In the name of God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Amen.
What’s
the best meal that you’ve ever had? For me, it was at an Italian restaurant a
few blocks from where we lived in Alexandria, Virginia. We eat several times a
day, and so it can become routine. But when we have one of those truly
exceptional meals, they tend to stick with us. What’s the most beautiful thing
that you’ve ever seen: perhaps a piece of artwork in a museum, a sunset in the
mountains, a star-filled sky on a clear night, your spouse on your wedding day?
Again, our eyes are so used to seeing things that when we are presented with
true beauty, it stops us in our tracks. Taste and vision are powerful senses,
and perhaps that is why the Psalmist wrote “Taste and see that the Lord is
good.”
Faith
is meant to be experiential, something that is lived and breathed, not just
something that stays in our mind. Part of our English heritage, both as a
nation and a denomination, is a reluctance to engage too much with our emotions
or bodies when it comes to faith. In general, we don’t dance, crying is to be
kept to a minimum, and our worship is fairly reserved. One of the hallmarks of
Anglican theology though is an acknowledgment that Christianity is an
incarnational faith. In Christianity, God takes on flesh and blood. God got
Palestinian dirt between his toes, sweat under the desert sun, ate fish from
the Sea of Galilee, and probably got a few splinters from his work as a carpenter.
As
we conclude our four week sermon series on the book of Job, we see this truth
manifest in the conclusion. Job says “I had heard of you by the hearing of the
ear, but now my eye sees you.” You might say that Job, for all of his belief,
had never really experienced God. Over the past few Sundays we’ve been
considering how Job, his friends, and the author of book had their views of God
challenged on account of Job’s unwarranted suffering. Job had been insisting
that he was innocent and that God should find him to be righteous. And in
making those arguments, he ended up not really experiencing the grace of God’s
presence with him in his suffering. Because Job saw God as the cause of his
suffering, he was not able to experience God as his friend amidst his
suffering. When his idol of God was shattered and he finally realized that God
had been with him in his suffering, he is able to proclaim that he now sees God
instead of simply hearing about God; he experienced God, not as a thought, but
as a reality.
And so Job says, “therefore
I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” The words that can be the
hardest to translate in the Bible are often the most important, and
prepositions fall into this category. We might also translate Job to say that
he repents “of” dust and ashes. That is, no longer will he mourn and have that
bitter taste in his mouth. Instead, he will taste and see that God is good.
What might things look like if we chose to taste God’s goodness more than the
bitterness that we run into?
There is a second example
of the importance of prepositions in the next verse. Our text this morning said
that God rebuked Job’s friends because “they have not spoken of me what is
right.” Some translators suggest that a better translation of this would be to
say that God is angered, not by what Job’s friends have said “of” God, but
rather by what they have not said “to” God. Job’s friends never speak to God,
they only try to fix Job’s theology. How often do we do the same? How often do
we speak “of” God and how often do we speak “to” God? When we debate politics,
we often speak of God, but do we speak to God as often? When a friend or a
family member is in a tough situation, do we try to fix them, or do we sit with
them and plead to God with them? Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel has remarked
that Job is a model for us in never ceasing to demand justice from God. Job
presents us with a genuine invitation to pray more.
It is through having an
experience of God that Job finds his salvation. He tastes the goodness of the
Lord when he rejects the ashes and dust that he was mourning in. One of the
many things that I love about the St. Luke’s community is the way in which we
engage the sense of taste when it comes to ministry. We identify ourselves as
“the church that feeds people.” We bring food to our Habitat builds so that
those working on the house have lunch; we put food in the little red wagon so
that those without food might have a next meal; when your Rector and his wife
are expecting a child, we celebrate with food; when a family is going through a
tough time, we rally around them to make sure that they have time to focus on
what matters most, and not meal prep; and when we gather as a community of
faith each week, we gather around the altar to taste the goodness of the Lord
in the bread of life and the cup of salvation. Tasting is something that we do
all the time, and if we don’t pay attention to it, we might miss out on the
fact that we’re tasting the goodness of the Lord.
