Sermon – October 21, 2008 Pentecost XXII Job 38:1-7, 34-41
Let me tell you about my Friday. I woke up feeling pretty good. I had two appointments on my calendar: fire inspector at 10 am, and Finance Committee at 1 pm. Very manageable.
Then right after breakfast I got a call from my eye doctor. (“I’m scheduled for cataract surgery on Tuesday.) They had not received the consent form from my primary physician stating that I am healthy enough to undergo anesthesia and the surgery. Oh no, I had forgotten to take the form with me when I had my annual physical last week. What should I do, I asked. So I called my primary physician’s office but she wasn’t scheduled to be in the office until 12:30, but I was told she had an opening at that time, and could I come in to the Poughkeepsie office for an exam if needed, and could I fax them the form. Well we don’t have the capability to fax, so I gave them my eye doctor’s number and they could sort it out. Then I called the warden to say I may not be available for the Finance Committee meeting at 1.
When I hung up I scurried down to the church basement because at our last fire inspection we had three violations that needed to be corrected. The kitchen fire extinguisher was out of date, there were flammable items stored within a 6’ radius of the church furnaces, and we needed to have an exhaust fan and hood installed over the kitchen oven. I had the fire extinguisher recharged in September, I felt I could schmooze the inspector over the oven hood by showing him documentation that we had tried to have one installed but the contractor bailed on us, but I needed to check the furnaces, and sure enough someone had put things too close, so I quickly moved them away.
The inspector showed up and everything was going fine until we got to the oven hood and he told me that the State was cracking down and he couldn’t put the Village in jeopardy so he had to direct us not to use the oven until a hood was installed. My heart sank as I thought about the pork dinner we are hosting in two weeks. I dashed off an emergency email to our Vestry with the news.
At one o’clock the Finance Committee members arrived when the office phone rang. It was Central Hudson saying they were going to cut off power in 45 minutes for non-payment of bills. I drove to Kingston to make a $1,500 payment in cash. It might have been a scam but I didn’t want to take the chance.
So let me recap: in the span of four hours the pork dinner was in jeopardy, I might not be having my eye surgery, I had to come up with $1,500 dollars in cash, and the Finance Committee meeting had been cancelled. I was feeling a little bit like Job.
You know the story of Job – a good man, a righteous man, and man of faith who treats everyone with respect, and so God rewards him – so the story goes- and he prospers. Then one day when God is bragging to the devil about the goodness of his people, the devil challenges him: “If you took away all of Job’s wealth, his farm, his family, his reputation – if you took away all of the blessings he has received, he would turn on you and resort to evil. The only reason he’s good,” the devil taunts, “ is because he gets the goodies.”
But God trusts in Job’s faithfulness and takes up the challenge. Then one by one, all of Job’s blessings are taken away. Job doesn’t know what to think. So in this new and unpleasant reality he is visited by a series of friends who provide a platform for the author to explore and talk through the various explanations and theories. “How can God be just if for no reason, committing no offense, all of Job’s blessings have turned to curses? Where’s the justice in that?” Or, “how can God be orderly when the life of this faithful man has turned to chaos? If creation was orderly then it stands to reason that good behavior results in blessing, and bad behavior results in punishment. Job has done nothing wrong, yet his life has fallen apart. Chaos seems to have won out.” At one point Job even wonders, ”How am I better off than if I had sinned?”
This theological theory of “goodness results in good things” is found in many parts of the Hebrew scripture, for example in the Book of
Deuteronomy. In that book the Babylonian army is bearing down on Jerusalem and the writer urges people – no, pleads with people to be good, follow the law, show God they can live faithful lives and maybe, just maybe God will send the army off in another direction. In other words: be good and good things will happen for you. The Book of Job could be subtitled: When Bad Things Happen to Good People.
Like last Friday for me. Okay, I’m not Mother Teresa or Rev. King, but I’m an okay enough guy and I try to do good….a vast majority of the time! So why did everything fall apart for me on Friday? Was God punishing me? Was I being targeted for some grievous sin? Or was God testing me like with Job, or just having a little fun at my expense?
Well it turns out the Book of Job is not about Job…it’s about God and about the kind of world God created which all of us inhabit. There is an order to creation but it’s not the simple order of: do good – get good/ do bad – get bad. Instead creation is ordered in a much more sophisticated and complex way. I know I’ve used this illustration before but it fits here so I’m going to use it again. Life is like a game of poker. In poker everyone is dealt a hand, but no two hands are alike. Now if poker was a simple game the person with the highest cards would win and the game over, but there’s much more to the game. Poker involves betting (how much or how little) bluffing, reading your opponents, knowing when to hold ‘em and knowing when to fold ‘em. It’s a sophisticated and complex game, just like life.
The Book of Job tells us that being “good” is not about getting “good” but about “making” good, that is, sharing with God in the creative process. How do we shape our communities so that everyone thrives? How do we heal wounds so that the hurt can be put behind us? How can we respectfully share competencies when inadequacies reveal themselves? How do we turn earth into a heavenly place?
God asks Job, “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?” And the faithful response is, “Right beside you.”
In God’s name, Amen.