Job’s One Thousand donkeys or Sh&%$%&*$%T Happens

The Revised Common Lectionary finishes up the book of Job this week.  Job 42:1-6 and 10-17 proves to us that there are such thing as happy endings. From the scripture:42:10 And the LORD restored the fortunes of Job when he had prayed for his friends; and the LORD gave Job twice as much as he had before.” God even gives Job 1000 donkeys.

There might not be better prooftexting for the prosperity gospel than this very verse.

Last night in our Tuesday night gathering at Lockerbie Central UMC, our most tenured member might have summed it up best.  “I’ve read Job.  I don’t think it justifies any type of suffering.  I think what it says is that SH*T Happens!”

He went on to ask, what about Job’s dead children?  It does them or Job no good that Job is ultimately rewarded for his “patience.”

Job is a tough, complicated book.  It is so easy to settle on simple answers.  I like what Marcus Borg writes about it in Reading the Bible Again for the First Time,”Is there such a thing as religion unmoitivated by self interest?  What would it mean to take God seriously not as a means, but as the ultimate end.”

Filed under: Christians, Lockerbie Central United Methodist Church, after pentecost, bible, church, economy , united methodist, marcus borg, bible, lockerbie central umc, Hebrew Bible, suffering, Job, creativity and suffering, donkeys, prosperity gospel, prooftexting, shit happens, revised comon lectionary, after pentecost, twenty second week, reading the bible again for the first time

You Can Have it All/ My Empire of Dirt: Johnny Cash, Creativity and Suffering

We heard from Johnny Cash in worship service tonight.   See, as the revised common lectionary  takes us through the book of Job, we at Lockerbie Central United Methodist, are taking an extended look at suffering and creativity.  

Johnny Cash was a country legend; an artist who outsold the Beatles in the late 1960s, hung out with Billy Graham, and had a raging drug addiction.  Despite not having the best voice or singing abilities, not being the best looking, and not being the most accomplished guitar player, he has become one of the greatest American artists; the only person in the songwriters’, country music, and rock n roll hall of fame.  

The  relationship between Rick Rubin and Johnny Cash made it into Rob Bell’s recent endeavor, Drop Like Stars:  A Thoughts on Suffering and Creativity.  During the last decade of Cash’s life, Rick Rubin, the famous music producer with roots in hip-hop, helped Cash find relevancy again.  

Without these album’s late in Cash’s life, starting with 1994’s American Recording, there might not have been no  Walk The Line, the Oscar winning movie about  Cash’s stormy relationship with eventual wife  June Carter, which grossed nearly 200 million dollars worldwide. 

In The Man Comes Around: The Spiritual Journey of Johnny Cash, author Dave Urbanski tells of an encounter between Cash and U2 frontman Bono.  Bono was traveling the U.S. and had dinner with Cash at his Nashville home.  Bono was amazed at the dinnertime prayer that the legendary singer gave.  After Cash finished the prayer, he said, “I sure do miss the drugs though.”  

Johnny Cash had an empire. Had his own museum and even had his own zoo.  He was far from perfect but realized that all he had, thanks to Rick Rubin and the Trent Reznor song Hurt, that everything he had was nothing more than an empire of dirt.  

The song concludes: 

A million miles away 
I would keep myself 
I would find a wayIf I could start again 
A million miles away 
I would keep myself 
I would find a way

Filed under: Christians, Lockerbie Central United Methodist Church, after pentecost, church, film, united methodist , american recording, billy graham, bono, cash, country music, country music hall of fame, creativity, dave urbanski, drops like stars, drugs, hall of fame, hip hop, hurt, johny cash, June Carter, lockerbie central, rick rubin, rob bell, rock and roll, songwriters' hall of fame, suffering, the beatles, the man comes around, trent reznor, u2, united methodist

Jesus the Laborer

The Sunday school teacher popped open a Joel Osteen book  and read us a lesson about how God wants us to be materially comfortable.  Fair enough.

I do think God wants everyone to be comfortable.

You know, that whole food/shelter/job kind of thing.

But I think Osteen and this teacher were going in a different direction with this.  Guys who do church in giant sports stadiums normally do.

I personally could not believe Jesus was middle class or had middle class aspirations or sensibilities.   The teacher wanted to argue but come on!

Jesus is not  a 1st Century Bob Villa! Wasn’t Jesus always preaching about greed and poverty?  Weren’t his following based among the social outcasts of his day?

I read Marcus Borg’s Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time a few years later.  I didn’t realize that this was Progressive Christianity 101 but I loved the book.

Borg makes the claim that we translate the word tekton in the gospels badly.  It gets translated carpenter (Bob Villa)  but tekton, according to Borg,  means laborer.  And in 1st century Palestine, to be a laborer means to have been pushed off your family’s ancestral farm  and orchards.

As we celebrate Labor Day this weekend  let us remember that Jesus was a laborer.  He was using all that he had to keep from starving–his own back and hands–because the old family homestead had been lost.

Filed under: after pentecost , jesus, economics, Joel Osteen, marcus borg, Revised Common Lectionary, labor day, worker, tekton, middel class, laborer, worker justice, farms, 1st century palestine, Bob Villa, sunday school