Service Type: Season of Pentecost

If God were to speak to you, would you choose the still, small comforting whispering voice that God spoke to the prophet Samuel and Elijah?

Or would you choose the powerful and challenging voice from the whirlwind that Job encountered? The still small voice would be my choice.

Sometimes God chooses to speak to us through mind boggling life experiences to get our attention, as God appears to do with Job. And this was God response to Job’s challenge to God in chapter 23, where Job cries out…

Would God contend with me in the greatness of his power? No; but he would give heed to me. There an upright person could reason with him, and I should be acquitted forever by my judge. (Job 23:6-7)

Job is caught totally off guard when God confronts him in the loud thundering sounds of the whirlwind. God honours Job’s request for an encounter with him, but not in the way he expected or wanted.

Job, like us, wanted answers to his many questions and an opportunity to question God as to why he was suffering. And as is often the case, God doesn’t answer our many questions. God never tells Job of the bet he has made with Satan concerning Job’s integrity and faith. God does not answer Job’s probing questions as to why the righteous or why anyone else suffers. God does not indulge or cater to Job’s obsession with his own personal integrity and to justify that he is innocent.

God refuses to be placed on the witness stand to answer to Job, instead God places Job on the witness stand to be bombarded with some seventy-seven questions in chapters 38-41. God challenges Job to answer the questions that are beyond his understanding.

For example God asks Job from the powerful whirlwind, . . .
“Who is it that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up your loins like a man (a hero-warrior), I will question you, and you shall declare to me.” (Job 38:1-2)

Or “Is it by your wisdom that the hawk soars, and spreads its wings toward the south? Is it at your command that the eagle mounts up and makes its nest on high?” (Job 39:26-27)

Imagine what you would think, say, or do if you were asked the same questions that God asked of Job.

Through the 77 questions that God asks of Job, Job is made to understand that God governs the universe in such a way that allows for creative design, that enables evil to be contained, and for God’s providential care to come through.

It also puts Job and us in a situation where we must stand in awe of God’s design, even though it is at times so bewildering and so beyond what or how we believe God should act or be.

All of God’s questions are meant to emphasize the fact that God is free to act just as we are free to act.

Most of us are much more comfortable with human free will, than we are with God’s free will. We generally give thanks to God that we are created to be free agents in this life, free to make choices, and free to accept or reject God and his blessings.

But when it comes to accepting God’s freedom to choose and to act, we become uncomfortable. And that is a whole different issue for us. After all, God is free to act and do as he pleases because God is God. God is not limited by what we think he should do or say. God will not be boxed in by human reason or human desire.

Like Job, we too are left speech-less, bewildered, in awe of God and yes, even troubled by this God who we have come to worship today. This means that God is beyond our control and we as creatures are under God’s sovereign and loving control whether we acknowledge or like it or not.

In chapter 40, God asks Job the question,
Will the faultfinder contend with the Almighty? Anyone who argues with God must respond. (Job 40:2)

These are strong words from a God who speaks from a powerful whirlwind! They are words that demand a response from us. God had presented His case to Job and now it was Job’s turn to respond to God.

As a result, all of Job’s lofty words and well-practiced arguments escaped him. All Job could do was to fall on his face before God his Creator and say,
“See, I am of small account;
what shall I answer you?
I lay my hand over my mouth. (Job 40:4)

In Job’s response to God, we get a picture of how we are to respond to God our creator, redeemer and sustainer.

Job’s first statement, “See, I am of small account” reflects a man who has come to the important understanding that compared to the vastness of the creation he is insignificant. Job’s statement reveals a person who has been humbled by what he has seen and heard. He is one who comes to know the reality that God is God and he is not. This is an important lesson that every human has struggled with since Adam and Eve choose to disobey obey God and give into the temptation to be independent and sovereign creatures.

This is rather strange because we have been taught just the opposite by our society. We have been encouraged to recognize our value, importance, and significance as people. We are encouraged by society to be masters of our fate and to set ourselves up in the place of God.

