Who presides over your life?

October 4, 2009
Who Presides Over Your Life?
Eighteenth Sunday of Pentecost
World Communion Sunday
Hebrews 1:1-4; 2:5-12
Mark 10:2-16
Year B

As you go through life, it doesn’t take long to discover in life that there are questions – lots of questions for which there is no answer. You can ask the question – but there is never an answer. At least not one which is gonna shed any real light on the the situation. One of those questions – do I look fat in these pants. There is no answer for that. First of all, if ever asked, you know that it is never in your best interest to answer that question. But secondly, if someone was brave enough to answer that question- either yes or no. There is no answer that will satisfy the questioner – they will continue to ask and ask, never quite satisfied enough to just stop asking the question.
But seriously there are serious questions about life that we ask God. We ask ourselves, we ask life – we constantly ask – and there is never a good answer. Questions like why do bad things happen to good people? Why do good things happen to bad people? When will we finally see justice for all, where we are all treated fairly? If God is totally in control – then why are we allowed to suffer? If God is good, then why does it seem that the devil is allowed to prosper? When the world is so awful and cruel, what is the point of remaining faithful to God?
If you live long enough and you go through life long enough, then you have asked these kinds of questions. And with each crisis, we have to be reminded of God’s answer to us.
The closest you can come to straight answer is a story – about something that happen to someone else – that you can relate to.
Job is not a real person, and the events in the story did not really happen. There is no rich foreigner, who had been greatly blessed and lost everything. There are none of us who are so righteous and upright that we don’t have to take some type of responsibility for what it happening to us. And I would venture to say that there is a point in all of our lives when things can get so bad, that we can get mad and blame God for what we are going through. This story is not intended to be historical truth – it is intended to tell the truth of the human story. The story is intended to teach a lesson – God does not intend to answer all of our questions. Faith is not the answers to life – it is a story of how to remain faithful and trusting and loving in the midst of the questions of life.
I would like to believe that God, the angels, the heavenly beings, and satan don’t have daily staff meetings – where Satan is up there criticizing everything that I am doing. Questioning my life and asking God if he can have permission to test my faith and make me suffer just because. But of course what other explanation is there for horrible things happening to us, when we know that we are being faithful and good. Not even the book of Job can give us a satisfying answer to that question.
Wisdom has been a theme for this year. And Job is a wonderful book of wisdom – it a book of dialogue, between the events of Job’s life, his wife, his friends, himself and finally God. We will be reading this story for the next 4 weeks. This is a wise story because it tells the story very clearly, but in reality gives no answers. The author of Job probably didn’t have any answers to give. But it wanted to give you some tools to think about your own unanswerable questions.
The book of Hebrews also tackles those unanswerable questions – but from a different perspective. It reminds us that God did not give us a direct answer to our suffering, but God did give us a person – who makes our suffering and his meaningful.
Hebrews relates to Job also, because it talks about heavenly beings. It talks about how decisions on earth were started on earth – that that Jesus Christ was there in the midst of creation to make sure that we would have a voice in heaven to talk about what it in our best interest. So that we don’t have to worry about Satan being present to ask God to tempt us.
we celebrate Jesus and what he did for us, for all of us
- in every corner of the world.

We celebrate what Jesus did
-and what by the power of Holy Spirit he still does,
we celebrate the Jesus who considered family unity to be important,
we celebrate the Jesus that welcomed little children into his arms,
we celebrate the Jesus that took time to bless everyone,
- no matter who they were and no matter what others thought of them.

Jesus - our saviour and our Lord,
Jesus - the promised one of God,
Jesus, the son of God - and yet a man:
a man like us....
a man who struggled to be faithful to God,
a man who was called to love his neighbours as himself,
a man who was tempted like we are tempted,
a man who suffered as we suffer.

The letter to the Hebrews, which our first reading came from today, speaks
of Jesus in exalted terms - calling him "the radiance of God's glory" and
"the exact representation of God's being", "superior to the angels";

And this is true - our whole faith speaks of it,

But the letter to the Hebrews also reminds us of something else that our
whole faith speaks of - it reminds us that here, on this earth, Jesus was
made like us - that he was made like us a little lower than the angels,
that Jesus was one with us, born of a woman,
born as our brother
to walk as we walk through this life.

Jesus was one with us,
able to sympathize with us,
able to identify with us,
able to rejoice with us,
able to suffer with us,
and, because of what he suffered and suffered in faithfulness,
he is able to intercede for us before God his Father, God our Father.

Jesus, one with us, Jesus our Saviour. Jesus our Brother. He understands us, he understands our questions.

My favorite aspect of Christ that we are reminded to celebrate in Hebrews about Christ is for a time he for a little while was made a little lower than the angels and crowned him with glory and honor. We too as humans are made a little lower than the angels. We too are crowned with glory and honor.
We may never have to answer to why bad things happen to good people. But we can always have the love of God in our lives. No matter what happens, we can look to the heavens for our strength and support – because now, Jesus Christ is up there – rooting for us as his sisters and brothers. He know what we have been through - and through faith – we know what he is going through up in heaven.
Alister McGrath writes a story about her aunt who never married. When she passed away, her relatives were going through her possessions and found a picture of a young man. The young man had been the aunt’s true love. He died tragically, and she never loved another man. And yet she held onto that picture.
Through the years of loneliness and grief, she held onto the that picture. She needed to be reminded that she had a love in life. When people doubted that she ever loved anyone she could hold onto that picture. That picture was a reminder of her life as it could have been. But for some reason the reality of death set in.
Jesus is the image of God. When we want to know what God looks like we have a story to look at. When we want something to depend on, we have the words of Christ to hold onto. When we want to talk with God – when can pray in the name of Jesus and know that we are heard.
And Jesus knew that there would be days when we would have our doubts. There would be days when we would feel disconnected from God, there would be days when we wonder about the story of Jesus. If the story of Job is a fairly tale – then how do we know that Jesus too if not just a fairly tale. The signs before us today -- communion the bread and the wine, they remind us of how he came to be our Saviour, they remind us of what his love and his faithfulness cost him. On the night of his betrayal Jesus took bread and broke it,and gave it to his disciples, saying, This is my body, given for you;and he took the cup and gave it to his disciples, saying, This is my blood, which is poured out for you. The next day, out of love for the world, Jesus died.
Jesus is our brother, jesus is one of us, jesus understand us, jesus knows our questions. While on the cross even he asks God why has he forsaken him.
Communion is our picture – our memory- or crutch to hold onto- our strength to hold onto – in the midst of the answerable questions.
Today we celebrate communion with Christians all over the world. In all types of churches
God has made us his family,
a family that stretches around the world,
a family that is called to love as we have been love,
to forgive as we have been forgiven,
to give as we have been given too.

As we share today in our family meal;
GIVE THANKS to God that we are not alone,
THAT WE HAVE BOTH each other and the Spirit of Christ amongst us,
the Spirit of him who was, who is, and who shall ever be one with us, and
one over us, and one under us, one who truly loves us.

Blessed be God - day by day. Amen

*Portions of this sermon borrowed from a sermon from Rev. Richard J. Fairchild “One with us”