Job 38:1-11. Mark 4:35-41

Transcription

1 Job 38: Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind: 2 Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? 3 Gird up your loins like a man, I will question you, and you shall declare to me. 4 Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. 5 Who determined its measurements surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? 6 On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone 7 when the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy? 8 Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb? 9 when I made the clouds its garment, and thick darkness its swaddling band, 10 and prescribed bounds for it, and set bars and doors, 11 and said, Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stopped? Mark 4: On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, Let us go across to the other side. 36 And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. 37 A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. 38 But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing? 39 He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, Peace! Be still! Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. 40 He said to them, Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith? 41 And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him? 1

2 Questions and Answers, Answers and Questions On the last Wednesday of each month, after the EM children s ministry worship ends, the children play Bible Jeopardy. The questions come straight from the lessons that they ve learned over the course of the month. The children are divided into two or three teams and are asked questions appropriate for their grade level. First graders compete against other first graders, second graders against second graders, and so on. The children always look forward to playing Jeopardy, even if they don t know that that s what it s called. They think of it simply as quiz. Sometimes they ll ask me before the service, Teacher, quiz? And, yes, they call me teacher. I think they associate every foreigner with being an English teacher. Of course, our version of Bible Jeopardy is based on the popular American TV game show Jeopardy [SLIDE]. In one form or another Jeopardy has been on television for more than fifty years. The show debuted in It went off the air for a few years, but it came back in 1984 and has been going strong ever since. If you re not familiar with the show, Jeopardy is a game that tests contestants knowledge of trivia across a spectrum of categories, like music, film, literature, history, science, politics, sports, geography, and on and on. That s all rather straightforward. However, what makes Jeopardy different is the format in which the questions are asked. Actually, no questions are asked, they are answered. Jeopardy does it backwards; the questions come in the form of answers, and contestants must answer in the form of a question. For example, if the question is This city is the capital of South Korea, then the correct answer would be What is Seoul? An answer that doesn t come in the form of a question for example, if someone simply says Seoul is incorrect. It s a simple but clever format, and I think it is vital to the success of the program. Jeopardy would not be nearly as interesting if it were in a traditional question-andanswer format. Nor do I think it would have lasted as long. A format of questions as 2

3 answers and answers as questions gives Jeopardy its unique twist. The format challenges our expectations. Where we expect a question we receive an answer, and where we expect an answer, we instead must pose a question. That is so much like what happens in the passages that we just read from the book of Job and the Gospel of Mark. Poor Job is in search of an answer for why he has been the victim of so much undeserved suffering. He is wanting answers, but instead of giving him answers God bombards him with questions. And as for the disciples, they believe that in Jesus they have found the answer to their hope for a messiah to rescue Israel, but Jesus acts in ways they do not expect or understand, and rather than being the answer they were looking for, he leaves them perplexed and asking the question, Who is this? I am so excited to preach this sermon today. The book of Job is my favorite book in the Bible and one of my favorite works of literature of any kind. Yet I have been hesitant to preach on it because it s hard to isolate one passage. The entire book tells one story, and you need every part of that story to make sense of the whole story. But I think that the Gospel passage from Mark today complements the principal theme of Job and will help tell the story, so let s give it a go! Job is a brilliant book for so many reasons, one of which is the way that it plays with our expectations and assumptions. A quick word association game will bear this out. What quality do we often associate with Job? Or what one word would you use to describe Job? Most of us would probably say patience. We are taught to think that Job is patient because he endures so much suffering and yet doesn t complain to God [SLIDE]. As Job himself says in chapter 1, after he receives the awful news of the loss of his many animals, servants, and all of his children, the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord (Job. 1:21). Even later in chapter 2, after his body is afflicted with sores from head to toe, Job says to his wife, who has encouraged him to curse God and die, Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad? (Job 2:10). 3

4 Those words certainly do reflect an attitude of patience in enduring suffering. And if those were Job s last words I would agree that the story of Job is one of resolute patience even in the face of monstrous suffering. But, fortunately for us, those are not Job s last words, not by a long shot. In fact, Job says those words in chapter 2. The book of Job continues for another forty chapters! In most of those chapters, far from patiently enduring suffering, Job shows himself to be a man entirely out of patience. In fact, he is a man who wants, and who demands, answers from God. Those answers will come in court. The book of Job is set up like a courtroom trial. Job wants God, his accuser, to show up in court so that he, Job, can defend himself. Job claims that he is an innocent man. He s done nothing to deserve his suffering. He wants to be vindicated, i.e., declared innocent. He wants his day in court. To see what brought Job to this state we need to go back to the beginning of the book. There we read that God and Satan have made what can only be described as a wager regarding Job s character. God actually invites the wager, saying to Satan, Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil (Job 1:8). Satan s response is to challenge Job s character by questioning the basis of his righteousness [SLIDE]: Does Job fear God for nothing? 10 Have you not put a fence around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. 11 But stretch out your hand now, and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face (Job 1:9-11). In other words, Satan accuses Job of blessing God only because he has been blessed by God with riches and a large family. To prove Job s fidelity, God allows Satan to attack all that Job has. In quick succession Job learns that his oxen, donkeys, sheep, 4

