Andrew Boyle         Season of Creation 5                        4 October 2009

Job 1. 1; 2. 1-10    Hebrews 1. 1-4; 2. 5-12   Mark 10. 13-16

Scripture in different ways through its length and breadth assumes that this earthly world is shaped and influenced by what goes on in another realm.

The book of Job, maybe the oldest book in the Hebrew scriptures, and the letter to the Hebrews, one of the latest in the scriptures, both in some sense

assume that people’s destiny, the shape of human existence, is determined by other-worldly beings. In Job the interaction between the Lord and the

accuser happens in a sort of heavenly court where these characters determine  mortals’ fate. And the letter to the Hebrews assumes both an earthly

and a heavenly realm where the angels have power to shape events on earth. While these two books are written maybe 2000 years apart they both

assume a world influenced from the outside.

What happens inside you when you see the bumper sticker which says: Magic Happens? Do you baulk; do you snort; do you say: Yes, it does to yourself.

Or do you take what you think ought to be a Christian stance and give a provisional: Yes – but nevertheless all things are subject now to Jesus.

Or simply: what a lot of hogwash?

In the main we don’t much believe in a world shaped by other-worldly forces any more. Or at least the world we inhabit doesn’t even if we might ourselves

still believe this. The society we find ourselves in doesn’t believe this. And, whether we like it or not,  we in the church are influenced by these changes.

We live in a society which is now predominantly shaped by a scientific and rational take on the world – so a belief in life being shaped also by another realm

doesn’t sit very well with us.

Yet we in the church do affirm that we are part of a world shaped and influenced by God. The difficulty is that we haven’t done much contemporary

rigorous reconsideration of what this notion means while at some level many of us don’t accept that our world is subject to heavenly accusers and angels.

The scientific revolution has so dramatically reshaped how we imagine our world: Heaven, hell and the whole damn thing – as they say. But because we

in the church have failed to seriously reconsider what it might mean that God is engaged with the world we inhabit a muddle of childhood fantasies,

cosmologies of biblical proportions and Sunday-school supernaturalism. I watched a program last week in which Richard Dawkins questioned Archbishop

Rowan Williams about the virgin birth – honestly he couldn’t give an answer which made sense, either as science or as mystery.

The Hebrews writer says: Now God did not subject the coming world, about which we are speaking, to angels. But subjected it to humans - placing

all things under their feet.’ Now in subjecting all things to humans, God left nothing outside their control. As it is, we do not yet see everything in subjection

to them, [but we do see Jesus], who for a little while was made lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honour because of the suffering of

death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

There is an interesting shift going on here in what the writer is saying. No doubt it seems that his hearers assume a world which is shaped by angels and

supernatural forces. What the writer suggests though is that a shift is taking place in the power play between heaven and earth. Jesus is the one who has

achieved this shift. Jesus – the human one, as Mark calls him -  through his human suffering has shifted the balance of power so that he has become the

one to whom earth and heaven have now become subjected. The human one is now over all.

The human one has become the model for our identity; he has become the model par-excellence of what it means to be human.  Jesus offers us a way

of being through which he calls his followers to live with hope in the face of the uncertainties of our lives – a faithfulness toward God and the mystery

of life; living with childlike trust – whereby the kingdom becomes ours.

As our world becomes more and more subject to the rampant effects of our human being we are still called to live differently – in trust and simplicity.

A lot of our material consumption is driven by a deep sense of lack. So much of what we are exposed to in the news creates fear in us and marketing

and advertising works to create a belief that possessions and image will sate our restlessness. What is truly needed to still our fear, though, is a willingness

to discover a deep contentment which is rooted in a sense of our giftedness as God’s child before all things – resting secure in this divine love which has

come to us in Jesus.

I think there are some quite deep parallels between Job and Jesus. Unexplored by theologians and biblical commentators. Job endures profound and

senseless suffering and remains steadfast in his trust of God’s otherness. In the face of his suffering Job’s wife invites him to curse God and die.

But we are told Job asks: Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?’ In all this Job did not sin with his lips.

In a similar way Jesus the utterly righteous one undergoes profound and senseless suffering but lives and dies in utter faithfulness toward God.

WE hear later in the letter to the Hebrews: let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter

of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the

right hand of the throne of God.

In his ignominious death and his vindication in resurrection Jesus changes the landscape and bridges that chasm between heaven and earth;

a chasm which is populated with devils and angels, fear and death, a place which provokes a deep sense of restlessness and angst.

In bridging that gap, as Paul says, what is his is made ours and the life which was found in him may become ours also.

Thanks be to God for this joy found in Christ which can be ours also.