October 20 2024, Homily The Cup of Suffering and the Call to Service

Rex McKee

                                                              

Homily: The Cup of Suffering and the Call to Service

Scripture Reading: Job 38:1-11, Mark 10:35-45

 

“Prepare yourself and gather your courage like a warrior. Prepare yourself for the task at hand.” (Job 38:3)

 

One of my longtime favorite icebreaker questions is this: If you were abandoned in a remote area or on an island, what five books would you hope to have with you?

My choices would be Job, The Lord of the Rings, Ulysses, Tao Te Ching, and Psalms.

Tolkien’s work echoes the central themes of the Bible: creation, fall, redemption, the struggle between good and evil, and the hope for ultimate victory.

Joyce, through Ulysses, uses Job’s story to explore the search for meaning in a chaotic and indifferent world, reflecting existential struggle, divine silence, and human perseverance.

The Tao Te Ching offers the poetry of God, expressing the divine rhythm through harmony, beauty, and purpose.

And the Psalms provide the essential prayers of life: Wow, Thank You, and Help Me.

Today’s scriptures invite us to reflect on the mystery of suffering and the wonder of Creation. The narrative of Job and the disciples’ request in the Gospel of Mark offer insight into the relationship between suffering, service, and our understanding of God’s purpose.

We are given a choice: to passively sit in the ashes or to deeply question God, even if it means doing so with fear, and trembling.  Job’s story begins with a wager between God and the Accuser, Satan, who argues that Job is faithful only because of his blessings. To test Job’s devotion, God allows the Accuser to strip Job of his wealth, family, and health. Despite losing everything, Job remains steadfast, refusing to curse God. His friends insist that his suffering must be the result of sin, but Job passionately and courageously maintains his innocence and demands an explanation.

Sitting in the ash heap, covered in sores, Job faces a pivotal choice: to passively accept his suffering or rise up with authentic courage to question God directly, seeking an understanding of his plight. This choice—to question rather than endure—reveals a crucial aspect of faith. Faith is not the absence of doubt or the silent acceptance of suffering but the courage to wrestle with God, to engage with our deepest questions, and to seek a relationship grounded unwavering trust.

As Professor Ed Mooney, my college advisor, writes, “Job is not offered a neat resolution but rather a transformative encounter. The voice from the whirlwind does not justify suffering but challenges human presumptions of control over cosmic and divine order. In this, Job is invited to confront the limits of human knowledge and the mystery of existence.”

Mooney’s approach aligns with Job’s existential and spiritual dilemmas, especially regarding divine justice, human suffering, and the nature of faith during adversity. Job demands answers from God for his suffering, however when God finally responds from the whirlwind, He does not provide the explanation Job seeks. Instead, God from the whirlwind emphasizes the vastness of divine wisdom, suggesting that Job’s human perspective is too limited to grasp the fullness of divine justice and creation.

We might ask: does wrestling with God deepen our faith? To have faith is not to silence doubt but to persevere in trust, even as we confront God. Matthew Fox suggests that “Doubt is not the enemy of faith. It is a companion to faith. Without doubt, faith would not be real.”

Job’s suffering leads him to a deeper relationship with God. He moves from a transactional faith—expecting blessings in return for righteousness—to a faith rooted in trust, even when life does not make sense. Fox adds, “To enter into suffering is to enter into the mystery of life itself, to become more deeply and fully human. This is why our pain can be our greatest teacher.”

For Job, suffering becomes the threshold where he matures from a transactional relationship with God to trusting the mystery of the Holy. The voice from the whirlwind calls Job beyond complaint to contemplation, beyond grievance to gratitude.

Likewise, we are invited to move beyond merely seeking answers for our suffering. We are invited to trust the mystery of God’s presence, even when we do not understand. Questioning and confronting God with our pain can lead to a deeper, more authentic faith—one that guides us through the whirlwind of life.

In my own life, I come from a very toxic, dysfunctional family. In 1974, with my wife Linda’s blessing, I accepted a transfer from Southern California to Erie, Pennsylvania while working for B. Dalton Bookseller.