There is certainly a place for recognizing our worth, for healthy individuals do. But the ever-present danger is when we place too much emphasis on our significance, we lose sight of the fact that God is ultimately in control and not us.

For us this means that whatever God allows we must bow in submission to him, just as Jesus humbly accepted and subjected himself to God’s will for him in the Garden of Gethsemane.

To be in a right relationship with God means that we must humbly accept the fact that God is God and we are not. When we forget this important truth even for a moment, we become self-focused, self-indulgent persons who do not glorify God.

Job’s second statement, “What shall I answer you?” reveals that he realizes that all of his petty questions, concerns, and demands mean very little in God’s larger design for his creation.

If Job couldn’t understand the inner workings of nature, or God’s purposes for his creation how could he possibly explain or understand his situation? Job is forced to let go of his many questions and yield to God’s wisdom and power.

But in doing so, God offered Job relief from his mental anguish caused by his many questions by saying something to the effect “Rest in me, trust in me. I’ll do my work and you do yours.”

This is relieves us of having to know the reason for why things happen. This frees us from having to play God and to put our efforts in doing what God wants whether we know what is happening to us, or those around us or our world.

Even Jesus, we are told in the Scriptures had to learn obedience through what he suffered. Jesus who was one with the Father, abandoned his right to control his destiny and submitted his will to the Father’s.

As Jesus leaves the Garden of Gethsemane, he goes on to boldly face and endure his cross with the solid confidence that things will turn out as God intends. If we are to follow Jesus faithfully, then we must abandon what we want in order to follow God in the ways chooses for us. This is the only way to be truly content in this life.

And Job’s third statement, Knowing when to be silent before God and listen. “I lay my hand upon my mouth. I have spoken once, and I will not answer; twice, but will proceed no further.” (Job 40:4-5)

After all Job has gone through with his knowing why he has suffered unjustly, he begins to understand that God is much wiser and knowledgeable than he or his comforters think they are. God has already given him a lesson about God’s control over creation and Job knows he has much to learn and prepares himself to learn more.

We struggle with not having the answers to life’s perplexing issues. We want to control our life and hate it when we feel we don’t have control. Sometimes the only thing we can do is simply to be silent and listen to whatever God speaks to us from the Scriptures and from our circumstances.

If the last 20 months have taught us anything it the fact the only thing we have any sort of control over is how we choose to response to our circumstances and who we choose to listen to. The book of Job teaches us that our response to life is a choice that God gives to us. God can lead us to wisdom, but he can’t make us listen and learn what he wants us to learn.

When God in comes to Job in the powerful whirlwind to speak with him, God demonstrated to Job that he was listening to him and valued him. Otherwise God would have just ignored him.

Like Job, the Psalmist comes to stand in awe of God as he considers his creation by God. In Psalm 8 we read,

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars that you have established;
what are human beings that you are mindful of them,
mortals that you care for them?
Yet you have made them a little lower than God,
and crowned them with glory and honor.

If this isn’t enough to convince us that God loves us and is in control then we should ponder anew the mystery of Christ’s suffering on the cross for our sins. If doesn’t convince us, then nothing will.

When God finally spoke to Job, the words probably weren’t the ones Job had wanted or expected to hear. But it was through God’s challenge to him to consider the complex, and awe-inspiring creation that Job was able to get his mind off his suffering. It also provided Job with a new perspective on God, his life, and even his personal pain.

When life seems so totally out of our control, God challenges us to consider the vastness of his creation and to understand that God is in control. And thus like Job, we too are challenged by God to rest in His divine control over the creation and our lives.

And we are challenged to see Him more clearly, love Him more dearly, and follow Him more nearly day by day in the midst of whatever circumstances we find ourselves in.

Amen.

Sermon: When the world walks out

When you are having a difficult time, who is the first person you call? And why do you call them? I am inclined to believe we call that person because we know as the American author Walter Mitchell declared,

“A real friend is someone who walks in
when the rest of the world walks out.”

