So far, if you’ve been keeping score over the past few weeks, God has allowed Satan to tempt Job by taking away everything and leaving him in physical agony, and Job’s friends have all blamed him for it. Job has shaken his fist at God for the unfairness of it all, and God has asked who Job thinks he is to question the one that spoke creation into being. Today we read that Job becomes humble, repents, and even prays for his friends. God hears his prayers and Job’s fortunes are restored. Isn’t that nice?
Somehow that last part seems to be all that we really want to know about. Somehow, when I hear it, I can’t help but hear it as a part of what many calls the “prosperity gospel”. That’s the idea that if you are generous to God, God will be even more generous to you. That doesn’t sound so bad on the surface, but when we extend that idea it simply becomes “giving to get”. It’s also the kind of thing that leads Pastors to think that they can ask for a Lear jet for Christmas.
No, that’s not the witness that we have received today. The witness we’ve received today is about discipleship. It’s about penitence and praying for people that hurt you, and sacrificial living, and yes, it is about faith, but not blind faith. The witness of scripture we have today is about an un-blinded faith. It’s about the revelation of God!
Over and over, God has revealed Godself through scripture, through the events of our lives, and through small acts of great courage, and we are here to tell the story. We are here to tell the story so that others will know. We are here to tell the story so that we can understand where God is when a synagogue, or a school, or a gay nightclub, or a theater, or a church gets shot up by madness.
We tell the story of God’s revelation so that we know what to do when friends betray, or jobs are scarce, or politics turn us (or caravan of immigrants) into the zombies that we fear, and we lose our humanity.
That’s really what sin is all about – the loss of our humanity. Sin is what happens when we lose our grasp on the idea that not only were we created in God’s image, but so were they. That’s pretty easy to say, but it’s pretty hard to do when you’ve been on the receiving end of sin. Sometimes just the fear of someone else’s sin stops us from seeing our own. So, what do we do? From the beginning of time, sacrifices have been made to help put us right over sin.
As a boy, I remember asking my mom about sacrifices and why we don’t make them. Ever the wise woman, she thought for a minute and said, “Well, we don’t really need to, because Jesus died for our sins.” That was good enough for 8 yr. old me. While 48 yr. old me still has a few questions about that, the letter to the Hebrews helps us to see that it’s not just about a bloodthirsty God and a heroic Jesus that essentially took a bullet (or a cross) for us.
Instead, we find comfort in the knowledge that even priests like me can’t take away the sin that separates us without first attending to our own sin. The letter to the Hebrews goes on to say that the really good news is that Jesus is the one who makes those sacrifices irrelevant. He is the one that intercedes between us and God, just as Job did for his friends.
He is the one who listens when we call out from the roadside for help in our blindness. When I read about blind Bartimaeus, I can’t help but remember a time when a friend of mine called to ask if I could join her to visit with some folks at a shelter for those experiencing homelessness. This was before seminary. I was getting my life back together after a divorce. I felt a lot like Job—even though I had my health and a truly wonderful support network of family and friends and church— I still felt a bit like Job.
Jean and I offered a devotional service for these folks that – come to think of it – were closer to Job’s shoes than me. We sang, “Blind man stood by the way and he cried. Blind man stood by the way and he cried. Blind man stood by the way and he cried. He cried Oh-oh-oh, show me the way. Show me the way. Show me the way – the way to go home.”
I’m not sure that I got it at the time, but I was the one that was blind. I was the one seeking my home in God’s embrace. I was the one who thought that I had lived faithfully and been unjustly punished. I was the one that saw the people in that place as different, separate, and other. They were homeless. I had simply moved back to my mother’s house temporarily. I wish I could say that my blindness was healed, but we all know that it wasn’t. We all know that the blindness of fear is always close at hand.
Dispelling the blindness of fear is why we come together. It’s why we share our resources in covenant community. It’s why we can be a community of love with people sharing different political views and different ideologies. It is what keeps us from becoming the zombies that we fear.
In this congregation, we follow God together with our eyes wide open to the conflicts in our country, our community, and even in our very selves. Our eyes are wide open, or at least they can be because we know that God has called us to be a people who demonstrate God’s love together.
Today we will celebrate the love which binds us through our annual commitment of resources, of time, and of talents. Today, we will renew our covenant with God and with one another to be a place of hospitality, where we are constantly moving from gratitude to action to community to a deeper, richer, more vibrant exhibition of the Kingdom of God!
I’d like you to close your eyes for a minute to see if we might get a glimpse of the kingdom together. I want you to take a moment and think about what has drawn you to this community. Take a moment and think about what keeps you coming back. Think about the past year and the hospitality to strangers, the care for those outside these walls, and the love and support we both give and receive through our Presbytery, Synod, and other Presbyterian mission agencies. Think about the love we give and receive through local partners like CUPS, the UCO, Rebuilding Together Acadiana, Wesley Campus Ministries, Family Promise, and Meals on Wheels.
Now I want you to go a little deeper and think of the first time that you encountered the presence of God. Was it through the love and support of a family member? Were you shaking your fist over some injustice? Were you present for the miracle of birth? Were you outside in God’s good creation? Were you in Sunday School as a child?
Think now on your hopes for this congregation. Think now on the possibilities of ministry – not programs, but real blindness conquering ministry – that await in the coming year. Think about the joy of following God together!
Now think on the blindness that you would ask God to remove for you, personally. Now, open your eyes. It is time to see. It is time to follow Jesus in gratitude to the grace and mercy of God. Are you ready? Let’s do this!
And to God be the glory, now and always. Amen!
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