Unraveled back together

 

Unravelling. We have spent the summer reflecting on stories in scripture of people whose lives are unraveling. When a life unravels everything is upended and it may seem as though God is nowhere to be seen. Yet the stories we have heard remind us that God is very present even in the unraveling. God does not cause the chaos, the circumstances, the unraveling. Life circumstances cause the unraveling. But God is in the mix, helping people restore their lives and make meaningful, substantive changes to adapt. 

The three readings in our scripture today are no exception. Each one of these three characters is, or has experienced, unraveling in their life. Let’s begin with Job. This is a man who had lived a very safe, comfortable life. He was blessed with riches of land and money and family. The story begins with the Satan, a member of God’s executive council, making a bet with God. The Satan says, I bet I can make Job stop believing in you God. And God says, you’re on. So the Satan causes all of Job’s blessings to die or disappear, except for his wife. He loses his children, his land, his animals, his wealth. He sits for days, months, maybe years, on an ash heap, wearing sack cloth, and waits for God to show up. He is certain that God will show up and help him understand what has happened because he has done nothing to deserve this. His friends sit with him from time to time and tell him that he must have done something, some how something he did caused this. He remains adamant that he did nothing. Finally, after much pleading from Job, God shows up. God’s presence, when God reveals God’s self to human kind, is always intense. A loud rushing wind, a burning flame, intense. God speaks to Job - but God does not say what Job hopes for. God does not say to him that he has been a good and loyal man. God says, get up and go about your life and keep living, adapt, make the changes you need to make, life goes on and as it goes on, I will be with you. Enough of just sitting and waiting for me to act. So Job repents of sack cloth and ashes, according to Richard Rohr, and he gets on with his life. When life unravels, this story tells us, we must eventually learn to carry on, living life and working to restore wholeness. 

Paul wrote letters to the many churches he started and supported in Asia Minor, the area around what is now Turkey and Syria. But before Paul started churches he persecuted Christians, finding ways to put them in jail or even have them killed for crimes against the Roman empire. One day Paul, who was called Saul at that time, was struck blind by lightening sent by Jesus. The voice of Jesus, the Word of God, spoke to Saul and to those who were with Saul. Saul was blind for three days and then he was healed by a follower of Jesus, his name was changed to Paul, because God often changes the names of those who have been transformed by God. Paul was taken to meet the disciples. Eventually he began his own journey of sharing the story of the Good News of God’s love in Jesus. Paul’s life completely unravelled in a moment in time. Paul was changed dramatically in that moment of unravelling and transformed into one who worked to build up God’s kin-dom instead of tear it down. 

In the Gospel today we hear more about the struggles that Peter has in his growing capacity to hear and embrace the teachings of Jesus. The early church, for the first 1000 years of the church, focused all of its teachings on the incarnation and the resurrection - on God coming to live among us as a human being and of God coming back even after humans killed Jesus. There was no emphasis on the cross or the crucifixion. Now in today’s reading Jesus speaks of the cross, not as an act of death but as an act of service. The cross is the call to do some really deep work on one’s self in order to dismantle all the old ways of living and to begin to live a life more focused on the teachings of Jesus - to love one another, that all people are valued and equal and made in the image of God. 

Peter is very slow to get this. He always wants the revelation of God’s presence to look a particular way, he wants things to remain as he knows them. In his context this means that only circumcised Jews can belong as followers of Jesus. But in time he comes to understand that all people are beloved of God for being exactly who they are. 

Where are you right now? Are you feeling like Job, stuck and waiting for God to take action? Or are you more like Peter, stuck and wishing that things could stay just as you want them to be? Or are you like Paul, have you been struck by some new insight about your life and faith? How is your life being unravelled or put back together and how has that increased your awareness of God and your faith?

Re: Proper 22A with A Sanctified Art's Unravelled series

Job: 28:12-28

Romans 12:9-21

Matthew  16:21-28