"Mystery: Restored" - Sermon, October 28, 2018
Community
UMC, Quincy
“Mystery:
Restored”
Rev.
Andrew Davis
October
28, 2018
Job
42: 1-6, 10-17
On
the last Sunday of every month, I often find myself wondering where the heck
the month has gone, as this month has flown by like all the others have this
year. Lately, I’ve been feeling the
crunch of not enough time in the day or enough days in the week. It always seems to happen at this time of
year too with preparation and putting together charge conference reports, along
with the first of the big holidays on Wednesday with Halloween, Thanksgiving a
few weeks away, then Christmas in less than two months. Thankfully, the choir will be ready for
Christmas, although not so sure this pastor will be. A week ago, I was starting to wonder if
donations would come in for our participation in Quincy Chamber’s Safe
Trick-or-Treat along Main Street on Wednesday, but thanks to the generous
donations, which are great appreciated, we will be participating and there with
bells on.
Along
with all the festivities happening around town this week and beyond, we come to
the end of our series, “Mystery” and the end of the book of Job. In some ways, this month has been the book of
Job abridged, as we have been reading and hearing about how Job was tested by
the ha-satan or adversary by losing
everything he had, sat in deep grief with minimal clothing on an ash heap,
while his three friends came along and tried consoling him, although their
words were less helpful and almost mocking.
Job felt disoriented, then as he kept making his case before God, felt
deserted and that God wasn’t listening, until God spoke and left Job
silenced.
As you have seen this month,
Job is not an easy book to read, nor an easy book to preach on, understand, or
interpret. And it’s okay if we don’t
have any neat, tidy, easy answer, and it’s okay if we have more questions about
the book, as we have to wrestle a bit with this text and question of why such
crummy circumstances happen to a good person like Job. After all, Job avoided sin and evil of any
kind in every way he could.
The book of Job also touches on limits of
testing, the silence of God’s presence that is still there amidst all that is
happening, and how Job and his friends respond to his suffering.[i] Until he finally accuses God of ignoring him
and demands a trial, Job’s friends insisted that Job did something to make God
angry, although this is where the mystery comes into play and where we
sometimes have to wrestle with the text, and even wrestle with God a little bit
too. Still, amidst everything Job went
through, he never gave up his faith in God and after his direct encounter with
God in the whirlwind, Job is humbled and restored as we heard in the text that
Janet read for us. God didn’t give Job
any neat, tidy answers like Job’s friends attempted to do, although Job now
acknowledges that God works in mysterious ways, too great for any of us to
understand, even today.
Rev. Nathalie Parker explains
that like Job,
There are moments in
life where our sight is limited because it is gauged by the perception of our
experiences. Often, we look not with our eyes, but behind our eyes. We see the
world, ourselves, and one another through the sum of our experiences, and we
are unable to witness the world with new, subjective eyes. Job could see
justice only in terms of what he deemed was right and wrong. He judged God and
himself within that small category of “righteousness.” However, the same God
that allowed Job to be persecuted is the same God that restored him. “Then the
Lord changed Job’s fortune when he prayed for his friends, and the Lord doubled
all Job’s earlier possessions” (10).[ii]
It’s
like this last week, we see suffering happening in our world and some of us may
even be dealing with suffering in one way or another, or even struggling in one
way or another and yearning to be restored.
Or, some of us may even be blind to seeing others’ suffering, in which
we need a change of perspective. Just like
Job, we may be asking why we or our friends, or family are going through something
difficult, whether it’s a physical ailment, losing a loved one, why family
situations must be so difficult, and so on. Job can be any of us.
As I’ve shared before and
maybe ad-nauseum, there have been times I’ve asked God why things happen the
way they happen, only to hear silence.
I’ll often ask God why our world is so divided, why people harbor so
much hatred, why there are shootings and violence with yet another mass
shooting a synagogue in Pittsburgh, PA. Even when I decided to walk away from the
faith for a time, I would ask God why people who call themselves Christian act
anything. Even amidst asking God, I did
not get any easy answers, but had to learn to chance my perspective. I had to learn that we have choice and our
choices have consequences. I had to
learn that people are broken or hurting in their own different ways, in which
it’s been said that people who are difficult are usually deeply hurting. Even with a changed perspective, I’ll admit
that I still want an easy answer, just like Job’s friends try to offer
him. At the same time, the worldview
that Job and his friends held onto, the mechanistic worldview which correlates
faith with well-being, “cannot explain the human condition of God’s way in the
world,” which in turn challenges us and our assumptions about how God works in
the world, even when it comes to humanity.[iii]
As
Job is restored, he is changed as a result of everything he went through, in
which he is humble, and accepts the fact that he’s not going to get an easy
answer from God in the midst of what he’s gone through. The use of repent in this case, according to
Hebrew Bible scholar W. Dennis Tucker is a changing of his mind, particularly
as it pertains to the human condition and God’s way in the world.[iv] I know after walking away
from God, God never left me and Job realizes that God never left him, even
amidst feeling deserted and disoriented.
W. Dennis Tucker further explains that as Job is restored, he “fears God without any assurance of a
subsequent blessing.
Understood
this way, the restoration of Job reflects God’s faithfulness to those who fear
him. Job does not fear God to receive a reward, but in fearing God, Job
discovers the faithfulness of God.”[v]
Just like seeing his life restored, along with his property, animals, having
new children and grandchildren, and seeing life restored back to how it is,
God’s grace works a lot like that, as it’s a gift we do not ask for and Job did
not ask God to restore all his stuff for him.
