So she said, “See, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods; return after your sister-in-law.”
But Ruth said, “Do not press me to leave you
or to turn back from following you!
Where you go, I will go;
where you lodge, I will lodge;
your people shall be my people,
and your God my God.
Where you die, I will die –
there will I be buried.
May the Lord do thus and so to me,
and more as well,
if even death parts me from you!” [Ruth 1.15-17]

A handful of years ago I was at conference with a group of young leaders from the breadth of our Uniting Church. They were a fabulous mix from Gen-Z, representing the diversity of our community and our church, keen to get involved and to lead, to push the edges and to discover where their faith might take them.

We travelled through the story of Ruth, Orpah and their mother-in-law Naomi. This famous passage, often read at weddings, was the focus of one conversation. Following tragedy, Naomi has instructed the two young women to leave; Orpah leaves, Ruth stays.

The speaker asked all the young leaders to sit on the left side of the room if they thought Ruth made the right choice, and on the opposite side, if they agreed with Orpah’s decision.

A number of us were astonished to see that the room of over one hundred young leaders was evenly divided. The ones who sided with Orpah were asked why they had made their particular choice. This group, largely of Pasifika and Korean heritage responded that you obey your elders.

This cultural expectation would also have been true of the world in which Naomi, Ruth and Orpah lived, and the first several generations of those who listened to this story.

The young leaders who supported Ruth were largely of Anglo background; I had always been taught that Ruth made the right choice, and suddenly I needed to rethink both my theology and my assumptions when I speak to people.

Is it possible that those who first heard this were shaking their heads with the same exasperation as those who heard Jesus’ parable of the son who pre-emptively asked for his share of his father’s inheritance and wasted it all in a foreign land?

The difference is prophetic. Ruth acts to serve Naomi’s safety, risking herself with the possibility that two women might shape a future, whereas one widow seems destined for penury.

What does it mean to stand against a cultural assumption, to defy what everyone expects? What does it mean to hope against circumstance, and to chose life, acting in that hope and choice?

How do we speak in our church – our community – when we naïvely expect our cultural expectations to be the same as everyone else, and discover that they are not?

When we offer the gospel; when we stand as advocates; when we look for justice; we need to attend to those we seek to serve, and to understand that service is not control, but offered in humility and hope.

Ruth’s covenant decision is profound, and changes history. May we have her wisdom, her courage, and her love.  

Bartimaeus began to shout out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” Jesus stood still and said, “Call him here.” And they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take heart; get up, he is calling you.” So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. [Mark’s Gospel 10.47-50]

An argument can be made that the Harry Potter books are, essentially, not about magic at all. All the palaver from a few groups in our community about witches, wizards and wands – and the banning of books – meant that a handful of people missed the story entirely.

A engaging story of the journey through high school and adolescence was wonderfully about courage and grief, teenage humour and discovery, fear and love and laughter, the making of friends and the hope of a future after significant loss. The magic, for most of the story, was icing on the cake.

A similar argument can be made about Bartimaeus and his encounter with Jesus – that it’s precisely not about fixing the sight of a blind man. An extraordinary series of gospel stories culminates in this man seeing more clearly than anyone else. The irony is that almost no one notices him, ever. The irony, magnified, is that his physical vision is almost entirely impaired.

Mark builds the story carefully, with the disciples walking, stumble by misstep, after Jesus.

A foreign woman, least expected to understand the mission of Jesus because of her gender and being a gentile, redefines his calling through desperation and hope. In the next breath, children are welcomed by Jesus, as he declares their perspective as most appropriate to comprehend God’s reign.

The disciples, and the crowd of which we are a part, are amazed when a rich man rejects Jesus’ invitation and challenge, and again when the Pharisees see their task as stumbling blocks as opposed to stepping stones. How is it possible that the rich and the clergy fail to understand Jesus’ call to discipleship?

