Confession
Sermon
Out Of The Whirlwind
First Lesson Sermons For Sundays After Pentecost (Last Third)
Job got what he wanted. He got a chance to present his case before God and to hear God's response. After hearing God's reply to him, he confesses that he said things that he really did not understand. There were things about God, creation, and human life that were just too wonderful for him, things that he did not know. His accusation before God now seemed to him to be ludicrous and unwarranted.
But at no time did God ever chastise him for speaking his mind. It was those moments of desertion and abandonment and the absence of God's presence that most of his hearers and readers identify with Job. This is the universal feeling of those who have walked the path of faith. Who has not felt at some time in life forsaken by God? How many times have you prayed and felt, saw, and sensed nothing? There have been those times when heaven seems like brass and God has turned a deaf ear. We do everything we can do. We pray. We attend church. We get involved in mission programs. We read the scriptures and pray daily, but to no avail. No matter how hard we practice all of these Christian disciplines, it all appears meaningless. God seems hidden. In those moments we need to gain some sense of perspective. It would be foolish for us to think this experience is uniquely ours, that we are the only ones who experience this desert of the soul. To think such would reveal our ignorance and how little we know of our Christian faith. We must not forget how Moses waited year after year in silence for God to deliver his people. Think of those Psalms of lament. Go back and read Psalms 13, 74, and especially 88 -- the Psalms that Walter Brueggemann calls the "Psalms of disorientation." These biblical laments allow us to pray our conflicts, frustrations, and contradictions. Go back and read about Elijah, Jeremiah, and above all Habakkuk and Jesus in Gethsemane. This will be encouraging to you as you realize that with all of your frustration and anxiety you are in good company. Let us remember that as we speak about the absence of God, it is not a true absence, but a sense of God's absence. Theologically, God is always with us, but there are those moments that we are not conscious of God's presence. It is during those moments that we need to hold steady and remember what we have known of God in the past, until the clouds lift and the sun shines again. Richard Foster suggests:
Through all of this, paradoxically, God is purifying our fatih by threatening to destroy it. We are led to a profound and holy distrust of all superficial drives and human strivings. We know more deeply than ever before our capacity for infinite self-deception. Slowly we are being taken off of vain securities and false allegiances. Our trust in all exterior and interior results is being shattered so that we can learn faith in God alone. Through our barrenness of soul God is producing detachment, humility, patience and perseverance.1
In this final chapter Job responds to God's address to him. Job repents. He recognizes himself for what he is. He confesses that he made accusations falsely: "Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand." He apologizes for his arrogance and self-presupposing regarding both his friends and God. Now Job is able to do something he has found difficult to do: he accepts God's power and wisdom. He ends up where his friends said he would end up, recognizing that God is all-powerful and all-knowing and all Job can do is accept what is happening to him and live with it. But Job's confession includes the words, "I heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you." He admits that he now has a personal knowledge of God that he never before had. He confesses that his knowledge of God has been secondhand. He learned of God from the community and its members who happened to inform him about God. In verse 6, Job feels bad and despises himself for his lack of understanding of God and "repents in dust and ashes."
Job's greatest discovery in this encounter is his personal experience of God and the understanding that he can continue to question God and God will answer. Job's repentance is not as his friends thought it should be, an annihilation of himself, a total submission which reduces him to a despondent man on an ash pile. But now Job knows about a God who responds. Now he knows that he will always belong to God. Whatever, whenever, wherever, however things may transpire in Job's life, he will continue to question and have honest dialogue with God. The difference now is his awareness that God is in control. This is the "joyful and happy ending" of the Book of Job.
In this entire experience Job has learned to trust God. Prior to his trusting, things appeared out of control in his life. Confusion and chaos abounded. The result of his trust was his discovery that God, after all, is in control and that life does have a center, a whole, and above all meaning. Job discovered that God did not need to be defended, as suggested by his friends who felt it was their responsibility to intervene and defend God in light of Job's plight. This seems to be a chronic problem within the church. There are those people who are always coming up with methods and gimmicks, acting as if the power of the gospel depended on them. Perhaps the reason that this book has been so valuable for so many people for such a long period of time is the very fact that "it is in the Bible," giving us permission to challenge and question God when our suffering compels us to do so. This very questioning, the honest expression of our doubts and uncertainties, is what builds trust.
The struggle in Job's life is an inspiration to all of us. Who hasn't struggled over the whereabouts of God's presence in human life? How many times have you heard the question, "How can a good God allow such suffering in the world?" Job's lack of trust was a result of his uncertainty about the character of God. After all, Satan was given permission by God to take away Job's family, his business, and his health. Was God playing a cruel joke on Job? Because he was unable to find a purpose or a reason for his suffering, he lays the blame on God. Job confesses, "Today also my complaint is bitter; his hand is heavy despite my groaning" (23:2). Job felt that God acted unjustly toward him. How is he going to trust such a God?
