to turn to, the only source of credit was a large landholder, one such as the stories Rich Young Ruler. Many of these small landholders succumbed to the vagaries of agriculture, bad luck, or whatever, and foreclosure was the outcome. Perhaps the Rich Young Ruler had benefited from these circumstances. I think that Jesus was alluding to the Jubilee concept which is one where all land was seen as belonging to God, with the occupiers more akin to leaseholders than owners. Leviticus describes how every fifty years outstanding debts would be forgiven and the land titles revert to the original occupier. The idea was conceived as a means of ensuring that land did not become concentrated among a small group to the detriment of the community as a whole. The theory had not really been effectively implemented such that the just allocation of land in a peasant farming community had become a real issue. Jesus was saying, allow these debtors and former debtors to have their land back, you can have a future with us. This was apparently a bit much for him to swallow.
In his book “The New Testament with Imagination”, Bill Loader proposes that what the man missed was what actually underlies the commandments, namely, compassion. Without compassion all you have is a set of rules; without compassion the commandments are not guidelines for the God-like life of love. If you want to share in God’s life then you have to understand that the heart of God is compassion. Our man seemingly did not understand, or perhaps he did, but went away sad.
Yet again the disciples did not really understand and Jesus had to give them an amusing little picture to try and clarify his point. A camel will not fit through a needles eye even if the eye is a gate in the Jerusalem city wall. Once again Jesus is encouraging them to focus on the community of which they are a part and not get too stressed about material things, within the community your real needs will be met.
The story is a challenging one for any community, and particularly here in Australia, where our communities seem obsessed with material possessions. We need to keep some perspective because we are not being asked to do the impossible; to save the world from self-destruction and solve world poverty on our own. God expects us to take issues seriously, very seriously, because people matter.
The writer of the epistle to the Hebrew continues the theme. God is looking for active participation in building the kingdom not simply giving lip service or even blind obedience to the law. For the original audience the Hebrews letter evoked images of the Israelites fleeing out of Egypt, crossing the Red Sea, and failing to enter the promised land. The author was issuing a warning, disobedient Israel did not escape, and neither will you if you neglect the gospel. He is proposing that belief in God does not mean believing in rules or doctrines. It means being willing to face up to who we really are, to stop pretending and do something about it.
When someone clearly loves us just as we are, the knowledge of that can be threatening in its challenge as to who we really are. It means we need to acknowledge ourselves for what we are. Rejection of that love can sometimes be violent – just like a sword. People who love to that extent can be liable to get killed, either metaphorically or literally. Jesus is a prime example, along with countless others who have followed in the way. Love which simply goes along with pretence is not love at all.
The author of Hebrews continues the use of the temple images by referring to Jesus as the leader of God’s people and therefore the High Priest. Not a High Priest out of touch with his people, not one who is remote, he emphasises that Jesus suffered and was tempted. The focus is on faithfulness, that Jesus did not turn aside from the path he was pursuing under fear of suffering or death. Compassion and kindness, grace and mercy, are there when we face our times of need. This is not so much about when we fail, as it is about facing hard times and being confronted with temptations which threaten to overwhelm us. That is the message the author is wanting to bring through.
It seems to me that becoming Christian does not demand adherence to any specific doctrine. Jesus’ statement was simply “follow me”. These are action words. Our own Uniting Church in the Basis of Union describes us as “people on the way …” Following Jesus is much more about relationship and life style than it is about doctrine. This goes to the heart of the Rich Young Ruler story. Jesus spoke about a world where the lives of all people are valued; where our actions are motivated by love and compassion. You can be a good person and not break the law, yet still not have love and compassion for those around you. Following Jesus requires specific actions to address the plight of the needy among us; to stand up to the greed that would destroy our planet; not to be blind to injustice.
Amen