Thus we meet Bartimaeus, who sees clearly enough to defy the crowd. The rich man was unable to leave everything behind; Bartimaeus walks away from his livelihood in order to discover life. The Pharisees laid traps for Jesus and Bartimaeus evades them all as he walks from a beggar’s life to discipleship.

Jesus asks James and John the identical question that he asks Bartimaeus. The brothers request glory, greatness and recognition. Bartimaeus asks for mercy.

When we read this story, the culmination of this stanza in Mark’s Gospel, do not miss the meaning by looking only for the illustrations.

When we encounter Jesus, despite all the obstacles we have overcome, what do we need to ask him? And what, in mercy, do you believe Jesus will say?

Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind:
“Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?
Gird up your loins like a man, I will question you, and you shall declare to me.
“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding.” [Job 38.1-4]

“Smite me, O mighty smiter!” yells the lead character in the movie, Bruce Almighty, daring God to act, as one misstep after another leads to chaos in his life.

We have similarly laughed at Basil Fawlty raising his clenched fist, heavenwards, as his life enters another spiral, with accusation laid at the feet of the Almighty. Even in the more complex and engaged debate from President Jed Bartlet in West Wing, we hear the most powerful man in the world accuse God of wilful behaviour and arbitrary punishment.

This cartoon from The Far Side echoes the anger, or fear, of Bruce and Basil and Bartlet, as they come to terms with catastrophes of various dimensions. The reason these images work so well is that, deep down, many of us fear that God has that capacity, that character flaw, waiting to push the “smite” button, simply because God can.

When we read the extraordinary tale of Job and his family, we are at risk of equating a story of suffering and injustice, of faithfulness and despair with the imaginary, vindictive deity against whom Basil Fawlty raises his fist.

We are called to advocate for those who suffer; we are commanded to offer our compassion. We are also called to engage with faithful questioning, to wrestle out our discipleship, to engage and contend with God. Our faith, through Christ, compels us to address suffering, to confront injustice and to stand, with open hearts and hands, beseeching our faithful God, and asking why.

Job enquires of God why such punishment has been visited upon him and his family. God’s response to Job describes far more than arbitrary action. It is the reply that says there is more happening than we can know, and that God is, essentially, more than we can imagine, or prescribe.

Our faith, through Christ, compels us to address suffering, to confront injustice and to stand, with open hearts and hands, beseeching our faithful God, and asking why.

God’s answer, for those who know the depths of injustice and suffering, always seems insufficient. It is, however, the wrestle of every human being to understand why wrong things happen across the world and history. As people sit in dust and ashes in Gaza and Lebanon; as the folk in Ukraine watch their history and future destroyed; as politicians play the lottery with economic policy and people’s lives, the appeal of Job to God makes absolute sense to all of us.

Jesus’ life and death and resurrection at the heart of history speaks into the question of suffering and injustice. The proclamation that God is not above and beyond our lives, but with us, articulates something more profound and wonderful than Job hears from his fickle friends, or even from God’s response.

Yes, God is indeed more than we can ask or imagine. God, however, is with us. That assertion calls for our voice and our action as disciples of this God. Our faith, through Christ, compels us to address suffering, to confront injustice and to stand, with open hearts and hands, beseeching our faithful God, and asking why.

Our Armidale Congregation is compiling a number of faith stories, to encourage and help each other remember – and “remember forward” – in our discipleship.

When asked to consider my journey of faith, one of the most difficult steps was not to launch into a formal account, but to sit and remember those stanzas which have brought me, under God’s mercy, to where I am.

I have wandered and walked, danced and stumbled, and waited. My faith has roots in the maternal branch of my family, deep roots of discipleship and integrity, to which I have grafted my experiences.

I found my first home in a large Sydney youth group in the last years of the seventies, having been coerced to join by my parents, and discovering relationships which shaped me in new ways. It was here that I first heard – and answered – a call to faith in Jesus; I began to understand forgiveness and the anticipation of following Christ.

The youth group offered the necessary ingredients of people my age, and slightly older; people with whom to learn and grow, and people to admire. There were weekly bible studies and worship, discipleship and small groups – all of these shaped me into my understanding of how community is essential to discipleship and also gave me deep grounding in scripture and prayer.

