Out of the Whirlwind: Finding Life

Last week, you heard Pastor Ron preach on the creation story of Job.  For four chapters, God responds to Job with this story of creation and the way in which God has ordered creation. Out of the whirlwind, God has finally responded to Job. Not with an answer to his question about why he is suffering. But about how God is a creator God. Who loves and nourishes creation each and every day. In the first part of our lesson today, God’s speech continues. 

Last week you were introduced to one particularly dangerous and wild creature. In this portion of today’s reading, you will meet a second. Leviathan - that huge sea-being created by God.

God speaks out of the whirlwind. 

“Can you pull in the sea beast, Leviathan, with a hook and tie his tongue with a rope? 

Can you put a cord through his nose or snap his jaw with an anchor? 

Will he beg you over and over for mercy, or flatter you with flowery speech? 

Will he make a pact with you to run errands and serve you the rest of your life? 

Will you play with him like a bird, or put a leash on him for your children? 

Will you display him in the marketplace so that shoppers can haggle over his price? 

Can you shoot him full of arrows or drive a fishing spear into his head? 

Should you lay your hand on him, you would never remember the battle - won’t live to tell the story. 

Any hope of controlling him would be delusional. 

The sight of him makes one stumble. 

If you can’t hold your own against this fierce creature, how can you stand before me? 

Who can confront me and get away with it? 

I am in charge of this - everything under heaven is mine. I run this universe!” --Job 41:1-8

If Job hasn’t been brought to his knees by the earlier part of God’s response, he can only fall to them now. “Who are you?” God asks him. “Who are you that you think you are in control of this world? The universe? The cosmos? Who are you?”

There is an ancient myth that this Leviathan represents chaos. Perhaps that’s an appropriate thought for the times we are in. But I wonder if, here, Leviathan isn’t better characterized by the Leviathan written about by Thomas Hobbes, the 17th century British philosopher. Hobbes challenges us to consider that the Leviathan - this great monster of chaos - is actually within us all. That when we begin to believe that we are in control of this universe, we have succumbed to it and to the chaos it brings with it. Perhaps, this is God’s purpose with these words. Not to condemn Job for his self-centeredness and his focus on his own suffering. Because isn’t that what suffering brings us to do - to curl in upon ourselves? To focus only on ourselves and our own pain? Perhaps God’s purpose with Job (and with us) is to break open his vision. To reframe his perspective. To say to him, “You think you know about the world and about my justice, but you don’t! You don’t!”

God is re-orienting Job to a new vision, a non-human centered vision of the world. Teaching him humility. To give him a new vision, a new perspective. To invite him to look around. To breathe. And to live.

How will Job respond? We hear his answer in chapter 42.

“I’m convinced. I know you can do anything; no plan of yours can be opposed successfully. You asked, “Who is this muddying the water, confusing the issue, second-guessing my purposes?’ I admit it. It was me. I have spoken about things I didn’t understand, wonders beyond my own comprehension. You said, ‘Listen and I will speak; Let me ask the questions and you give the answers.” I admit, my ears had heard about you, rumors of you. But now, my own eyes have seen you. Firsthand. Therefore, I relent. And find comfort on dust and ashes - in my own humanity.” --Job 42:1-6

At the beginning of the book of Job, Satan argued with God that God had created the world in such a way that the righteous were kept from all harm - that God had placed a fence around them to protect them. This was the same worldview that Job and his friends also held - that the world was ordered in such a way that the righteous are rewarded and the wicked are punished. It’s the picture we had of Job at the beginning - a “blameless and upright man who feared God and turned away from evil.” A man who made sacrifices for his children preemptively - just in case. His was a very ordered world, where one’s righteousness produced prosperity.

But that world was shattered and collapsed around him in ashes. And, eventually, Job reached a second and different conclusion about the order of the cosmos, accusing God of fencing him in. Of creating a protective hedge so tightly that it feels as though he is being suffocated. 

These two conclusions - these two worldviews - are spoken by Satan and Job in the earlier chapters of the book. But, when God speaks, beginning in chapter 38 and continuing to this morning, both perspectives are called into question. The created order is not what any of them thought or imagined. The world is not a perfectly safe place for humanity. But, it is an ordered place and it is a place of profound beauty and freedom. And, within it, there is a place for humanity. Not for dominion, but for humility and wonder. God invites Job into this world and into God’s vision, to see the world in a new way. To reorient himself. To understand that he is not the center of the cosmos. To see the world from God’s point of view and to understand in a new way his place in that world. 

