Sermon for Oct 25th 2015 - Living the WOW!!!

I believe in serendipity … this past week in my prep for our worship service, I found myself drawn to the writings of Martin Buber, and his theology of “I-Thou” and how it allows us to interact and live in the world seeing EVERYTHING endowed with a sense of “Thou” – the holy, the sacred, something more than just objects.

As I was shutting down my phone before worship, I found a link to a Blog by Canadian United Church writer Jim Taylor that offersan analysis of the Canadian Federal election through the lens of Buber’s I-Thou … Taylor offers that Canadians are people who believe in the “Thou” present in all of creation … The picture of a little boy drowned on a beach in Turkey was not simply an object on the sand, but was a life cut short – it was a THOU moment … the issue of Niqab was not about objectifying our neighbour into an IT, it was a reminder that our neighbour is a THOU … over and over, we were challenged to see the presence of the THOU in our world and reject the idea that we relate to each other, to the environment and to the world around us through the lens of “IT” …

Our readings today take us further into experiencing the THOU present and real in our world and in our lives. It begins with Job receiving his answer from God and being left to say “Um … yeah, I’m sorry I just didn’t get it …”:

In the story previous to this passage in JOB he rejects the advice of his friends that he accept blame for the tragedy of his circumstances. He believes that God is responsible for his condition. However, he does not reject God. He simply persists in calling upon God to hear and respond to him. When finally God does speak, it is from a perspective that seems at first to overlook Job’s misery and completely ignore his questions. However Job’s last words (today’s reading) show that he feels satisfied that he has been heard and that he has received something which has relieved his suffering and answered the longing of his soul. In Stephen Mitchell’s translation of Job’s last words we are given a sense of what this “something” might be. Job says “I had heard of you with my ears; but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I will be quiet, comforted that I am dust.” Although Job is not healed of his physical pain, he has come to a radical new sense of wholeness and oneness with God and creation. It is after this remarkable spiritual transformation that the story returns to the ancient folk-tale where Job’s health is restored and he is again showered with gifts and blessings.

Some scholars suggest that the poetry in the book of Job, culminating in our reading today, represents an evolution of Israel’s image of God – from a distant monarch who doles out punishments and rewards (as in the prologue and epilogue) to an intimate presence within all creation (as in chapters 38–41). It is clear from Mitchell’s translation that Job’s awakening has to do with a profound and awe-inspiring connection with the earth. In the end God hears Job’s cry in a way that goes far beyond his capacity to ask.

What if … What if, the point of the book of Job is to offer a view of the world that is about us – you and I, daring to reframe the cosmos and our place within it by recognizing the incredible paradox in which we live – the paradox that on one hand sees and incredibly wondrous world, but then also sees how insignificant the world truly is in the midst of the infinite cosmos … a paradox that also reminds us how incredible the fact we live at all truly is, but while simultaneously shows us insignificant we really are … and as we stand in the place of awe and wonder and realizing we are a tiny tiny tiny part of a HUGE infinite cosmos, we are to be filled with wonder …

What if … it is about experiencing the world as a THOU?

Rabbi Abraham Heschel once wrote:

As civilization advances, the sense of wonder declines. Such decline is an alarming symptom of our state of mine. Mankind will not perish for want of information, but only for want of appreciation. The beginning of happiness lies in understanding that life without wonder is not worth living. What we lack is not a will to believe, but a will to wonder …

Place those words in the context of his time … written in the late 1950’s before the rise of the information highway called the internet, before jet travel turned out planet into a global village, before mankind walked on the moon much less saw the world from another vantage point …

What would Heschel say today if we were to bring him 60 years into the future and allow him to see the advances we’ve made technologically … smart phones that allow us to google or yahoo search information in seconds … smart phones that connect us with anyone anywhere in milli-seconds … we want for no information … our technology has allowed us to see not only our planet from another vantage point and to see how tiny it really is in the vastness of space – but we’ve explored other planets and reached out tentatively into that vastness to find out if we are alone or not …

