Artists and Engineers (Sunday 25th October)

Job 42.1-6, 10-17, Psalm 34.1-8, Hebrews 7.23-28, Mark 10.46-52

Last week’s readings included these words from Job 38: Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind…  "Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements--surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone?

We don’t normally think in these terms about the natural world—we’re too used to thinking of it as ‘natural’, which suggests that it ‘just happened’, though the idea of creation might be taken to imply a degree of planning. Our attention has often been focused on artists and mystics who praise the beauty of nature, and often seem to regret the intrusion of anything non-natural. 

It’s easy to forget that a harvest thanksgiving, for all its reference to the natural world, is about not only God’s gifts but also  human industry. How typical of the  Church that, having made much of harvest festivals since the 1840s, it was not until the early 1970s that a hymn was written and published that celebrated other human industries. Perhaps the authors had a premonition that whole swathes of British industry were about to destroy themselves, and felt that it was time to pray about it.

That hymn is rarely sung, but it’s worth giving it an outing now and again. Is there any connection with today’s readings? Possibly that, like the blind man by the side of the road, we sometimes need to have our eyes opened.