Sunday 5 B (not used)

Our first reading today was from the book of Job:

…..months of delusion I have assigned to me

nothing for my own but nights of grief

Lying in my bed I wonder ‘When will it be day?’

Risen I think, how slowly evening comes

Restlessly I fret till twilight falls……

Job sounds really depressed.

Next,

a very graphic verse is omitted

that speaks of Job’s serious physical condition.

And then there is more:

for the depression derives from a hopelessness,

….my days have passed, and vanished,

leaving no hope behind.

….my life is but a breath,

….my eyes will never again see joy.

Though it was written 2500 years ago,

it would be easy to make all this sound thoroughly contemporary.

The author is familiar with a persistent human experience.

The Gospel shows Jesus’ gentle concern for Simon’s mother-in-law:

he took her by the hand and helped her up

returning her to normal family life.

And then, when the sabbath was over,

crowds of people,

impressed by Jesus at the synagogue that morning

(which we heard about in last week’s gospel)

turn up with the sick and the afflicted,

and Jesus cures them.

Now, the liturgical conjunction of these readings:

– Job’s profound misery and Jesus’ healing work –

might leave the impression

that the difficulties ascribed to Job

just need to be taken to Jesus to make them better.

The truth is more profound than that.

The book of Job is a theological meditation in poetry:

made up of speeches by Job

and speeches by figures representing conventional religious wisdom.

What is its overarching subject?

The voices arguing with Job, all,

in one way or another,

say his problems are his own fault –

that he is not facing up to the fact

that things are going wrong for him

because he has offended God –

and if he put this right,

everything else would get better.

Their basic religious stance is:

if your life is going disastrously

it is because you have been bad;

if you are good you will prosper.

Job, whose words seem to be directed as much towards God

as to his adversaries, says:

I am innocent.

I have not offended you God.

I don’t deserve this. Why is this happening?

One of the book's big topics is innocent suffering.

It is a full-on, unflinching, scrutiny of the fact

that bad things happen to people

through no fault of their own,

and that this makes them feel bad.

Ours is not a prosperity gospel.

We do not say, if you are truly following Jesus

you will be protected from serious illness

you will never feel depressed

everything will work out fine for you,

and those you love.

We cannot not say to those

sunk in human misery

to those who feel Job’s words

in today’s reading are their own –

you must have missed the point about Jesus

otherwise you wouldn’t be in such a state.

If we did, we would be siding with Job’s adversaries.

So where does the key lie:

for we do believe that Jesus makes a difference to lives.

Mark does give some insight here.

Last week, we heard that Jesus teaching in the synagogue

made a deep impression.

This week, after dealing with the crowd that want healing

and after a short night’s sleep

he goes off on his own to pray.

When disturbed, because another crowd is looking for him,

Jesus says:

Let us go elsewhere, to the neighbouring country,

so that I can preach there too, because that is why I came.

It is Jesus’ preaching, his message, that is the key.

That preaching, that message, was much more than words.

It was a life lived – Word made flesh.

Mark’s gospel emphasises that

Jesus preaches the Kingdom of God,

in and through his very being.

It is in the encounter with the person of Jesus

that we encounter God’s very presence in our world.

In Jesus, God shares fully in the human condition,

in all its limitations, messiness, sorrow and misery.

Our faith, our hope, is in that person

Jesus, Son of God and Son of Mary, Word made flesh,

who draws our frail humanity,

illness, depression and all,

into the life of God.