Readings: Job 38:1-20, Matthew 22:34-40 

This chapter of Job is one of my favourites in Scripture. Only Moses, before this, had spoken with God as with a friend—mouth to mouth. And just as Moses was told to prepare the people, to make them ready to leave at a moment’s notice, so is Job told to gird his loins. God is asking him for an interior readiness, to be prepared to give an answer to God. 

Job has been wrestling with the evils that have come upon him. His friends have offered their judgements and opinions. If this were to happen today, this would no doubt be laid out across social media, the modern town square where people meet, speak, and shout, offering facts and opinions, reasons and judgements. 

While his friends offer what he calls ‘proverbs of ashes’, Job has directed his complaints, questions and laments directly to God. His cry has reached the heavens: an honest, open hearted lament. Just as he once offered sacrifices in the good days, so now Job offers his sorrow. He has remained faithful, and this faithfulness is not forgotten when his end becomes greater than his beginning.  

Just as, in Genesis it is written in the beginning, the Spirit of God hovered over the waters, so now does God speak out of a storm over the sea. He speaks from His mystery, from a place we have not seen. Out of the tempest comes a sense of power and might. The creation narrative that follows sets humankind—represented by Job—as small before the eternal and all-knowing God. Job is humbled before the Wisdom of God.  

“Where is the way to the dwelling place of light,” God asks, “and where is the place of darkness?” It reminds us of St Thomas the Apostle who says to Jesus “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” 

Be ready, therefore, at every moment, for God has shown us the way and the truth, yet only He knows the hour and the day. We live as people prepared, with oil in our lamps. 

“Who laid its cornerstone?”—the reference point of the cosmos, the point from which all relations between things were determined. For the shape of things in the beginning has determined the shape of what is now; as the shape of matter determines its properties and interactions. In this beautiful, created universe all things are known and seen, even the innermost thoughts of our hearts. We, limited creatures participating in the natural order, have no absolute knowledge. 

We were not there in the beginning; therefore we have no certainty about what is or is not beyond the bounds of our seeing. 

The certainty of our faith comes through the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and through the witnesses to Jesus Christ, who are the followers of the Way. 

God says, ‘from the wicked their light is withheld’. “God is light, in Him there is no darkness at all.” When God speaks, the sound of silence is light—like the light given to our eyes, by which what we see is known. 

We look on social media and the news outlets, and we pray particularly at this time for peace in France and across Europe, where rioting and violence destroys the peace humanity needs and longs for. And as we hear the rumbles of war in the distance, we pray too for peace in our time. War is the worst outcome for humanity. 

With the increasing visibility of despicable acts of terror and other unspeakable crimes committed against individuals and communities, much discussion has once again turned to just war, and capital punishment.   

One of the books I’m reading at the moment is by Seneca, who wrote: “Highway robbery seeks the shelter of darkness, but the more public an execution is, the more power it has as an example and lesson” (Of Anger, Section 19). 

The problem of capital punishment is neither one of reason alone, nor of faith alone. Any state or man can reason from his own premises to the conclusion that another must die. Executions as a sign to the strong or the wicked are an ancient practice. We must ask have they yet dissuaded mankind from waging war, or from the murder, rape and the torture of others? No. If the Law were enough to change the heart of humanity, would we need Jesus? 

In the beginning there was only one rule signifying our freedom. The law of states, it can be argued, simply holds back the tides of emotions and directs mankind’s ways by force rather than by desire. 

Whereas Jesus took death upon Himself and took upon Himself our sins so that we might have life. So do we now, or can we now, as followers of Christ, take the life of another away? Are we not signs of Christ? We take up our cross and are witnesses to a renewed life—both material and spiritual. We are signs and witnesses to His mercy.

Our Redeemer lives, who paid the price. 

This does not negate the argument of self-defence: to defend life is the right thing to do, and to restrict the life and freedom of a criminal is the right thing to do. The right to life comes from our common life together—that I am also my brother or sister with whom I share this earth. This does not call for leniency; crime ought to be punished, and this is a good for the common life. 

We know Jesus did not come as an activist. He looks for something deeper and internal: a revolution in our hearts. He did not come to fight for temporal power, and He resisted the temptations laid before Him in the desert. We know Jesus came to save our souls, and that God’s mercy is greater than His justice.  

Jesus, meek and humble of heart, asks us to follow Him as lights in a dark place. This gift, freely given, is offered to us all, saint and sinner alike. 

Jesus tells us to “enter by the narrow gate,” while the world travels the wide path that leads to destruction. Many are called. When we turn to Christ, are we moving toward the narrow gate with increasing holiness? Few are chosen as the path narrows on this journey home. This transformation through our effort is the law of gradualness, rather than a gradualness of the law.  

St Thomas Aquinas wrote a prayer for God’s light as knowledge: 

Creator of all things, 

true Source of light and wisdom, 

lofty origin of all being, 

graciously let a ray of Your brilliance 

penetrate into the darkness of my understanding 

and take from me the double darkness 

in which I have been born, 

an obscurity of both sin and ignorance. 

Give me a sharp sense of understanding, 

a retentive memory, 

and the ability to grasp things correctly and fundamentally. 

Aquinas also said that “knowledge of God is […] acquired through other things, but after He is known, He is no longer known through them, but through Himself, according to John 4:42: “We now believe, not for your saying: for we ourselves have heard Him, and know that this is indeed the Saviour of the world.”” (ST II-II q27, a3)

We do not come to know God through faith alone, nor reason alone, though we can approach through both. We fundamentally show people God through our own witness, and encounter, through the light that comes from us out into the world. 

And that light is love. All the Law and the Prophets are fulfilled through our love of God and our neighbour. 

When Jesus sent the Apostles out into the world, He sent them with the Word that, like the rain, would water the earth, making it grow and flourish. By preaching the gospel, people are not learning the art of war, but the art of peace. Through the Church we tend the soil, sow seeds, and prune—with Jesus the Gardener. The Word is not spread by conquest but by the transformed heart.  

In His stillness, time and eternity are one, yet the Spirit moves like the wind into our experience. Are we watching? Are we keeping awake for the signs of the times? We may not be able to directly influence world leaders at the touch of a button, but each of us is like a little drop of rain that falls to the earth. We matter. We have an impact on those around us, and that effect spreads out beyond us. Law is a movement, a harmony with the Divine order or reason—just as space tells matter how to move, and matter tells space how to curve. Law and Divine Order are intrinsic to the fabric of the universe and the material reality in which we participate. 

We must look into our depths, into the interior space of our conscience, and choose life over death. Choose Jesus Christ, who is the life of the world to come.  

Amen.