May 18,
2014
Job
38:1-12; 40:1-5
An ABC News story featured the work of Julie Exline, a psychologist
at Case Western Reserve University.
Her area of expertise is a bit unusual, as she studies anger, and,
specifically, anger at God.
Exline’s work discovered that a good many people are mad at God. They are mad because they believe he
allows bad things to happen, such as babies starving in third world countries.
She says that anywhere between
one third and two thirds of people we've surveyed in the United States admit
they sometimes feel angry at God in response to some current thing they are
suffering with, such as a cancer diagnosis. She goes on to describe anger toward God as one of several spiritual struggles that humans deal
with throughout their lives. And spiritual struggles like anger towards God are like a fork in the road for people. It
can be a turning point. You have a
choice. Are you going to disengage from the relationship, deciding that a
loving God couldn't do this, and stop believing in Him? Others might suppress
their anger and sweep it under the rug. And still others could work things out
in their relationship, with another person or with God.
This morning we conclude our series of messages on the book of
Job. I don’t think it’s been an
easy study, going through Job’s story.
There aren’t a lot of encouraging passages in the book and it’s
unnerving to read the anguished words of Job.
Once Job loses everything he has he keeps pleading for an audience
with God. He wants to plead his
case. Job finally gets his opportunity,
and let’s read part of God’s response.
Job 38:1-12; 40:1-5 –
1 Then
the Lord spoke to Job out of the storm. He said:
2 “Who
is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge?
3 Brace
yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me.
4 Where
were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand.
5 Who
marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across
it?
6 On
what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone—
7 while
the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted
for joy?
8 Who
shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb,
9 when
I made the clouds its garment and wrapped it in thick darkness,
10 when I fixed limits for it and
set its doors and bars in place,
11 when I said, ‘This far you may come and no
farther; here is where your proud waves halt’?
12 Have you ever given orders to the morning, or
shown the dawn its place?”
1 The
Lord said to Job:
2 “Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct him? Let him who accuses God answer him!”
3 Then Job
answered the Lord:
4 “I am unworthy—how can I reply to you? I put my
hand over my mouth.
5 I spoke once, but I have no answer—twice, but I
will say no more.”
What do you make of God’s response to Job? On the surface, it doesn’t sound very comforting, does
it? It comes across as though God
is scolding Job, doesn’t it?
Poor Job. We really
have to feel for the guy. His life
is going extremely well, so well that he would undoubtedly be the envy of all, and
then it falls totally apart. His
friends come to see him, which probably encouraged him when they arrived, but it
turned out they aren’t any help.
They don’t come to comfort or encourage Job, or to offer their help;
they come to criticize and condemn Job tell him his suffering are his own
fault, claiming that no one suffers unless they have done something to deserve
it. Could it get any worse? Yes. Job expresses his wish for an audience with God, but when he
gets that opportunity it doesn’t turn out quite like he hoped. Job believes he has a legitimate
complaint about what has happened to him and believes God needs to hear him. But when God does speak with him, Job is
quite humbled by the response, and says, basically, I’m going to keep quiet.
I’ve not opening my mouth again.
I think it’s true that most people have pondered the question of why
God seems to allow some very difficult things to happen in our world. What I find very interesting about the
book of Job is that his primary interest is not in understanding the larger
question of suffering; it doesn’t seem that he is all that interested even in
an answer to his own suffering.
Job’s greatest interest is in gaining an audience with God in order to
plead his case that he believes he has been mistreated. Job lived a righteous life and believed
such a life should have brought him blessing and not suffering. It wasn’t so much that Job wanted an
answer for suffering in general, but an answer to what he thought was unjust
suffering in his life.
This is one of the difficulties we face in suffering – its perceived
unfairness. But what the story of
Job teaches us, I think, is that there is no guarantee against unfair and
unjust suffering. In fact, Jesus
reminds us that God causes his sun to
rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the
unrighteous (Matthew 5:45).
What the book of Job brings to our attention, then, is the question
of how we understand God. So as we
complete our study of Job this morning let us consider briefly three things
about the nature of God that we learn from Job’s story.
1. There is a good deal of
mystery to God.
St. Augustine said we are
talking about God. What wonder is it that you do not understand? If you do
understand, then it is not God.
I don’t know that I would go so far as to say
we can’t understand anything about God, but I think Augustine had a point. There are times, I believe, when we are
far too confident in some of our assertions about God. There are certainly things we can know
about God, but the answer God gives to Job clearly teaches us that we don’t
have God figured out to the extent we think we do.
