[Propertalk] Proper 24 b

[robertpmorrison at charter.net]

Long week - here's the first draft for this weekend.


Bob



THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN, ALBANY                    THE 
TWENTY-FIRST SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
JOB 38:1-7, 34-41                         					 
PROPER 24 B
HEBREWS 5:1-10				                            	 
21st OCTOBER, 2012
MARK 10:35-45						 
PSALM 104:1-9, 25, 37b

  	St. Anthony, a Franciscan monk, a personal friend of Francis himself, 
lived in the thirteenth century and spent his ministry in Italy. 
“Francis had held a strong distrust of the place of theological studies 
in the life of his brotherhood, fearing that it might lead to an 
abandonment of their commitment to a life of real poverty. In Anthony, 
however, he found a kindred spirit for his vision, who was also able to 
provide the teaching needed by young members of the order who might seek 
ordination. He thereby entrusted the pursuit of studies for any of his 
friars to the care of Brother Anthony. From then on his skills were used 
to the utmost by the Church.” 1

	A blind person is reputed to have asked. Anthony, “Can there be 
anything worse than losing eye sight?”

	He replied, “Yes, losing your vision!” 2

	That’s what God admired so much about Job. That’s what Jesus admired so 
much about His followers. No matter what questions they had, no matter 
how far down strange paths they wandered, no matter what sort of a 
mental, or physical or spiritual mess they may have got themselves into, 
somehow they managed to hang on at least to the vestiges of their 
vision.

And that’s what that Jesus seeks of us.

End of sermon.

Well, not quite. You know that few clergy would let folk off that 
easily!

But why not? I mean, when God spoke to Job, it didn’t come crashing down 
in something like “War and Peace”.
God spoke to Job in a relatively straight-forward way. And Jesus 
enthralled His listeners with story after story based on familiar 
analogies, even going to the length of explaining these later to the 
disciples.

	So what’s going on? If things are that obvious, why the fuss? Why were 
there so many misunderstandings, and why does this continue right into 
our own day?

	How many times have you misplaced something – your glasses, a cup of 
coffee, your car or house keys, your spouse? Well, maybe not your 
spouse, although perhaps not without trying! How many times have you 
looked and looked, but not seen whatever it is for which you search? 
Then, having gone through every room in the house more than once, you go 
back to where you started and discover the keys, or whatever, in your 
pocket or purse, or the counter you’ve examined umpteen times. We look, 
but we do not see. Why? You can’t blame failing eyesight for everything. 
Sometimes there’s a disconnect between our eyes and our brain. Sometimes 
our brain says “keys”, or “umbrella”, but our eyes forget what that 
image right in front of us really is. We see, but we don’t see. We need 
something to give us a jog of one sort or another to bring us into 
reality, to rediscover, if you will, what’s already present.

	And the same is true about vision, except that vision is, ideally, much 
broader.

	Vision is seeing what is really there – not what you imagine; not what 
you specifically want. Vision is about seeing the big picture.

	Not to belittle Job’s problems, but more’s involved that just one 
person, even one family and one business. When we come to see what’s 
really there, really, fully, there, we begin to see where everything 
fits in to the big picture.

	Timothy Rees, former Bishop of Llandaff in Wales, hit this right on the 
head with his poem which we sang as our opening hymn. 3 He talked about 
the way in which creation is filled not only with signs of God’s 
activity from before time began, but is filled also with tantalizing 
indicators of the way in which God’s loving creativity has never 
stopped, nor ever will, no matter what. Though we’re often struck by 
blindness through our own self-absorption, our selfishness, our 
short-mindedness, God still meets us to engage us with what’s already 
available to us and suggests what we can do with what we have.

	Fortunately, nowhere does God belittle our sufferings. Nowhere does God 
say, “You’ve got cancer; your relationships are falling apart; you’ve 
just been laid off; get over it!” Nor are we left to our own devices. 
God, ever-present, ever-loving, stands ready to help us not only get 
through the immediate difficulty, but to offer us a glimpse of how our 
present life isn’t disassociated from our future. It’s almost like the 
tease of a lover when God says, “Just take a look at how beautiful heavy 
grey, rain-impregnated clouds are. Think about how pleased people were 
to see you this morning. If I put that much effort into the background, 
think what I’m ready to offer you for the whole of your life.”

	Similarly, that lovable twosome, James and John, those least 
self-effacing disciples, think about how Jesus told them to see what was 
right in front of them. They were so enamoured with the sound of their 
own voices that they couldn’t imagine how much dissention they were 
spreading among those around them, and how self-limiting they were 
being.

	This isn’t to slam James and John, as easy and as much fun as that may 
be. It’s simply to acknowledge how we often place ourselves as 
individuals ahead of everyone and everything else.

	The late Scottish theologian, Willie Barclay, wrote about James and 
John’s propensity for being what he termed “ignorant and insensitive”. 
But he went on to write, “there's one positive thing you can say about 
James and John: they believed in Jesus.  Here was a poor, homeless, 
persecuted carpenter and yet James and John believed Jesus was a king. 
They believed that He would conquer the power structure of Rome.” Even 
their crude ambition reflected their faith in Christ. 4

	Yes, vision is about being completely open to acknowledging and 
appreciating what is right in front of each one of us. And God prays 
that we’ll be able to use the gifts we’ve been given to appreciate this.

