The Way of Disorientation (Free Version)
The 21st Sunday After Pentecost- Job 38:1-7; Hebrews 5:1-10; Mark 10:35-45
This week’s Lectionary texts can be found here.
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All of our texts this week are about subverting the way that we view God and the world. All of our texts are a movement towards disorientation. In other words, everything is not as it appears. But they also are a call to examine our orientation towards God.
Faced with his friends insistence that the reason for his suffering is that he has done something wrong, as well as his own belief that God just does whatever he wants without rhyme or reason, Job finally hears the voice of God (Job 38:1-7). Rather than defending his own justice, God tells Job that Job’s own perspective as well as the perspective of all the wisdom of the ages (represented by Job’s friends) are limited. Yes, there are parts of the world which are not-yet-ordered. Yes, there are parts of the world which have been ordered by God. And yes, there are parts of the world which have been disordered by the Adversary. Job’s view of justice is not adequate to explain the world.
Job is not given the answer he is looking for from God. Yet, he is given something deeper than his questions. Job is known by God. Like Job, we will not always been given the answers that we seek. The world is complex, beyond our limited understanding. And yet, we are not alone in it. God invites our wrestling, even encouraging us to “Gird up your loins like a man (or like a woman? vs. 1)” in order to hear and to wrestle with him. This is the life of faith.
The author of Hebrews extols the beauty of Jesus (Hebrews 5:1-10), challenging the hearer to a place of disorientation. Jesus is not the kind of high priest you’ve come to expect. He is better. Though Jesus is like other priests in some ways (called only by God, suffering weakness), this high priest stands outside of the “right” priestly family, tracing his lineage through Melchizedek rather than through Levi. This is important because Jesus’ priestly heritage is older and directly connected to God himself. It is also significant because it means that Jesus is both the high priest and the king.
Yet, this amazing, mysterious, conquering resurrected priest/king is one who willingly endured suffering for us. Like us, he cried out to the Father to be saved from death, but he submitted to the Father’s will in the midst of his agony. In this, he leads us into a deeper trust in Him and a new way to be human in the world.
In Mark’s gospel (Mark 10:35-45), the disciples are interested in worldly power. They believe that, if Jesus is the Messiah, this means that surely they will have top jobs in the administration. The disciples want to sit at his right and left hand, but they do not know what that truly means in this kingdom.
Jesus is about to drink the bitter cup of death, to become immersed in waters of death. While this will seem like failure to the disciples and to the onlookers, this path to the cross, the path of self-giving love is the way of the kingdom.
Kingdom power is not like imperial power (or Gentile power, as Jesus describes it here). In the kingdom, power is subverted. All of our views of power are disoriented in light of the cross. In this new kingdom, it is the servant, not the tyrant, who is called great. Jesus’ love for us, as displayed on the cross is the foundation of this new world.
*Our Deep Dive this week features a more in-depth look at where the Job text is situated in the book. We also include a discussion from John Walton’s work on our not-ordered, ordered, and disordered world. In Hebrews, we look at the role of priesthood in the Jewish world of Jesus’ day as well as a bit on the identity of Melchizedek. In the Gospel section, we include an illustration on things that are difficult to grasp as well as much more pastoral engagement with how this impacts the everyday. You can sign up for this in-depth (9+ page weekly brief) here.