Readings for Sunday October 18, 2009

Readings for Sunday October 18, 2009
Job 38:1-7, (34-41) • Psalm 104:1-9, 24, 35c • Hebrews 5:1-10 • Mark 10:35-45

The study this week is written by Steve Clifton. Please post your comments and feedback and I will do my best to respond during the week.

The art work is Job and His wife by Georges de la Tour. Spend a moment to reflect upon this painting.To see this in a larger size follow:

http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/diglib-fulldisplay.pl?SID=20091013579345703&code=act&RC=46621&Row=2



Take a moment to centre yourself in prayer:

Creator God,
you call us to love and serve you
with body, mind, and spirit
through loving your creation
and our sisters and brothers.
Open our hearts in compassion.
Open our minds to your word.
We pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen




Job 38:1-7, (34-41)
Recall the story of the Book of Job. Job, a good and righteous man, is being tested. Many afflictions and trials come his way. His friends counsel him saying that he should curse God. Job turns away from his counsellors instead.
Job has complained of God’s indifference and injustice to him; he has asked why his misfortune happened. He has pleaded that God hear him, answer him. Now God, appearing in a “whirlwind” (as he does elsewhere in the Old Testament) answers him by asking him rhetorical questions. First he asks: who are you to doubt, in your ignorance, the sum total of my plans and works? Stand up like a man; answer the questions I put to you...”
Our reading is only a small part of God’s speech. God asks five main questions:
• Were you present at creation?
• Do you know your way around the cosmos?
• Would you know how to operate it?
• Would creation and creatures obey your commands? and
• Are you capable of providing for animals and birds as I am?
After God’s speech, Job says: “See, I am of small account; what shall I answer you? ... I will not answer” (40:4-5). With God’s appearance Job is at last able to articulate what he has been suspecting all along: he and his friends thought they understood the world; now he realizes that they do not. And so his complaint against God evaporates.
In essence, God tells Job that Job is not God and so cannot understand the ways of God. Why does Job suffer? Why do bad things happen to good people? It remains a mystery.

Questions for reflection:

• Why do you think that there is suffering in the world? This question has been answered in many different ways. Are we to learn from it? Do we bring it on ourselves? Is it a mystery, something beyond our understanding?

• If you had a chance to meet with God face to face as Job does, what would your questions be? And how do you think God would answer?

• Would God’s answer to Job satisfy you if you were in Job’s place Can you live with mystery or would you like a clearer explanation?

• God`s answer to Job has a sarcastic tone. Do you think that God has a sense of humour?

Psalm 104:1-9, 24, 35c
This psalm is a hymn of praise to God, the creator. Verses 2-4 tell of the creation of the heavens and verses 5 to 9 of the earth. To the ancients, “light” (v. 2) was a thing, so comparing light to a garment makes sense. God built his heavenly dwelling on the chaotic (unruly, disordered) “waters. The hot wind in verse 4 is the sirocco, a desert wind from the east; the “wind” brings rain clouds from the sea; both are under God’s control. People saw the earth as a disk supported by pillars (“foundations”, verse 5). Before God’s creative acts, the “waters” (verse 6) covered the earth. God chased away chaos, bringing order; he restricted the waters to the mountain tops (as snow) and the “valleys” (verse 8, as rivers). He will never again permit the waters to cover the earth (verse 9) and all that lives (verses 10-18): creatures depend on him for their very existence (verses 27-30). God’s “works” are countless. God has made them “in wisdom”, with perfection of design and ethic, absolute integrity, truth and beauty. Praise the Lord!
The Psalmist looks to the beauty of Creation and sees the Creator behind it all. Creation leads to praise of the Creator. This psalm almost reads like a reverse of the Job passage, doesn't it? Instead of God prompting Job to remember what God has done, here the psalmist remembers on his own what God has done.

Questions for reflection:

• Do you see the Creator when you look at Creation? Does a sunset, or geese in flight, or a crimson forest move you to praise?

• Are there places or landscapes that are “thin places” for you; are there places in nature that lead you to feel close to God?

