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February 27, 2010
Job 30:1 – 31:40 “But now they mock me, men younger than I, whose fathers I would have disdained to put with my sheep dogs. 2 Of what use was the strength of their hands to me, since their vigor had gone from them? 3 Haggard from want and hunger, they roamed the parched land in desolate wastelands at night. 4 In the brush they gathered salt herbs, and their food was the root of the broom tree. 5 They were banished from their fellow men, shouted at as if they were thieves. 6 They were forced to live in the dry stream beds, among the rocks and in holes in the ground. 7 They brayed among the bushes and huddled in the undergrowth. 8 A base and nameless brood, they were driven out of the land. 9 “And now their sons mock me in song; I have become a byword among them. 10 They detest me and keep their distance; they do not hesitate to spit in my face. 11 Now that God has unstrung my bow and afflicted me, they throw off restraint in my presence. 12 On my right the tribe attacks; they lay snares for my feet, they build their siege ramps against me. 13 They break up my road; they succeed in destroying me– without anyone’s helping them. 14 They advance as through a gaping breach; amid the ruins they come rolling in. 15 Terrors overwhelm me; my dignity is driven away as by the wind, my safety vanishes like a cloud. 16 “And now my life ebbs away; days of suffering grip me. 17 Night pierces my bones; my gnawing pains never rest. 18 In his great power God becomes like clothing to me; he binds me like the neck of my garment. 19 He throws me into the mud, and I am reduced to dust and ashes. 20 “I cry out to you, O God, but you do not answer; I stand up, but you merely look at me. 21 You turn on me ruthlessly; with the might of your hand you attack me. 22 You snatch me up and drive me before the wind; you toss me about in the storm. 23 I know you will bring me down to death, to the place appointed for all the living. 24 “Surely no one lays a hand on a broken man when he cries for help in his distress. 25 Have I not wept for those in trouble? Has not my soul grieved for the poor? 26 Yet when I hoped for good, evil came; when I looked for light, then came darkness. 27 The churning inside me never stops; days of suffering confront me. 28 I go about blackened, but not by the sun; I stand up in the assembly and cry for help. 29 I have become a brother of jackals, a companion of owls. 30 My skin grows black and peels; my body burns with fever. 31 My harp is tuned to mourning, and my flute to the sound of wailing. NIV Job 31:1 “I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a girl. 2 For what is man’s lot from God above, his heritage from the Almighty on high? 3 Is it not ruin for the wicked, disaster for those who do wrong? 4 Does he not see my ways and count my every step? 5 “If I have walked in falsehood or my foot has hurried after deceit– 6 let God weigh me in honest scales and he will know that I am blameless– 7 if my steps have turned from the path, if my heart has been led by my eyes, or if my hands have been defiled, 8 then may others eat what I have sown, and may my crops be uprooted. 9 “If my heart has been enticed by a woman, or if I have lurked at my neighbor’s door, 10 then may my wife grind another man’s grain, and may other men sleep with her. 11 For that would have been shameful, a sin to be judged. 12 It is a fire that burns to Destruction; it would have uprooted my harvest. 13 “If I have denied justice to my menservants and maidservants when they had a grievance against me, 14 what will I do when God confronts me? What will I answer when called to account? 15 Did not he who made me in the womb make them? Did not the same one form us both within our mothers? 16 “If I have denied the desires of the poor or let the eyes of the widow grow weary, 17 if I have kept my bread to myself, not sharing it with the fatherless– 18 but from my youth I reared him as would a father, and from my birth I guided the widow– 19 if I have seen anyone perishing for lack of clothing, or a needy man without a garment, 20 and his heart did not bless me for warming him with the fleece from my sheep, 21 if I have raised my hand against the fatherless, knowing that I had influence in court, 22 then let my arm fall from the shoulder, let it be broken off at the joint. 23 For I dreaded destruction from God, and for fear of his splendor I could not do such things. 24 “If I have put my trust in gold or said to pure gold, ‘You are my security,’ 25 if I have rejoiced over my great wealth, the fortune my hands had gained, 26 if I have regarded the sun in its radiance or the moon moving in splendor, 27 so that my heart was secretly enticed and my hand offered them a kiss of homage, 28 then these also would be sins to be judged, for I would have been unfaithful to God on high. 29 “If I have rejoiced at my enemy’s misfortune or gloated over the trouble that came to him– 30 I have not allowed my mouth to sin by invoking a curse against his life– 31 if the men of my household have never said, ‘Who has not had his fill of Job’s meat?’– 32 but no stranger had to spend the night in the street, for my door was always open to the traveler– 33 if I have concealed my sin as men do, by hiding my guilt in my heart 34 because I so feared the crowd and so dreaded the contempt of the clans that I kept silent and would not go outside 35 (“Oh, that I had someone to hear me! I sign now my defense– let the Almighty answer me; let my accuser put his indictment in writing. 36 Surely I would wear it on my shoulder, I would put it on like a crown. 37 I would give him an account of my every step; like a prince I would approach him.)– 38 “if my land cries out against me and all its furrows are wet with tears, 39 if I have devoured its yield without payment or broken the spirit of its tenants, 40 then let briers come up instead of wheat and weeds instead of barley.” The words of Job are ended.
