Sermon Sprinhill Job 38, heb. 5 October 18th, 2009
Job and his friends go back and forth for over thirty chapters. Finally God answers Job. It is in the form of a challenge. God is acting as a hostile witness. God may be on defense, but God is not going to let Job set the terms for the debate. God does not answer Job directly, but God does approach Job's complaints obliquely.

 

God takes Job on a long tour of creation. I think that this has the outcome of showing Job that he is not the center of the universe. God essentially challenges Job to make a better world than God created. It moves him past the "oceanic ego" of the suffering victim. It has the intent of moving Job out of depression by giving him a tour beyond his own suffering. Think of how we say that taking a trip does one good. We speak of not being able to see the forest for the trees. God wants Job to expand his horizon from his intense suffering to the bigger picture. If you will, it is a God's eye view of the world. The world is a living place of change. God gives creation the room to grow and change. Sometimes that change does harm some of the pieces of a puzzle. Can we seriously expect God to interrupt the flow of planets and suns to be at our beck and call, to subvert the careful balance of so many forces to prevent us from coming to harm?

 

I picked up a new book on the Apollo 11 flight, Rocket Men, as we marked its 40th anniversary in the summer.  It emphasizes the intense planning in creation, along with its immensity and complexity. Apollo 11 had some near misses, but it also had the astronauts marvelling at the sight of the earth from space. I sometimes think that the environmental movement gained steam when we saw the picture of earth rising from the moon view. In the midst of all that black emptiness is a jewel of a place for us. On a later flight (274) Bill Anders said "It reminded me of a Christmas tree ornament. Stu Roosa said, "it's the abject smallness of the earth that gets you, or "all I know, it's down there on that little thing, and it's so insignificant in the great big vastness of space." 

 

If this is such a terrible world, then why joy and happiness? God does note that the world is complex. It has wild animals and tame ones. It has storms and calm. It has suffering and the sheer, exultant joy of nature. The shift in perspective will allow Job to count his blessings and his pain. God is not commanding him to grin and bear it. God is not telling him to not complain. God's perspective will allow Job to count his blessings along with his pain. It is just as unrealistic to look at the world with grief-tinged glasses as rose-colored glasses.

 

Our section concludes with a discussion of something we still do not control, the weather. God makes an argument about human incapacity to manage creation. We do not control as much as we would like. We are often unable to control ourselves.In one sense, Job could feel very small and insignificant at this point. On the other hand, wait. God has responded to him in the midst of this buzzing hive of universal activity. For Christians, out of all of the worlds yet unknown to us, we know that God  worked through one of us, Jesus Christ, to bring a message of healing and hope. God so loved the world. this world, that Jesus was born and raised into it. Through that life, you know, you know that God knows you, not something about you. God knows you. God follows your life, in the midst of a universe, God knows you.

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