Sight is another very
powerful sense. In today’s Gospel text, Bartimaeus comes to Jesus and asks that
he might see again. I know that many of us are ready to get back into our
church; and it’s a beautiful sight to see. But I’ve heard from many of you that
you’ve really enjoyed seeing each other during worship in this Parish Hall.
When we look into each other’s faces during worship, we see the goodness of the
Lord. What you look at matters. And it’s amazing how powerful it can be to look
at something. You all know that when you make eye contact with someone, things
intensify. Studies have shown that when children watch violent television
shows, they tend to act more violently. When you see images of poverty, you are
stirred to do something about it; but when we see a graph of income inequality,
we dismiss it as a political problem. How often do you see the goodness of the
Lord?
When Jesus restores sight
to Bartimaeus, the text says “your faith has made you well.” But that really
isn’t quite right, the word for “heal” is actually the word for “save,” so it
really could be said that Bartimaeus’ faith saved him. That’s the same truth
that we found in Job, that Job’s faithful relationship to God is what saved
him. By talking to God, Job finds his salvation and tastes God’s goodness
instead of dust and ashes; and by calling out to Jesus, Bartimaeus sees the
light of Christ.
As a footnote to our
series on Job, I do want to argue a bit with the Bible. It’s fairly evident
that the last several verses of Job are a later addition to the text. For one,
they are prose and most of Job is written as poetry, but it’s just a bit too
“happily ever after.” What needs to be said is that life doesn’t always end up
with a neatly tied ribbon on it, and even if it did, we all know that having
more children doesn’t replace the grief of ones who were lost. The goodness of
the Lord isn’t in that God fixes everything for us, but that God is with us.
The goodness of the Lord is in the fact that love is stronger than evil or
death. The goodness of the Lord is that darkness does not overcome Light.
Somewhere along the line, some scribes decided that Job needed a cleaner
ending, but the way the actual book ends is more powerful and profound – that
God accepts us.
This goodness that we
taste and see really is at the heart of the Good News of our faith and our
worship. Each Sunday, we have an opportunity to taste and see the goodness of
the Lord as we celebrate the Holy Eucharist. And I’d like to suggest that the
Eucharist is not just a ritual that we do, but that it is to be a way of life.
As I’ve said before, salvation is not a status as much as it is an invitation
to be transformed. We see this in Bartimaeus – after he’s saved, the text notes
that he follows Jesus. Let us remember that faith is a verb, and action is
always a part of the Christian life.
Over the past month, I’ve
been meeting with nine children for Communion Classes, and I’m sure they could
all tell you that the word Eucharist means “good thanks.” So, celebrating the
Eucharist is a way of giving thanks. When we taste and see the goodness of the
Lord as we gather around the altar, we do so with gratitude. Can you imagine
what your life, our community, our government might look like if we approached
life through the lens of Eucharistic living, through a lens of gratitude?
As we’re in the midst of
our stewardship efforts, the Stewardship Committee is inviting you to consider
how God’s grace and love are manifest in your life. Along with pledges cards,
we ask that you also fill out a gratitude card. It’s one thing to think about
what you are grateful for, but it takes on an even fuller reality when you
write it down. This week, Mary Tinsley wrote a gratitude letter and it will be
in the next issue of The Messenger
newsletter. They’ve been living in a reality that wouldn’t be unfamiliar to
Job. And yet, Mary powerfully and beautifully writes about gratitude. That’s
the power of Jesus. That’s the power of Eucharist. That’s the power of a church
community. That’s the power to taste and see the goodness of the Lord.
Gratitude isn’t a
buzzword that I’m using to do fundraising for the church. Gratitude is a part
of our salvation. When we live through the lens of Eucharist, we realize that
we are not our own saviors, and that is very good news. The Eucharist reminds
us that just as the bread is broken, so too are our lives. But in that
brokenness, as Job found, we find God’s presence with us. In college, my mentor
and campus minister often exhorted us to “see Communion in everything.” As you
go through your week, do so with gratitude in your heart, be aware of God’s
abiding love, and taste and see the goodness of the Lord.