The charismatic movement was a lively (and often criticised) movement in the Church, and many of us engaged with enthusiasm. The presence of the Spirit, and the excitement of renewal were pivotal in shaping my sense of discipleship, and the possibilities of what an unconstrained God can – and will – do in the world and the Church. As an extrovert, the renewal of the Church makes my heart race.

It was during these years that I first had a sense of call to more formal ministry, even as I found myself on the margins of the traditional Church. At this time, most of the mainstream Church seemed naively confident that it was well resourced to address the challenges happening around us. Many of us were, and remain, impatient for change.

My formation into ordained ministry at College was rigorous and wonderful, and a revelation. I learned better to listen to those wiser than I am, to colleagues around me, to my heart, and to the Spirit. The depths of theology and scripture echoed my desire for transformation, in myself and the Church, echoes of hope and impatience. These still resonate, ever loudly as I write this.

The irony of serving in traditional ordained ministry, and yearning for transformation is not lost on me. Notwithstanding, I believe I am where I am supposed to be, and am entirely thankful to God.

I rejoice in the stanzas of my discipleship, with more to come. I have remembered to treasure the time before people arrive for worship, praying in the silence, listening. I am most affected by hope; the hope found in the risen, crucified Christ. This hope is essential for me, and addresses our frailties as both disciples and church, and the wounds the world bears so heavily.

In my impatience for transformation, I continue to learn about the action of God, in God’s time. In my hope, placed in Jesus Christ, I wait with expectation and joy.

Kneeling | R.S. Thomas
Moments of great calm,
Kneeling before an altar
Of wood in a stone church
In summer, waiting for the God
To speak; the air a staircase
For silence; the sun’s light
Ringing me, as though I acted
A great role. And the audiences
Still; all that close throng
Of spirits waiting, as I,
For the message.
                        Prompt me God,
But not yet. When I speak,
Though it be you who speak
Through me, something is lost.
The meaning is in the waiting.

– R.S. Thomas, Selected Poems (Bloodaxe Books, 1986)

Jesus said, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” They were greatly astounded and said to one another, “Then who can be saved?” … Jesus said, “But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.”  [Mark 10.17-31]

We have developed, even cultivated, an elastic capacity when we hear Jesus’ words.

We attend to the astonishing challenges of his teaching, or the stories Jesus tells and, moments later we return, reflexively, to where we were.

We encounter wayward sons and roadside Samaritans, soldiers and Sadducees, forgiveness beyond our counting, and are astonished that blind beggars see more clearly than community leaders. Children become the hallmark of God’s kingdom, for both hospitality and understanding, while those who are hungriest and least likely are desperate for the life Jesus offers, grasping with both hands – and their hearts.

So easily we discover ourselves looking for another inference, or something which won’t disrupt the shape we have made for our lives.  

“Christianity is one beggar telling another beggar where to find food” a missionary suggested.[1] Perhaps our diet is too rich? Are we too well fed?

Many of us read the story of a rich man walking away from Jesus and immediately dismiss the idea that the story has anything to do with money. It’s a metaphor, or something; an illustration about what weighs us down or distracts us.

Don’t worry, I get it. The story unnerves me too.

I want to suggest that, at the core of many of us is the flimsy and undisturbed belief that money is a valid marker of value and achievement. That people who get ahead (or are born ahead) will, deservedly, remain ahead.

Thus, when Jesus trips the disciples by declaring anyone who is wealthy is too encumbered to enter the kingdom of God, we nod our heads wisely for a moment, mentally check our bank balance and decide (thankfully!) that we have less money than Lachlan Murdoch, and we start measuring embroidery needles.

You see, Jesus can’t be inferring this has anything to do with me.

And a blind man leaves his livelihood pushing his way past us, to risk himself with Jesus, discovering sight and life and one to follow into eternity.

What must we do to inherit eternal life?

How hungry are you?

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[1] D.T. Niles