Explore and respond

Ideas for a sermon or interactive talk

See also ‘Thought for the week’ to read out in place of a sermon; and 'The week in focus', linking the readings to the news.

• How do we picture God? What words do we use to address God in our prayers and songs? As we read through the Bible, does God change or do the writers’ understandings of God change? How has our understanding of God changed as our lives have changed (if at all)? Our texts today provide an opportunity for us to explore the identity of God – from the great creative artist celebrated in Psalm 104, to the very forthright figure in Job, to the servant and suffering God of Mark 10 and Hebrews 5. Does God change or is God experienced in different ways at different times – remember the divine revelation to Moses in Exodus 3:14, which can also be expressed as ‘I will be who I will be’. The presentation of God in Job can be quite shocking, but might it be a reminder that we can sometimes imagine God to be our ‘mate’ to the point of over-familiarity?
• In both Job and Psalm 104, reverence or respect for God centres on God’s work of creation. Celebrating God’s work in creation is a popular theme of both songs and prayers used in gathered worship. But what about the rest of life? How does the way in which we treat creation speak of our attitude towards the Creator? Does it speak of reverence or indifference or even contempt? And what does our consumption of the resources of creation say about our attitude to others? Do we lord it over those with less or give of ourselves for their good?
• Sir David Attenborough, often considered to be Britain’s greatest naturalist, has often expressed his agnosticism despite all the beautiful and awe-inspiring things he sees. In one interview he explains that he never gives credit to an almighty power because he is unsure himself how a God of love can also create the bad things he has seen. He would prefer to show things he knows to be truthful so people can make up their own minds. How does this resonate with people who watch his programmes and are often inspired by the awe they see?

Thought for the week

Read out in place of a sermon if you wish

The Narnia series of books by CS Lewis introduce us to the Jesus-figure, Aslan. The cleverness of this analogy becomes more apparent as you read through the series, but in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, where Susan and Lucy first meet him, Aslan is introduced as the Great Lion. Susan is amazed and scared. She’d thought he was a man. She asks how a lion could be safe. Mr Beaver explains that he is most definitely not safe. But he is good.

It feels as if Lewis had been reading Job when he wrote this. Because in today’s Old Testament passage we see the full force of who God is in relation to mere mortals.

In portraying Aslan as a lion, Lewis points us towards the otherness of God. The parts of him that we will never fully comprehend. The parts of God that aren’t safe. What is safe about a lion? Perhaps our concept of God has become too safe. After all, it’s easier to relate to Jesus as the friend that he is and God as our Father than to God’s otherness. Christianity is founded on relationship, on our being God’s children. But can that sometimes lead us away from remembering the greatness of God? Are we in danger of trying to make God our ‘mate’ rather than acknowledging his greatness and complete otherness? How often are we tempted to ‘make God in our own image’ rather than allowing him to be the God that he is, even if we don’t like it?

We might like to rewrite the book of Job, to have God’s intervention here as showing compassion and care, taking Job in his arms to comfort him. But, the reality is, that instead we hear God effectively saying, ‘Job, look around you. This is who I am.’ Because God is who he is, he has every right to act in the way that he does. He is the one who created not just atoms and cuddly creatures, plankton and billions of stars but also fierce beasts, volcanoes, hurricanes and storms. We cannot fathom God. And nor should we try. Just like a child sometimes has to acquiesce to the parent who says: ‘Because I say so!’, so do we need to bow to the God of the universe. Authority figures may not be popular in our culture, but there are times when we just have to accept that they are there. This is what Job was learning when God spoke to him out of the storm. God is not tame. He is not safe. God is.

But Job’s story isn’t the end of the story, as we know. Let’s jump forwards to our Gospel reading and here, again, we see a God that we cannot truly comprehend. We see God in Jesus. But we don’t see the majesty this time. We don’t see the glory. At least, we don’t see it where we would look for earthly glory. We would look in the boardroom, in the parliament buildings, with the Hollywood greats and the billionaires. But God has baffled us again. In our Gospel reading we hear Jesus telling his disciples: ‘The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many’. Here, again, we need to recognise the unfathomability of God. The one who, in Graham Kendrick’s words ‘flung stars into space’ is now surrendering ‘to cruel nails’. Surely, no sane person who wanted to create a god-figure would allow them to suffer and die? What sort of God is that? What sort of God indeed. Only the God that we worship.