Creation Time Begins 

Introduction 

Do you know what book of the Bible has the most questions in it?

The book of Job.

The reason that it has the most questions is that it is the only book of the Bible that is solely about the human equation, about tragedy, about what it all means…

In case you don’t remember, there is this guy named Job and he is the most faithful and most richly rewarded person out there. And Satan, who is God’s “devil’s advocate”, decides to prove a point. He tells God that Job is only good because God has given him everything, family, riches, friends, purpose… and if God took it all away… Job would lose faith.

What comes next is hundreds of pages of questions: why is this happening? What did you do to deserve this? IS God fair? How can I get it back? What is wrong with me? 6000 years later… when things go wrong… we are still asking the same questions.

So it is fall, school is starting up, church is starting up, the warm weather is making its annual pilgrimage to the south… Time to start being serious again – time to figure some things out… time to, well, time to remember that even when things do go wrong in this crazy world, there is still a God , a reason, a point.

Parting the Sea 

I know that not many of us are into local United States politics… When I lived in Quebec, which I did before and after 9/11, New York state was one of our border states. We talked about stuff from there, and, well, my parents were living in the states so perhaps I felt more attuned… but I remember Rudi Guiliani before 9/11. Anyone else?

The people of New York sort of hated the guy. He was a Democrat who changed allegiances and ran as a Republican in order to win the election as Mayor of New York in 1994. Before that he was a US Attorney General prosecuting Mob Bosses. The best thing anyone could say about the guy was that he was tough on crime. But even then, he was accused of “arranging” high profile arrests to further his political goals – later having to let the criminals go because he really didn’t have the evidence to begin with.

Then a couple of Jetliners flew into the World Trade Centre.

The second thing I ever saw on the news was Guiliani, and then over and over he was always there – he mirrored the emotions most people felt, shock, sadness, anger, and resolution… He brought the people together and told them to believe in themselves in the middle of tragedy – he cried with them, celebrated with them – he led them. The day before 9/11 his approval rating was 36% … within a couple of weeks, it was 79%... He became Time Magazine’s person of the year, and Queen Elizabeth even went on to knight him because of his actions in the face of the tragedy. Oprah Winfrey called him, “America’s Mayor.”

You see, we are never sure what we are capable of until the moment comes – and we are called upon.

Moses, who was unsure of himself, who stuttered, who ran away from most fights, finds himself camped on the side of the red sea when dust appears on the Horizon – turns out it is chariots… lots of chariots… And he turns to his people instantly and says, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the LORD will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again…” I imagine he is as frightened as they are, God has not revealed any great plan, they are trapped, but Moses rallies the people anyway… he leads. And the waters part, and they cross over, and they believe that if you trust, maybe you don’t need to know all of the answers right away – maybe there is a power in the universe that looks out for our best interests…

 But more importantly, we see people like Moses, like Guiliani, willing to be authentic and willing to stand up in courage and encourage. What we see is that sometimes answering the questions is not nearly as important as living authentically and having courage.

Living and Dying 

Stuck in the middle of Paul’s argument for vegetarianism is this line: “for whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s”

 It is a really interesting argument he is making, but it takes some work to get it… so in a nutshell here it is – there is a lot to worry about in the world. And if we let it, it will eat us up… But we spend so much time worrying about who is right and wrong, we spend time judging others for the way they do things… and we spend FAR too much time thinking that how we do things is the right way.

There really is only one way, God’s way – and when you stop to think about it, NONE of us are doing it that way. So why the animosity? Why the anger? Why the heartache? Why all the questioning?

Really, it is because of ego – we cannot just let go and let God – we cannot just trust! This is all part of God’s wondrous world… and whether we eat vegetables or meat, whether we say God or Allah when we talk to the divine, whether we live or die, we do it “in” God.

Think of this as yet another answer to the whole “why” question… let it go… all things work together for the glory of God. The divine energy of the cosmos surrounds us all at every moment. There really is no why, or right way, there is just trying to do it as best as we can.

The Old Seventy Times Seven 

What is the first reaction you have when the world hurts you? When something goes wrong? For most of us it is anger. We almost cannot help it.

 Remember the first days after 9/11? The universal reaction of Americans was that they should bomb the Islamic world into the stone ages.

There was no introspection, no wondering why anyone would hate Americans, nothing but anger fuelled by fear.

To be fair, they started asking, or some people started asking the deeper questions later… questions like whether American arrogance had not led to ill feelings in international relations.

But when the bad things happen we want to lash out, we need to blame people, it is only natural. But the Bible, and our faith tradition, tells us to take a step back… Here is the question asked by our parable today – how should you act, knowing you are already forgiven by God?

There is a reason the church always asked people to consider their own sinful nature… it is not in vogue to say it anymore, because we are all supposed to be good and honest and loving people… but we are not. We are all sinful. Which is to say, we all do the wrong thing sometimes because of our ego, and we all make mistakes, and we all find it hard to forgive, and we all expect easy answers, and we all struggle to love people who make us so darn angry….

“Why is the world like this? Why did this happen?” always, if we were really honest, has some element of, because we are not better people.

But God loves us. We are forgiven for all those things. God accepts us. We are loved despite ourselves.

When you know that, isn’t it a little petty to keep your own list of wrongs? After all, if I can be forgiven for what I have done to hurt people, maybe I should be a little easier on the people I know.

Wrapping It All Up

So here is the thing. There are days when I worry that what I believe, what I do, is kinda foolish. There are days when I wonder if the human race is not just spiralling into oblivion. There are days when being different seems like so much work that I think I should just subscribe to then me first get rich attitude of everyone around me.

But they are fleeting moments. And along comes an opportunity like the fall to start over, to try in my own life to get it right this time, to listen to some of the things that God has been trying to say and let that make a difference.

A decade ago I was involved in all that went down around 9/11. I did the largest funeral I hope I ever have to do. I sat through some of the most painful moments of grief I have ever seen. And it almost broke me. I walked away from everything for a while.

Those moments where I am shaken to my core happen far too often – and I imagine they happen for all of us. But God is there. God loves you. And knowing that, perhaps we don’t really need to know any more.