Here is where the change takes place. The turning point in Job's life is found in 42:5:"I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you." Up to this point Job has only known about God by what he had heard from others. His faith was secondhand. Job listened to his friends and his knowledge of God came from them. His friends presented God as a mere object, when in reality God is a living, caring, personal, loving God. When Job declared, "But now my eye sees you," his own personal awareness of God frees him from the narrow, provincial God of his friends. His personal experience of God has liberated him from the confining understanding of God that had so characterized his earlier life. This is the turning point in Job's life. He turns from a secondhand knowledge of God to a personal encounter with God. What had been merely abstract and mental accent was transformed into personal experience and awareness. What had been distant and ambiguous was now close and real. What had been detached and remote was now genuine loving concern. The transcendent and inaccessible was now lovingly and graciously immanent.
How many times have I heard the same story. A person grows up in the church, attends Sunday school and worship services for years, works his fingers to the bone on church projects, and serves faithfully on committees. But like Job, his knowledge of God is secondhand. Then through some remarkable experience he discovers that he has no personal experience of God. His religion has been perfunctory. It has been merely part of his respectability along with being a good citizen. Church membership was on the same level as being a member of the Kiwanis and the Lions Club. Then one day, possibly at a church retreat, the person discovers that people were witnessing to a reality of faith that he has never possessed or known. Through the prayers of his friends his entire life changes. The things that were so important in his life are no longer important. Things that were considered to be unimportant and secondary became primary. The person is able to say with Job, "I heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you."
Job confesses, "But now my eye sees you." Job states that he now perceives God in a way that transforms his understanding of himself and his situation. "Seeing" involves more than just having one's eyes open. Not only does it involve seeing God differently, but when we see God differently we also see others and our world differently. One becomes conscious of the needs of others. A new vision of God brings into focus the injustice in the lives of others. A new vision of God brings to us a new awareness of the needs of others. What is out of sight many times is out of mind: the homeless, shelters for abused women and children, homes for the poor, food for the hungry, support for those who suffer through the violation of their human and civil rights, and support of AIDS coalitions. But we gain new vision and understanding for them as the result of a new awareness of God. It seems that the closer one is drawn to God through worship and prayer, the closer one is drawn to the aliens of our culture, the many people clustered at the margins of society, and those who live on the fringes of the law. This new vision of God was a turning point in Job's life. He acquired a new understanding of his life and the world around him. It can do the same for us -- to see God and others as we have never seen them before.
____________
1. Richard Foster, Prayer, p. 29.
But at no time did God ever chastise him for speaking his mind. It was those moments of desertion and abandonment and the absence of God's presence that most of his hearers and readers identify with Job. This is the universal feeling of those who have walked the path of faith. Who has not felt at some time in life forsaken by God? How many times have you prayed and felt, saw, and sensed nothing? There have been those times when heaven seems like brass and God has turned a deaf ear. We do everything we can do. We pray. We attend church. We get involved in mission programs. We read the scriptures and pray daily, but to no avail. No matter how hard we practice all of these Christian disciplines, it all appears meaningless. God seems hidden. In those moments we need to gain some sense of perspective. It would be foolish for us to think this experience is uniquely ours, that we are the only ones who experience this desert of the soul. To think such would reveal our ignorance and how little we know of our Christian faith. We must not forget how Moses waited year after year in silence for God to deliver his people. Think of those Psalms of lament. Go back and read Psalms 13, 74, and especially 88 -- the Psalms that Walter Brueggemann calls the "Psalms of disorientation." These biblical laments allow us to pray our conflicts, frustrations, and contradictions. Go back and read about Elijah, Jeremiah, and above all Habakkuk and Jesus in Gethsemane. This will be encouraging to you as you realize that with all of your frustration and anxiety you are in good company. Let us remember that as we speak about the absence of God, it is not a true absence, but a sense of God's absence. Theologically, God is always with us, but there are those moments that we are not conscious of God's presence. It is during those moments that we need to hold steady and remember what we have known of God in the past, until the clouds lift and the sun shines again. Richard Foster suggests:
Through all of this, paradoxically, God is purifying our fatih by threatening to destroy it. We are led to a profound and holy distrust of all superficial drives and human strivings. We know more deeply than ever before our capacity for infinite self-deception. Slowly we are being taken off of vain securities and false allegiances. Our trust in all exterior and interior results is being shattered so that we can learn faith in God alone. Through our barrenness of soul God is producing detachment, humility, patience and perseverance.1
In this final chapter Job responds to God's address to him. Job repents. He recognizes himself for what he is. He confesses that he made accusations falsely: "Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand." He apologizes for his arrogance and self-presupposing regarding both his friends and God. Now Job is able to do something he has found difficult to do: he accepts God's power and wisdom. He ends up where his friends said he would end up, recognizing that God is all-powerful and all-knowing and all Job can do is accept what is happening to him and live with it. But Job's confession includes the words, "I heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you." He admits that he now has a personal knowledge of God that he never before had. He confesses that his knowledge of God has been secondhand. He learned of God from the community and its members who happened to inform him about God. In verse 6, Job feels bad and despises himself for his lack of understanding of God and "repents in dust and ashes."
