(Job 38:1-7, 34-41; Ps 104: ; Mk 10:35-45) J G White

10:30 am, Sunday, Oct 20, 2024, FBC Amherst

This week I have been enjoying the full moon. Friday at 8 pm I walked on a beach and a road, and turned out my flashlight so my only light was from the very bright, almost still full moon. I have not yet seen the comet that is up there, and I missed out on the recent northern lights. I’m being followed by a moon shadow, moon shadow, moon shadow.

We started our ceremony here with some of Psalm 81. Blow the trumpet at the new moon, at the full moon, on our festal day. We don’t count our months by the moons, but the Hebrews did. And so do the many indigenous peoples of Turtle Island. I am no expert at all in indigenous spirituality, and I barely know any first nations people personally. But let me take us on a short journey in respect of those who have been in this land far longer than us.

An attitude we share in common is our sense that we are part of creation. In Genesis 1:24, the sixth day in that story of creation, people get made on the same day as cattle and various creeping things. We do not need to see ourselves as supreme, or separate, or even ‘best of’ what’s in the world. We don’t need to make those value judgments.

What we also share, I suppose, is how we can know the Creator in creation.

Can ‘God’ be understood? We sometimes wonder - and for good reason. At the centre of the Christian story is how we meet God as part of creation. As the Messiah.

We read a bit more of the Jesus story in Mark today. This has been a year for Mark’s Gospel. Here we see how it is tempting to want to be close to Power, closer to God. Like James and John.

But this competitiveness is not Jesus’ Way. The Gospel scene today, follows right after Jesus said, “But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.” Soon after – the next day perhaps - James and John express their ambition, so they seem to require a repeat of the message. “whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.”

The climb to be greater, better, at the top, is not quite the Way of Jesus. Our recent Inclusion Statement borrowed a good phrase. It’s put this way: we believe that Jesus taught and practiced an inclusive discipleship of equals... Not only is our human fellowship aimed at being gracious and generous and sharing, our fellowship with all the creatures and elements of the world can be humble.

In contrast with that story are the scenes from Job today.

What would you want, from a meeting with the Creator, if all your business dealings (including your pension plan) got destroyed? Or if a bunch of your family died – and not the older ones, the younger ones, your children? Or if your own health failed, you got some very gross disease, severe pain, and you got shunned by some because of it? This is the ancient story of Job. He wants to know why? Why all this disaster? His visitors all think they know why – they blame Job. He must deserve it, must have done despicable things. But no, he had not.

Finally, chapter 38, in a whirlwind, God is there! And the speeches, they only speak of the marvels of creation – sun, moon and stars, weather upon earth, animals and their life cycles, ending with a couple great aquatic creatures.

Do you know these? Do you understand them? Did you plan the stars, or the times when the wild donkey raises its baby? Or can you tame the Nile crocodile? That’s what God says to suffering Job.

Or maybe, shows to Job. All these marvels of creation are before Job’s eyes, and are bigger than his one life and its problems, apparently. Job does not get answers. He gets questions, visions, mysteries. No reasons are given for his suffering, or explanations of why the speeches of Job’s visitors were wrong. Job gets to meet the Maker. And meet Creator in the creatures of creation.

I ponder the people I know and have known who have big suffering, and wonder why? Is it someone’s fault? How is it going to end?

I think of a friend Sharon and I had for years, in the Valley, Jennifer. She was about our age, in ministry, slowly working her way thru divinity school part time. I discovered what a beautiful writer she was when she got diagnosed with cancer, and posted occasional reports on social media. After she died, I went back and saved all she wrote - I have this idea to have a special service someday where we read Jennifer’s cancer journey. Here are just three excerpts, in her own words. Listen to her attitude, her spirit!

May 23 This is the day that the Lord has made, we will rejoice and be glad in it!

The consensus is that the cancer is so aggressive that it is causing me to bleed internally and be infected, all of the issues are the same problem. It is growing so ridiculously fast. I can feel it.

There is always hope. I am filled with peace. God is good. All the time. And I am humbled that God’s people are praying for me. Thank you! Please pray for my husband and our families too.

Much love…

June 1 8:09 pm

Odd things and observations from life in the VG. We know we are exactly where we are supposed to be and God is allowing me to convalesce and recover here daily. The staff is wonderful. Everyday is interesting! It is an adventure!

1. The water is contaminated. I can not shower. I cannot wash my hair. I need to wear a mask and close my eyes to wash my hands and flush. If cancer doesn’t kill me.... the water could. Jon cleans me up with bottled water from the kitchen for sponge baths and to try and wash my hair in the sink. Refreshing!

2. It costs $14.50 a day during the week to park our car here.

3. Anytime my friends come to visit me in the daytime on a weekday there is no parking in the lot. Or on any nearby streets. Parking is a real problem here.

4. The internet is slower than our internet on the mountain that comes over satellite. I think Jon said the wifi is .3 to .78 Mbps.

It also kicks him off every two hours. He can get his work done on it and we are glad for it. Apparently until recently only one floor had it. Thank you to whoever fought for it and paid for it for patients on this floor!

