Job 23:1-9, 16-17
Proper 23 (28) - Year B
Psalm 139 rejoices that G*D cannot be escaped in heaven or hell or anywhere between.
Job complains that G*D cannot be found anywhere.
This two-sided coin reflects our experience of epiphany and dark nights.
It is important to not avoid Job. It is through such wounds as this that we grow and help others grow. It is wounds such as this that open us to our call and ministry (that's everyone language, not just clergy language).
On this day, remember your past travails of soul, body, mind, relationship. In so doing may you find your bravado mellowing as you also recognize that G*D is in the trouble with you. Relax. Together, says the promise, y'all will come through. G*D and you, what a team!
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2003/october2003.html
Job 23:1-9, 16-17 or Amos 5:6-7, 10-15
Psalm 22:1-15 or Psalm 90:12-17
Hebrews 4:12-16
Mark 10:17-31
Job: "Today my complaint is bitter."
Everyman: "What must I do to inherit eternal life."
Both cases call for boldness - a boldness to complain about impoverishment and a boldness to give all our resources to the poor.
While this boldness is spoken of in terms of its result in mercy and grace, the clearer reality is that it is only mercy and grace that allow boldness to flourish and be enacted. To have it be otherwise, in any fashion, would be to give into entitled rights of goodness or rewards for righteous works.
Where we are left is exercising our right to choose, right up to the end, our response to the exigencies of life.
- - -
how hard it is to enter
a realm of experience
requiring only nakedness
our bodies and riches
become our definition
we cannot put down
without them we are nothing
we are definitely last
with no first in sight
our windup clockwork
does not go into any good night
gently or easily
we complain and grasp
and gasp to the end
shoving grace aside
until all that is left
is unrequited forsakenness
and we sputter out
may our difficult days
and persistent riches
recede before a wise heart
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_10_01_archive.html
What must I do to inherit something better?
What must I do to get a fair hearing?
What must I do to get out of the trouble I'm in?
These questions deal with a mystery, an invisible force, and a quandary. It turns out that what we are looking for turns on different questions than we have known how to ask. This leads us to appreciating an openness of the future so we will have time and space to modify our questions in light of the non-response we are currently getting from them.
Inheritance is less an issue than investment.
Fairness pales in the face of simply standing firm in the best decisions one can make at the time and modifying that stance in light of new data.
Trouble continues and so it is not a matter of getting out of trouble as much as it is to find the right trouble to be in and diving into it with all one has.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2009_10_01_archive.html
Today my complaint is bitter!
What must I do to assure something better?
Groaning is not enough.
Contend!
But contend where?
With whom?
Arguing and debating is slippery territory.
Even integrity is not enough here.
Sparks don’t illumine far in a deep darkness.
But we glimpse enough for now.
From dark chaos we have come; to thick darkness we return.
From ashes you have come; to ashes you shall return.
Treasure what little is known.
Here we stand and from here we leap.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2012/10/job-231-17.html