S3:E7 – None of my business

Podcast | Matthew Clark

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None of my business

by Matthew Clark | One Thousand Words

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Maybe there’s some irony in the fact that I read the book of Job during the last couple months of 2020? For many much more than for me, last year was a very Job-like year. A year of difficulty, loss, fear, lots of voices with lots of opinions and none of it doing much good.

Part of the irony of Job is that most of the book is taken up with these monologues that attempt to get a grip on the situation, make sense of it, but the truth is that no one knows what’s going on. Now, as readers we are given a look onto a bigger picture that the characters in the book are not privy to. For instance, as much as it looks like Job is being punished, weirdly enough and against all appearances – he’s not! Actually, as the readers we have this information Job and his friends don’t have. Yes, he’s being attacked by the devil and God is allowing it, but rather than being about punishment, it’s actually because God is proud of Job. The devil has said that there’s no such thing as goodness for goodness sake. According to the cynicism of the devil, it’s just not possible that Job is obeying out of genuine love for God; the only explanation is that Job is obeying because of the perks. So the devil’s proposal is simple: remove the perks, watch Job curse. Easy peasy. But, unlike the devil, God believes in real love and goodness; he knows what keeps Job steady isn’t some kind of holy bribe, but genuine love.

Job’s story is certainly strange, in many ways disturbing, but ultimately it is a shot in the arm that inoculates us against the cynicism and despair of a world that is tempted to give up on there even being such a thing as love with no strings attached. I don’t mean love without commitment and responsibility, of course, but love that loves even though it costs, even though it gets nothing in return. Love that can’t be bought, only given and received as a grace.

I have a hard time with that. I like to give this much and get this much in return. Or, if I can manage the situation, I’d prefer to get a deal: I mean, I’d like to give a little and get a lot. But the picture of Jesus on the Cross is so drastically different, isn’t it? He empties himself completely, “wastes” his beautiful life like Mary’s expensive perfume – an act of extravagant beauty worthy of telling and retelling around the world and for all time. But for what? For a handful of knuckle-heads who fall asleep when Jesus longs for companions in anxiety, who desert him when times get tough, for every kind of hateful, disgusting rebellion imaginable, for murderers, adulterers, swindlers, and on and on.

All told, Jesus had it way worse than Job, and, when it came down to brass tacks, his friends were about as helpful. But like Job he was rewarded in the end with an abundant inheritance. A restored family. But Jesus, like Job, had to do the right thing, had to stick his neck out, with no guarantees. He still has no guarantees, as far as I know, that he’ll get much bang for his buck. But here’s the amazing thing, Jesus died because love is real. No one bribed him, tricked him, twisted his arm, or cornered him. No one took his life from him, he laid it down. And as long as he lives, real love endures. Then the question is, “how long does he live?” Forever. His love endures forever.

Jesus, like Job, had to face the voice of cynicism. He was wasting away in the desert when, instead of three friends, three temptations were spoken over him. The same devil who attacked Job does his best to break Jesus’s spirit by offering shortcuts that harmonize with that familiar cynicism. Each shortcut opens a way for Jesus to give up on doing the right thing for the right reason. “The right way is too painful, why not numb-out? medicate instead – turn the stone into bread. The way of humility and love is too costly, perform for them and they’ll be forced to acknowledge you – hop off the temple. You’re getting a raw deal, Jesus, why pay so much? I’ll sell you the whole world for cheap – just bow down to me.”

But Jesus knows there is a more beautiful way. And, like Job, the suffering Jesus isn’t being rejected by God; he is suffering because his Father is proud of him.

Recently, I’ve been thinking about this with regard to the ways God has invited us into his life and work. Well, this could be a whole other podcast, but how crazy is it that God, who could obviously do everything much better by himself, chooses to ask us for help in getting his work done? It seems like such a terrible idea. It’s like Rembrandt handing out paint brushes to a bunch of four-year-olds and asking them to help him paint the Return of the Prodigal Son. This is a good idea how exactly? Apparently, it’s more important to the Lord that we be as deeply involved in his life as possible, than that we be terribly proficient.

At any rate, here we are: called to collaborate with God in his cosmic plan of redemption. Part of the difficulty is that we, like Job and his friends, like Rembrandt’s four-year-olds, have a hard time seeing the big picture. We don’t always know why we’re doing what we’re doing, more often than not we feel like it’s not making any difference at all.

I’ll give you a personal example and a quick story to illustrate our predicament.

