God as Mystery

In the Gospel reading we hear of someone else being tested. A man asked Jesus what he should do to inherit eternal life. He did not have his possessions taken from him in the way that Job did. He was given the opportunity of giving them up himself and some people are given a choice in this way in the tests they face. It would be debatable as to whether it was more painful or less to make the choice yourself, though many given a choice would take the road with less pain even if it meant less gain. Some don’t seem to face much testing. Some come through the testing to a fuller, richer though not necessarily wealthier life. Why? We don’t know. We try guessing but that is often a futile exercise as Job was to find.
We speak of God as Mystery. We mere humans cannot ever comprehend God’s ways. We can come to a greater place of awe in our relationship with the Eternal Creator. We can come to say we Job, “Shall we receive the good at the hand of God and not receive the bad?” We can wonder, each for ourselves, about our classification of “good” and “bad”. It doesn’t help us if someone else does this for us. In Ephesians, we are told to give thanks for all things” [Ephesians 5:20] and that “All things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to God’s purpose.” [Romans 8:28] In the middle of our pain, this can be hard to hang on to.
What of the woman who dared to speak in such a way to God? Her troubles didn’t end. She left her home and fields and become a minister of the Word. When she was in her ninth home, she was complaining to her daughter who said, “Doesn’t it say somewhere that when you leave your home you will get a hundred more? [Mark 10:29,30] I figure that means you have 91 still to go.” Now she is up to either 47 or 49. She lost count somewhere and as for mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers well, the count must be well in the hundreds. While this has brought untold blessing it too has had its pain. Many times all that has kept her going was the assurance that God IS and memories of God’s faithfulness in the past have given hope for the future.
Rev Julianne Parker (for full sermon see sermon's page)

Abide in me.

                  

 

Do I want to live forever?

It’s not a priority.

My mind struggles with notions of heaven;

of existing somehow, conscious and individual,

beyond one’s allotted days

in this corporeal world.

Across earth’s stones and tracks I journey,

love, rejoice,

wonder and rage.

I breathe its red dust and taste its sorrow;

here I belong

and yet am never quite at home.

 

Perhaps I never shall be.

Striving, longing and hoping

I seek the company

of those who also yearn

and weep and groan.

My comrades are my abode,

my sisters and brothers are my home.

Perhaps this is what the gospel writer meant

when he spoke of abiding in Jesus,

earth-dweller, brother of us all,

and true child of heaven.

(Whatever that means).

 

 

© Ken Rookes 2015

And this is eternal life

Life with an eternal quality,

not in some imagined heaven,

but here, among earth’s dust and grit;

permeated with deep truthings

that cut through all the bullshit*

of a connivingly ignorant world.

Let it roll, Jesus;

let your surprising friendship sweep over all

and catch us up in your swelling tide.

Let your presence become a crashing wave

to carry us sublimely

to a divine place of abundance;

where the authenticity is sharp

and captures one’s breath,

where joy sparkles with intensity,

and where life-restricting greed

and preoccupation with the self

encounter their equals in defiant actions

of liberation, justice and compassion.

Let it be a place where long-heralded

generosity is, at last, allowed to rule

and to sculpt a new reality.

Take us to this eternal-life place, Jesus;

where the faithful live with tears and laughter,

defying the fears of the wealthy,

confronting the powerful,

and silencing the rampant demagogues;

and where the reckless and the courageous ones

lovingly enact your outrageous vision

of hope and freedom.

*substitute the less-offensive bull dust if you prefer.

© 2011 Ken Rookes