Memorial of Saint Jerome, Priest and Doctor of the Church
In 1976, a new Broadway musical debuted, based on the Gospel of Matthew, and entitled, Your Arms Too Short to Box with God: A Soaring Celebration in Song and Dance. The title of this production hearkens back to a story recounted by James Weldon Johnson (author and civil rights activist) in his novel, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man. Johnson tells of a fiery preacher named John Brown who thundered in one of his sermons, “Young man, yo’ arm's too short to box wid God!” This blunt and provocative statement must have rung a deep bass note for Johnson, as he uses it again in his poem “The Prodigal Son,” published as part of a collection in 1927. This exclamation vividly describes our smallness in the light of God’s indescribable vastness. We are too infinitesimal to comprehend God’s greatness. Not only are our arms too short, we cannot even come close to conceiving of this God who is so transcendently other! I think this phrase from Pastor Brown offers a fitting synopsis of our first reading from Job. It’s an invitation to fall prostrate before our great God in an attitude of abject humility. It’s an opportunity to practice coming before the Holy Trinity in awe and wonder, fear and reverence.
Our reading begins with Job answering his friend Bildad, who made the statement, See, God will not reject a blameless person, nor take the hand of evildoers. He will yet fill your mouth with laughter, and your lips with shouts of joy. Job replies, “. . . but how can a man be justified before God?” Indeed, without Jesus Christ and his life, death, resurrection, and ascension, there is no way to be justified before God! As you pray the first reading, put yourself in Job’s shoes. The Messiah has not yet come; Job has suffered horrific calamity and he’s trying to make sense of it all and of his standing before God. As you read Job’s words expressing awe and wonder, can you make them yours, as well? How else might you want to express the reverence and awe that you feel within you toward God?
As you continue reflecting on God’s greatness, God’s vastness, God’s transcendence, picture yourself now as you are, standing firmly within the Paschal Mystery. We have a whole other realm in which to revere God and to fall awestruck. We have been saved and set free by the redeeming love of God expressed through Christ’s finished work on the Cross and his glorious resurrection and ascension. What feelings of awe, wonder, and gratitude bubble up for you as you consider this wondrous love, this indescribable gift of salvation?
Let us today, follow Job’s example of approaching God with awe and wonder. As we go about our ordinary day, let us do so with extraordinary awareness of our smallness, God’s greatness, and the extravagance of God’s love for us. May God bless you to have an awe-some day!
- Elizabeth Wourms