Thoughts on Today’s Lessons for Sunday, Oct. 14, 2012.

First Reading: Job 23:1-9, 16-17
Job is still on the ash heap where we left him last week, scratching his sores with a shard of broken pottery. His friends have given up on trying to console him. Job’s words are bitter, angry. He wants a word with God, he wants to argue his case before God, but he can’t find God. In the darkness he is terrified and wants to vanish. Stay tuned as the story continues next week.

Psalm 22:1-15
Jesus, dying on the cross, cried out in his final agony the words that begin Psalm 22: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” So begins this reading, titled “Plea for Deliverance from Suffering and Hostility,” echoing Job’s lament in the cry of one who is strung out, knocked down, worn out, feeling the depth of despair and no place to turn … except to God, who knew him as an infant and who, he prays, will be there for him now.

Second Reading: Hebrews 4:12-16
Hebrews speaks of Jesus – “the word of God” – in language that we seldom associate with the Good Shepherd: “sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow … before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare …” God expects much of us, as today’s Gospel repeats. Are we ready to be laid bare before our God?

Gospel: Mark 10:17-31
“Go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor … then come, follow me.” Really? Stewardship season is coming soon, and we’ll be invited to pledge our support of the church. Luckily for us, however, we’re not expected to give everything we own – are we? Perhaps these verses, like the Sermon on the Mount, challenge us by setting Jesus as a standard of perfection that we can aim for but won’t likely reach. Or perhaps we are meant to squirm, remembering just how rich we are, and ask ourselves if our possessions stand between us and real love of God and neighbor.