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The contrast between Job’s conversation with God and the disciples conversation with Jesus, in today’s Gospel, is an important one to note. As we know with the entire story of Job & his suffering questions seem to still be unanswered about the problem of evil as well as two things are made clear. The first thing that seems to be confusing in God’s conversation with Job is that God basically tells Job I’m the boss and essentially these are the way things are, period.
Well I
don’t know about you, but it kind of sounds like God is being mean here? Why would God allow these things to happen to
Job? This text in particular is hard for
us to wrap our minds around but we must remember that for the Old Testament’s
understanding of God and His relationship to His people was that of a punishing
parent.
God is
most definitely still our Divine Parent, Our Father but through the price paid
at the Cross and the triumph of the resurrection through Jesus; we truly have “God
with us; Immanuel.” Immanuel is what we
will sing in a few months in the Advent season of the church calendar to
celebrate Christ Jesus coming into the world.
But in regards to today’s Gospel from Mark—God with Us, as Jesus, is the
Theology of the Cross.
Martin
Luther saw this through many of St. Paul’s writings about our relationship with
God. We understand truly what a Gracious
and Loving God is through Jesus who is Our Crucified Lord. He did suffer, He commissioned us all as the
priesthood of all believers to take up our crosses and follow Him. No one ever said that the Christian journey
was to be an easy path to sojourn. In
fact today more than anything we are seeing the fruits of evil seemingly triumph
in persecution, horror and death.
It is
hard to not be taken down into the world news these days… As we just experienced this past week with
two horrible events: the first being the
murder of 9 innocent people in a church service and the second being the arson
terrorist hit causing the destruction of the Roman Catholic church in Jerusalem
that stood over the original site of Jesus’ miracle of the loaves and fishes.
Just
take that in for a moment; over the spot where Jesus light shined brightly
feeding thousands of people… the place of sanctuary, the place of peace was
destroyed by evil working its success in the hearts of men! The fire may have
been put out but the ashes remain as we cry out to God—Why did this come to
happen!?
Our
brothers and sisters in Christ met a similar horror in Emanuel AME church in
South Carolina; where a man came into their study sat with them for over an
hour and killed them in cold blood—in their sanctuary… place of peace! The circumstances
leading to why this evil ever took place is beyond our understanding but one
thing is profoundly clear—this person chose to engage whole heartedly in evil,
plain and simple! Like Job we are probably all feeling in one way or another—why
is God allowing this to happen?
This is
the problem of evil where we must be careful as children of God, children of
Grace to not cast judgment against neighbor as well as feeling we have the
right to question God. We are in a broken
world where the ruler of this world is the Evil One but we must also remember,
as well, that we have been called and commissioned by God to live in the world
but NOT be of it. There’s that taking up the cross motif again.
We hear
this as well in St. Paul’s words to his wayward Corinthians: “1As we
work together with him, we urge you also not to accept the grace of God in
vain.” Paul continues to say to them
that we are in a sense suffering like “Job” but now we have Christ, he says: “’See,
now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation!” In essence he is saying the Lord Jesus
presence is with us, he walks with us spiritually as we are His witnesses in
the midst of this hurting and often evil world.
Evil can only be defeated by Grace in action which is our faith and our
freedom.
Satan
throws a lot of obstacles in our way daily, we must never forget that. It is
spiritual warfare, plain and simple. We
must also realize that we fall prey to the temptation to do evil. There’s no real rhyme or reason available for
why we allow Satan success through us.
We could spend an inordinate amount of time rationalizing through our
limited human understanding OR we can stay focused on our mission in the world.
Our
mission in the world goes beyond a Sunday only frame of mind but to become an
everyday reality as we go forth with that timeless Good News—the Gospel
imperative of Jesus Christ to follow Him and spread His Gospel light to a weary
world! This sanctuary is our gathering place
to share God’s peace but we must remember where the first church is. This is the heart. The heart is the sanctuary of the Holy
Spirit. It is the place where God seeks
to transform us as a people of God into the children of Grace.
Being a
child of Grace is that wonderful internal sanctuary where we grow to know
deeply how Jesus not only saved us from sin, death and the power of the devil
but that we are accountable to living into this lifestyle of Grace with the
fruit of our lives lived in Hope, confidence and assurance. This is a prevailing peace that only a “God
with us” can bring!
You’re
probably asking yourself, how do I do this?
Or what can I really do? The Christian walk is a combination of things,
it is uniquely and importantly your journey with God and how He has helped to
shape your heart to choose not only the Good but to strive for that storm
brewing around us to be stifled and still by our faith in action. Our faith is not only active in that first
church being our hearts but it is carried out in gracious response, through our
hands and feet.
Evil
could break down those doors to that sanctuary of your heart and cause you to
be a party to engaging and justifying sin… But we must realize that this is what causes
us to suffer and this is what Satan’s real victory is in the world. Especially in context to recent dark
headlines in the news; we can start blaming and judging others through politics
or we can see those fingers truthfully pointing as three pointing back to us
& our thumb pointing up to God.
The young
man who killed those nine church members along with their pastor—evil brewed in
his heart for quite sometime even his roommate was an indifferent party to his
evil plans. The individuals who
destroyed with fire the Roman Catholic Church; the Church of the Multiplication
of the Loaves and Fish; were also planning and driven by what they felt was a
justified act—but truly and truthfully was profoundly evil.
St.
Paul had to admonish the struggling Corinthians to remain vigilant in their
faith, he also had to remind them that they are still children. We are all, still children who will always be
growing and struggling in our faith journey.
There will be many things in this one life to shake that foundation,
where we will struggle to know peace, where we will doubt instead of DO.
Being
and becoming is that life time process that we have to spiritually stop
questioning and humble ourselves to the task at hand. Jesus in today’s Gospel
proved to His disciples that He was not only God by calming the storm, but that
He also comes to us to calm the storm in our hearts to reshape them by and
through Grace for the glory of God the Father. God the Father our loving and
gracious parent, creator of the universe and its prevailing peace.
Our
earthly parents gave us what they could to find our way in the world but our
heavenly parent gave us something to grow beyond this world—the Kingdom of God
and all its blessedness.
Let us
Pray:
Heavenly
Father
You are
the prince of Peace
Our
crucified Lord—God with Us
Continue
to shape our hearts to live in Grace
And be
Grace to our neighbor
So that
through Your Holy Spirit’s work within our hearts
We will
as Your children—trample sin, death and evil under our feet
As we
grow in loving and gracious service, in Your Most Holy and Precious Name—
AMEN
June 21st, 2015; 4th
Sunday after Pentecost; Proper 7; Year B; SOLA Lectionary
Sermon by Reverend Nicole A.M.
Collins
Psalm 124; Job 38:1-11; 2
Corinthians 6:1-13 & Mark 4:35-41
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