Proper 24B. 17 October 2021. The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz
Job 38:1-7, 34-41. Who?
Hebrews 5:1-10. Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears.
Mark 10:35-45. What is it you want me to do for you?
O God of Mercy and Compassion, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.
This morning we have many reasons to deck our dear souls, our dear selves, with gladness, as the famous chorale tune begins. God woke us up today and called us to this place. We have responded to our longings, whether they are barely perceptible or practically billboard-sized. God has put longings in our hearts, longings to make spiritual meaning of our lives and of our world with shared prayer, communal wisdom, and the practice of self-giving love. Now I realize that some of you might be thinking, “Oh, that’s not why I’m here! I’m just here for Diana’s baptism,” or “I’m just here for the music!” or “I’m just here because it matters to someone I care about.” My response is, “I am too! It’s all good, and I’m so glad you’re here!”
I want to tell you about a two-year-old book, a new translation and commentary on the Book of Job, that is making so much sense for me of a part of scripture I’ve never fully appreciated. Edward Greenstein, a Semitic-language scholar has published a major re-translation, a corrective reinterpretation of the story of Job.[1] He writes about how traditional translations have softened Job’s attack on the deity’s injustice and have presupposed that Job finally submitted to the deity’s browbeating in the end. (Greenstein purposely avoids translating the name for God.) Greenstein’s re-translation exposes a teaching intention deeper and far riskier than an exploration of unjust suffering. He believes that the story of Job is chiefly about speaking truth to power, whether it is the power of the divine, or the power of traditional wisdom articulated by Job’s friends, that if he’s suffering, he must be being punished for something. The reader of Job knows that’s not the case, that the deity, gambling with the Satan, is unjustly causing Job to suffer as a test. The Satan, by the way, accuses and prosecutes people for their sins, and contradicts the opinions of the Holy One.[2] That’s his whole job! This is not about a test of faith in a traditional sense because, according to the story, Job is not a Jew; he is a righteous Gentile.devil
Greenstein asserts that in the portion of Job we heard this morning, we are mistaken if we understand the deity’s response to Job as appropriately knocking down Job’s sense of self-importance, or if we understand it to celebrate the mighty power of the Divine. Instead the text is demonstrating that the deity, finally pressed (sued actually) to respond to Job’s situation, is bullying Job and portraying a fundamentally amoral world, ultimately to be rejected by righteous Gentiles and righteous Jews. In this reading, Job is defiant to the end, telling the unjust deity that he pities a humanity that would believe in an amoral deity, a deity that would punish people so capriciously.
What’s exciting to me is that Greenstein’s scholarly translation is evidence that there is still more mining for meaning to do in the Bible; the things we think we know aren’t necessarily so, or aren’t the only way to know them. Language study, archeology, and anthropology are still uncovering gems that challenge and provoke. Even more exciting to me is that this ancient text is decidedly not offering a model of righteousness that involves suffering in silence or patiently acquiescing to injustice or oppression. Early Christians interpreted Job’s story as prefiguring Jesus, and I think that’s still possible; but prefiguring speaking truth to power rather than prefiguring being persecuted, tortured, and killed with the express permission of the Holy One. Job prefigures Jesus in the sense of his absolute integrity; that’s the Jesus I love.
The Jesus I love was a master at asking questions, and perhaps the best one of all is: “What is it you want me to do for you?” In the Gospel passage from Mark, James and John say, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” Jesus doesn’t say, “Okay, sure!” or “You know I can’t agree to that,” or “Are you kidding me?” or any number of things he might have said in response. He doesn’t answer with a statement. Rather, smiling I imagine, he asks, “What is it you want me to do for you?” Listen for the same question in the Gospel passage next Sunday. They tell him, “We want to be right next to you all the way in your glory.” He cautions them and then asks a follow-up question: “Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?” That means, are you able to suffer the consequences of being so close to me? Are you able to face into the whirlwind of the breath of God and be immersed in this work? (The word baptism means immersion.) They insist that they are able.
Jesus predicts that they will be able. (We know from biblical scholarship that this is a literary device of foreshadowing, because this passage was written after blessed James and John themselves had met violent deaths as a result of their commitment to following Jesus.) Perhaps they were as naïve as they appear in this story about the costs of the honor of following Jesus. Perhaps they didn’t know what they were in for (because who ever does?), but in the end, I believe they knew what Bishop Barbara Harris was fond of saying: “The power behind you is greater than the task ahead of you when you are responding to God’s call.” That power will save you, but not from suffering or death.
