sermon on Job

There was once a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job. That man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil. Job: 1:1
Job was the richest man around but in a single day he was wiped out. His world was falling apart.
The Sabeans ran off with his asses and oxen and slaughtered his hired hands
Lightening struck the sheep barn – it burnt the whole flock – not to mention the shepherds The Chaldeans rustled his camels and camel drivers
And a hurricane came and did the final damage – hit the house where his 7 sons and 3 daughters were and killed them As if this were not enough – Job came down with leprosy
The story of Job – in a word is about suffering – and how are we going to respond to the suffering in life?

Suffering – What do you picture when I say that word? What do you picture??
Soldiers in Iraq – People in Iraq………People suffering from AIDs
Someone recovering from surgery;;;;;;;;The suffering of Depression
The suffering of a broken heart…….Physical suffering cancer, arthritis, Alzheimer’s, strokes, …….Suffering from racism, poverty, child abuse,

What is the picture in your head of suffering?
Are you yourself in a place of suffering?
Is there someone who comes to mind?

For Job he cursed the day he was born and prayed to die – but that prayer was not answered
He prayed for the sun to stop shining but that prayer was not answered
His wife – the only one of his family left advised him to turn his back on God and curse him and then go hang himself

But Job was a good and religious man and there were some lengths – that even in the horror of his life – he would not go
But because he was a good and religious man he was left with some awful questions
Why had God let such things happen to him
The question – WHY ME?

He had well meaning but insufferable friends
And all of their arguments come to one point
If Job was being punished in this way – something must have happened that caused it. He must have done something
They believed in a world which is governed in a rational manner by divine wisdom
God was just, God was good
God made good things happen to good people
And bad things happen to bad people

Bad things were happening to Job – there fore he must have done something bad And he should feel guilty
Job angrily rejected this –
13:4,5
As for you, you whitewash with lies; all of you are worthless physicians. 5If you would only keep silent, that would be your wisdom!

You know who they were – a bunch of theological quacks
The smartest thing they could do was to shut up
But they were too busy explaining things to listen – easy answers

Think for a moment about your answers for your own and other people’s suffering
Or worse yet, perhaps – your advice giving – for many of us – it would be our wisdom to keep silent – to shut up
Walter Brueggemann described the friends as “pre-pain”
Until you have experienced undeserved suffering yourself – it is comforting to believe that the universe is a comfortable and well ordered place

Anyway back to the story
Poor Job – not only broken and in pain – but now friends who expect him to be guilty
Job understands that his friends don’t know as much as they think they know
So we have a long discourse as he muses on wisdom
20“Where then does wisdom come from? And where is the place of understanding? 21It is hidden from the eyes of all living, and concealed from the birds of the air.
Then Job reminisces about the good old days when he and God were “like that”
29Job again took up his discourse and said: 2“Oh, that I were as in the months of old, as in the days when God watched over me; 3when his lamp shone over my head, and by his light I walked through darkness; 4when I was in my prime, when the friendship of God was upon my tent; 5when the Almighty was still with me, ….

But now Job feels alone
30:20 20I cry to you and you do not answer me; I stand, and you merely look at me.

Giving voice to his pain and his confusion and his lack of answers – where are you, God? Am I talking to myself?
One more friend to give an answer – Elihu
Talks for a couple of chapters –
36:15 He delivers the afflicted by their affliction, and opens their ear by adversity.
Translation – no pain …no gain
Suffering in life toughens us
It is the refiner’s fire – you know God never gives us more than we can handle
Now – not guilty – but grateful? For things that have happened
But before Job can answer this explanation – God speaks – the most gorgeous speech in the old Testament
Composed almost entirely of magnificent and preposterous questions
4“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding.
5Who determined its measurements—surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it?
6On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone 7when 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?—
On and on – meaning – who do you think you are?
God is not through – perhaps he is like a great cosmic bully or an artist or a singer of magnified proportion
So often we hear people interpret this response of God to Job as an angry response, that God is scolding Job.
There is another way to understand this speech of God. The Hebrew Bible scholar Kathleen O’Connor talks about this speech as a turning point in Job’s life, not because God scolded Job and put him in his place, but because this speech turns the question from why to who and in so doing, God’s word offers Job a new vision.
The answer to the question “Who?” offered to Job hope and healing and eventually restoration. It was in this experience that is recreated for us in this poem that tries to somehow explain the unexplainable – the mysterious and magnificent reality of God
First – Job – faithful – Sunday school – knew God – BUT – never anything like this before. This amazing dialogue with God who ended up putting him in his place – Who God is – who we are –
Great glory of God shot through the clouds
Voice of the one we worship today – you know we only get glimpses, stirrings, nudgings – occasionally there is this! kind of experience when God comes in a powerful way:
I am creator – present before creation
I am sovereign –not answerable to you,
I am the lover – the one who gave his son to suffer for you (more about that later)

This encounter was about God’s transcendence
And for Job – the experience was Awe – Fear - holy otherness – of God
Job is a powerful, provocative, poetic book of the Bible that words are inadequate to experience
And that reality is that intellectual answers and theological constructs about life and God will only take us so far.
Cannot explain suffering – can only acknowledge it
we may not know why we suffer and others suffer and the world is so unfair
Frederick Buechner said If you take three facts,:"God is good, God is great, and the innocent suffer "you can only reconcile two of those. You can never, ever reconcile all three. The Bible never gives an answer.
After Job complains and complains, God says to Him, "Where were you when I created the world? You don't ask me those questions."
He says to Jeremiah, "I am the potter, you are the clay. The clay does not ask the potter that kind of question

Secondly we come here with the awareness that we are New Testament people – and that is HUGE
In the Old Testament and the background of the New Testament, when someone had leprosy, blindness or lameness, you avoided them because they were being punished by God.
But in the New Testament, when somebody is suffering, you go to the place of suffering. Where people are being crucified the most, you go the most. Where suffering is, there is God in the midst of those people. Not with answers – but with presence - #508 hymnal
For one who suffers by Howard Thurman - I know I cannot enter all you feel, Nor bear with you the burden of your pain I can but offer what my love does give – the strength of caring – the warmth of one who seeks to understand – this I do in quiet ways – that yon your lonely path you may not walk alone.
We recognize: That at the heart of our faith as Christians is the person of Jesus Christ and the great symbol of our faith is the cross, the way of the cross, the way of suffering to save the world.”
The cross - A place of suffering and a symbol of victory
The cross represents our faith that Ultimately God will not leave evil unanswered. The day will come when all of the crooked things will be made straight and all of the dark things will be made bright and all of the innocent will be vindicated. That is what the cross of Christ is all about.
We suffer in this life and often we want to know more and control more than we get to
Some of you are in a place of suffering right now – and you may be surrounded by friends who are pre pain – and living in a culture that is pain denying
And the message for today is simply =- that you are not alone
TRUST GOD
There is our God who transcends our little lives and who triumphs over sufferingAnd redeems our suffering God is the one who comes to us in the cross, who comes to us in Jesus Christ. J Jesus is God’s answer to us in our lives.
Jesus comes to us, as the crucified and as the risen, with the power to make a difference.