So, I’m a singer/songwriter and one of the things that has always bugged me about that, and about the arts in general, is that their value is not quantifiable in any easy way. For instance, if I grow bananas, I can get so many dollars for so many bananas. The product is clear, the unit of exchange is clear – the value is easy to account for. I can get my head around it. But songs? What even is music? And what makes a song valuable? How do you quantify it? We are exiting the realm of industry and capitalism and entering the realm of mystery and beauty. Trying to combine those realms is like asking how much money does it cost to be a good friend? What are we even talking about?

Recently, I was feeling particularly insecure about launching into the recording of a new album. I prayed, “Father, how do I know it’s worth it? Will these songs do anything out in the world? What will they do? Who will they reach?” In that moment, I was reminded that what God has called me to is, to the best of my ability, to faithfully write and sing about Jesus, so far as I’ve met him in the Scriptures, life, and the church. Whether I ever see a return for my investment, or have any idea what good it did, is really none of my business. Do what you’ve been called to do as a witness to the reality of holy love. That’s it. Don’t wait till it makes sense – break the alabaster, pour out that beautiful, expensive perfume.

I remember one particular night when the Lord met me with this lesson in a powerful way.

I showed up to play a house concert in the Midwest. It was the last concert of a long tour and I was worn out. Standing there in a beautiful backyard with my guitar singing, I looked out at the faces of the folks gathered there, but instead of gratitude or wonder at their presence, all I could feel was that everything I was doing was totally pointless. And I transferred all my weariness, insecurity, and disappointment onto those poor folks. I was just sure they were all miserable. I was sure they were all wishing (like I was) that this concert would hurry up and be over so they could go home. But I had come there to do a job, and so I thought to myself, “Just get through the songs. Just put one foot in front of the other and it’ll be over soon.”

So I did. I got through the songs, told the stories, and then I went to hang out and talk to people at the merch table. I had a hard time believing anyone’s smiles or kind words, because my own heart was in such a poor state. But one young woman introduced herself. She said that she didn’t know anyone at the concert; she didn’t know how, but she had wound up on someone’s mailing list and a random invitation to this concert had showed up in her email. On a whim, she decided to come all by herself to a total stranger’s house to listen to a singer/songwriter she’d never heard of. She told me that she was not a Christian, but that tonight at this concert, something about the Gospel made sense to her for the first time.

I couldn’t believe it. You know, maybe if I had felt full of the Holy Spirit that night? Maybe if I’d been having fun or felt like there was a good connection happening with that audience? But this was probably one of the worst concerts I’d ever played. I phoned it in, I felt like. By my own account both the concert and I had been a total failure, and this whole night had been a waste of everybody’s time.

But I was wrong. Like Job, there was some other story I was a part of that I didn’t know about. There was a perspective I wasn’t privy too while I was singing those songs.

That was a powerful lesson for me. I think about it often. Because the truth is, most of the time I have no idea what my life or my work really means. Typically, we are not privy to how God is making us a part of his life and work; we feel like it’s making no difference. For me, that experience taught me that it’s none of my business to know whether or how it’s making a difference, my only responsibility is to show up with the beautiful truth again and again in any way I can think of. To sing every song and tell every story with my whole heart, because I have no idea who is listening or what they need in that moment, but the Lord does. And I can trust him that he will take the smallest thing offered in oblivious faith, and make himself available to someone through it.

We pour out the expensive perfume like Mary, we trust like Job, we empty ourselves like Jesus – even though it all seems to be a total waste. Only it’s not. It’s a beautiful thing offered in faith. And, whether we know it or not, like songwriter Bruce Cockburn sings, God will make us “a little of [His] breath moving over the face of the deep” or “a particle of [His] light moving over the hills of morning.”

Hills of Morning

Bruce Cockburn

Underneath the mask of the sulfur sky

A bunch of us were busy waiting

Watching the people looking ill-at-ease

Watching the fraying rope get closer to breaking

Women and men moved back and forth

In between effect and cause

And just beyond the range of normal sight

This glittering joker was dancing in the dragon’s jaws

Let me be a little of your breath

Moving over the face of the deep

I want to be a particle of your light

Flowing over the hills of morning

The only sign you gave of who you were

When you first came walking down the road

Was the way the dust motes danced around

Your feet in a cloud of gold

But everything you see’s not the way it seems

Tears can sing and joy shed tears

You can take the wisdom of this world

And give it to the ones who think it all ends here

Let me be a little of your breath

Moving over the face of the deep

I want to be a particle of your light

Flowing over the hills of morning

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