Job 38: 1-7
Job 3
I don’t exactly know how to write this sermon, there are bits of untidy thinking in my head.
On Friday when I sat to write this sermon, after the normal early Friday morning
procrastination, I sat down to write. A phone call. Could I take a funeral, on Wednesday, a
young man who has taken his own life. I met with his older brother, at lunch time, and at
2:20 in the afternoon I sat down again to think about Job.
God talks to Job.
Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind:
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‘Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?
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Gird up your loins like a man,
I will question you, and you shall declare to me.
For 37 chapters God only speaks in the first 2 chapters and then only to Satan. Giving Satan
permission to do his worst, to test Job. Then for the next 35 chapters, Job and his 4 friends
speak. God doesn’t.
In the middle of all that talking, Job in frustration calls out, well if only I could talk to you
God, lay out my case, you will hear me, and well acquit me of any wrong doing.
That was last week’s sermon. (Job 23 whole chapter)
I think I got carried away by the strangeness of the language. Of Job seeing a vision of God
standing alone, unmoved and being frightened by that image.
So we are no closer to answering the questions, why did this happen to Job, why have faith
if this is all it delivers, and what does the future hold for us, if God in some fit of …. Of
something, lets Satan take it all away.
So God speaks: The second reading chapter 38, is the start of God speaking. Actually God
says very little, what happens is that God asks sixty rhetorical questions. Someone has
counted them. He does say some other bits and pieces, but it is essentially 4 chapters of
questions.
Questions which leave you in no doubt who is God.
God hardly engages with Job, his friends, the issues, even Job’s great suffering. Nothing. It is
as though in these questions God is silent.
The questions evoke the stunning grandeur of the earth and the earth’s creatures. They are
deeply evocative of creation and thus the power and majesty of the creator.
Job and his friends sit and dispute about sin, reward and punishment, about the presence of
evil, the nature of good, and God when God speaks asks:
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Job 38: 1-7
Job 3
“where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?”
Is God a colossal failure as a God, who steps out the frame when the going gets tough, and
fails to answer that basic question, is my good fortune caused by your blessing, is my
misfortune caused by your anger at my sin?
What are the bits of untidy thinking that are going round inside my head. My apologies in
advance for people who like tidiness when it comes to sermons.
The first bit of untidy thinking.
I am in awe of this picture, that’s us, our little planet, in this picture, we are very small. (the
so called blue dot picture – google images has it.)
It took a long time for humanity to learn that the world does not revolve around us. That
we are not the centre of things. The cosmos is vast, awesome and majestic, all the things
that God’s questions point out, but we are not the centre of it. Rather we are a part of it,
subject to its laws, its failing and its greatness.
So this is the first bit that is swirling around in my head.
The second bit.
Sorry about this bit.
If you are a fan of that great novel “To kill a Mockingbird” you might like to put your hands
over your ears.
Most of us who have read it have a deep and abiding love of the central character Jean or
Scout Finch, and her father Atticus. Atticus is revered both in the book and by the books
many readers as a man of moral courage who is without flaw. Perfect almost.
He is one of the great characters of modern fiction.
This last year a second book by Harper lee has been published, “Go set a watchman”. This
book has the same characters as “To Kill a Mockingbird”, but is set after the war, in the mid
1950s.
In it Jean Finch, has to come to terms with the fact that her beloved father is a man, not a
God, and he is flawed, makes mistakes has prejudices and blind sports, just like the rest of
us. We the readers, the fans, have to come to terms with that as well, and maybe that is a
good thing, to develop an adult appreciation of another adult.
Other wise we remain children all our lives.
Is God saying to Job, stop being a child, and develop an adult understanding of faith.
What else is swirling around in my head:
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Job 38: 1-7
Job 3
That old story of Mother Teresa, you know the one, the journalist asks Mother about prayer,
what do you do when you pray. Well I go into my room, and I don’t say anything, I just sit
there and listen, I listen. The journalist asks, what does God say? Oh no, no God doesn’t say
anything, God just listens too. We both just listen.
What is the meaning of these bits of things in my head:
The understanding that we are not the centre of the world, and that the ill things that
happen to us are not because of our misdemeanours, real or imaginary, is actually a
comfort. The world is not out to get us, God is not out to get us. Instead we need to learn to
live well with ourselves, to live lives of grace and love, not expecting a sweetie every time
we are good, or a belting each time we slip up. To live instead with courage and maturity in
the world. To have an adult relationship with God.
Not everything that is broken will be fixed, but nor do we live without hope or grace. It is
not straight forward. And we must live with that.
Jean Finch needed to grow up and have an adult relationship with her father, like we all do
with our parents, like we need to do with God, with that difference, God is God, but God is
not Santa nor our parents.
The Holy mother, sitting in a room listening. God listening as well. What a great image,
maybe the one to finish with, Mother Teresa and God sitting together listening to the cries
and hurts and celebrations and groaning and laughing and birthing and dying and the rain
falling the rivers running the oceans moving the beggars calling the noises of the world, the
world’s beating heart which you can only hear when you have stopped listening to yourself
and listen with God.
(Jobs friends, Job need to stop talking…..)
And God beside you, beside you in your hurts and loves and struggles and cares. God beside
us hurting and loving and caring.
Love and grace can wash over us and be a part of us, and when we listen we can hear with
Job the heavenly creatures shout for joy.
Amen.
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