God very pointedly asks Job “Who is this that darkens my counsel with words
without knowledge? Brace
yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me. Where were you when I laid the earth’s
foundation? Tell me, if you
understand. Who
marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across
it?
(38:2-5).
I
think we have to accept the fact that just because we live in a
knowledge/information-based, scientific age, there are some things we just
can’t know, and we can’t know all the ways of God. I’ve decided I’m okay with that. I say I don’t know
a lot more than I used to when people ask me questions. I’ve decided to not presume I will have
every answer in this life.
If you can’t live with some mystery about God you will find faith to
be difficult.
2. God is not a
transactional God.
Clearly, Job misunderstood God, in what he expected God to do for
him. Job saw his relationship with
God as being transactional, that is, Job did something for God – he lived a
righteous life – so God should do something for him, such as give him a life of
great blessing. But God doesn’t
work on a transactional basis; there is no quid
pro quo (Latin for something for
something). This is part of
the answer that Job receives when he finally is given his audience with God,
reminding him clearly that he should not think that God owes him anything.
It’s hard for us to escape transactional thinking, as we have a
tendency to believe that God is busy doling out rewards and punishments based
on what we have done or not done.
But the book of Job “flattens out” humanity; that is, the ground on
which we all stand is level in terms of suffering. No one is immune; not the rich, the poor, the powerful, or
the weak. Everyone suffers and no
one is immune to its effects.
The language of church – not the language of faith, but of church,
and they are sometimes different – can be revealing. In church we sometimes use phrases such as being fed, being ministered to, getting something out of the worship or church. That is church language. It is not language of the kingdom. It reveals the expectation and the
assumption that God is our servant rather than the truth that we are God’s
servants. We are not the objects
of worship, although the temptation always exists to make ourselves the objects
of worship. We are not called here
for what we can receive but are called here for what we can give. We are not called here for how we can
be ministered to but are called here in order to learn of how we can minister
to others. When God is the object
of our worship and not ourselves, when are not here to receive but to give,
when we are here not to be ministered to but to minister, we will actually
receive those things in abundance, because it is in giving that we
receive.
3. Suffering teaches us to
be like God.
The central tenet of Christianity is the Incarnation – the belief
that God became a man in the person of Jesus. As the gospel of John reminds us, the word became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). We are to model the Incarnation in the
lives of others by entering into their suffering and by so doing demonstrate
the type of love that God demonstrates to us.
Our suffering ought to make us more compassionate and tenderhearted
to others when they suffer. We are
to be like God – we are to emulate the Incarnation. That God became a person in Jesus is the central truth of
the Bible. He became like us in
order to demonstrate in a powerful way his love for us, and he asks us to be
present in the lives of others.
And we should be very careful
about the claim that God is not doing enough about the suffering in the
world. That is the claim we
continually hear from skeptics, that if God exist, he ought to be doing more
about the suffering in the world. I
believe only the person who is doing everything – and I mean everything – they
can do about suffering has the right to ask that question of God.
I don’t ask God why
questions any longer. Those are
the questions such as God, why don’t you
do more about the suffering in the world? I believe it’s more appropriate to ask that question of
myself – Dave, why aren’t you
doing more about the suffering in the world? I don’t generally ask it of others, because I don’t know
what they are doing to ease the suffering of others, but I will admit that when
someone who is living in a house of huge proportions and living a lavish
lifestyle claims God ought to be doing more I think they should look in a
mirror. God is not the author of
warfare, he is not the author of hunger, he is not the author of hatred, or of
any of the other ills in the world.
He is the author of the solution to those problems – love – and he is
the one who asks us to practice that love in order to ease the sufferings of
our neighbors.
As difficult as I find the book of Job to read, I find a great deal
of hope there. As difficult as
life can be, there is always hope.
I received an email from an organization the other day. As I was reading it, and looking at a
couple of the pictures in it, a theological message jumped out of it to
me. The two pictures come from Patagonia
National Park in the nation of Chile.
A wildfire erupted and swept through 7,400 acres of land. The first picture is one taken before
the fire. It is a beautiful place.
The second picture is taken after the fire, and you can easily see
the devastation.
What’s fascinating about the second picture is the new, green growth
in the front center. The green
really stands out in the charred landscape.
I think the second picture is very representative of Job’s life, and
sometimes of your life, or mine.
There’s a lot of bleakness and loss, but there is still life. There is always life. Always. This is the great gift and hope of God – life. And that is the message of the book of
Job, I believe. There is always
life. Where God is, there is life.
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