Brief synopsis of the readings: The first reading comes from the Old Testament book of Job. Here Job complains bitterly about his life being a drudgery. He compares himself to a slave and talks about troubled nights. He concludes by predicting that he will never see happiness again. Mark’s Gospel changes the mood dramatically. It begins with Jesus healing Simon’s (Peter’s) mother in law of a fever. That night the whole town gathered at the door as Jesus healed many who were ill or possessed by demons. The next morning Jesus went off to pray; when Simon (Peter) told Jesus that everyone was looking for him, Jesus responded by telling him that they were going to nearby villages to preach. The reading concludes by saying that they went throughout Galilee while Jesus preached and drove out demons.

I don’t think I’m alone in this, but when I find that the first reading comes from Job I groan a little inside. Job is a hard book and does not fall easily into a category. The book begins with a dialogue between God and “Satan.” This is where it starts getting hard and never gets easy. We normally think of “Satan” as the devil, the root of all evil, the one who tempts us to sin so we will be condemned to Hell and be barred from Heaven.

This “Satan,” however, is different. Here he is portrayed as an agent of God who “spies” on people. When Satan brings up Job, God recognizes Job as a just and righteous person, deserving of blessings. Satan counters by telling God that it’s easy for Job to be just and righteous as he is blessed with family and riches. God and Job then enter into a wager: God tells Satan that he can bring down any suffering on Job (except death). If Job condems God, Satan wins. If Job does not condemn God, God wins.

As this reading begins Job has lost nearly everything. His wealth is robbed, his children are killed, and he develops sores all over his body. His wife tells him to curse God and die (and be done with his suffering). As if this wasn’t enough, Job’s three friends show up and tell him his suffering must have been from some sin he has committed.

Given all this it’s not hard to see how Job is a little down on life. Since he has no idea that he is part of a bet, he has no understanding that of why this is happening to him. All he sees before him is more misery with no way out, and in a cruel twist he is told by his friends that it’s all his fault.

And with seemingly no answer to why Job is treated this way, we move to Mark’s Gospel with a dramatically different tone. Jesus is still in the “rookie season” of his public ministry and cures Peter’s mother in law of a fever. It’s worth noting that Catholics look to Peter as the first Pope and this give evidence that the early clergy were married.

And after healing this woman Jesus goes off by himself and we don’t really know why. Perhaps he was simply tired after healing her, and many others, and simply needed a rest. Perhaps he was overwhelmed by the power he was given and needed time to sort out his role and his understanding of himself as Redeemer. In any case when his disciples found him Jesus announced they were hitting the road. At first blush it must have seemed easier for Jesus to stay where he is. He had just healed a number of people and his reputation couldn’t have been better. He’s in a small town that would not have attracted unwanted attention from their Roman occupiers. He could have been the most popular man in Nazareth.

And so what do these readings have in common? When the lectionary was laid out it’s generally assumed that the first reading and gospel are linked. But where is link here?

Perhaps the link here is perseverance. Both of these readings are a snapshot of longer documents and we need to understand them in context. Unlike Job we know the rest of the story. In the end Job does not condemn God and his riches are restored (though it’s hard to imagine how his dead children are restored) and God wins the wager. His friends, who set up the world as “good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people” end up angering God. In the end perhaps the takeaway is that we should do good regardless of what happens to us.

But perseverance itself isn’t enough: these readings also call us to change our understanding of ourselves. Job found, at great cost, that blessings don’t always come from doing the right thing, and we still need to do the right thing even in the face of suffering. And Jesus, so young into his role in public ministry, began to understand that his role and his power will lead him to a much larger role than he thought.

And so with us. I think most of us can look at ourselves from 10 or 20 years ago with some surprise at where we are now. We’ve all faced challenges we didn’t expect that have called us to new abilities, but at least some of them have called us to see ourselves differently. I hope we’ve found ourselves capable of more compassion, creativity, or love than we thought. And anyone who has gotten married or had children can easily describe finding gifts and abilities they didn’t know they had.

Sometimes these discoveries come as a result of suffering or situations we didn’t choose, but not all of them. But like Job and Jesus, they come when we respond with love to these experiences.