The Rev. Sara Warfield
Scripture: Job 23:1-9, 16-17
As we're in our own In-Between Time at St. Luke's and worshiping in the Parish Hall, we don't have our formal Zoom/recording rig set up. Rev. Sara asked Kirby to record her sermon at the very last minute, so the recording moves up and down a bit. A huge thanks to Kirby for being so adaptable!
When I saw the last pew taken out of the sanctuary on Wednesday, I gasped. Oh my goodness. It’s all actually happening. This is a lot. It’s going to be so different. Did we make the right decision? I was suddenly flooded with uncertainty. Even with the faded, dusty, frankly ugly asbestos tiles laid bare in all their cancer-causing glory. Even as I looked down at the red carpet with all its holes and tears and waves that spoke to how we’d held onto it well past its use-by date.
Even as the space spoke clearly and loudly to me of desperately needing resurrection, I still wondered: Maybe it was fine before?
This is what Jack Bevilacqua has called the In-Between Time. He and a few others have been helping to articulate and shape how we’ve held this process as a community. It was this group that created the ritual by which all our concerns and fears and excitement and hopes about this Sanctuary Resurrection process were shared and heard during worship. It was this group that helped us to intentionally and prayerfully say goodbye to our pews and piano. I am so grateful to each of them for their honesty and care and thoughtfulness.
And it has been this group that has acknowledged that there is no resurrection without death. There is no change without tension. And, if we’re being honest with ourselves, there is no new life without discomfort and uncertainty. That tension, that discomfort, that uncertainty is the In-Between Time. It’s Holy Saturday when the disciples and all who loved Jesus were in deep grief because, even though he told them otherwise, no one really believed that Jesus would come back from the dead. No one really believed that something even more life-giving, something more profound than our imaginations could possibly conceive of, could come after such a gruesome and cruel death.
And I don’t blame them. That Holy Saturday must have been excruciating. I have the benefit of 2,000 years of hindsight and now take for granted that of course Jesus was resurrected. But when I put myself in Mary Magdalene’s place on that Saturday, I don’t feel hope. I feel despair. I wish I could go back a few days and tell Jesus to run, hide. I wish I could protect him so that I wouldn’t lose him. I would just want things to stay the same.
That’s often what the In-Between Time feels like. That stage of grief called bargaining. If only I could go back and say something different, make a different choice, then this wouldn’t hurt so much. Sure, maybe it wasn’t great before, but it was better than this.
It would be better than sitting in these uncomfortable chairs with this makeshift altar and skeleton sound system in this basement Parish Hall, wouldn’t it?
—
Job is living in a bit of a different In-Between Time. In what is a theologically problematic premise, God has sent Job into the depths of suffering at the behest of Satan, the Accuser, who basically says, “If Job really is so faithful, make him prove it. Take everything away from him and see if he still holds true.” So God allows the Accuser to take away Job’s family, wealth, livelihood, and health—just to see how he responds.
It’s theologically problematic because: Do I really want to follow a God who allows massive, random suffering to be inflicted on people just to see if they’ll still be faithful? I’m going to leave that question for a different sermon.
The rest of Job is the story of how he moves through that suffering and tries to understand it. He discusses it with his “friends” who also give some theologically problematic explanations: You must have done something to deserve it! is what they basically say. That’s the only way they can understand it.
By the time we get to chapter 23, our reading today, Job has refused to accept his friends’ explanation and is demanding to speak with the manager—God, that is.
Oh, that I knew where I might find you,
that I might come even to your dwelling!
I would lay my case before you,
and fill my mouth with arguments.
I would learn what you would answer me,
and understand what you would say to me.
I am suffering, Job is saying. I am in anguish, and I just want to understand. Please help me to understand.
And that desire to argue, that desire to bargain, that desire to understand is the shining light of Job’s faith. Job continues to argue with God because he believes that God is ultimately just, and that God will ultimately hear him. He believes so strongly in a God of love, in a God of justice, that he is unwilling to accept his situation as is. Yes, even shouting “What the hell, God? Why is this happening?” is an act of belief, an act of faith.
The In-Between Time can be painful, yes, but it can also be profound, powerful. The In-Between Time can show us what our faith is really made of.
—
As I mentioned last Sunday, this—among all the other things going on here—is also our Stewardship Month. That time of the year when each of us commits to serving this community we love by offering our gifts of time, skills, energy, and, yes, money. We ask each household to pledge what they will give during all of 2025. What we all pledge for the year is the number we build our budget around. It determines whether or not we can give a raise to Marcia, our Office Manager. It determines whether we’re able to do essential maintenance to our building or push it off another year.
We don’t ask for a tithe, which is a flat 10% of your income, because we know that 10% of a $40,000 income impacts a household much differently than 10% of $140,000. But we do suggest and encourage you to give a certain percentage of your income depending on what that income is. I believe that if all of us gave according to that suggested scale, we would start 2025 with a balanced budget—something we haven’t done since I’ve been here.
I don’t know about you, but for me, there’s a bit of an In-Between Time when I get ready to fill out my pledge card. It is important to me as your rector and leader to make sure that I am always doing myself that which I request of you. So when I get my stewardship letter and see the suggested pledge for my household income—well, that’s when I enter the In-Between Time. That suggested percentage of my income is a significant chunk of money.
There’s a moment of tension, discomfort, uncertainty. I can probably afford it, but it might mean adjusting some of my priorities. And that tension, discomfort, and uncertainty, that bargaining, invite me to think and pray about my faith, my belief in God.
How God led me here. To this loving parish that has been patient with me as I navigated my first call as a rector, that stuck together during a global pandemic that tried so hard to keep us apart, that held me with such great care through my divorce which was the most difficult thing I’ve ever been through.
My deepest prayer is that everyone finds a community like St. Luke’s. One where I got to come as I was, queer, tattooed, a newbie priest. Where you get to come as you are, in all your beauty and brokenness, where we all know will be held in God’s limitless love.
That tension, discomfort, uncertainty, that bargaining, ultimately show me how much I believe in this little corner of the Body of Christ which is St. Luke’s. And my pledge shows me what my faith is really made of.
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