It’s how we respond in faith, and Job did not give up his faith and did
not curse God.
I
do tread with some caution with this ending, though. While Job saw everything restored twofold, we
need to be careful about expecting similar. I believe that faith does help us along the
way and can help sustain us through many situations in life. When
we talk about restoration in the case of the ending of Job, and perhaps in our
own lives,
Restoration in this
text is not referring to the external or the temporal understanding of material
means, but it is translated as the state of being full, abounding, and being
content. Ultimately, Job illustrates that in spite of our personal pain and
hurt, when we cannot change our situation, we can change our perspective.
Although, we may not fully understand the mind of God, the right thing to do is
to trust that God is within us and will never fail. Moreover, God is present in
that small voice saying “Go my child, go. You can do this!”[vi]
When we don’t allow God help
us change our perspectives or assumptions, we wind up frustrated, empty, disappointed,
hurt, and discontent, especially when we ask God for material means. Just like not getting what we want for
Christmas or our birthday, God is not a ‘cosmic Santa Claus’ or “divine vending
machine [in which] we slip in a prayer and out pops a miracle.”[vii] The reason I say this is because when
something doesn’t work out because of an assumption we may have about God’s
ways or even prayer, we are left feeling disappointed or even angry with God,
even though God is big enough to handle our anger and disappointment.
During our Lenten study, Gifts of the Dark Wood, the author, Rev.
Eric Elnes tells how he has counseled various people in his office who have
taken the perpetual ‘leap of faith’ who felt “hurt and betrayed by God or the
universe, vowing never to listen to the divine again” when things didn’t work
out.[viii] Suffering and extended periods of pain, or
situations that lead people to feel hopeless after a while can have a similar
effect. While I don’t like suffering in
any way and don’t like seeing others suffer, Rev. Adam Hamilton explains in his
book, Why? Making Sense of the Will of
God that “the sweeping message of the Bible is not a promise that those who
believe and do good will not suffer.
Instead, the Bible is largely a book about people who refused to let go
of their faith in the face of suffering.”[ix] I know people who have
had their most profound experiences with God in the midst of suffering, or I
think back to Pope John Paul II, who still ministered amidst suffering towards
the end of his life, or Jesus’s own suffering for the sake of humanity.
Furthermore, “it is easy to understand why so
many people have turned away from God when they have been taught that every
disappointment, every tragedy, every loss, and every painful experience was the
will of God,” even though there is still that mystery to consider.[x]
Even when we feel alone and in
times of difficulty or suffering, God hasn’t left us, even though God may be
silent at times or we may feel distant from God. We need to hang onto our faith and trust God,
even in the midst of such. Our pain, our
suffering, our grief, or the disappointments of life are not the end of the
story just as Job’s wasn’t the end of the story for him. Job’s faith led him to change his perspective
and experience God’s grace in a profound way, leading to restoration and in the
Gospels, Jesus’s death was not the end of the story either, as he rose from the
grave three days later.
As Job embraced and wrestled
with the mystery of God, he
discovered his sight
was limited, he shifted his expectations as well. Job, although the recipient
of God’s blessings, was never fully in control of his health, his children, his
wealth, or even with his relationships. God’s hand is at work in our lives, and
it is up to each of us as disciples of Jesus Christ, to be obedient to God’s
will. How does it feel to rely on things you cannot see? Why do we feel lost
when we cannot secure our own lives? How ironic it is that the moment Job stops
trying to figure God out and prays is the moment he is restored by God?[xi]
And
so, we leave the book of Job, embracing the mystery, or still wrestling with
the mystery. We may not have the neat,
tidy, or easy answers that we might want as to how God works or God’s will, yet
we have our faith and it’s up to each of us to act in faith and trust God, even
when we feel disoriented, deserted, or silenced, as restoration is possible and
hope is possible. Restoration may not
look like owning that fancy home, having a billion dollars, or fancy sports
car, but instead, can be a sense of peace, a sense of wholeness, a new sense of
hope. Don’t give up your faith and keep
trusting God, even when it feels like things can’t get any worse. It’s a mystery how God works, but God’s
mysterious ways are not always for us to know, only to trust and respond in
faith.
In the name of the
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, let the church say, AMEN!!
[i]
Ibid.
[ii]
2018. Gbod-Assets.S3.Amazonaws.Com. Accessed
October 27 2018.
https://gbod-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/legacy/kintera-files/worship/Oct18_MysteryWorshipSeries.pdf.
[iii]
"Commentary On Job 42:1-6, 10-17 By W. Dennis Tucker,
Jr.". 2018. Workingpreacher.Org. Accessed October 27 2018.
https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=3807.
[vi]
2018. Gbod-Assets.S3.Amazonaws.Com. Accessed
October 27 2018.
https://gbod-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/legacy/kintera-files/worship/Oct18_MysteryWorshipSeries.pdf.
[vii]
Adam Hamilton, Making Sense of the Will
of God (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2011), 52
[viii]
Eric. Elnes, Gifts of the Dark Wood:
Seven Blessings for Soulful Skeptics and Other Wanderers (Nashville:
Abingdon Press, 2015), 72
[ix]
Hamilton, 4
[x]
Ibid., 9
Comments
Post a Comment