Grace Among the Ashes

From my comfortable study, serenaded by Bach and blessed by my dozing cat, it’s silly for me to speak of suffering.  Most of those in our church pews this weekend have very little appreciation of suffering:  we have aches and pains, to be sure, but few of us (thankfully!) have experienced the gut-wrenching feeling of complete abandonment.  Are there silver linings for the clouds hovering over the helpless?  Is there any inkling of God, any grace among the ashes?

This will be our final involvement with Job, for now.  His story is extreme to us; yet Job himself kept his relationship with God alive, including God as both instigator and partner in his cry from the bottomless pit.  Job has discovered, on our behalf, that embracing God for better or worse requires a deeper way of speaking.  Our text, Job 42:1-6, 10-17, acknowledges that God IS God, and Job is not.  (“Someone” has put a Hollywood ending, vv.10-17, on this, which somehow waters down the story.  But not everything has a Happy Ending.)   The more useful Grace is NOT to conclude the tale, but to be summoned to a continually unfolding sense of divine presence in whatever circumstances we find ourselves.

I admit to having a poor understanding of the tradition of the High Priest as described in the Letter to the Hebrews (7:23-28).  Liturgically, the High Priest was one selected to go into the Holy of Holies bearing the sins of the People, thus receiving a national absolution for another year.  The Gospel writers presented a much more political role, that of keeping the Faithful complacent in order to not draw attention of the Romans.  At any rate, this author presents Jesus as the once-for-all “High Priest”, bearing the sin of All and thus extending Grace to All.  Just as our Old Testament hero Job discovered, this refined experience radically reorients our daily relationship with God.

We don’t know that Bartimaeus (Mark 10:46-52) was ragged and smelled bad–but the people around him treated him as if such were true.  “He’s blind!  He must have done something bad to deserve that!  Or else his parents did…!”  But he recognized the Source of Grace, the one who would turn the world upside down, when he came near.  The Righteous folk tried to suppress him, but he threw off his old way of life (his cloak)  and came for his healing and community restoration.  Dare we posit that “the Crowd” gained new sight as well?  Cynthia A. Jarvis reminds us that “Miracles are those events that bring people from darkness into light.  Miracles turn our attention to what really matters in life and in death.  Miracles claim no power, but reveal a Power who wills to be known.”  (FEASTING on the WORD, B 4:214)

Compared to Job & Bartimaeus, I’ve got it all!  These stories help remind me and other whiners that our life-cups do overflow indeed.  Will they also remind me to point out God’s Presence to hurting souls?  Will they nudge me to seek out those who’ve given up?  Rich and healthy as I am, may I find an urgency to carry Grace among the ashes??

God Bless Us, Every One                               Horace Brown King

My encounter with lectionary passages of Scripture assigned to the upcoming weekend can be found every  Tuesday at this spot on Facebook; or at horacebrownking.com