October 18, 2009 - Proper 24, Year B (RCL)
You would think
that Job would have had had enough.
Enough of the disasters.
Enough of the so called friends.
Enough of the questioning
that doesn’t seem to get any answer.
Enough.
And he certainly doesn’t need this,
a whirlwind,
spinning out of the sky,
sure to wipe away
what little
is left
of his life.
He cowers
against a rock,
waiting
to be sucked into the sky
and out of this life.
And then, out of the whirlwind
he hears
a voice.
"Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?
Gird up your loins like a man,
I will question you, and you shall declare to me.”
It’s God, it seems, God come finally
to answer Job’s pleas.
BUt before we hear
what God has to say,
let’s step back for a moment,
back to the time
just before
the whirlwind, let’s step back and remember
what has been happening
to Job.
Job
doesn’t
understand.
His life has fallen apart.
He’s lost everything
that he worked so hard
to build up.
His farms are destroyed.
His children have died.
His wife thinks
he would be better dead.
And even the three people
he called his closest friends
have abandoned him,
but not without suggesting
that it is all his fault,
that somehow
he has offended God
and brought disaster
on his family
and on himself.
Job can’t help but think
that it must all be his fault.
And so he has searched back through his life,
trying to remember
if there is anything he has done,
or anything he has failed to do
that would have brought God’s judgement
down upon him.
But he can’t think of anything.
But it can’t be just accidental,
it can’t be
just the twist of fate
that has brought him such disaster.
And so he pleads with God,
if I have lied
if I have been unfaithful to my wife
if I have abused my slaves
if I have failed to help the poor
if I have trusted in money
if I have celebrated my enemies’ downfall
if I have tried to hide wrongdoing
if I have abused my land
if I have done any of these things,
the you, God, would be justified in punishing me.
Just tell me, and I will know.
Job pleads with God
to just let him know
why this disaster has befallen him,
what it is
that he is being punished for,
how it is
that he has come to this place. Because then, at least,
then he will understand, then he will be released
from this lurking fear
that he could have done something to avoid it,
then at least,
he can make amends,
offer a sacrifice,
anything
rather than just sit
and accept it all.
Why, Job cries out to God, why?
Of course, Job doesn’t know
what we know.
He doesn’t know
about the wager between
Satan and God
the wager that resulted
in the loss of his farms,
the death of his children,
the sores on his body,
and the abandonment by his friends.
All he knows
is that his life has fallen apart.
But still he remembers,
still he remembers
the God who he trusted from his childhood,
the God he followed day by day,
the God who gave him life.
And so he prays, he prays to God
just to help him understand
why all this is happening.
That’s the background to our reading today.
Job is crying out
and God
has decided
to answer.
And so God speaks
out of the whirl wind.
“Where were you
when I moulded the earth,
when I confined the sea,
when I stretched the clouds,
when I hung the sun?
Can you create water and light,
snow and hail,
dew and ice,
stars and rain?
Did you call forth
lions and ravens,
goat and deer,
wild donkeys and oxen,
ostriches and horses,
hawks and eagles?”
It’s beautiful poetry
but an ugly answer.
Callous, sarcastic, even.
Because what it boils down to, is
“Job, I’ve heard you.
But what right have you
to demand an answer
of me,
what right have you
to ask?”
And of course, when you put it like this,
the answer is, none. None at all,
Job has no right at all
to demand an answer
from God.
He wasn’t there at creation;
he has no idea
of where the rain comes from;
he wasn’t the one
who created lions and ostriches.
Job has no right to demand
an answer
from God.
Except,
except the right
of one who was created by God, who trusts in him
who has no one else
to ask.
This answer of God
is just the first part
of a conversation
that will go on for the best part of five chapters
in the book of Job, a conversation between a man
and his God.
God questioning
and Job answering;
Job questioning
and God answering.
They will struggle together
to make sense of what has happened,
to make sense of the world,
and of Job’s life.
What that sense is
we will hear next week.
But for now
we are in the middle of the struggle,
in the middle of the conversation,
Job and his God
talking together
because in the midst of disaster
that is perhaps all
that we can do.
Last week, my mother received an email from a friend in Samoa, where an earthquake and tsunami hit a couple of weeks ago. They met there at church, twenty years ago; the friend is married to a Samoan. She wrote,
“My computer is down and I am at the internet cafe.
We are all well and sound....I went to Lalomanu. There is nothing left. Fatu's mother comes from there and we lost 9 members of our extended family. We went back yesterday to the village with them and I saw the force of nature there. But as usual, they are picking up and going forward quietly and surely. I am learning from them and getting strength from their profound faith in God.”
They are getting their strength
from their profound faith in God.
The Samoans,
and Job too.
It’s not clear
that there will be an answer,
or at least, not an answer
that will satisfy
our lust for justice.
And it’s true for us too.
We won’t always know
why things happen to us.
We think, when something bad happens, that it would help if we just knew why.
Sometimes
there is simply
no answer to that question, or at least, no answer
that will answer
our pain.
Sometimes
all we can do
is continue to trust in God.
Because the only other option
is to deny the one
who has been at the very core of our lives,
and in so doing
to deny a part of ourselves.
The alternative, the only alternative
is to keep talking. To keep talking and questioning
and maybe even shouting at God.
All the while trusting
with the trust that has come over a lifetime,
that God is with us.
No matter what happens.
Because we won’t always know the why.
But we will always know - even when it’s hard to believe - we will always know
that God is here.
Sometimes as comforter,
sometimes even as challenger,
but always willing
to talk with us.
Always.
God is here.
© Raewynne J. Whiteley 2009