Proper 22
Preaching
Preaching And Reading The Old Testament Lessons
With an Eye to the New
God trusts Job. That is the import of the conversation that the Lord has with his servant, the Adversary, in Job 2:1--6 and in 1:8--11. And we should make it clear that we are not dealing with the figure of Satan in these introductory sections to the Book of Job.
The Hebrew word satan in 1:6 and 2:6 has a definite article before it, and is much better rendered "the accuser" or "the adversary." He is a messenger of God, who roams "to and fro on the earth," acting as what we might call God's "attorney general," confronting human beings with the evidence and accusing them of their sin on behalf of God. But when the Adversary returns to the heavenly court of God, as is the case in 1:6 and 2:1, and enters into an account of his travels to the Lord, the Lord singles out Job in the conversation as an exemplary model of piety. Job, the Lord is sure, will never violate his trust and obedience of his God. The following events serve as a test of that certainty.
Job proves that is true when, in the first chapter of the book, the Adversary destroys all of Job's great wealth and fine family. Even then Job will not abandon his faith (1:21). But, counters the Adversary in our text in his second conversation with God in the heavenly court, will not Job abandon his trust in exchange for saving his own life (2:6)? Will he not give up the foundation of his existence ("skin") in exchange for his "skin"? What is trust when life is gone?
That is a question that has confronted countless Christian martyrs throughout the history of the church. And that is the test to which our Lord Christ, whom the Book of Revelation names the exemplary "martyr" (= "witness"; Revelation 1:5) was subject when the cross loomed up before him. Nevertheless, in trust he prayed to his Father, "... not what I will, but what thou wilt" (Mark 14:36 and parallels). The question of our story is: Will Job do the same?
Job's life is in fact threatened in the story that follows. He is covered with loathsome sores, so that his whole identity, for others and for himself, is done away. And he is banished from his community to the garbage dump of the town, where he can do nothing but scrape at his putrid skin with broken pieces of pottery. He has nothing left in life - not his material goods, not his sons and daughters, not his home or place in his community, not his good name (cf. chs. 29--30), not his health. It is clear that he will shortly die. Moreover, his wife, the one remaining possible comfort and help to him (cf. Genesis 2:18), turns against him and just wants to be rid of him. "Curse God," she harangues, "who has brought all of this upon you, and die" (2:9). To that wifely abandonment, Job gives a profound reply. "Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?" (2:10).
Frederick Buechner wrote a sermon once (I cannot recall where I read it), in which he meditated on John the Baptist's saying in John 1:29, "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world." Buechner concentrated on that phrase, "who takes away." God may take away many goods and blessings from us, as he allowed the Adversary to take them away from Job. And I wonder, can we thank God too for that which he takes away? Surely we can be thankful that he removes from our lives all of our sin and the things that cause us to sin. But do we trust God so much that we know that every action he does toward us is done in love? Do we trust him with our very skin, with our lives, our existence, our all? Our Lord Jesus took that trust with him to the cross and willingly let himself be crucified (John 10:18).
Job did not quite live up to the measure of Christ's trust. He argued with God, accused God, demanded a trial of God, as so many of us demand when suffering and loss overwhelm us. Yet, Job clung to one thing - his relationship with his Lord. He knew that God had been his friend in days past, and he refused to give up that friendship (cf. Job 29:4). Like Jacob in Genesis 32, he clung to God until God blessed him (32:26). And the epilogue of Job (ch. 42) tells us that the blessing came.
Perhaps that is what we should remember when it seems as if God has brought evil upon us, too. Our Father holds us in his hand, and he never deserts us, though even Christ thought he was deserted on the cross (Mark 15:34). The Father's is a love in his crucified Son from which nothing in all creation can separate us (Romans 8:38).
Lutheran Option: Genesis 2:18--24
This is the text in the scripture that forms the foundation for our Christian understanding of the marital relationship. As we preach from this text, we should make it clear that it concerns not just the relationship between an original couple called Adam and Eve. Rather, this story from the Yahwist writer of the tenth century B.C. is intended by him to be an account of us all still today. The Hebrew word for "man" in this story, 'adam, is the word for "humankind." This is a story of God's intentions for us.
The text begins with one of the most merciful words of God to be found in the Bible: "It is not good that the man should be alone." You and I were not meant to be alone in the world, not meant to be self--enclosed, self--fulfilling, isolated egos. No. We were made for relationships with our fellow human beings. In this particular text, the relationship is that of marriage, but the text could be applied to every human connection with others.