We made the difficult decision to sever ties with my dysfunctional family, believing that our relationship and the parenting of our 2½-year-old child, with another on the way, would be at risk otherwise. It wasn’t easy, and it took years of therapy.

In 1980, after relocating three times, we arrived in Minneapolis. After visiting St. John’s Linda suggested that the community was a safe place for me to continue my heretical spiritual journey, and so we joined. Wrapped in the Episcopal flag, I had been wrestling with God on a 12-year journey through Buddhism, Judaism, and Native American spirituality.

After a long conversation with then-rector Todd Smeltzer, I felt I would be spiritually safe at St. John’s. The community demonstrated it radical welcome to us with deep love. Our spiritual journey with and among you, our chosen family continues.

Job’s decision to rise from the ashes and challenge God is not however simply a personal spiritual act. It is also an invitation to compassionately engage with the suffering of the world. Creation-based theologians teach that “We are not passive observers of the universe. We are co-creators with God, responsible for healing the earth and each other.” Compassion, they remind us, is not passive but active engagement with the world’s pain and suffering. (Fox)

Job’s encounter with the whirlwind “awakens him to the vastness of life,” a life that includes not just personal suffering but the suffering of all creation. Job’s demand for answers exemplifies the courage we all need to address the root causes of global suffering—poverty, civil unrest, violence, angry conversations, war, displacement, and environmental degradation. In the face of immense suffering, we may feel helpless. Job’s story calls us to rise up from the ashes and compassionately engage with the world’s suffering, seeking justice, healing, and hope.

In the Gospel of Mark, two disciples boldly ask Jesus for positions of glory in his kingdom. Jesus responds, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink?” This invitation to drink from the cup mirrors Job’s choice to confront his own suffering and challenge the injustices of the world.

Jesus does not promise James and John positions of honor. Following Jesus commits us to living into our baptismal covenant, serving others, and accepting the vastness of the human experience: love, joy, loss, pain, belonging and separation.

Suffering is part of the human experience and rarely do we gain understanding. Rabbi Harold Kushner suggests: “The most important question we can ask is not ‘Why did this happen?’ but ‘What do we do now that it has happened?’”

Circling back to the books that I mentioned. The first poem in the Tao speaks to the mysteries beyond our understanding:

The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth;

The named is the mother of ten thousand things.

There are deep questions I will continue to ponder from Lord of the Rings, such as is Frodo the Job character in Lord of the Rings: Consider his Holy pledge, I will take the ring but I do not know where I am going.

The voice from the whirlwind reminds us that some questions will remain unanswered. Yet, engaging uncertainty, we can leap into faith, trusting God’s abundant grace and wisdom finding peace that surpasses all understanding.

May we, like Job, rise from our ashes and wrestle courageously with God.

May we follow Jesus, embracing the call to serve and heal.

And may we daily draw closer to the heart of The Holy Mystery, who laid the foundations of creation and invites each of us to drink from the cup of love, sacrifice, and service.

Amen.

 

 

Kierkegaard, Søren. Fear and Trembling

Lost Intimacy in American Thought: Recovering Personal Philosophy from Thoreau to Cavell, Ed Mooney, p. 75.

On Soren Kierkegaard: Dialogue, Polemics, Lost Intimacy, and Time, Ed Mooney, p. 132.

Excursions with Thoreau: Philosophy, Poetry, Religion, Ed Mooney, p. 89.

 

Matthew Fox Quotes Used:

1. On Suffering and Spiritual Growth:

“To enter into suffering is to enter into the mystery of life itself, to become more deeply and fully human. This is why our pain can be our greatest teacher.”

— Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality (1983)

2. On Questioning and Faith:

“Doubt is not the enemy of faith. It is a companion to faith. Without doubt, faith would not be real.”

— Creativity: Where the Divine and the Human Meet (2002)

3. On the Call to Action in the Face of Injustice:

“Compassion is not a passive state but rather an active involvement in the world’s pain and suffering… It invites us to stand up against injustice.”

— A Spirituality Named Compassion (1979)

4. On Humanity’s Role in the Cosmos:

“We are not passive observers of the universe. We are co-creators with God, responsible for healing the earth and each other.”

— Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth (1991)

 

10am Service