This was a struggle… but then to be true to the theme is a life-time struggle anyway!
The sermon text is below the sermon video (and I am sure the text will be enhanced at church tomorrow!).
Sermon Preached at Zion Episcopal, Washington NC
Sunday October 17th 2021
The Reverend Alan Neale
“The Power of ‘Why’”
From time to time I find myself thinking, or even thinking out loud, that when I meet God face to face… there are a few questions I want to ask.
What would be your questions, I wonder?
There are the usual puzzles… why mosquitos? why midges? Why red ants? Mine are a little more Gospel based. You remember when the friends broke open the roof to let their friend down before Jesus’ feet so that he might be healed. Well, first words from Jesus are “Your sins are forgiven”; imagine the reaction of the friends. Only when the scribes maintain their murmuring does Jesus turn back and speak the words of healing. So my question, if the scribes had not mumbled, would Jesus have left the man forgiven but physically unhealed?
And then the rich young man of whom we heard last week, thank you Ann-Marie, did he ever return to the Lord?
Well the book of Job is written, so we are told, to deal with one of the most primal, profound, prevalent questions… why does the omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent God permit heart-ache, pain, trauma? Now, for some other time, I would like to question all those “omni-“ statements about God but, for now, we will stick with Job.
In tedious theological jargon this is the question of theodicy… why does God allow evil?
The book of Job was written somewhere between 7th and 4th centuries BCE, the first poetic book of the Bible and reckoned to be part of “wisdom literature” including the great books of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes.
Job is pummeled by circumstances, by wife, by so-called friends (oh what friends!) to accept that his suffering is due to his sin. Job, thank God, resists this conclusion even though all heaven and earth seem to be crumbling around his ears.
Like a drowning man hanging onto a raft, or a falling man hanging on to a shrub in the rock-face, Job hangs on with resolve, resilience and rigid purpose… “Why?”.
Job, maybe like most of us, never receives an answer; in fact, the Lord never responds to the question throughout the forty-two chapters of Job.
But… the Lord never prohibits, proscribes, prevents the question. Here there is no punishment for questions, they are not taboo, they are not indicative of faithlessness or rebellion. Here “father does not know best”.
In fact, to the contrary, in the opening verses of Job 38 the Lord seems to commend, congratulate, commission Job in this mission of profound inquiry.
Job 38:1 “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?”. The Lord charges Job to learn, to study, to consider; the Christian mind is not to be discarded by disuse, eroded by neglect, damaged by dereliction. We offer pastoral care as we listen to those who speak of their pain, we garner knowledge that empowers us (like the Psalmist) to ask “why?”, “why?” and “why” again.
Empowered by this knowledge of human pain, “we gird up our loins like a man” (Job 38:2) and stand boldly, fearlessly, confidently and continue the constant refrain, “Why such suffering? Why such pain?” The Hebrew word for “man” (geber) suggests one who is valiant, defending the weak, the weary, the wretched.
And, Job 38:3, “The Lord says to Job, I will question you and you will declare to me”. “Declare?” – yes, incredible though it seems, the Lord waits with respect and regard to hear our declaration, our complaint and our lament.
In thinking about this sermon, I remembered vividly my days teaching in a most obscure private school in the south of England. Thank God, for me and the boys, I taught for only one year. Often as the lessons drew to a close, I would present homework/prep to the boys. Their cry would arise, “But sir… that’s not fair”. To which I replied constantly, “Boys, life is not fair”.
Unless we cocoon ourselves with self-congratulation, insulate ourselves with social ignorance, isolate ourselves from the angst of this fallen world… we will take up with vigor and faith the vocation to ask, “Why?” and then, by God’s grace and power, work to alleviate trauma and ordeal, suffering and distress to our world personal and global.
Not in forty-two chapters of prose and poetry does Job receive the answer to his question, in more modern terms Job might have said, “I call to you, O Lord, and all I get is your answering machine!” but he is convinced of two primal, eternal, divine truths… we survive by the Lord’s power and by the Lord’s presence.
The power is declared so clearly in chapter 38 – the Lord sets measurements and defines categories, the Lord that causes oceans to roll and lightning to flash, the Lord provides food lions and prey for ravens. Our God is majestic and will, one day… one day, have the last and final word and put right all that is askew.
The presence of the Lord is presented with such faith in Job 19:25-27 “Still, I know that God lives—the One who gives me back my life— and eventually he will take his stand on earth. And I will see him—even though I get skinned alive!— see God myself, with my very own eyes. Oh, how I long for that day!”
The book of Job encourages us, urges us, provokes us to maintain the question “Why?”; but it also comforts us as we reflect on the Lord’s magnificent power and His constant presence… I am with you always, even to the end of the days, and no evil, no power, no trauma can ultimately withstand such potent truths.
Thanks be to God. Amen