5. There is a nice little cafeteria in the building but it does not feed patients. Patient meals are prepared at the infirmary site and shipped out to the other hospitals and they are later heated somewhere here. you have to order them a few days ahead or they pick what you get. My first meal was burnt spaghetti on a disposable plastic plate. Not sure how that happens... I have had good bad and ugly delivered but I have also had to throw so much food away it sickens me.

6. One day I threw up into a plastic bin. They just tossed it into the garbage and passed me a new one. The garbage can in my room is a big Rubbermaid roughtote kind. It is filled and emptied at least once a day. … The amount of single use plastic garbage here has been overwhelming me. I asked what they do with it. As every cancer hospital should... they burn it.

6. The nurses are amazing. I haven’t had one yet that I haven’t liked or that hasn’t taken wonderful care of me. The lab technicians each morning are great too. The doctors are fantastic!

7. Last night one of my neighbours was rather irate about the mice running around and no one seemingly doing anything about it. Pretty sure I saw one in my room last week. I didn’t announce it. I feel like I’m camping here. There are always rodents when you camp. I do feel bad for Jon because his bed is closer to the floor than mine. We gave our nurse a peace offering for her to give the man and apparently it may have helped sooth him.

8. Last night one of my neighbours died.

9. We have been told here that one in two Nova Scotians will be diagnosed with cancer.

10. My Patient Navigator in the valley told me she gets 30 new cancer patients assigned to her every month for King’s and Annapolis Counties. A new cancer patient a day.... and how many counties does Nova Scotia have???

And this is her last post, from June 13th that year. Not the whole poem - parts of it…

‘‘Twas the night before chemo and all through the house,

not a creature was stirring, save the hospital’s mouse.

The iv bags were hung on standby with care,

in the hopes that more healing soon would be there.

The patients were nestled all snug in their beds,

pushing nurses buttons to make them stand on their heads.

And I in my kerchief, (or should I be wearing a cap?)

had just settled down for a brief little nap.

Perhaps tomorrow’s cycle of chemical blast

will be just what we need to send this disease to the past.

A growing pile of blessings make me believe all miracles can be true.

I’ll leave God in charge, what else can I do?

I don’t believe that he gave this trouble to me,

but even if he did, I will trust He.

There are bags of support drugs to keep you strong through the initial attack.

Once you have started, there’s no going back.

For 24 hours, or 48, who is sure? That chemical spins to all of your parts,

you become rather toxic, even your farts.

And then when you’re feeling you’re actually green,

you start to get rid of it and maybe come clean.

Chemo speaks not a word so pray it goes straight to work,

And kills all the cancer, and isn’t a jerk.

But let us exclaim as we log off this site

HAPPY CHEMO-EVE TO ALL, AND TO ALL A GOOD-NIGHT!

Jennifer, wonderful delightful Jennifer, died on June 20. Did she get answers? I think she was an answer. A shining light. One who walked with Creator, with Jesus.

Job did not get answers, but got to hear from the Divine Answerer. Job got a similar answer, I think, that poet Mary Oliver did. Here is her poem, ‘I Go Down to the Shore.’

I go down to the shore in the morning

and depending on the hour the waves

are rolling in or moving out,

and I say, oh, I am miserable,

what shall –

what should I do? And the sea says

in its lovely voice:

excuse me, I have work to do.

Isn’t this the experience in Job 38-41. The focus of the trees and the seas, the birds and the stars is not you or me. What’s going on out there is much bigger than any one of us.

We like to give meaning to nature’s things; people do this all the time. A bright red bird, a cardinal, visits your yard: it is a deceased loved one. It rains on a loved one’s wedding: good luck. What about our big issues? Do we meet our God out in the world like Job did? When we see the sunset or the tides, the frost or the white-tailed deer?

I think I have mentioned my friend, Brian, before. He was born in the 1940s. He is a paraglider, for decades climbing up hills around Parrsboro, waiting for the wind to be right so he can take off with his wing and soar like the hawks. His partner, Ruth, would joke that he is up on a hill somewhere, ‘working out his problems.’

Brian is such a relaxed man, we don’t think of him having many problems to work out. But that’s the experience of some - getting out, getting away from it all, to ponder and process life’s challenges.

Indigenous spiritually is deeply rooted in all the creatures of the earth. Even a lake or a mountain is thought of in personal ways, not to mention the raven or the squirrel. An upcoming Crash Course video about religion will ask, “can a river be a person?” Can the Maccan River be my brother? When we think of each part of the environment as personal, we may respect each element and living thing more. My brother is worthwhile, my sister is valuable.

God may answer us in our problems not with answers, but with being there, the divine presence. And some holy perspective. This world is not all about me. It has even been said, ‘your life is not about you.’ Even, like Job of old, we may live to prove that evil is wrong. Your life is not about you; your life is your message. ‘Actions speak louder than words,’ don’t we say. Amen to that.

God knows all the things of creation. Including you. God is here. Meeting Creator in creation is a piece of every single day. And can be profound and powerful in some serious moments of life.