The THOU is ALL around us

The paradox has been reinforced over and over and over, and Heschel’s words ring true … We will not perish for want of information – information we have in abundance … but we may perish for our lack of wonder …

Wonder that fills the world with hope … wonder that dares to see the world differently … wonder that is the manifestation of Buber’s THOU …

What if, that was and is the point of the book of Job? To look out into the cosmos and see it as something holy and something wondrous … to see our insignificance, and rather than being struck with a sense of despair, instead embrace our incredible existence – an existence that may be as Carl Sagan once mused odds that are one in BILLIONS and BILLIONS … to stand before that realization and dare to not just utter the word – but LIVE the word WOW!!

Wow, borne of wonder

Wow borne of realizing what an incredible things life is, and accepting it as holy … not holy that we then go out the door and beat every one we meet into submission demanding that they convert to our narrow point of view … but holy in that we treat it with respect and reverence … holy in that we see it as valuable and do EVERYTHING we can as individuals, as communities, as nations, as a human race, to cherish and preserve and protect it.

Holy in that we are to live with a sense of awe and wonder, not just when it is convenient – like once a week in church, or when we remember to say grace before meals, or when we feel special – but a sense of awe and wonder that begins in the morning when we open our eyes and hear and sense the world around us, and that continues as we walk through our day aware and attuned to what is around us … the wind, the sun, the crunch under foot or leaves or gravel or grass, the singing of birds, the rustle of leaves, the laughter of neighbours, the joy of children, … what if we moved through our day with an air of awareness and a sense of reverence for the world around us?? How different could our life be?

Awe and wonder gives way to joy …

In today’s MARK reading we encounter a blind man who cries out to Jesus over the noise of a crowd on a busy road. Bartimaeus knows what many do not yet perceive – that Jesus is “the Son of David,” the Messiah, the anointed one for whom all of Israel waits. After receiving his sight from Jesus, Bartimaeus acts upon this great insight, and follows him “on the way.”

Mark intends us to hear this story in direct contrast to the story immediately preceding it – the story of James and John’s request for false greatness. Notice the very deliberate repetition of Jesus’ earlier question to James and John, “What do you want me to do for you?” The difference between the two responses is striking, especially the irony of the words “Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.” We know that although the disciples asked for places of privilege beside Jesus, in actual fact they were not able to stay beside him during his time of trial.

A striking thing about Bartimaeus is his refusal to be silenced. Like Job, he continues to cry out, much to the annoyance of the people around him. This kind of determination on the part of those who are poor and oppressed can be very upsetting to those who would rather ignore the problems or simply accept them as inevitable. How often do we respond to the cries of the afflicted in our society by blaming them like Job’s friends did or by trying to silence them like the crowd around Jesus did? How often do we silence our own cries because we think they will not be heard?

WHAT IF?

What if we are to shout out our reverence and our awe and wonder? What if instead of silencing the cries of the hurt and broken and needy, we are to hear them and respond to them?
        WHAT IF – we are to join in the chorus by filling the cosmos with our awe and wonder and allowing the feelings that creates within us motivate us in a Pollyanna kind of way, to reframe and recreate and EXPERIENCE the cosmos – our day to day lives – as a place filled with holiness?

Could we as people who see holiness all around us, ignore the plight of refugees from war torn regions?

Could we as people who see holiness all around us, continue to blame the hungry and tell them to just get a job rather than recognize the brokenness of our economic systems?

Could we as people who see holiness all around us fall silent in the face of suffering, or would we be like Job and Bartimeaus and dare to raise our voices to proclaim and celebrate AND share that holiness?

What if, we truly lived our lives with awe and wonder as the grounding principles?
        What would we do differently today if we allowed our child-like wonder to take over and motivated ourselves with a sense of “WOW”?

Pope Francis observed:

Rather than a problem to be solved, the world is a joyful mystery to be contemplated with gladness and praise … if we allow ourselves to fill with awe and wonder the world becomes a place filled with holiness … and holiness calls us to something different …

May it be so … thanks be to God … let us pray …