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“SCRATCHING
FOR PEACE” WORLD COMMUNION SUNDAY Readings: Psalm
26, Mark 10:2-6, Hebrews 1:1-4, 2:5-12, Job 1:1, 2:1-10
Preached at Baldwin
Presbyterian Church, NY, October 4th 2009 All that Job ever wanted was a peaceful life. Then Satan walked into the
picture and everything was ruined. Like most of us in this world. We don’t
invite suffering or trouble or disaster to come into our lives. But just like
Satan, evil stalks the land, enters our situations and everything becomes a
mess. Such is common not only to our selves in this nation but to peoples all
around the world. Most people just want a peaceful life. World Communion
Sunday is the Sunday when the Peacemaking Offering is received; an offering
that goes towards peace related projects throughout the world. Peoples
everywhere hunger for peace. Yet, just like Job, relief often seems like a
long time coming. I’d like this morning to reflect on signs of peace that appear in our
story from the early chapters of the Book of Job. The first indication that we see of Job’s
desire to find some sense of relief is in verse 8. He begins… ‘Scratching for Peace’ “And he took a potsherd to scrape himself, as he sat amongst the
ashes” Let us remind ourselves of Job’s situation. He has done nothing wrong.
Yet suffering has descended upon him. He is an unwilling victim to power
plays over which he has no control. Like so many in our world today, his
suffering is completely undeserved. He’s left sitting in the town garbage
heap, covered in boils and he begins to scratch! Usually it is only when an issue personally impacts our lives that we
begin to scratch. I’ll be honest with you. I try most of the time to avoid
thinking about certain issues. I try not to dwell on the violence and war
that is going on in places such as Afghanistan and Iraq and struggles for
justice that take place all over. But then I get on my FaceBook page and there’s a message from a West
Virginia friend on active duty in Iraq and he is speaking of how it will be
his sons first day at school here in the U.S and how much he is missing
holding his son’s hand and taking him to the school gates like any ordinary
dad would able to do. I try not to think about the evil of hunger and famine that devours and
stalks whole nations. But then, as the youth did one Sunday in my previous
church, they made a paper chain that stretched around and around the
sanctuary and explained that every link of the chain represented children who
would die of starvation while we were enjoying worship. I try not to think about the weapons that people might have and how they
might use them. I try not to worry that Al-Qaida or some other group may
obtain some diabolical nuclear device and use it to make a point. I find
myself wondering why we have such weapons in the first place. And then along
comes something like a 911 Memorial Day and I realize that these are
questions that we have to ask. It’s really not indifference or apathy, as much as it is a feeling of
helplessness and hopelessness about the actual ability we have to change
things. But occasionally something breaks through and I begin to itch and I
feel the need to scratch. That’s where we begin. An issue touches us and it
becomes personal and so we start to scratch at it! But Job isn’t content just to scratch; he begins also to question what he
is hearing. His wife has come to him and suggests he should ‘Curse
God and die’. Job is astonished and asks her “Are even you going to speak
like senseless women do?” ‘Questions for Peace’
Around any given issue related to Peacemaking, be it helping victims of
Aids, offering relief in Guatemala, opposing human trafficking, or political
hot potatoes like gun control or military spending, it’s never simple. Job’s
situation was not what it seemed. There were things going on behind the
scenes. Job knew himself well enough to question the stock answers those
around him would give him. The rest of the book of Job is taken up with
conversations that challenge simple solutions and comfortable answers. There are those who question if social issues should even be mentioned in
a pulpit. We forget to easily that the Good News of the gospel is meant to be
Good News for all creation… and yes… even creation itself. It is a question
of catching God’s vision of what God intended the world to be. The prophets of Scripture picture a world in which babies no longer die
in infancy and people live out a full life span. A place where fields yield
their produce to those who work the land and weapons of war are refashioned
into agricultural tools. A New World where dividing walls are shattered and
all people live in peace and safety with God and each other. Because we believe in the coming kingdom of God we work towards setting
in place those things that reflect God’s priorities. In the prayer Jesus
taught us we routinely say, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”. We have an
obligation before God to seek to redeem and save that which is lost. To
challenge the wisdom of the day with the truth of God’s Word. To seek change
through our exercise of fruits and gifts of the Holy Spirit. Job refuses to
compromise. He seeks peace through asking hard questions and contradicting
the stock answers that he heard around him. One of the notions Job challenges is that bad things only happen to bad
people. Throughout his conversations he maintains his innocence. He was a
good person to whom bad things had happened. We are told in verse 10 “Job
said nothing sinful”. Job insists “We accept good things from God, and
should we not accept evil?” Such is an act of surrender. ‘Surrender for Peace’
The central act of our worship today is that we come around a table laid
with bread and wine that represent the broken body and poured out blood of
our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. To truly enter into this celebration
requires an act of surrender. For here it is revealed to us that there is huge gulf between what we
think should happen, and what really goes down in our world from day to day.
Here we are faced with death and undeserved suffering and injustice and
violence. Such are experiences that Jesus entered into in order that we may
be set free to serve Him without fear.
For Job as he sat in his pain and scratched his sores there were no
answers. It made no sense. His world was not a just world. His God deserved
to be doubted and disobeyed and even cursed, as his wife suggested. But Job
doesn’t go there. Instead he surrenders. Jesus as He approached the time of His betrayal, prayed “Let
this cup pass from me. Yet not my will, but thy will be done”. He is never offered an explanation as to
why it had to be that way. Through hindsight we can say that if there had been no cross then there
would be no resurrection. We can say about Job that had he not passed through
his time of testing then the realization that he broke through to of the
awesome mystery and glory of God would never have been revealed. Faced with a world that is so complex that some days the only way we can
get through is by shutting out the parts we find hard to deal with, our
calling is to allow God to lead us towards those things we can do. Things
like receiving a peacemaking offering. Things like a Crop Walk. Things like
praying in concert with the world as today people of many nations gather
around a common table. And when something comes along that challenges us to react, let us not be
afraid to begin scratching. Let us not be afraid to ask questions and
challenge the assumptions with visions of ‘Good News’. Let us never feel we
have all the answers, but rather seek to place ourselves in a situation of
acceptance and surrender that God may work God’s purposes in our world
through lives as ordinary as ours. As we come in the company of a vast cloud of witnesses, past, present and
future, to receive bread and wine, may this be a time when we are content to
leave the questions behind for a while and instead dedicate ourselves to
being people who experience and reflect the shalom and the peace of God.
Amen! Rev
Adrian J Pratt
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