Union Church

Job 42:1-6

Scholars tell us that the book of Job is an adaptation of an ancient Egyptian folktale.
Remember, it is a drama not history. It deals with the confusion around the nature of God.

What is God like?
How does God relate and deal with us?

Job’s three friends each reflect different conclusions that Job rejects. However, Job himself is confused. He sees God as too small.
He sees God on a far too human scale.
And so, demands in a self-referencing and self-righteous way that God answer him.

When God does address the situation, God asks,
“Why do you talk without knowing what you’re talking about?
Pull yourself together, Job!
I have some questions for you, and I want some answers.
Where were you when I created the earth?
Tell me, since you know so much!
Who decided on its size? Certainly you’ll know that!”

You know, Job isn’t too far off the mark on how today’s society understands God.
Far too often God gets reduced and put into a human sized box. Then we get mad when God isn’t big enough to fix situations or people.

In our indignation, we say we no longer believe in this God. But we just shut ourselves off from what an amazing God can actually accomplish through our participation in God’s Dream.

The question that the book of Job asks is this:
Is your God intimate enough to engage your human heart and is your God big enough to engage and include all human hearts at all times?

MV 106I am the Dream.
I am the dream and you the dreamer.
I am the song and you are the rhyme.
You are the tune sung in every silence.
You are the now in the endless stream of time.
I am the bell and you the silence.
You are the yearning I cannot curtail.
I am the blest and you the blessing.
You are the wilds in which I lose my trail.
You are the word and I the echo.
You are the leader and I am the led.
You are the joy and I the laughter.
You are the Rock on which I lay my head.

Application for today:
We need to hold the paradox that
God is both big enough and small enough to transform hearts.

A Path With Heart

Mark 10:46-52

Mexican Shaman, Don Juan, in his teachings to Carlos Castaneda said: “Look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary. Then ask yourself and yourself alone one question. This question is one that only a very old person asks. My benefactor told me about it once when I was young and my blood was too vigorous for me to understand it. Now I do understand it. I will tell you what it is:

Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good. If it doesn’t, it is of no use.”

Let me try to unpack this quote with another quote.
Jack Kornfield, a clinical psychologist and former Buddhist monk puts it this way:
“Even the most exalted states and the most exceptional spiritual accomplishments are unimportant if we cannot be happy in the most basic and ordinary ways, if we cannot touch one another and the life we have been given with our hearts.”

Let’s look at what Jesus is doing in our gospel lesson to see how he expresses this spiritual truth in his own life.

The healing of blind Bartimaeus occurs as Jesus leaves Jericho down by the Jordan River and begins the 26 km. ascent up Mt. Zion to Jerusalem.
A large crowd gathers to follow Jesus as he takes the final path to Jerusalem for the high festival of Passover.

Can you see the scene in your mind’s eye?

Jesus is walking along with this growing entourage, his face resolutely set towards the holy city. This is the big event so many have been waiting for.

The air is charged with energy – there is animation, excitement from the people who have experienced so much despair, so much rejection.
There is hope bubbling up in the people who have been buried under a ton of rules and regulations from their religious and political leaders. The triumphal entry into Jerusalem is at hand.

Jesus, the people’s prophet is finally going to confront the religious and political powers.

In the midst of this, or maybe I should say, around the periphery of all this action, a voice wails out
“Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.”

Those around Jesus are annoyed. Their train of thought is broken. The energy, the creative stream of consciousness has halted.
“Who is this intruder?
What is this blind beggar, this nobody doing?
Somebody shut him up! Doesn’t he know we have important things to do? Doesn’t he know we are going to Jerusalem?
We’re on our way to confront the leaders of the Day?”

But the voice, just does not give up – it persists and even gets louder, and louder, “Son of David, have mercy on me.”

Jesus stops.

In the midst of the parade up to Jerusalem, in the midst of the trek toward Palm Sunday, in the midst of the ramp up to the Big Event – Jesus stops and says,
“Bring him here.”

Soon Bartimaeus is standing before Jesus – all eyes are upon him.

Jesus asks, “What can I do for you?”

He doesn’t just assume what Bartimaeus wants or needs.
Jesus doesn’t, in some act of self- importance quite fitting to the day, use the man as a glowing example of his power.

No. Jesus stops amidst the high drama, the biggest day of his mission to date and responds from the heart.

The path to Jerusalem must also be a path with heart.

“What can I do for you?” Jesus asks.

Bartimaeus asks for physical sight. He asks for sight to go along with the insight that he already has in recognizing the Divine Presence in Jesus.

We know, Jesus walks a path with heart into our lives, even now.

As Jesus shows, to live a path with heart means to be available.
It means to be available to the needs of others in the moment.
To live a path with heart allows the flavour of goodness to permeate our life.
When we bring our full attention to our acts, when we express our love and see the preciousness of life, the quality of goodness in us grows.
A simple caring presence can begin to permeate more and more moments of our life.

Application for Today:
Each day we need to ask ourselves: What does it mean to live a path with heart?

Is the path I have chosen to live, leading me more and more into this?