St. Paul's Episcopal Church

St. Paul's Episcopal Church
425 Cleveland Ave SW
Canton, Ohio 44702
Phone: 330-455-0286
Fax: 330-455-9818
E-mail: office@stpaulscanton.org

21 Pentecost
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Canton OH
Job 42:1-6, 10-17, Mark 10:46-52

October 25, 2009
The Rev. Barbara L Bond

Seeing and Responding

When we see, really see, how do we respond? Two of our readings today deal with this: seeing and responding.

Let’s begin with the story of Job. Today we heard how Job was humbled before God, seeing clearly his relationship to God, and God giving him gifts beyond imagining. It’s like a fairy tale, if you just read this part. But that ignores the 41 chapters that preceded it. This tale is more much complicated. Here it is in a nutshell:

The story begins with Job being an upright, honest, observing Jew who does everything right. Through no fault of his own, there’s a wager going on in the heavenly council, and the Devil’s Advocate says, “Hey, God, of course Job loves you! Everything’s going his way. Let’s throw in a monkey wrench and see how he responds.” God believes in Job’s faith and says, “OK, test him.” From there, everything goes downhill. Job loses all his fortunes, his family, his health, his standing in the community. He sits on a dung hill, covered with sores, and his wife says, “Curse God and die!” His friends look at him and say, “Man, you must have really done something awful to deserve this!” (With friends like these, who needs enemies?) Job cries out in misery that he wants to talk to God about his predicament, and at chapter 38 God shows up for the conversation. That is, God shows up in a whirlwind and does all the talking, beginning with Job’s presumption of understanding anything about God. “Hey, where were you when I created the world?” God then reveals the great divine design. It is a bit like looking up at the stars and wondering where you fit in. As we rejoin the story today, Job understands. Totally humbled, he asks God’s forgiveness for his presumption. Job’s faith is steady, and he is rewarded with a broader vision. Oh yeah, and all that other stuff too, like his fortune and his family. But the point is that he sees the fullness of God, and responds in humility.

I did an artwork on this story once. It was in three parts, three boxes. The first box was a perfect square, with lots of perfect pigeon holes, denoting Job’s perfect life. The second box contained much confusion, a swirling and revealing encounter with God. The third box no longer exists, because when I presented this work to my seminary class on Job, I took an ax and chopped the third box to pieces. That’s what happened to Job – he couldn’t keep his perceptions of God in a box anymore. His vision was expanded way outside the box.

Something similar is happening in the Gospel story today. Bartimaeus is sitting at the side of the road. He used to be able to see, but he has been blind a long time, and has been reduced to begging – a little like Job on the dung heap. But he has heard about Jesus, and feels this is his only chance. Jesus passes by and Bartimaeus calls out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Despite admonitions to shut up, he keeps yelling. Jesus hears him, stops, and asks that he come forward. Bartimaeus leaps up and throws off his cloak. He throws off his cloak, his covering. He throws off whatever was holding him back, and asks, “My teacher, let me see again.” Jesus heals him, saying, “Go; your faith has made you well.”

The same thing happened to Job: his faith was steadfast, and God won the wager with the Devil’s Advocate. Job was steadfast in his faith, no matter what, no matter how his perfect world was shattered. His faith brought him through. He saw the fullness of God.

For Bartimaeus, his faith empowered him to leap up, throw off his cloak, and ask for what he needed. He took action, and he saw the fullness of God, and the rest of the world besides. But now comes the really important part. Jesus said to him, “GO. Your faith has made you well.” GO. And Bartimaeus did GO. He followed Jesus on the way. His experience of healing empowered him to follow a whole new way of life. He became a disciple.

How about us? Do we respond to new insight by following God? We gain much insight through our lived experience. Sometimes we just shut our eyes tight and say, “Why is this happening to me?” But if we open our eyes to the fullness of God’s grace, we see a different picture. Maybe our old perceptions are smashed to bits, but we see the world through new eyes. We see God’s world. And we are invited to respond.

Our society would have us see the world in terms of financial success and security, through the acquisition of more consumer products, of doing our part to stimulate the national economy by spending ourselves into debt and wondering where all the stuff came from. But God wants us to see differently, and respond differently. God wants a deeper relationship with us. God wants us 100%, not just on Sunday mornings. God wants us to take God along when we go shopping, and help us weigh our priorities. God wants to open our eyes to the poor and needy in the world. God wants us to see our lives through newly opened eyes, to see and to respond, to follow God into an alternate Kingdom, the Kingdom of God where the rules are justice and mercy, where we see with eyes wide open the fullness and richness of God’s gifts to our lives, where we respond with generosity to build a better world.