God muses to himself that it is not good for the man to be alone. Therefore he decides, "I will make a helper fit for him." That is the RSV rendering of the text. The NRSV is better: "I will make a helper as his partner." But the Hebrew for those italicized words is kenegdo, and is even better read, corresponding to him. That is, God makes for the man one in whom he sees himself, one with whom he can share and care and commune, in a mutual helpfulness and partnership. Right there at the beginning of Genesis, we have the mutual relationship and equality of male and female stated as the intention of the Lord. There is no subjugation of the female here. Man and woman are equal partners.
In his creation of a corresponding partner for the man, God therefore makes the beasts and the birds and brings them to the man to be named. "But for the man there was not found a helper corresponding to him" (v. 20). In other words, our primary relationship is not intended by God to be with the world of nature around us, but with our fellow human beings.
Finally, to make that corresponding partner, God causes a deep sleep to fall on the man, because we cannot watch the Lord God's creative activity, and he takes one of the ribs of the man and out of the rib makes a woman. Male and female were once one, you see, and after the woman's creation, they long to become one again; the desire of the sexes for one another is the intention of God. Then God the Father brings the woman to the man, and the man cries out in that ecstatic cry, "This, this at last is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh!" Here is the one corresponding to me; here is the one with whom I can share my life; here is the person with whom I can commune and with whom I can enter into the deepest fellowship known on this earth! And so the woman and man are joined together in the joyful new community of marriage, as one flesh, sharing their lives and labors together.
In the strongest terms, our text is here acknowledging the goodness of the body, of sexual desire, of marital companionship (cf. Malachi 2:14), of the home and subsequent family. The scriptures do not elevate celibacy to a higher spiritual level, nor do they ever denigrate God's good gifts of our bodies and marital love and home. Those are gifts of a loving Lord who created his world "very good" (cf. Genesis 1:31). And our text mirrors the intention of God for those goods. That we corrupt those good gifts with our sin, our lust, our perversions, our family disruptions, our marital breakups, and our battle of the sexes is set forth in the story of our fall into sin, which follows in Genesis 3. Nevertheless, our text makes the intention of God for our marriages and homes very clear. And in his teaching, our Lord Jesus repeats those intentions (Mark 10:2--9). Further, by his cross and resurrection, and the gift of his Spirit, Christ makes it possible for us to fulfill God's intentions in our marital lives. In our Lord, there is healing for our sick homes and relationships. The entire New Testament proclaims that glad message.
The Hebrew word satan in 1:6 and 2:6 has a definite article before it, and is much better rendered "the accuser" or "the adversary." He is a messenger of God, who roams "to and fro on the earth," acting as what we might call God's "attorney general," confronting human beings with the evidence and accusing them of their sin on behalf of God. But when the Adversary returns to the heavenly court of God, as is the case in 1:6 and 2:1, and enters into an account of his travels to the Lord, the Lord singles out Job in the conversation as an exemplary model of piety. Job, the Lord is sure, will never violate his trust and obedience of his God. The following events serve as a test of that certainty.
Job proves that is true when, in the first chapter of the book, the Adversary destroys all of Job's great wealth and fine family. Even then Job will not abandon his faith (1:21). But, counters the Adversary in our text in his second conversation with God in the heavenly court, will not Job abandon his trust in exchange for saving his own life (2:6)? Will he not give up the foundation of his existence ("skin") in exchange for his "skin"? What is trust when life is gone?
That is a question that has confronted countless Christian martyrs throughout the history of the church. And that is the test to which our Lord Christ, whom the Book of Revelation names the exemplary "martyr" (= "witness"; Revelation 1:5) was subject when the cross loomed up before him. Nevertheless, in trust he prayed to his Father, "... not what I will, but what thou wilt" (Mark 14:36 and parallels). The question of our story is: Will Job do the same?
Job's life is in fact threatened in the story that follows. He is covered with loathsome sores, so that his whole identity, for others and for himself, is done away. And he is banished from his community to the garbage dump of the town, where he can do nothing but scrape at his putrid skin with broken pieces of pottery. He has nothing left in life - not his material goods, not his sons and daughters, not his home or place in his community, not his good name (cf. chs. 29--30), not his health. It is clear that he will shortly die. Moreover, his wife, the one remaining possible comfort and help to him (cf. Genesis 2:18), turns against him and just wants to be rid of him. "Curse God," she harangues, "who has brought all of this upon you, and die" (2:9). To that wifely abandonment, Job gives a profound reply. "Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?" (2:10).
