June 14, 2020 - Honest to God - Job 3:1-10; 4:1-9; 7:11-21

Honest to God
Job 3:1-10; 4:1-9; 7:11-21
Pentecost + 2 – June 14, 2020

Intro: Kate Bowler is an associate professor of the history of Christianity in North America at Duke University

·     In 2015, diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer at age 35

·     In the midst of her treatment, she wrote an essay that she sent off on a whim to the NY Times, which was then published and generated thousands of responses

o  People emailing and writing, sharing stories of grief and loss and uncertainty, their search for meaning in the pain and the tragedy

·     And she received an in-box full of strangers giving reasons for why she had gotten cancer

o  Reminders that death was not the end

o  People offering advice

o  People sharing platitudes, like the title of her subsequent book, “Everything Happens for a Reason” (to which her husband replied to their neighbor when she said that, “I’d love to hear it – the reason my wife is dying…” effectively ending the conversation)

 It’s a common reaction for most of us in the face of deep pain and loss and grief – to be uncomfortable

·     To want to help in some way

o  And so we offer our own sort-of similar experiences: “I know just how you feel. When my aunt had cancer…”

o  We offer clichés meant to comfort:

§  God never gives us more than we can handle.

§  At least… fill-in the blank (at least you have other children/can try to have other children; at least you had all these years together; at least they caught it early...)

§  God has a plan/everything happens for a reason

·     In our discomfort, we long to make some meaning out of suffering; to believe that out of suffering can come good, that it can – on the other side of it, if there is another side – work for good somehow for the person suffering or for others

·     And sometimes we offer up our certainty of the reasons why bad things happen – suggesting that illness or death or trauma is a punishment for something we’ve done – or that a lack of healing comes as a result of a lack of faith

You may have been on the receiving end of these kinds of well-intended words – and you know how they can wound

Surely Job knew what that was like

·     In chapters 1 and 2 last week, we met Job, who had it all, and suddenly lost everything – livestock, servants, even all of his children in one tragic windstorm – and then his physical body was afflicted with sores from head to toe

·     At the end of chapter 2, his wife encourages him to “curse God and die!”

o  Yet in all of these things, the Bible says, “Job did not sin with his lips; Job did not charge God with wrongdoing”

·     But in chapter 3, Job begins to let loose.

o  In the company of his 3 friends who sat with him in silent commiseration for 7 days and 7 nights, Job doesn’t curse God, but he does curse the day of his birth, even the night he was conceived; life is so awful he wishes he had never been born at all

·     And perhaps it’s no wonder that Eliphaz, his buddy, feels like he has to say something here

o  Message version: “Would you mind if I said something to you? Under the circumstances it’s hard to keep quiet. You yourself have done this plenty of times, spoken words that clarify, encouraged those who were about to quit…

o  You’ve been hit hard and you’re reeling from the blow. But shouldn’t your devout life give you confidence now? Shouldn’t your exemplary life give you hope?

o  Shouldn’t you know the way out, Job? – ultimately, he and the others will pressure and push Job to confess his sin so that God will heal him…

·     It is so hard to sit with someone in so much anguish and pain, physically and emotionally – and just sit. Just be present. Just listen and love.

·     We so want to fix it!

·     Our “helping” tends to do a better job of minimizing our own pain rather comforting the one who is hurting

·     Sends a message that raw pain and anguish isn’t acceptable, isn't faithful

·     Leap to defending/protecting/explaining God, putting a positive spin

 

But what we see in Job is that God doesn’t need our defense, our protection, our explanations

·     God can handle our laments, our grief, our anguish, our questions, our anger directed at God

·     Job is honest to God in chapter 7 – the first time he speaks directly to God in the book of Job, but it will not be the last!

·     Job knows that he is innocent, that he does not deserve this suffering (Job, like his friends, still has a theology of retribution – that bad things come as a result of sin)

o  And so he turns his cries directly to God

·     He laments and questions and complains

o  As the Message puts it, “my complaining to high heaven is bitter, but honest.”

·     Life recently has been so, so hard, and Job wants answers!

o  He feels targeted by God, he wants a break, a reprieve – even his sleep is disturbed by nightmares!

