“Astounded and Perplexed: Possible Impossibilities”
“Astounded and Perplexed: Possible Impossibilities”
Job 23:1-9, 16-17 Psalm 22:1-15 Mark 10:17-31
October 13, 2024, Twenty First Sunday after Pentecost
Pastor Andy Kennaly
Sandpoint, Idaho
Once upon a time, in a wonderful land, there lived someone who had to do something. After doing this, they lived happily ever after. The End.
This is the type of storybook we cling to, one with happy endings and not too much suffering. The story may require work along the way, but obstacles are overcome, and success is granted, happily ever after.
If you think this is too simplistic or quaint, then let’s skim through a couple of narratives in our culture that come from such assumptions as this. Let’s talk about religion and politics.
For the religious part, let’s mention the doctrine of original sin, where, all we have to do is follow Jesus to be saved from God’s wrath and judgment, and we live happily ever after in heaven, with all the saints. Jesus takes our punishment, so we don’t have to. It’s so simple. I’ve heard pastors around here preach about how this Earth doesn’t matter, it is only boot camp to get us ready for what really matters, eternity, which is interpreted as time duration with no end, life on celestial clouds in heavenly realms. Of course, with this attitude you can treat planet Earth however you want, like deny global warming, for example, or just say it’s part of God’s plan and not to worry about it because Jesus is coming back soon. Tell that to the people of western North Carolina, don’t worry about the flooding, Jesus is coming back soon. Just join the Christians who prayed on the Florida coast for the hurricanes to go somewhere else. But instead, Hurricane Helene was right on top of them.
With politics, let’s use tomorrow’s holiday and go the simple line of “In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue.” Columbus discovered America, which paved the way for colonization and European settlement. Columbus Day is a Federal Holiday focused on this discovery and the pride and contributions of Italian Americans. It’s tomorrow, on the second Monday of October, and is perpetuated by acts of Congress and declarations by the President of the United States. Flags will fly.
But most scholars, historians, anthropologists, and many municipalities realize that Columbus Day is not that simple. More recently, Indigenous Peoples’ Day is also celebrated in many places, because there were millions of people in the Americas by 1492, and Columbus was not the first European to find it. In fact, on one of his three trips, he saw what we call Cuba, and he thought it was Asia. European explorers didn’t know about the Pacific Ocean yet. Well, it wasn’t Japan, or China, it was Cuba, and the happily ever after narrative only works for some. But to hold that narrative, one must deny so many additional perspectives, and suppress other realities, to the detriment of many people.
The scripture stories we reflect on today don’t let us bypass the realities of suffering, the isolation of pain, the need for justice to redeem the afflicted, and the complications of religion and politics.
Both Job and the Psalmist experience the feeling that God has forsaken them, that God seems far away and not interested that their hearts grow faint and their cries seem unanswered.
In just the opposite of the comforting traditions, for example, of Catholic Saints, such as St. Patrick who made it through trials and who’s breastplate shares so poetically Christ in every direction, (I’ll give a link in the sermon notes if you want to read this blessing). Just the opposite here, Job is terrified to the point where spatial direction doesn’t help, and Job simply wishes to get covered up with darkness, that “thick darkness would cover my face.”
The Psalmist in Psalm 22 writes a mix of groaning and reminiscing, feeling forsaken, recognizing painful realities, yet it seems they trust the prayer that God won’t be far from them despite all they face. Even Jesus quotes this Psalm from the cross as shared in Mark’s gospel, chapter 15, just prior to breathing his last. The Psalmist is scorned and despised by the people, those who dehumanize them, “But I am a worm and not human” is the reflection.
We see dehumanization all over the world. Colonialization, human trafficking, borders and wars of division between Israelis and Palestinians, Russians and Ukrainians, the southern border of the United States that is militarized more and more while rhetoric degrades to name calling and disinformation. And let’s not forget what much of the world has forgotten as Sudan’s Army and Paramilitary cause disruption for millions of lives. In fact, if you look online at Sudan’s conflict, you’ll see headlines (BBC) such as “hundreds die from cholera outbreak” which emphasize the dehumanization so rampant that we may feel overwhelmed. But don’t worry, right below the headline is an advertisement that you could click on to learn more about how the Ritz Carlton takes to the sea on luxury cruises which involve vacationing aboard a line of massive yachts. I don’t know why that ad is there, but it’s a stark contrast.
