Hope Defiant
Pent. 23B, 2015, Rob Gieselmann
I don’t know about you, but I’m wondering, why the rich man didn’t argue with Jesus.
Think about it – The man was honorable. And unlike the Pharisees, he didn’t try to either manipulate Jesus or obfuscate the law for selfish purposes. Instead, he lived a life Moses would have been proud of. He was honest as the day is long, he didn’t commit adultery, and he brought honor to his parents.
And now he is seeking spiritual direction, and that from Jesus, the rabbi. Jesus loved him, Mark tells us. Loved him, a phrase peculiarly out of place in this story, especially if the story is one only about money. It isa story about money – but far more.
Upon loving the man, Jesus advised him to divest. Sell it all, and give the money to the poor, then you will inherit life.
But what I want to know – like I said – is this: Why didn’t the man argue with Jesus? Job argued with God, literally, like a lawyer. He filed a complaint, a metaphoric lawsuit. I have lived a righteous life. He argued.
I have obeyed commandment from birth; exercised my religion faithfully. Attended church every Sunday, if you will. I should have been rewarded, not punished, yet here I sit on this mat my body wracked with boils, once rich, now destitute. It isn’t right. Where are you, God? Job’s friend, Eliphaz, advised him to repent – You must have donesomething wrong, or this wouldn’t be your plight.
*My wife Laura used to tell stories about family trips to the beach. The four kids would be piled in the backseat of the station wagon – They’d start bickering, and invariably Laura’s mom would swat her hand across the vacuum of the backseat –
That hand always seemed to catch Laura and not the others. She was the youngest, and couldn’t get out of the way fast enough. Each time, Laura would protest, I didn’t do it. To which her mother responded wryly, Well, you did somethingto deserve that!
Eliphaz is saying to Job You did somethingto deserve your plight. But Eliphaz misses Job’s point. He has only God to whom to complain, but God has gone missing. AWOL. Absent without Leave. And I wonder – how many times in your life have you turned to God in complaint, but God seemed to be missing.
*The translation is incorrect. You just heard these words: If I go forward, God is not there;or backward, I cannot perceive him.
Rather, Job is more poetic: If I go eastward, God is not there;
or westward – still I cannot see him. If I seek him in the north, he
is not to be found, invisible still when I turn to the south.
As if to say, I go east, and continue east, and yet cannot find the west. Think about it. God becomes the horizon, you move, and it moves, always beyond your reach. Where are you, Oh God?
Your soul cries out. Job’s soul cried out.
wrote this about Job – Job’s problem is not that his faith has broken-down. Rather, it is that he has two faiths, not one. One is a faith in justice – Job believes that justice will and must prevail. And the other faith – is in God. Job believes in an all powerful, all prevailing God. Which means, Job believes in justice despite believing in God, and he believes in God despite
believing in justice. And right now – there is no justice. Or, justice has fallen asleep. And God seems AWOL.
***And here – and maybe you, too – here is when I think of people like Nelson Mandela and Elie Wiesel, for whom God went AWOL – both imprisoned unjustly, both freed later to lead subsequent remarkable lives. Nelson Mandela – in South Africa – a lawyer who conspired with others to overthrow the legitimate yet immoral government of South Africa, Legitimate by law, immoral because of apartheid. Mandela was imprisoned for twenty-seven years – 27, and you know, of course, that during at least some of that time, he would have cried out at the injustice, cried out to God: My God, My God, Why have you forsaken me?
But God had not forsaken Mandela - Twenty seven years, plus some, and Mandela became not only South Africa’s first black president, but also the man who brought spiritual peace to a divided country – engaging forgiveness through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. These days, Mandela is called the Father of the Nation. And Elie Wiesel, who suffered as a boy in concentration camps that killed, literally killed, the rest of his family – and don’t you know he spent years following that experience wrestling with justice and God and darkness, and eventual light – In the end, he wrote about truth, and hope. It was Elie Wiesel who said, There are victories of the soul and spirit. Sometimes, even if you lose, you win.
Sometimes, even if you lose, you win –
And Job wrestling with his own demons, and darkness – and the absence of God – putting God on trial, not afraid to ask the hard questions of God – At the end of his quest, he and God reconciled, settled his lawsuit. And to echo the psalm, his two faiths, in God and in justice, kissed each other. I don’t know about the injustices in your life. I can’t easily tell you where God is to be found – although I’m convinced she’s there .But I do know there is this thing called defiant faith. The rich man walked away from Jesus. He failed to engage. To argue, to question. Jesus loved him, and would have loved equally had he stood there and protested. Indeed, Jesus himself would do exactly that with God, only later: protest – in the garden sweating drops of blood – So Jesus loved the man, And I have to say, I think it must have saddened Jesus to watch the man walk away.