God Shows Up
Job 31:35-37; 38:1-11, 25-27
Pentecost + 4 – June 28,
2020
Has taken me 4 weeks, but finally, I feel like I “get” what is happening in the book of Job!
· Past 3 weeks have been hard preaching – trying to find the grace and the good news about God’s loving action in a tale of suffering and woe
· Like old serial books – 1 chapter a week – waiting to see how the problems will resolve
· And finally this week, I had an aha!
Job is like Lt. Dan in Forrest Gump
Or rather, Lt. Dan is rather like Job
· Lt. Dan – Forrest’s commanding officer, saved by Forrest on the battlegrounds of Vietnam – saved, but lost both of his legs
· Throws his whole self-identity and understanding of his life into question: “I was supposed to die in the field with honor! And now I’m nothing but a cripple”
· So much loss and grief and anger – wrestling with how his life has turned out
o Experience – much like Job – of well-meaning people who ask if he’s “found Jesus yet”; the priest who shows up and tells him that God is listening, but he has to help himself
o On the shrimp boat – catching nothing but trash; tells Forrest he should pray for shrimp – but still nothing; and he asks Forrest, “Where is this God of yours?”
· Job filled with desperate suffering, longing for God to show up: “O that I had one to hear me!...I would give him an account of all my steps…”
o Like appealing his case all the way up to the Supreme Court – wants a chance to hear the indictment and the case against him; wants to hear what he did wrong, so that he can have a chance to prove his innocence
o Lt. Dan wants a showdown with God; Job wants a chance to speak to and hear from God, to get some answers for his questions
Oh, don’t we sometimes wish for a chance to see God face to face? To have a chance to ask all of our questions?
· To lament the unfairness and injustice of hard things that happen in life
· To get answers to the question of why these things are happening
o Individual: young parent dies, leaving little ones behind; tragic accident or cruel progressive disease that takes away function and vitality; cancer or dementia or addiction
o Community/national/global level:
§ (Floods that leave whole cities under water (Midland, MI this May);
§ Wildfires that rage uncontrollably, destroying property, taking lives, killing wildlife;
§ Pandemic (nearing 130k deaths in US alone) – and all of the economic stress, anxiety, social isolation, depression, relationship issues
§ Wars & ongoing unrest in various parts of the world
§ Centuries of racial injustice in our nation
· SO many “whys” for God. And “how could you let this happen?” and “why me, why us?”
· And if we’re honest, sometimes we are angry and hurt and lost and confused and want a chance to confront God face to face and demand some sort of satisfaction/answer to all of these things and more
Last left Forrest and Lt. Dan on the shrimp boat, looking at latest “catch” of trash and Lt. Dan asking Forrest “Where is this God of yours?”
· Forrest, recounting the tale, says, “It’s funny that Lt. Dan said that, because right then – God showed up!”
· God shows up in the form of a hurricane while Forrest and Lt. Dan are out at sea; Forrest is scared, but Lt. Dan is mad – and cries out to God in the midst of the storm – “It’s time for a showdown – just you and me! Is this all you got?”
· The storm rages – and when it subsides and the waters are calm again, we see Lt. Dan
o On the surface, nothing has changed for him; still a vet who lost his legs in the war, still someone who was supposed to die with honor like all of his forefathers
o And yet, everything has changed – instead of accusing Forrest of thwarting his destiny, he thanks him for saving his life; and Forrest reflects that “he made his peace with God.”
In Job too, God shows up in a whirlwind and speaks to him
· God does not show up to give Job answers, but instead to ask Job questions
o Gird up your loins like a man, I will question you, and you shall declare to me.
o Where were you when I created the earth and the stars sang and heavenly beings shouted for joy? Who controls the chaos of the seas, giving it boundaries? Who sends rain in the desert where no one lives – just to water the land and make the grass grow?
· God doesn’t come to make everything add up for Job, to answer all of the questions, to make everything clear
· God just shows up – in majesty and power and might; God shows up with awe – reminding Job of God’s vast domain and dominion, of how God created and tends to everything in creation in ways that defy explanation and human understanding
· And nothing changes for Job on the surface – but we’ll see next week that everything changes
· His circumstances don’t change, but he is changed. His perspective is changed. His sense of himself is changed. His relationship with God is changed – deepened, expanded, transformed.
This is what happens when God shows up
· We can’t predict when God will show up
· We can’t demand an appearance on our timetable
· We can’t expect God to answer all of our questions in ways that make sense to us
· Because God is awesome and mysterious and beyond our control
· But the promise of scripture, the witness of God’s people down through history is that God does show up!
· God makes God’s presence known to us – not always in the ways that we would ask for
· But God loves us deeply enough to show up – to be in relationship with us
o And somehow even when nothing around us changes, God changes everything. God changes us.
· And for that we say, thanks be to God. Amen