• “Bless the Lord, O my soul." We normally ask God to bless us and others. What does it mean for us, instead, to bless God, to be a blessing to God?

• The clothing/fabric imagery in this psalm is interesting - God is enveloping, wrapping around us and the world, surrounding, covering, protecting. How do you feel when thinking of God as One who is wrapped around you, like a comforter on a cold night?

Hebrews 5:1-10
The letter to the Hebrews is addressed to the Christian community in Jerusalem. Its first audience lived in the shadow of Jerusalem’s Temple. The letter uses language and images that were familiar to Jerusalem Jews who worshipped in the Temple with its High Priest and its animal sacrifices. Basing his argument on the Old Testament, the author argues for the superiority of Christ to the prophets, angels and Moses. Christ offers a superior priesthood, and his sacrifice is much more significant than that of Levite priests. Jesus is the "heavenly" High Priest, making the true sacrifice for the sins of the people
The author has told us that “we have a great high priest” (4:14) who has been raised to heaven, namely “Jesus, the Son of God”. Now he compares the high priests of Judaism with Christ.
Christ was also appointed by God – at his baptism, when God said: “You are my Son ...” (v. 5). Christ also fulfills Psalm 100 as unlike other high priests, he is “priest forever”. He ranks with “Melchizedek”, the Canaanite priest who brought bread and wine to Abram, and blessed him. During his earthly life (“the days of his flesh”, v7), Jesus prayed to God in anguish (at Gethsemane) to the one who would “save him from death”, i.e. resurrect him (bring him back to life). Because of his proper respect (“reverent submission”), the Father heard him. Although already God’s Son (v. 8), he learned a needed human trait, obedience, through suffering. His work of salvation complete (“made perfect”, v9 he, as eternal priest, offers salvation forever to all the obedient, the faithful. He is high priest forever.

Questions for reflection:

• Check out Genesis 14:17-20 and Psalm 110:4 for context about Melchizedek.

• How does the image of Jesus as a "high priest" speak to you? What priestly functions do you see Jesus filling? How is Jesus a priest? The author gives his answer in verses 7-10.

• Most often, we do not think of Jesus as someone who had to "learn" obedience (v.8), but as one who simply was obedient. But maybe there is something valuable in thinking of Jesus learning to obey God through his faithfulness to God's plan for him. Does this make Jesus more human? More accessible? Does it give us hope that if Jesus could learn then maybe we can too? What do you think? Or do you prefer to think of Jesus as the one who has got it all together?

Mark 10:35-45
Earlier in the gospel the disciples have argued about which of them is the greatest. Now two members of the inner circle ask a favour of Jesus: they seek positions of special dignity at the messianic banquet in heaven at the end of time (v.37). Jesus answers: you do not know the implications of what you ask. In the Old Testament, one’s “cup” (v.38) is one’s lot assigned by God, be it blessing or condemnation. Here, Jesus is speaking of his suffering and death. Do John and James really want to drink the cup that Jesus will drink from at Gethsemane and Golgotha? James and John confidently answer yes (in verse 39) and accept all the consequences. But as for getting the best seats at the heavenly banquet, only God knows whom God has called to special places in the kingdom.
Jesus tells all the disciples: earthly authority depends on power and force but for disciples, it is different; to be “great” now and in the kingdom a disciple must serve others; to be “first”, one must serve even more humbly, as a “slave”. Jesus, the “Son of Man” is the example: he gave even his life for the freedom of others, gaining their release from punishment and death for their sins. The first shall be last...

Questions for reflection:

• The other ten disciples are mad at James and John. For asking a silly question of Jesus? For taking up an old argument? For pledging to follow him in a way they hadn't? Because they want the places of greatness for themselves?

• Jesus talks (again!) about a different world-order, a different system of greatness and power. Over and over again Jesus has to remind his friends that in God’s Kingdom, the first are last and the least are first....that the greatest are servants to all? How many times must he tell them this first-last master-servant stuff before they get it? Then again...how many times must he tell us before we get it?