A month ago, we looked at how when Job’s friends heard of Job’s terrible circumstances and suffering, came to him. When they arrived, the rest of the world had already walked out on Job. He desperately needed friends who would understand his situation, who would sympathize with him, who would stand by his side and offer him comfort and relief.

After Job’s friends sit quietly with Job for seven days and nights, Job pours out his frustration at God beginning in chapter 3. It is at this point that there is a dramatic change in Job’s friend’s attitudes towards him.

Job’s four friends begin to launch to arguments with Job to tell him why he is suffering in chapters 4-37. Their arguments reflect the conventional wisdom of the day that a just God would not allow the righteous to suffer unjustly.

Therefore Job’s suffering is a direct consequence of some specific that he has committed. The four friends or sometimes ironically called Job’s comforters are free to offer their insights into what specific sins Job has committed. Job knows better, he believes he is suffering unjustly and does not know why such calamity has occurred to him.

Job’s friends who started off well as his comforters, because Job’s accusers as they argue with him. The speeches of Job’s accusers lack of empathy, they lack full understanding, and they lack humility.

There is a certain contemporary feel to these numerous theological speeches in the midst of our current societal debates around the Pandemic, vaccination, and how best to get back to normal.

Job’s friends seem unable to comprehend that they may not have all the right answers to what is happening to Job. Their inaccurate human explanations add to the intensity of Job’s misery and suffering.

For example, in chapter 18, which precedes the chapter we read today, Job’s friend named Bildad, calls Job wicked. Bildad believes that the reason why Job is suffering is because he has sinned against God. He believes that Job’s losses of family, property, and health are a sign of his wickedness because God always punishes the wicked and never the righteous as Job claims he is.

Bildad lived in a black and white universe where the good guys always wear white hats and win and the bad guys where black hats and always lose. Bildad’s judgments do not leave any room for the mystery of God’s will and God’s ways, which may not be apparent in any given moment. The big question being debated here is …

“How do you reconcile undeserved suffering with a God who is both almighty and just?”

That is a great question to wrestle with your not suffering. But when you are suffering do you want someone to point out your errors of your thinking or do you want someone to come along you to support you, hold your hand, and sympathize with you?

I don’t know about you, but I’ll take support over criticism and explanations every time.

You have to wonder how Job’s friends would have responded to Jesus and his suffering?

Would they have sought to understand God’s plan in letting the sinless Jesus suffer for those who sin and fall short of God’s intentions for them?

Or would they have stuck to their principles and beliefs that God blesses the righteous and punishes sinners as the Pharisees did of Jesus’ day?

Their response to Job’s suffering tells me that they would have joined the ranks of the Pharisees who condemned Jesus to death who didn’t share their views and follow their interpretations of the Mosaic Laws.

One of the important lessons we learn from Job’s friends and their attempts to figure out what is going on with Job is that our understanding is limited and to offer anyone any sweeping explanations of why someone is suffering is foolish, wrong, and unloving.

Pride motivates us to speak and explain things that can’t be easily explained, it creates barriers and not bridges. It allows one to walk away from those who suffer untouched and without doing anything to relieve the suffering.

Love on the other hands motivates us to listen, to understand, to enter into another’s pain, to stick around with the discussions get messy, and to do what we can to share the burdens of the suffering.

I don’t about you but it saddens me deeply that in the last 20 months of this pandemic so many people have wasted so opportunities to care and come along side others in favor of voicing their opinions that cause only harm and misery to those who are hurting around them.

Like Job, I suspect we have all experienced pain and hardship. I suspect we have been on the receiving end of unhelpful explanations for what has happen to us, our loved ones or our world. I know that I have given my share of foolish explanations to people over the years.

Perhaps you have experienced the pain of feeling you or those you love, have been abandoned by God. Abandonment is such strong and painful human emotion. We hear Jesus use the words from Psalm 22 to express his abandonment from God on the cross.

