We Want To See Jesus - September 15, 2010

Daily Lectionary for September 15, 2010
Psalm 5
Job 42:1-17
Acts 16:16-24
John 12:20-26

Job 42:1-17
First off - last day in Job and I'm ready for something else.  Job is a chore.
Second, God has a word here for Job's buddies - "you have not spoken of me what is right"(v7) an again "for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has done."(v.8)  They are held accountable by God and directed to make a sacrifice and then have Job pray for them.  They perhaps have been working out of conventional wisdom or out of what they thought should be right, but God is not pleased to be misrepresented.  Something to keep in mind when we consider our God talk  Have we carefully considered what we say about God. Is it converntional wisdom?  Is it what we imagine ought to be true about God.  The point would not be that we should not speak about God - I think the point would be that it is not a trifle to do so and it should engage our hearts and minds and not be a perfunctory activity.

Acts 16:16-24
Similar dynamics to yesterday's story where Jesus was displeasing the Pharisees by rasiing Lazarus to life.  One reads the story and wonders how you get so attached to a particular way of life that when a glimpse of a still more spectacular way of life comes into view one quickly moves to slam the door on it.  Today we have Paul casts a spirit out of a slave-girl who is a money maker for her owners in that she has a spirit of divination.  The owners haul Paul and Silas before the authorities who dutifully have them flogged for their transgression of helping the girl.  This is what faith is up against culturally and in our individual lives.  The view into what is possible can be breathtaking, but the loss of grip on the present - unpleasant or not - is apparently untenable.

John 12:20-26
Slightly odd detachment to this story.  Some Greeks come to Philip and say "'Sir, we want to see Jesus'".  the disciples pass this along to Jesus who begins teaching and there is not an account of the meeting.  Still a great passage as the Greeks in this story stand in for anyone on the outside of a relationship with Jesus looking for the thing they are hardwired for yet have not yet experienced.  "We want what goes in this space in our being" the world says in its struggles for meaning.  Which to the ears of the church, I think, should sound very much like "We want to see Jesus".  How will we respond?