Rev Hugh Perry

Readings

Job 23: 1-9, 16-17

This reading from Job is part of the discussion with his friends who point out that God is all seeing and all knowing. The reason Job is suffering is that he has done something wrong that he isn’t admitting.  According to his friends if he returns to God, agrees with God, and is at peace with God, then God will restore good fortune.  The advice of Job’s friends is solid ‘prosperity gospel’ complete with the unfortunate implications for the poor.  If you are faithful to God then you will receive health, wealth and happiness and the dark side of that assumption is that if you are suffering, or poor, then you must have done something to deserve it, God is displeased with you.  Under the worst case prosperity gospel belief social welfare and universal health care are frowned upon because the poor and the sick deserve their plight.

Job’s answer in this passage is to plead that if that is true then he wants to meet with God and put his case.

Job’s friends want him to accept a plea bargain so he can get on with his life, but Job is insistent on a hearing to prove his innocence.  This conflict between Job’s friends and the presence of an unapproachable God also makes the point that, admitting guilt is unlikely to help because as Job is not guilty, there must be another reason for his suffering and, although understanding may not prevent his suffering, it may bring peace of mind.

Mark 10: 17-31

Marcus Borg is absolutely brilliant in his comments on this passage and particularly helpful to financially cautious Presbyterians and middle-class Methodists.  He begins by saying of the rich young man:

It is natural for us to imagine that this man is asking Jesus what he must do to get to heaven, for that is what the phrase ‘eternal life’ has come to mean to many Christians.  But the Greek phrase used by Mark renders the Jewish notion of ‘life of the age to come’—a transformed earth, or the kingdom of God.  Not heaven, but God’s kingdom on earth.^[1]

Sermon

Some years ago, I read an article on the website of the United Church of Christ in the US that claimed that Christians should measure the economy against one fundamental truth.  The earth and all that is in it belongs to God, and their proof text was the first verse of Psalm 24: ‘The earth is the LORD’S and all that is in it.  The world, and those who live in it’.  (Psalm. 24:1).

The article went on to suggest that the divine instruction on gathering the manna in the desert supports this faith-based view of the economy.  This is what the LORD has commanded: ‘gather as much of it as each of you needs, an omer to a person according to the number of persons, all providing for those in their own tents. (Exodus 16: 16-18) [2]

If what these texts suggest is true God provides enough for everybody.  Therefore, it is the human exploitation of the world’s resources that corrupts the divine order and creates the situation where the rich get richer, and the poor, not only get poorer, but also become more numerous.

At the time I thought it was a thoughtful use of scripture in backing up a view on the sharing of our planets resources and I am still impressed.  It makes even more sense considering the evidence of climate change and the growth of the gap between rich and poor that has happened since I first read the article.

It suggests a cause and effect between the sin of exploiting the worlds resources and the resulting suffering.

However, those who suffer are not necessarily those who do the exploiting.  We are a communal species and the exploiting of a few can bring suffering on the whole human community.

That was the problem with the theology of Jobes friends.  They suggested that his suffering is caused by his sin.  So, in today’s reading Job quite rightly rebuts that suggestion and proclaims his innocence.  Furthermore, he demands a hearing in the divine court. In so doing Job accepts his friend’s cause and effect logic.

The people of Tuvalu are about as innocent of causing global warming and sea level rise as any community can be.  Yet the sea now regularly runs through their homes and gardens, as well as other low-lying Pacific Islands.  Meanwhile those who continue to exploit the worlds resources are insulated from such effects by their wealth.  Some even purchase ‘just in case’ holiday homes in Queenstown and Wanaka,

The wisdom of the Exodus command was to gather as much as each person needs, each for their own tent.  In other words, each person is given divine permission to gather enough from the gift of the world’s resources for their own family or household.

But when the motive is profit rather than need future generations are put at risk.  Profit becomes wealth that is stored, reinvested, spent on a bigger house or, more significantly, gives power over other people.

It can therefore be argued, just from Exodus 16, that such excessive use of natural resources is against the divine plan and therefore, in religious terms, sinful.

But although sin might be seen to cause suffering it needs to be remembered that is not necessarily the sinner who suffers.  In the sin of exploiting the worlds resources the sinner is often rewarded, and vulnerable people suffer.  Job was loyal and righteous but vulnerable in his sickness.

All across our world today people find themselves in solidarity with Job in hopelessly demanding justice.

That vision of hopelessness connects with our Gospel reading. The rich young man seeks to be part of the divine realm but can’t leave his wealth behind.