We hear this in Job’s cry in verses 2 and 3 of chapter 19 demonstrate, which are addressed to his not so helpful and uncaring friend Bildad,

“How long will you torment me,
and break me in pieces with words?
These ten times you have cast reproach upon me;
are you not ashamed to wrong me?

Later in chapter 19, Job cries out his longing for a Redeemer or someone who will walk in when the rest of the world has walked out,

“For I know that my Redeemer lives,
and that at the last he will stand upon the earth;
and after my skin has been thus destroyed,
then in my flesh I shall see God,
whom I shall see on my side,
and my eyes shall behold, and not another.
My heart faints within me!”

Surprisingly in the midst of his suffering Job expresses his confidence that even if he died, he would have a Redeemer, who will offer comfort, sympathy, and even true judgment upon him, which he has not experienced from his so called friends.

The word “Redeemer,” which Job uses, refers to what is called a Kinsfolk Redeemer. A Kinsfolk Redeemer was one who walks in to reclaim family members who had been sold into slavery (Lev. 25:25).

A Kinsfolk Redeemer was one who would go to court on behalf of a wronged relative (Prov. 23:10-11).

In the book of Ruth, Ruth’s distant relative Boaz is a Kinsfolk Redeemer who was willing and able to rescue her, restore her family’s property, and thus gives her new life after the death of her husband Elimelech.

People who are suffering like Job need a Kinsfolk Redeemer “who walk in when the whole world has walked out.”

Job’s desire for a Kinsfolk Redeemer foreshadows the coming of Christ, our Redeemer. Although Job does not know Christ yet, he recognizes God as his Redeemer.

Despite his suffering, Job clung to his hope that God would provide a Kinsfolk Redeemer to give him relief from his dire circumstances and from his friends turned adversaries.

We are reminded this morning as we come to the Lord’s Table that God has provided us with a Kinsfolk Redeemer who walks in the when the whole world walks out on us.

We are reminded too that Jesus has redeemed us from our slavery to our sin, to our need to always be right and to criticize those with whom we disagree.

By inviting us to join him at his table, Jesus challenges us to continue join him in his important work of supporting those facing crisis with words that will in the long run support, build up, and comfort.

May God give us the wisdom to follow in the example of Christ our Lord, who is our strength and our kinfolk redeemer.

Amen!

Introduction
I want you to think for a moment of friends who you feel especially close to and who you can always count on when times get tough.

What do you think is the most important characteristic of friendship that they have taught you?

Today, we are introduced to three of Job’s friends named Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar. These three friends of Job are often referred as “Job’s comforters.” At the beginning of Job’s suffering due to the loss of his wealth, children, and health, they demonstrate how to be friends who we can count on.

The first quality of Friendship demonstrated by Job’s friends is they dropped everything to come to the aid of their friends.

Actor and director Woody Allen once said that 80-90% of success is just showing up. We can say the same thing about friendship as well.

Good friends come to help without being asked or invited. Good friends value their relationships with their friends above and beyond their busy schedules. This is part and parcel of placing other needs before our own as we are taught to do through the example of Christ.

When we are in desperate straits or facing an illness, a tragedy, or death in the family isn’t it great to have friends who step in to help us without being invited. Job’s friends demonstrate this when they respond immediately to Job’s crisis and come to his aid.

Have you ever had the experience of suddenly having the feeling that you needed to phone or drop by a friend’s place and discovered that is what your friend needed? I am sure we all have stories to tell of the times when we needed help and at that moment the phone rang or a friend showed up just when we needed it. Kathy calls them “God moments.”

Kathy and I had friends in Nova Scotia who knew the right time to drop by. Our friends Barb and Charlie who lived across the street from us just seemed know when to show up when our children were sick, or our car needed fixing or we when needed encouragement and support as new parents. This is what good friends do.

The second quality of friendship that Job’s friends demonstrate at the beginning is Sympathy toward those who are hurting.

Sympathy is feeling compassion, sorrow, or pity for the hardships that another person encounters.