Our reading continues in chapter 42.

After God had finished speaking to Job, he turned to Eliphaz the Temanite and said, “I’m angry at you and your two friends because you haven’t spoken about me correctly as did my servant Job. So now, take seven bulls and seven rams, go to my servant Job, and prepare an entirely burned offering for yourselves. Job my servant will pray for you, and I will act favorably by not making fools of you because you didn’t speak correctly, as did my servant Job.”

Eliphaz from Teman, Bildad from Shuah, and Zophar from naamah did what the Lord told them; and the Lord accepted Job’s prayer.

After Job had interceded for his friends, God restored his fortune. And then doubled it! All his brothers and sisters and friends came to him and ate food with him in his house. They comforted and consoled him for all the trouble God had brought him. Each one of gave him a qesitah and a gold ring. Then the Lord blessed Job’s latter days more than his former ones. He had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, one thousand yoke of oxen, and one thousand female donkeys. He also had seven sons and three daughters. He named one Jemimah (or Dove); a second, Keziah (or Cinnamon); and the third Keren-Happuch (or Darkeyes). No women in all the land were as beautiful as Job’s daughters; and their father gave an inheritance to them along with their brothers. After this, Job lived 140 years and saw four generations of his children. Then Job died, old and satisfied. --Job 42:7-17

Job gets it. And responds by praying for his friends. And by having more children, including three beautiful daughters to whom he gives names that reflect their beauty. And, then, in an act unheard of in ancient Israel, Job gives them an inheritance along with their brothers. We see a transformed Job. Transformed by his own suffering and led by God to open his eyes to the beauty and grace of the world around him. To have hope in it and in God’s ordering of it. To breathe. To live. And to give his children the same freedom that God gives all creation - freedom to be fully who they have been created to be. 

At the beginning of our lectionary year, I wondered if Job was right for us this summer. Who could have known then what we know now? We are witness to the truth that the world is not perfectly safe for humanity. 

Yet, we, like Job, are called to a new vision of our world. To open our eyes to the beauty and grace of the world that God has created. To view it and all that God has made from a place of humility and wonder. And to have hope in it and in God’s ordering of it. And, then, like Job to breathe. And to live into our humanity and the freedom given to us by God, won for us by Christ’s act on the cross. So that we might fully be the whole and gracious and loving people God has created us to be. And that we might live in a world that, even though sometimes doesn’t feel safe, trust that God orders it and is in control.

May this be our lesson and learning in this time from the book of Job. Amen.

Preached July 12, 2020, online at Grace & Glory Lutheran Church, Goshen, KY.

Pentecost 6

Readings: Psalm 150; Job 41:1-8; 42:1-17

Embodied Faith: Living With Integrity

This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him while we are walking in darkness, we lie and do not do what is true; but if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. 1 John 1:5-2:2 (NRSV)



Grace and peace to you from God, our Creator, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

We are continuing our look at 1st John, which was a letter written to the community of John’s followers sometime after the Gospel of John, near the end of the first century. We learned last week, that this letter was intended to affirm the divine nature of Christ, but, that mostly, it was intended to stress the tangibility, the touchability, the being in community with Christ. Specifically, the human nature Christ. That it is this humanity of Christ--Christ coming to earth in the body to be with us--that suggests to us that our faith is to be lived out in community. Not individually. But, in community.

So, today, we have our second lesson from 1st John. As we think about this lesson, we are going to think about this together. This will be more of a participation sermon! More of a conversation between us. And, perhaps, between all of our ideas and thoughts, we may come to an even greater understanding of this passage than if I simply stood up here and preached a one-way sermon. Because we are so much greater together than we are individually. So, I hope and I invite you to feel free to join into conversation with me around today’s reading.

To begin with, we just heard a reading that is chock full of metaphor. What is a metaphor? (Dictionary definition: a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable. Or a thing regarded as representative or symbolic of something else, especially something abstract.) It’s when we transfer some of the meaning of a word or a phrase to something else.

What are some examples of metaphors? These can be from scripture or not. 
I am the good shepherd. (Jesus in John’s gospel.)
All the world’s a stage, and all men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances. (William Shakespeare)
Chaos is a friend of mine. (Bob Dylan)

So, metaphors are things that are used to help us better understand something. Would that be a fair description?