5 and camels have been either stolen or killed, along with all of his servants. To make matters worse, he also learns that his ten children have perished when the house they were in collapsed on top of them in a freak storm. Despite all these tragedies, Job remains faithful to God, and well, yes, patient in enduring suffering. So Satan asks to make the wager double or nothing [SLIDE]. All that people have they will give to save their lives, he says, but stretch out your hand now and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse you to your face (Job 2:4-5). God allows Satan to attack Job s body, provided that he leaves Job alive. Poor Job is then afflicted with painful sores all over his body. The image he casts is a pathetic one, sitting on an ash heap scratching himself with a broken piece of pottery. Yet still he does not complain to God. He remains patient. Such a pathetic figure is Job that his friends who come to comfort him do not even recognize him. As any hospital chaplain knows, sometimes there are no comforting words to offer someone and all you can do in the presence of great suffering is to be a loving presence. And so Job s friends say nothing, but instead simply sit with him in silence for seven days and seven nights. And then things get interesting. Turning the page from chapter 2 to chapter 3 is to encounter a radically different Job. Gone is the man with the patience of a saint. In his place is a man who is angry and upset and looking for answers. It is a sudden and remarkable transformation. Chapter 3 begins abruptly [SLIDE]: After this Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth (Job 3:1). Much of the remainder of the book is a dialogue really, an argument between Job and his friends the same three friends who comforted him with their silent presence at the end of chapter 2. Only now they are not silent. They are not silent because they feel that they must come to God s defense. To their way of thinking, Job s complaint against God borders on blasphemy. God is fair. God is just. God does not punish the righteous. Job s sufferings are therefore a sure sign that he has sinned and needs to 5

6 repent. If he would but acknowledge his sin, they argue, God would surely relent from further punishment. Back and forth they go for chapter after chapter, the friends defending God s righteousness and Job defending his integrity. Exasperated with their arguments, Job says to his friends [SLIDE]: Look, my eye has seen all this, my ear has heard and understood it. 2 What you know, I also know; I am not inferior to you. 3 But I would speak to the Almighty, and I desire to argue my case with God. 4 As for you, you whitewash with lies; all of you are worthless physicians. 5 If you would only keep silent, that would be your wisdom! What a wonderful line: If you would only keep silent, that would be your wisdom. Use that the next time you re in an argument. When Job is finished arguing with his friends, he appeals directly to God, begging God to let him know how he has offended God to warrant such suffering [SLIDE]: 23 How many are my iniquities and my sins? Make me know my transgression and my sin. 24 Why do you hide your face, and count me as your enemy? 25 Will you frighten a windblown leaf and pursue dry chaff? Job feels like a leaf tossed about in the wind. Like a windblown leaf, he has been cut off from all that sustained him. He has no purpose or direction. All he has left is a desire to know how he has sinned against God. He has questions; he wants answers. God s response to Job is a long time coming. Job s lament began in chapter 3, but it s not until chapter 38 that God responds. Still, at long last, Job will receive some answers to his questions, right?. But like the game of Jeopardy, God s answer comes 6

7 in the form of a question actually, a long list of questions: Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Who determined its measurements? And that s just the beginning. God will unleash a continuing stream of such questions for the next four chapters. Poor Job barely has a chance to speak, and when he does it is not to protest but to humble himself. It almost seems unfair. God is God and Job is mortal. And that seems to be God s point. There are some things we are not meant to know. God does not owe us an answer. In fact, rather than giving us an answer, God sometimes leaves us filled with more questions. That is what happens to the disciples in today s passage from Mark. As I mentioned earlier, in Jesus the disciples believe that they have received God s answer to their question, When is the messiah coming? Look! Here he is! Here is Israel s messiah, her long-awaited liberator from Roman oppression. Because they believe him to be the messiah, the disciples have certain expectations for how Jesus should act. So when they are in the boat crossing the Sea of Galilee and a storm suddenly threatens to sink them, they expect their leader to take action. But where is he? He s in the back of the boat sound asleep! They have to wake him up! In a panic they ask him, Teacher, don t you care that we re dying? Aren t you going to do something? I wonder what they expected him to do, because what he ends up doing they certainly do not expect. Maybe they expected him to do something practical like bail water from the boat. Or maybe they expected him to pray for deliverance. But Jesus doesn t bail water and he doesn t pray. Instead, he rebukes, or scolds, the wind and he speaks to the sea, saying, Peace! Be still! And the amazing thing from the disciples perspective is that it works. The wind dies down and the sea grows calm. They are astounded. They are filled with awe. They had thought that Jesus was the answer to their prayers, but now he has left them questioning their assumptions about him. Where they once had an answer, now they are left with a question. Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him? (Mk. 4:41). 7