Lest we think we meddle too much, or pick on rich people, today we have a story from Mark about Jesus. I don’t remember where I heard it but somewhere Jesus is described as very effective in comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable.
Even the disciples are astounded and perplexed because they have their version of the Protestant work ethic, that if you work hard, you will be rewarded as a sign of God’s favor. It was assumed that wealth was a blessing, and yet here’s Jesus telling a very faithful man that he lacks one thing, and he should go and sell everything and give the money to the poor. This was very shocking to this man, and he “went away grieving, for he had many possessions.”
The man sets himself up, like when he comes to Jesus and says, “Good teacher,” and Jesus questions the use of the word ‘good.’ Whether something or someone is good or bad requires judgment, criteria, measurement against some ideal scale. This shows the man is already immersed in dualistic categories of either or, with perspectives that base him at the center of criteria. Yet the man says he keeps the commandments since his youth. This is an externalizing of criteria. This is admirable, and the man is sincere and devout. No wonder Mark mentions that “Jesus, looking at him, loved him,” and that is the context of teaching him to sell his possessions. The context of seeing him, of love, to want what is truly best for him.
That’s the clincher. That’s where sin is healed. Sin, what I call the illusion of separation. Sin is thinking you are separate, which is why dehumanization seems so entrenched, because it stems from human consciousness that has not awakened to this illusion. But let’s expand this definition of sin.
Not only is sin the illusion of separation, but sin involves our addictions, the main one being finitude, of preferring what has limits over God’s Mystery. This rich man has many possessions. Perhaps his possessions have him? To follow the good Teacher and sell what he has is another way of saying that Jesus, who loves him and sees him, doesn’t want anything to come between that man and bottomless depths of God.
Yet the man weeps. Traditional interpretation says that he is one of the only people that left the presence of Jesus feeling sad. The man is shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions. But he lacks one thing. The one thing he lacks is not the behavior of selling things and giving to the poor. The one thing he lacks is freedom, release from his own captivity to anything less than God’s infinite Presence.
Perhaps his tears and grief show his materialism rearing its ugly head. He was burdened because his image of God and world view were challenged. But maybe his tears were holy. Maybe his tears, which are his response to being seen and loved by Jesus, are a gift. Maybe his tears wash his vision so that he now sees exactly as Jesus sees, and his tears are tears of lament that he’s spent his life since his youth blinded to what Jesus clarifies so immediately with such immanence.
Or maybe he was not able to do this spiritual work, and perhaps he is sad. Either way, Jesus sees him, and loves him. Even if it involves inability, the man is loved in his inability, which shows that these tears to flow from holiness.
He was shocked and went away grieving, but this does not necessarily fall into categories of good or bad. Perhaps his shock could also be described as a conversion experience, as dramatic and life changing as Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus blinded by the light and transformed into Apostle Paul. The word shock is intended to share the unexpected, the gravity of this reversal.
Mark does not report whether the rich, faithful man follows through to sell and give. It does not say he did this, but it does not say he didn’t. Perhaps he did, and in this action as directed by the good teacher, the man learned the art of letting go, the path of Kenosis, of giving over his True Self for the Living Christ to shine through in humility’s glory. Perhaps he heeded the lesson, and like camels that are unloaded from their burdens, then kneel down to get through the Eye of the Needle, a narrow gate in Jerusalem’s wall, closed at night and only open in the light of day.
Here we move from Job who wants to vanish in thick darkness, to an invitation to enter the light through humility that unencumbers. This biblical narrative does not sugar coat life, but through all the intensities invites trust in God, and what is possible in God.
May we learn to look at and from the core of our heart and soul, to see and love with the eyes of Jesus from whom healing comes. Nothing else will satisfy our deepest longings, and in this deliverance, God is glorified, now, even as forever. Amen.