October 17, 2021 – The Twenty-First Sunday After Pentecost
Fr. Cal Calhoun
What’s It All About?
In the Name of God, the God of Love: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Last Sunday, Mother Elizabeth helped us understand these readings from Job, reminding us that this is a parable or tale. In this week’s reading, God answers Job out of the whirlwind. God gives a bit of poetry around God’s majesty and power:
‘Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?
Gird up your loins like a man,
I will question you, and you shall declare to me.
Now in all fairness to Job, he has been asking God why? Why? What have I done? What was my sin? That all this has happened.
And God asks: ‘Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding.
Who determined its measurements—surely you know!
Or who stretched the line upon it?
On what were its bases sunk,
or who laid its cornerstone
when the morning stars sang together
and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy?
Can you lift up your voice to the clouds,
so that a flood of waters may cover you?
Can you send forth lightnings, so that they may go
and say to you, “Here we are”?
Who has put wisdom in the inward parts,
or given understanding to the mind?
Who has the wisdom to number the clouds?”
So in Job, this week, we hear about the majesty and power of God. Job is reminded that he really doesn’t understand like God understands. God is God, and Job is not. God is God, and I am not.
God’s majesty is echoed in Psalm 104 this week:
1 Bless the Lord, O my soul; *
O Lord my God, how excellent is your greatness!
you are clothed with majesty and splendor.
2 You wrap yourself with light as with a cloak *
and spread out the heavens like a curtain.
3 You lay the beams of your chambers in the waters above; *
you make the clouds your chariot;
you ride on the wings of the wind.
4 You make the winds your messengers *
and flames of fire your servants.
5 You have set the earth upon its foundations, *
so that it never shall move at any time.
It is in this context of the power and the majesty of God, that we hear of James and John asking Jesus for a favor. At least, in Mark’s version of this story they ask for the favor themselves. In Matthew’s version, they get their mother to ask for the favor. It is easy to come down on James and John for asking for this favor, a favor to put themselves in a position close to Jesus. But don’t we all want to be next to that majesty and power? Don’t we all hope that God would want us to be as close to God, as we desire to be? Often it is Peter who plays the role of the human in all his humanness. In today’s reading, it is James and John. The disciples want to be close to the teacher, they want approval, they want to be rewarded.
We want to be close to God. We want approval. We want to be rewarded. And we want to be close to all that power and majesty. But maybe even more important, how is God defined in the words of John? God is Love. Maybe more than power and majesty, we want to be close to that love.
My friend Carol Mead, who is a priest and an author, created this image. She wrote that in the Baroque music of the 1600’s, (and we are way out of my area of expertise here!) a practice developed called basso continuo. It was a method of composition in which all parts of a piece of music were built on the bass line. The bass line, the deepest, lowest tone, became the “rock” on which the piece was based and other parts were placed or built around it.
Carol believes that our spiritual lives are basso continuo. Before we spoke, before we screwed up the first time, or the most recent time, before we wandered, we were made in the image of God. Before all else, we are of God. We are of God’s essence. We are of God’s creation. We are of God’s expression. We are of God’s love. We are here to listen for, and to harmonize with, the deepest voice, the call of God.
So James and John, I think they are just trying to get next to that deepest music, that power and majesty, that love.
Clearly, I don’t know what heaven is like. Just like Job doesn’t know the answers to God’s questions. I don’t even know whether heaven is that a word makes any sense in referring to what is for us the next great adventure. But I have to believe that there is no one playing golf, no one fishing, no one will be doing whatever it is that you most love in this life. And it’s not because you’re not allowed to, it’s because once you are in the nearer presence of that love, that majesty, you won’t want to be anywhere else, doing anything else. I have to believe that there won’t be any competition for that seat on the left or the right. We will all get a turn of equal amount, or more likely, God will have figured out a way that we are all as close to God as we can get without having to replace or push someone else away.
And what does that love look like? We have a God who came to us not be served but to serve. That’s what I think heaven looks like. We are all serving one another, because that is what Love is all about. That is what God is all about. Amen.
Year B, Proper 24 – October 17, 2021 – The Twenty-First Sunday After Pentecost – The Rev. Cal Calhoun