	But there’s a second aspect to being visionary. Vision is seeing what 
CAN be there. Job is encouraged by God to take in all the possibilities 
of a creation packed with joyful surprises round every corner. James and 
John are told, very politely of course, to back off so that they can see 
the immense pleasure that every last follower of Jesus will be so close 
to Jesus in eternity that they can smell His aftershave.

	What Jesus longs for is that we’ll stop being so short-sighted that we 
can’t appreciate just what sort of a wonderful system this is in which 
we live, and move, and have our being. If something, if someone, if we 
ourselves cannot quiet down, take a deep breath, allow ourselves to 
listen, then we may miss discovering right now a foretaste of what God’s 
hope is all about.

	If we don’t try to quiet our brains, to silence our tongues, to put our 
feet up for a while, we may miss seeing, hearing and engaging in the 
world, in the universe, in all of creation brought to us now, for the 
now and the future, by God.

	We can see this in the joy of a young couple getting the keys to their 
first house, and being unable to stop asking for a blessing on the new 
chapter beginning in their lives. We can see this in the way that Malala 
Yousafzai is recovering from her attack in Pakistan two weeks ago, and 
is so overjoyed at the possibilities of helping other girls receive an 
education, to break out of the prison in which people with 
next-to-no-vision wish to keep her and all people born female. 5

	Vision, as Job, James and John were brought to understand; vision as 
God continues to pray that we’ll be able to understand, includes seeing 
possibilities in God’s gift to us of creation.

In talking about what has stuck in her mind about the joy of living and 
being loved, Nancy Roth wrote, “My ( … ) comforting blanket was an 
afghan of many hues crocheted by my great-grandmother. When I was 
convalescing from a childhood disease or a cold, it was a treat to wrap 
myself in its warmth and lie on the sofa in the living room. Every 
square was different, and I would spend hours deciding which was my 
favorite. …
	
	Reminds Roth, “God breathes through all of creation as Maker of the 
natural resources which give us food and shelter, as well as of the 
atmosphere which makes life on earth possible. In 1974, the scientist 
Lewis Thomas wrote:
	
	“‘When the earth came alive it began by constructing its own membrane, 
for the general purpose of editing the sun … The earth breathes, in a 
certain sense … We are safe, well ventilated, and incubated, provided we 
can avoid technologies that might fiddle with that ozone, or shift the 
levels of carbon dioxide.  …

	“‘It is hard to feel affection for something as totally impersonal as 
the atmosphere, and yet there it is, as much a part and product of life 
as wine or bread. Taken all in all, the sky is a miraculous achievement. 
It works, and for what it is designed to accomplish it is as infallible 
as anything in nature … The word “chance” does not serve to account well 
for structures of such magnificence.” 6

	“No,” concluded Nancy Roth, “chance does not explain such a structure. 
‘God is Love, and love enfolds us.’”

	Loss of vision is such an incredibly sad thing. It takes from us the 
wonderfully possibility of being “surprised by joy” every moment of 
every day, most often when we least expect it.

	We ARE concentrating on only one small part of the life of Job, and of 
James and John, just as we’re only dealing with how we feel this morning 
about how we ourselves may be being called to open ourselves to God’s 
possibilities. We know how the story of Job turns out. We know about the 
enthusiasm of James and John as Jesus messengers. Even if we didn’t, 
however, we’re STILL called to rejoice, to give thanks, to praise God in 
every was we possibly can, at every possible moment of our lives. Let’s 
pray we don’t lose our vision for God.

	As that prayer puts it:
“Dear God,
Thank you for all that is good,
for our creation and our humanity,
for the stewardship you have given us of this planet earth,
for the gifts of life and of one another,
for the love which is unbounded and eternal.” 7

NOTES

1 	http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_of_Padua

2	See, among other sites - 
http://www.truthbook.com/stories/dsp_viewStory.cfm?storyID=866

3	“God is Love, let heaven adore him” in Hymnal 1982 number 379.

4	William Barclay, The Gospel of Mark, pp. 254, 255

5	 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/19/malala-yousafzai-recovery-doctors

6	“Awake, My Soul!: Meditating on Hymns for Year B”. Nancy Roth. Church 
Publishing © 2000 Pp. 166 ff. 
http://books.google.com/books?id=cZJDjCW9iZIC&pg=PA165&lpg=PA165&dq=timothy+rees+1874+-+1939+god+is+love,+let+heaven+adore+him&source=bl&ots=pKZDNCjHmR&sig=Q32KaNDBz3WIeNQxm8rx-joT9Bo&hl=en&sa=X&ei=x8aBUPepC8r2iQLjvoCYCg&sqi=2&ved=0CEcQ6AEwCA 
quoting “The World’s Biggest Membrane.” from “The Lives of a Cell: Notes 
of a Biology Watcher.” By Lewis Thomas Pp. 145-148. See 
http://sites.google.com/site/thoreauandwilderness/American-Nature-Writing/lewis-thomas

7	“Night Prayer” from “A New Zealand Prayer Book”, page 167 ff.


Robert P Morrison
Interim Vicar
The Episcopal Church of St Alban
PO Box 1556
Albany OR  97321   541-921-1076 (cell)