Sermon for the 20th Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 24B  Lectionary 29
October 18, 2009
Texts:  Job 38:1-7, 34-41; Psalm 104:1-9, 35b; Hebrews 5:1-10, Mark 10:35-45

Have you ever wanted to demand an answer from God?

Usually in the form of a question of WHY?  WHY GOD This???

I read a story this week about Pastor Dave and his friend Charlie
Which ends in a series of “why” questions.

It really may be too much of an exaggeration
To call Charlie a friend of Dave

Charlie was a younger kid in the neighborhood,
Who always insisted on hanging around Dave’s family.

He ended up going to church with Dave’s family,
And if Charlie saw Dave’s mother struggling with heavy chores,
He would always pitch in
And offer to help.

Charlie was a good kid
In fact, too good a kid.
His willingness to go to church
And to help with chores around someone else’s house
Actually put Dave and his grumbling in a bad light.

His parents were always asking,
Why can’t you be more like Charlie?

Yet Charlie adored Dave,
Following him around like a puppy
Or an annoying younger brother.

When Dave headed off to college,
Charlie would manage to hitch a ride to campus
Just to spend time with Dave.

And when Dave got a part-time job,
Being a radio show host on the campus radio network
Charlie was his biggest fan.

When Charlie graduated from high school,
He wasn’t quite sure what he wanted to do with himself,
So he sauntered over to the Navy Recruiting office
And talked to a nice recruiter there.

The recruiter assured him
That with his talents on the trumpet,
He was all but assured a spot in the Navy Band.

Now someone less trusting
Or maybe less good than Charlie
Might have asked the recruiter
How getting a navy band spot
Would be possible in 1968,
In the middle of the Vietnam war.

But Charlie took the recruiter’s words at face value,
And signed on.

And sure enough,
He was immediately sent to Basic Training,
And then to specialized Medic training.
Shortly after this he was deployed
With his platoon to Vietnam.

Now Dave’s Mom wrote faithfully to Charlie
And often sent goodie boxes.
She begged Dave to write to Charlie, too.

But Dave was too busy with his own life
To spend time writing to someone younger,
Who was now distant from his own life.

Dave did manage to record some music from Charlie’s favorite band
And he intended to send it to Charlie,
But somehow it just sat on the guilt pile on his desk.

And then the word came,
Charlie was missing in action.
Everyone was praying for Charlie
Asking God for a miracle,
And asking God Why?

And then Charlie’s mother finally got word
That Charlie had been confirmed dead.
He had been with a Marine patrol
Near Khe San and had stepped on a mine.

What little was left of his blown apart body
Was sent home in a body bag
For a funeral with full military honors.

As Dave stood with the hundreds of people
At Charlie’s funeral,
With more than a little tinge of guilt
He wanted to ask God WHY,
Why someone 20 years old have to die in war?
Why did it always happen to the good ones?
Why of all people Charlie?

Dave wanted an audience with God to understand
Why this had to happen!

You, perhaps have similar questions for God,
Why this?
Why now,
Why this person? 

So many times we seem to be confronted
With things that don’t make sense to us.

We would like to know God’s reasons,
God’ grand scheme.

But the answers to these questions
Are shrouded in mystery for us.

In the book of Job,
Like us, Job wants answers from God.

As we heard a couple of weeks ago,
Job has suffered incredible losses,
Family killed,
Home destroyed,
And Job himself stricken with a debilitating skin disorder.
Job has hit rock bottom and finds himself sitting on an ash heap.

For nearly 30 chapters in the Book of Job,
Job’s so-called friends tell him
That he must have done something wrong
To deserve God’s punishment.

In these same chapters,
Job continues to declare his innocence,
And to ask God
Why all these things have happened to him.

Job continually states that he wants an audience with God
To declare his innocence,
And to have God explain to him what is going on.

Repeatedly Job asks to address God,
Repeatedly Job wants God
To acknowledge Job’s innocence.

Job knows that God is righteous,
Yet Job also knows that he, himself is innocent,
And in his mind he cannot rationalize these two statements,
With the existence of the torment and suffering
That he has had to endure.

Throughout these 30 plus chapters,
We have heard and felt Job’s expression of pain.

This is a pain that we can understand.
Perhaps we have not suffered to the extent that Job has
Or perhaps we have,
But, in any event, like Job,
We too have difficulty accepting that God’s people,
Particularly God’s righteous people, should have to suffer.

Anyone who has stood next to a hospital bed,
Or beside the grave of a loved one,
Is familiar with the sensation of questioning God,
And crying out to God,
Why?  Why now?, Why this person?

So when we hear in Chapter 38, like we did this morning,
That God does appear to Job
In a whirlwind,
At first we feel a sense of relief,
God heard Job,
And God shows up.

But as soon as God begins speaking to Job,
We feel a sense of disorientation,
A disorientation that Job, himself, most likely initially felt.

We are hoping for answers
And instead we get a creation story.
Rather than addressing Job’s questions,
Or Job’s assertion of his innocence,
God begins a monologue.

First God asks Job why he speaks about things
That he doesn’t understand.

And then God tells Job that he
Will be asked a series of questions.

And then the questions come,
Seemingly rhetorical questions such as
Where were you when God created the earth?

God asks Job a whole series of questions
That reflect on God’s role vs. Job’s role.

The last question of Chapter 38
Finally asks Job who provides the food for the ravens,
When their young are hungry.

In other words,
Who takes care of even the birds?

These words are somewhat reminiscent of Jesus’ words
In the Gospel of Luke,
When he tells the people listening to him
To consider the ravens,
And see how God feeds them.
Jesus then questions the people, again rhetorically,
Are you not more valuable than the ravens? 

In this monologue,
God seeks to remind Job
That it is God who is in charge of the world.

You might interpret God’s speech as a put down to Job,
But I prefer to think of it as God using imagery of the magnificent creation
To remind Job that God is in control,
And that he can stop worrying and stop trying to prove God wrong. 

After the shock of seeing God in the whirlwind,
And hearing God’s set of rhetorical questions,
Job has a “I should have had a V8” kind of moment.

In a later chapter, Job is able to respond to God,
To admit that he should not have questioned God,
That God’s ways are too full of wonder for him.

The words that God spoke from the whirlwind to Job
Are words not just for Job,
But for every person, who has called out and questioned God
In a period of suffering.

The words from the whirlwind do not address our questions of Why,
Any more than God gave Job an answer to his Why questions,
Rather God’s whirlwind speech re-frames our questions,
And reminds us that our human comprehension
Doesn’t allow us to understand God or God’s ways.

We get glimpses of God’s power in creation,
But God is beyond understanding.

God’s re-framing of our questions,
Leads us to not to understand Why,
But to reassure us that God is indeed in control.

The disciples, and by extension us,
Could not and did not understand what was going on
When Jesus declares one more time
In this morning’s Gospel reading from Mark
That he was going to give his life.

On the day of the crucifixion,
The disciples couldn’t possibly know
That Jesus’ death was not the end,
(Despite his having said that he would die and be raised).

God does not cause our suffering,
Forces of evil or natural processes create suffering,
But God does indeed bring good out of evil,
And resurrection out of death.

God’s ways ARE too wonderful for us to understand,
But God is in control,
And just maybe, we will realize that
That it is a really good thing that God is in charge
And not us.

Amen