Matthew 20:1-16 “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire men to work in his vineyard. 2 He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard. 3 “About the third hour he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. 4 He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ 5 So they went. “He went out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour and did the same thing. 6 About the eleventh hour he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’ 7 “‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered. “He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’ 8 “When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’ 9 “The workers who were hired about the eleventh hour came and each received a denarius. 10 So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. 11 When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. 12 ‘These men who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’ 13 “But he answered one of them, ‘Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? 14 Take your pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you. 15 Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ 16 “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”
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Books: Job, Matthew 3 Comments »
3 Responses to “February 27, 2010”
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February 27th, 2008 at 6:20 am
Jesus has an amazing way of revealing the jealousy, bitterness, and entitlement that many of the religious leaders of his day felt. In this parable, those who have worked hard all day for the landowner expect that they should receive more than the ones who only worked an hour or two. But the landowner gives them what he has already agreed upon, and all receive the same. In the end, it’s not that the ones who worked hard all day were cheated (since a denarius is a day’s wage), but that the ones who were latecomers were shown mercy and generosity.
Since this is a parable about the kingdom of heaven, it is a reminder that our God is a merciful and generous God who can bring people into His kingdom all the way up to the 11th hour (as shown by Jesus forgiving the criminal on the cross). Whenever we have entered, it is by His grace and mercy, and we can never look down on anyone who came in later than us, as if somehow they are less deserving. We have not gotten what we deserved, but have received life.
February 27th, 2008 at 8:29 am
I wish I could grasp all of what Job says in 26-31, as there is a progression in what he is saying. In 29:21 he is starting to feel sorry for himself as he remembers the ministry that he had, and now the sons of those that he was respected by, ignore him or worse. He is mocked by these people. One can hear the cry of a person who is experiencing “being knocked while down” that is so common in our culture. Can you also hear what Jesus was to hear,”he saved others, let him save himself–”. This must have been painful for a leader in the community to hear. Do we/I sometimes take some satisfacion when someone is brought down? I this case there was no justification, but is not the pain similar wether justified or not.
Notice 30:26,27 “Yet when I hoped for good,evil came”
“The churning inside me never stops–” How descriptive is that?
I think a crusial part from today may be 30:16/17. “And now my life ebbs away: days of suffering grip me. Night pierces my bones; my gnawing pains never rest.”
Life was not ebbing away, he was to live many more years, but Job did not know that, at that time it seemed that it did.
There are many who feel what Job felt here, and in some cases, life is ebbing away. There is a terminal ilness, or a person has reached an age that we know they will not recover; how can we empathize with that person. I well remember the personal struggle that I had coming to the point that I cold pray that God would take my Mother. Life was ebbing away, and every day seemed to prolong the inevitable end. How do we encompass this in our lives, in our worship, and in our church life. My brother has a somewhat derogatory way of refering to a certain type of worship as being ‘happy clappy”, and we need to be careful to keep a balance in our worship.
The negro spirituals tell of deep feeling in the negro slaves, who longed for the end, during a life of groaning. People tell of visting church services in the Soviet Union and telling of very slow but deeply moving songs. Last Sundays SU notes said “Perhaps less hype and more lament in Christian worship services might make church more user friendly to thousands of spiritual nomads who are searching for meaning and enlightenment, but who regard the churches as irrelevant to their quest. It may be that the lament pslams will become a key door into the biblical story for many people.” ( this was specifically about Psalm 42:1-11)
I take from today that I need to hear Job, and somehow identify with a person who may be in his situation, and in so doing, maybe ease the pain of the present. When I am feeling great, it is easy not to relate to someone like Job, currently in the shadows. As one grows older I find there are times when I do not want to go to church some days, precisely because I do not want to pretend to smile today, pretend that all is well, and do not want to deal with some “feeling great other person”, who makes me feel worse. However, I know that I cannot judge, for there are times that I am like that too.
How can we empathise with all, and be what a person needs today. That seems to me to be a vital question for us to ask ourselves as we seek to live out the christian life.
February 28th, 2008 at 10:54 am
Deeply embedded into American history is the idea that “all men are created equal”; however that clearly is not true.(I do believe all men have equal standing before God). We are born (created) with very different talents and capabilities, some with severe disabilities, and at day one, we are born into very differnent situations that either privelidge us or disadvantage us.
One of the lessons in the passage from Matthew today is that the measuring of rewards of the Kingdom are totally unlike those on earth, and we see that again tomorrow 20:23b, where a place had been prepared, chosen if you like by God. We tend to see such things as unjust and arbitrary, however we need a new view of grace, and the generosity of God. God is not like us, does not comply with our rules, and I need to be careful not to project my sense of what justice is, onto God. That is not easy, but if I could grasp it, I might be more content, more underestanding of others who have been blessed differently, less ready to judge.