It is easy to see this passage as divine legislation that proclaims socialism and certainly people like Francis of Assisi saw it that way.  Francis sought a godly life by rejecting wealth.  But ironically the organisation that grew from his example became extremely wealthy.  It can certainly be argued that the wealth of the Franciscan Order is held in common for doing good in the world and the members of the order had no personal wealth.

However, we need to remember that renouncing wealth is not limited to Christianity and is a tradition in both Hindu and Buddhist traditions.

Gandhi, who was most likely touched by all three of those traditions but embraced none, changed the history of India through self-inflicted poverty and nonviolent protest.

Marcus Borg, writing as a middle-class Christian scholar, puts this passage into a perspective that can be indorsed by comfortable Presbyterians.

As we considered in the introduction Borg suggests that we would imagine the rich man is asking Jesus what he must do to get to heaven.  But he goes on to say that the Greek phrase translated as ‘eternal life’ in Jesus’ time was understood as the ‘life of the age to come’—a transformed earth, or the kingdom of God.

So, the man is asking Jesus about God’s realm on earth.^[3]

Borg further adds that Jesus’ comment that no one can serve two masters was initially a comment about the wealthy in the historical world of Jesus.  Borg then goes on to say:

Wealth and indifference to suffering caused by it went together.  And of course, the same is true in our world.  In the first century wealth could easily become a preoccupation, a snare, a cage.  The wealthy were part of the ruling elite at the top of the domination system—the wealthiest one to two percent of the population who set the system up so that one-half to two-thirds of the production of wealth from the peasant class flowed to them.  In that world, if you were wealthy, you were a collaborator with the domination system or at least complicit with it.^[4]

The anti-poverty charity Oxfam claims the wealth of the five richest men in the world has doubled since 2020, but the wealth of five billion people fell.  If current trends continue, the world will have its first trillionaire within a decade, but poverty won’t be eradicated for another 229 years. 

So our world is not terribly different to the world of Jesus.  Certainly, we live in a democracy, but those few wealthy people have a tremendous influence on the democratic process, and on those seeking to be elected.

Furthermore, those who feel left out of the good things of life feel so marginalized that they don’t vote.

New Zealand, which once saw itself as an egalitarian society, is just as much part of this growing gap and the consequences are certainly becoming apparent.

I am sure we have all been hassled by people wanting to clean our windscreens while we are stopped at traffic lights and retailers are again complaining about the effect that beggars are having on their businesses.

We hear a lot about ram-raids, retail crime and boy racers.  But I suspect the most enduring problems in our communities are family violence and child poverty.

Less and less families being able to own their own home means families constantly moving and therefore children will be constantly changing schools.  I spoke to someone recently who had to move home because her landlord wanted to sell her home, and the only home she could rent was in another school district.  Fortunately, she has good family support and can transport her children to their existing school.  That is not always the case and changing schools is educationally disruptive.

However, the one percent that is gaining more and more of the world wealth do not necessarily recognise these problems and many, like Job’s friends, see the marginalised causing their own suffering.

Of course, there are wealthy people who are quite generous though not always with no strings attached.

Jesus’ challenge to the wealthy man was the same challenge to the world’s wealthy today.  The Christ commitment to establish a divine realm must be a total commitment.

The man’s wealth prevented him from making that total commitment but more importantly it shut him off from understanding the struggles the ordinary people had.  Wealthy people get concerned about irrelevant issues and become afraid of groups of people having more power than them.

My cousin told me about someone not getting her email because he had set his email system to block any email with a Māori word in it.  She is a retired lecturer in linguistics, so he got told that all languages grow by adopting words from other languages.

Wealthy people throughout history do not take into account that the earth and all that is in it belong to God.

Therefore, the wealth of the five richest men in our world whose wealth continues to grow are certainly gathering more of the world’s resources than each of them needs.  When people and corporations gather what God provides for profit rather than for need, they become the rich man who cannot be part of the divine realm.

Job’s friends blamed his suffering on sin. We learn from scripture, from Jesus’ world and from our world, that those who exploit the world’s resources sin, but it is the exploited and marginalised that do the suffering.

Nevertheless, we should not feel guilty if our life has turned out well.

But these passages do call us to recognise that, as Charlie Brown points out ‘Although money isn’t everything, poverty sucks.’

Reflecting on both these passages should encourage us to seek justice for all and a transformed world that can be recognised as a divine realm.

Our calling, as followers of Christ, is to be passionate about bringing a transformed world into reality.

[1] Marcus Borg The Gospel of Mark (Harrisburg-New York: Morehouse Publishing ,2009),p.82.

[2] http://www.ucc.org/justice_economic-justice_what-is-economic-justice

[3] Marcus Borg The Gospel of Mark (Harrisburg-New York: Morehouse Publishing ,2009),p.82.

[4] ibid., 84.