Job's greatest discovery in this encounter is his personal experience of God and the understanding that he can continue to question God and God will answer. Job's repentance is not as his friends thought it should be, an annihilation of himself, a total submission which reduces him to a despondent man on an ash pile. But now Job knows about a God who responds. Now he knows that he will always belong to God. Whatever, whenever, wherever, however things may transpire in Job's life, he will continue to question and have honest dialogue with God. The difference now is his awareness that God is in control. This is the "joyful and happy ending" of the Book of Job.
In this entire experience Job has learned to trust God. Prior to his trusting, things appeared out of control in his life. Confusion and chaos abounded. The result of his trust was his discovery that God, after all, is in control and that life does have a center, a whole, and above all meaning. Job discovered that God did not need to be defended, as suggested by his friends who felt it was their responsibility to intervene and defend God in light of Job's plight. This seems to be a chronic problem within the church. There are those people who are always coming up with methods and gimmicks, acting as if the power of the gospel depended on them. Perhaps the reason that this book has been so valuable for so many people for such a long period of time is the very fact that "it is in the Bible," giving us permission to challenge and question God when our suffering compels us to do so. This very questioning, the honest expression of our doubts and uncertainties, is what builds trust.
The struggle in Job's life is an inspiration to all of us. Who hasn't struggled over the whereabouts of God's presence in human life? How many times have you heard the question, "How can a good God allow such suffering in the world?" Job's lack of trust was a result of his uncertainty about the character of God. After all, Satan was given permission by God to take away Job's family, his business, and his health. Was God playing a cruel joke on Job? Because he was unable to find a purpose or a reason for his suffering, he lays the blame on God. Job confesses, "Today also my complaint is bitter; his hand is heavy despite my groaning" (23:2). Job felt that God acted unjustly toward him. How is he going to trust such a God?
Here is where the change takes place. The turning point in Job's life is found in 42:5:"I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you." Up to this point Job has only known about God by what he had heard from others. His faith was secondhand. Job listened to his friends and his knowledge of God came from them. His friends presented God as a mere object, when in reality God is a living, caring, personal, loving God. When Job declared, "But now my eye sees you," his own personal awareness of God frees him from the narrow, provincial God of his friends. His personal experience of God has liberated him from the confining understanding of God that had so characterized his earlier life. This is the turning point in Job's life. He turns from a secondhand knowledge of God to a personal encounter with God. What had been merely abstract and mental accent was transformed into personal experience and awareness. What had been distant and ambiguous was now close and real. What had been detached and remote was now genuine loving concern. The transcendent and inaccessible was now lovingly and graciously immanent.
How many times have I heard the same story. A person grows up in the church, attends Sunday school and worship services for years, works his fingers to the bone on church projects, and serves faithfully on committees. But like Job, his knowledge of God is secondhand. Then through some remarkable experience he discovers that he has no personal experience of God. His religion has been perfunctory. It has been merely part of his respectability along with being a good citizen. Church membership was on the same level as being a member of the Kiwanis and the Lions Club. Then one day, possibly at a church retreat, the person discovers that people were witnessing to a reality of faith that he has never possessed or known. Through the prayers of his friends his entire life changes. The things that were so important in his life are no longer important. Things that were considered to be unimportant and secondary became primary. The person is able to say with Job, "I heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you."
Job confesses, "But now my eye sees you." Job states that he now perceives God in a way that transforms his understanding of himself and his situation. "Seeing" involves more than just having one's eyes open. Not only does it involve seeing God differently, but when we see God differently we also see others and our world differently. One becomes conscious of the needs of others. A new vision of God brings into focus the injustice in the lives of others. A new vision of God brings to us a new awareness of the needs of others. What is out of sight many times is out of mind: the homeless, shelters for abused women and children, homes for the poor, food for the hungry, support for those who suffer through the violation of their human and civil rights, and support of AIDS coalitions. But we gain new vision and understanding for them as the result of a new awareness of God. It seems that the closer one is drawn to God through worship and prayer, the closer one is drawn to the aliens of our culture, the many people clustered at the margins of society, and those who live on the fringes of the law. This new vision of God was a turning point in Job's life. He acquired a new understanding of his life and the world around him. It can do the same for us -- to see God and others as we have never seen them before.
____________
1. Richard Foster, Prayer, p. 29.