When Job’s friends arrive at Job’s city, they see their friend sitting outside the city’s gate, with his clothes torn, his head shaved, and with nasty sores covering his body. They see their friend praying and grieving as one would expect of someone in Job’s time to be doing. They know automatically from what they see that Job’s suffering is great.

Outside the city gate would have been the city dump. This is where the city would have burned their human and animal wastes, which is why it was often called the “ash heap.” And this is where people with diseases such as lepers would have been forced to live by the residents of the city. It was an unpleasant place to be.

The first thing Job’s friends do is they is to sit with Job among the ashes and the awful smells of the city dump and refuse. They tear their clothes and throw dust on their heads as was the custom to dramatically identify themselves with Job who feels he is as good as dead as the dust and ashes symbolize.

They also express their deep sympathy for him through the shedding of tears.

The expression of Job’s friends echoes the actions of Jesus who when he arrived to comfort his friends Mary and Martha over the death of their brother Lazarus broke down and wept. Jesus on other occasions expressed his sympathy through his tears. Sometimes the only we can do as well is to weep with and for our friends private in the time of

Like Job’s friends we should also not be afraid to sit publicly with our friends and weep with them if we value our friendship with them.

3) Job’s friends at the beginning teach us the value of suffering presence.

Job’s friends were at their best when they responded to his suffering by coming to sit quietly with him. They sit quietly with him for seven days and nights. Their quiet “suffering presence” said more than any words could. And in doing so they brought comfort to Job.

This sounds counter intuitive, but a tear, a nod, a sigh when a friend shares with us is extremely helpful and powerful. After a while you learn who you want to share with and who you don’t share with for just that reason.

In chapter 3, Job begins pours out his heart to God in great frustration and anguish, as only a man who has lost everything is prone to do.

When Job’s friends hear such open and honest talk come from a man who they believe is a very righteous and faithful man, unfortunately their sympathy for Job quickly changes to blame, shame, condemnation, judgment, and legalism.

Job’s friends become disgusted by such unholy talk from such a godly man like Job. And thus begins 34 chapters of dialogues between Job and his friends about who is right, who is wrong and attempts to explain the unknowable. Job’s friends cease at this point to be comforters and become his adversaries instead.

Job’s friend never make the leap from Sympathy to Empathy, which is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.

Norman Habel in his commentary on Job writes,

“A despairing person needs loyalty from his friends (Job 6:14) not the arrogance of compassionless disputants.” (page 150)

Doesn’t it drive you crazy when “friends” with the best of intentions, insist upon offering advice when you are hurting or who offer explanations as to why you are going through a particular situation? Or when they share their experience, when all you want to do is listen and understand your situation and feelings?

I am sure we have all been on the receiving end of unhelpful advice, explanations and stories. More often than naught, words offer little comfort. I would rather have a good friend who will sit with me, listen to me, and who will simply offer their “suffering presence” to me.  

Along with this we also need to learn the value of knowing when to stay and when to graciously leave. Job’s friends would have offered a greater degree of comfort if they had gone home after the seven days and nights. We need to learn from Job’s friends the comforting benefits of speaking less and staying for shorter periods of time.

A good rule of thumb is “If in doubt, say as little as possible to a friend in need.” I guarantee that your friend will truly appreciate it and will continue to share their struggles with you.

Here at the beginning of Job, we take the positive lessons from Job’s friends that point us to person and work of Christ.

Jesus showed up at the right time to help.

Jesus the Son of God identified with us by becoming human like us and truly entering into the pain and suffering of the world. He freely expressed his sorrow for others privately and in public.

Jesus put compassion first over judgment, he understood much, said and did only what was necessary to bring healing, hope, love and help to those who were hurting.

Jesus taught his disciples to love one another as he loved us and to demonstrate God’s love in concrete ways to others.

As we come to the Lord’s table today, let us thank God for our friendship with him and let us commit our to being the kind of friends God teaches to be to each other.

To God be all glory forever and ever. Amen.