Frederick Buechner wrote a sermon once (I cannot recall where I read it), in which he meditated on John the Baptist's saying in John 1:29, "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world." Buechner concentrated on that phrase, "who takes away." God may take away many goods and blessings from us, as he allowed the Adversary to take them away from Job. And I wonder, can we thank God too for that which he takes away? Surely we can be thankful that he removes from our lives all of our sin and the things that cause us to sin. But do we trust God so much that we know that every action he does toward us is done in love? Do we trust him with our very skin, with our lives, our existence, our all? Our Lord Jesus took that trust with him to the cross and willingly let himself be crucified (John 10:18).
Job did not quite live up to the measure of Christ's trust. He argued with God, accused God, demanded a trial of God, as so many of us demand when suffering and loss overwhelm us. Yet, Job clung to one thing - his relationship with his Lord. He knew that God had been his friend in days past, and he refused to give up that friendship (cf. Job 29:4). Like Jacob in Genesis 32, he clung to God until God blessed him (32:26). And the epilogue of Job (ch. 42) tells us that the blessing came.
Perhaps that is what we should remember when it seems as if God has brought evil upon us, too. Our Father holds us in his hand, and he never deserts us, though even Christ thought he was deserted on the cross (Mark 15:34). The Father's is a love in his crucified Son from which nothing in all creation can separate us (Romans 8:38).
Lutheran Option: Genesis 2:18--24
This is the text in the scripture that forms the foundation for our Christian understanding of the marital relationship. As we preach from this text, we should make it clear that it concerns not just the relationship between an original couple called Adam and Eve. Rather, this story from the Yahwist writer of the tenth century B.C. is intended by him to be an account of us all still today. The Hebrew word for "man" in this story, 'adam, is the word for "humankind." This is a story of God's intentions for us.
The text begins with one of the most merciful words of God to be found in the Bible: "It is not good that the man should be alone." You and I were not meant to be alone in the world, not meant to be self--enclosed, self--fulfilling, isolated egos. No. We were made for relationships with our fellow human beings. In this particular text, the relationship is that of marriage, but the text could be applied to every human connection with others.
God muses to himself that it is not good for the man to be alone. Therefore he decides, "I will make a helper fit for him." That is the RSV rendering of the text. The NRSV is better: "I will make a helper as his partner." But the Hebrew for those italicized words is kenegdo, and is even better read, corresponding to him. That is, God makes for the man one in whom he sees himself, one with whom he can share and care and commune, in a mutual helpfulness and partnership. Right there at the beginning of Genesis, we have the mutual relationship and equality of male and female stated as the intention of the Lord. There is no subjugation of the female here. Man and woman are equal partners.
In his creation of a corresponding partner for the man, God therefore makes the beasts and the birds and brings them to the man to be named. "But for the man there was not found a helper corresponding to him" (v. 20). In other words, our primary relationship is not intended by God to be with the world of nature around us, but with our fellow human beings.
Finally, to make that corresponding partner, God causes a deep sleep to fall on the man, because we cannot watch the Lord God's creative activity, and he takes one of the ribs of the man and out of the rib makes a woman. Male and female were once one, you see, and after the woman's creation, they long to become one again; the desire of the sexes for one another is the intention of God. Then God the Father brings the woman to the man, and the man cries out in that ecstatic cry, "This, this at last is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh!" Here is the one corresponding to me; here is the one with whom I can share my life; here is the person with whom I can commune and with whom I can enter into the deepest fellowship known on this earth! And so the woman and man are joined together in the joyful new community of marriage, as one flesh, sharing their lives and labors together.
In the strongest terms, our text is here acknowledging the goodness of the body, of sexual desire, of marital companionship (cf. Malachi 2:14), of the home and subsequent family. The scriptures do not elevate celibacy to a higher spiritual level, nor do they ever denigrate God's good gifts of our bodies and marital love and home. Those are gifts of a loving Lord who created his world "very good" (cf. Genesis 1:31). And our text mirrors the intention of God for those goods. That we corrupt those good gifts with our sin, our lust, our perversions, our family disruptions, our marital breakups, and our battle of the sexes is set forth in the story of our fall into sin, which follows in Genesis 3. Nevertheless, our text makes the intention of God for our marriages and homes very clear. And in his teaching, our Lord Jesus repeats those intentions (Mark 10:2--9). Further, by his cross and resurrection, and the gift of his Spirit, Christ makes it possible for us to fulfill God's intentions in our marital lives. In our Lord, there is healing for our sick homes and relationships. The entire New Testament proclaims that glad message.