In today’s lesson, there is a very famous metaphor that is used for God. “God is light.” What meaning does this particular metaphor for God have for you? What are other examples of metaphors for God that you can think of or that we find in scripture? (I am the gatekeeper. I am the bread of life. Etc.) Why do you think the Bible writers use metaphor so much? (To help us better understand the nature of God.)

So, if metaphors are used in scripture to help us better understand who God is, then, I’m going to do a little demonstration using the “God is light,” metaphor to understand what this might mean for us in our lives as disciples.

(Hold up flashlight.) What is this? Flashlight. What is it used for? To help us see better in dark places or in darkness. What are some other things we use to help us see better in darkness? You have an example of something that was given to you as you entered the sanctuary this morning. Candles, lights, or nightlight.

So, now, I’m going to tap into those who were in the Kerygma class this past spring. In that class, we went deeper into the Gospel of John. In particular, at the start of our study, we looked at specific words and their meaning as they were used by the gospel writer. The epistle of 1st John was likely either written by the same author or group of authors. So, many of the meanings from the gospel of John are transferable to the letter of John.

So, Kerygma experts, how did the author of the gospel define the word “light”? As goodness. So, if “light” means “goodness,” then what is “darkness”? Right, the absence of goodness, or, in one word, “evil.” Let’s go back then to the very first sentence in today’s Gospel lesson and replace the words “light” and “darkness” with “good” and “evil.” Does someone what to read it with those replacements? This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, the God is good and in him there is no evil at all. 

How does this change, or does it change, your understand of who God is? Has anyone ever said this to you, “God doesn’t give you more than you can handle.”? Do you see how bogus that phrase is? It’s bogus because it suggests that God gives us evil things, but never anything more than we can handle. If the nature of God is good and if there is no evil in God at all, does God really send evil to us? 

This leads us to the second point of today’s text. It’s the part that applies to us as people of God. It’s a pretty strong and pointed message for us. I’m going to read it this time from The Message paraphrase:

“If we claim that we experience a shared life with God and continue to stumble around in the dark, we’re obviously lying through our teeth--we’re not living what we claim. But, if we walk in the light, God himself being the light, we also experience a shared life with one another, as the sacrificed blood of Jesus, God’s Son, purges all our sin.”

As Lutherans, over and over again our focus is that we are saved by faith through God’s grace. This is absolutely true! But, what this often led to is a disconnect between our faith--what we say we believe--and our actions.  If we truly have faith, 1st John says, then our faith--our embodied faith where Jesus is incarnated in our very hearts. Then our faith requires us to live with integrity.

Integrity. That’s a big word. What does it mean? There is a consistency between words and actions. When we do what we say we will do. Or when we do what we say we believe. 

When we say we will do something and do it, that is integrity. When we say that God desires we love our neighbors and we go out of our way to help someone, that is integrity. 

But, when we say that, as believers, we are to care for the poor or the marginalized and we act in ways that harm them, then, quite simply, we are lying. And, even worse, if we say we have faith and then walk in darkness, but then say it is light, we “double err.” That’s what Luther calls it. Two evils: to err and, then, to defend error.

My friends, faith is not faith if we don’t live it out. And not just to our family and friends and those people we like. But, particularly, to those we don’t like or to those who we don’t think deserve it. That is an embodied faith that is living with integrity. A faith that walks the talk.

It is not easy. And we often fail, don’t we? The good news is the promise at the end of our lesson today. “My little children, I’m writing these things to you so that you don't sin. But, if you do sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous one. He is God’s way of dealing with our sins. Not only ours, but the sins of the whole world.”

This is our comfort. That, as we go about our lives together and seek to truly live out our faith with integrity, here in this place and in our neighborhood, we have the promise that, when we fail, God will be right there to pick up the pieces. To pick us up and forgive us. Because God has given us God’s Son as our advocate. Our own public defender. Our Savior who has dealt with our sins and with the sins of the entire world. 

Thanks be to God, who, loves us so much that, even when we fail, God clears us of guilt and frees us to try one more time!

Amen. 

Preached Sunday, July 1, 2018, at Grace & Glory Lutheran Church, Goshen, KY.
Pentecost 6
Readings: 1 John 1:5-2:2 (John 1:29)