8 As Christians we tend to look at the Bible as a book that provides the answers to all of our questions. We want to look at the index, find our question, and then turn to the page with the answer. But if we read the Bible more closely, we see that that is really not how the Bible functions. Sometimes there are multiple answers after all, the Bible gives us four different gospels to explain who Jesus was. And sometimes there are no answers. The book of Job especially teaches us that when it comes to explaining suffering, sometimes there are no easy answers. Like Job, our questions sometimes go unanswered. As a book, Job is comfortable with this tension. So is that it? Are we, like Job, stunned into silence by God s transcendent nature? God s ways are not our ways, so we should just shut up and deal with it. Is that the point of the book of Job? Fortunately, no, that is not the point. Yes, the book of Job does contain some unresolved tension. But if we can learn to live in this tension, if we can put aside our demand for answers, we will find that the tension actually says something important about God. Job and his friends, although they argue back and forth, actually agree on one thing [SLIDE]: they both share the assumption that God acts in ways that are easy for humans to understand: good behavior, or righteousness, is rewarded and sinful behavior is punished. That is the assumption that both Job and his friends are operating under. What they disagree about is whether Job has sinned. Job s friends, knowing that God is reasonable, assume that Job must have sinned. God does not punish the innocent. Job also knows that God is reasonable, but he also knows that he has not sinned, which is why he wants to face his accuser and hear the charge against him. We might have missed it, but God does give Job what he wants sort of. In chapter 38, today s passage, God does appear to Job. In doing so, God shows that he is not indifferent to Job s suffering, but neither is God obliged to justify or explain why Job 8

9 has suffered. God responds to Job s pleas, only not in the manner that Job expects. God will not be confined to human expectations of justice and fairness [SLIDE]. Spoiler alert. If you haven t read the end of the book of Job, you might want to cover your ears. Despite the torrent of questions that God hurls at Job in chapters 38-41, in the end God vindicates Job. In fact, in the final chapter God confronts Job s friends you remember, the ones who felt the need to come to God s defense. My wrath is kindled against you, God tells them, for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has (Job 42:7). God tells them to make a sacrifice and that Job will pray for them! God will accept Job s prayer. The book of Job shows us that God can handle our questions, but that doesn t mean that every question will be answered, at least not in the way we would like. Of course we want answers, and the book of Job honors that desire, but sometimes we must settle for simply asking questions. A few weeks ago, while reading that great theological text known as Facebook, I came across a quote that one of my seminary friends had posted on his wall. It was from a Greek Orthodox theologian I had never heard of. This was the quote: it is not the task of Christianity to provide easy answers to every question, but to make us progressively aware of a mystery. God is not so much the object of our knowledge as the cause of our wonder. Asking questions of God is a sign of wonder and an indication of our limitations, both of which are natural responses to the presence of God. A long, long time ago when this sermon began, I mentioned that Job s expressions of patience in the first two chapters were not his final words. His final words appear in the last chapter. Addressing God, Job says [SLIDE], I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you (Job 42:3,5). 9

10 Like Job, and like the disciples of Jesus, we see God coming to us in unexpected ways as a baby born in poverty in a remote region of a vast empire, as a member of a persecuted religious minority, as a king with no earthly kingdom, and as a suffering servant. Lest we think that was all long ago, sometimes events remind us that we continue to see God act in ways that confound our expectations. No doubt you ve heard of the killings that occurred in Charleston, South Carolina, a few days ago. The killer s name and face are all over the media, along with some of his rantings about race that he left on a website. But he will not have the last word. That belongs to the families of the victims, who show us that God continues to come to us in unexpected ways, even in the form of forgiveness extended to a man who had just murdered nine people, in a church, of all places. Such radical forgiveness even in the face of the most outrageous evil what is that but cause for wonder? 10