The context of this passage of the Gospel reading is a big reality check. Jesus has assured his followers that they will receive fullness of life! Then the very next thing Mark says is, “They were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them; they were amazed, and those who followed were afraid.” Jesus has told them at least twice before that when they get to Jerusalem, he will be nailed to a cross like so many other victims of the Roman Empire; and now they’re headed right for Jerusalem. Anyone who saw it would marvel, and anyone in their right mind would be afraid.
Perhaps you’ve heard this Gospel lesson preached about in a way that chides James and John for wanting the best seats in the house, for elbowing their way to the front, for trying to get ahead (I know I have). Notice, however, that Jesus doesn’t seem at all annoyed by James’ and John’s request; he’s just careful to clarify what it is they’re asking and then to clarify what is up to God to determine. Notice that Mark tells us about the anger, the indignation, of the other ten. The text doesn’t explain why they were angry. Perhaps they were angry because James and John had run ahead to talk with Jesus and got him to agree that they would share in his ministry. Perhaps they’re annoyed by James and John’s unchecked displays of desire. Perhaps they were angry because James and John were clearly not in their right mind if they were asking for what was about to happen to Jesus to happen to them as well; and the rest of the disciples were still trying to figure out how Jesus could avoid Jerusalem. We don’t really know what motivated any of them. My strong hunch is fear; they were afraid.
That’s interesting to me; I wonder what this might be saying or doing to us. What makes some unafraid part of us long to be right by Jesus’ side? What makes another part of us angry or indignant when we’re trying to follow Jesus and do the right thing, but we’re struggling? Often it’s fear. Jesus’ response to the angry or indignant parts is a reminder about the way power is used in the world to promote fear. “The rulers of the Gentiles,” he says, “lord it over them and their great ones are tyrants over them… but it is not [to be] so among you. In this community we don’t lord power or control over others, we serve. In this community, we don’t get served; we sacrifice.” Jesus is reminding all who want to follow him that service is his glory; sacrifice is his glory. In this beloved community Jesus is gathering it’s not, “What are you going to do for me?” but “What is it you would like me to do for you?”
The characteristics of biblical sacrifice are freedom, joy, and a sense of complete peace. If you are making a sacrifice to God or because of God, and you don’t feel more free, more joyful, more peaceful, reconsider: are you making the sacrifice with deep integrity? Whether your gift is your time, your talent, or your money, the sacrifice desired by God is a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and it should feel exhilarating. You know, in the last part of this Gospel passage, Jesus is saying that the Son of Man came to give his life a ransom for many. I would love to help you get out from under the heavy, smelly, theological blanket of expiatory sacrifice, which portrays Jesus’ death as somehow making amends for the bad behavior of others, which got a dominant hold on Western Christian thought in the 11th century and is still messing us up. [3] The Greek word here for ransom is lutron, and it has to do with release, setting free. “In the first century, a slave or a prisoner of war was freed by means of a lutron.”[4] So here, lutron becomes shorthand for the redeeming work of God in setting all of the captives free. Free from what? Free from shame or fear; free from fear of powerlessness or neediness; free from fear of death; free from whatever fear binds, contorts, or imprisons.
In the end of this passage, Jesus is instructing, “You are to behave as servants, as slaves,” but get this: slaves whose freedom has been won, captives whose ransom has been paid, prisoners whose bail bond has been posted. So cheer up; deck your souls with gladness! Imagine that Jesus is asking you, “What is it you want me to do for you?” Imagine that Jesus is asking all of us together, “What is it you want me to do for you?” Imagine knowing what to ask for and being brave enough to ask for it. Imagine being reminded the cup that we drink and the baptism with which we are baptized are the same cup and baptism of Jesus, with all the agony and all the glory. Imagine being told what it is that Jesus wants us to do for him, not because we have to, but because we’re free. We’re free! Feel how good it is to be free and imagine how we might respond, starting right now. The biblical testimony is that everything will turn out alright in the end; and if it’s not alright, then it’s not the end![5] Today, in fact, is the beginning for Diana Chloe, and she’s giving us all a reason to renew our baptismal promises and remember just who and Whose we are. Thank you, sweet Diana!
[1] Edward L. Greenstein, Job: A New Translation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2019).
[2] Ibid., p. 5.
[3] Larry Wills in the Jewish Annotated New Testament‘s commentary on Mark.
[4] Ronald Allen and Clark Williamson. Preaching the Gospel without Blaming the Jews (Louisville KY: Westminster John Knox, 2015), p. 159.
[5] Frequent refrain of Sonny in the 2012 movie, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.