·     I’m not saying that Job gets satisfying answers to these questions – but isn’t it refreshing to see him just lay it all out there with no restraint, trusting that God can handle it

·     But when God eventually shows up to respond, God will commend Job for his honesty, for persisting in relationship with God even when it is hard

·     And that is good news for all of us who have ever gone through pain and struggle and wondered why and got angry at God or felt abandoned or wished that God would show up and answer our question

·     Because we don’t have to put on a happy face or keep a stiff upper lip when it comes to our relationship with God; we can wrestle and complain and mourn and question and get angry and despair, and God is with us in and through it all

·     And there is freedom in being able to be honest to God, to be real, to be authentic and vulnerable – in being who we really are in the moment and not having to pretend to God

o  Because in Jesus, we see a God who knows the depth of suffering

o  Luther called that the theology of the cross – that we can see God’s power most clearly hidden in vulnerability and pain on the cross – and so we can call a thing what it is and not try to sugarcoat it or deny it

·     We can’t always make sense of it – but through it all, God loves us, even with all of our raw pain and emotion, and God grieves with us in it, holding us in our sorrow

·      And for that we say, Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

 

 

September 29, 2019 - God Promises: "I Will Be with You" - Exodus 1:8-2:10, 3:1-15

God Promises, “I Will Be with You.”

Exodus 1:8-2:10, 3:1-15

Pentecost + 16 – September 29, 2019

Moses and the Burning Bush

Intro: “Speak the truth even if your voice shakes”

·     See these words of advice floating around the internet a fair amount

·     Idea that sometimes it’s a scary thing to speak up, to speak out, to share the truth with another who may have a different point of view

·     And yet – the call comes to speak the truth, even in uncomfortable situations

TT: People in the biblical story we hear this morning might have resonated with this on a deep level

·     Not just a matter of shaking voices and feeling embarrassed or causing conflict with another, creating a rift in a relationship

·     Lives were at stake here right from the opening words

·     We’ve skipped over from Jacob and his 12 sons several generations down the line – 400 years later

o  Joseph: Jacob’s favorite son; sold into slavery by jealous brothers, taken to Egypt, where eventually he became Pharaoh’s right hand man, set over all the land of Egypt – stockpiled food for the coming famine (revealed in a dream)

o  And eventually family came seeking help, ultimately there’s a revelation and reunion and the whole extended family comes to live in Egypt

o  Which is all well and good until now, where we enter the story

·     New king arose who did not know Joseph – threatened by the numbers of Israelites

o  In fear, seeks to oppress them, to consolidate his own power

o  Enslaves them, works them ruthlessly, to the point of collapse

·     That doesn’t work, so plan B: midwives to kill the boy babies

o  Imagine them shaking a bit as they choose to defy this command

o  And yet they are bold with their reason/excuse as to why

·     Moses’ mother – who does not speak, except that actions speak louder than words

o  Love for her fine baby compels her to hide him until she can’t any more

o  Places him in a basket and sets it among the reeds of the river, fingers crossed, hoping for a good ending to this traumatic story

·     Miriam, Moses’ sister – who is set to watch over her baby brother floating on the river

o  Who sees Egyptian princess discovering Moses and dares to speak out, volunteering to find her a nurse

·     Pharaoh’s own daughter – speaking out in compassion as she ultimately adopts this child her father considers one of his enemies

·     And then Moses – the beneficiary of all of these courageous women who spoke in words and deeds, even with shaking voices

o  Who grows up a Hebrew in the Pharaoh’s household

o  Who murders an Egyptian for beating an Israelite and has to flee from Pharaoh who seeks to kill him

o  Makes new life in the land far across the wilderness, marrying, becoming a shepherd

·     And there sees a bush that burns but it not consumed

·     And encounters God, who tells him that God has heard the cry of God’s people and has come down to deliver them, and that Moses will be the one to go to speak the truth to Pharaoh

·     And Moses’ voice is surely shaking! “Who am I to go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”

TW: It is a scary thing to find yourself the one anointed to go and speak the truth, especially to power. (this is a different pharaoh, by the way, the one he grew up with has died…)

·     To speak up and tell the Pharaoh that the time of slavery and oppression is over – terrifying

·     And we can relate

o  B/c the call to followers of Jesus is to hear the cries of those around us longing for hope, desperate for justice, and to act as Christ’s body in the world

o  To work for justice, to stand at the side of the vulnerable, the weak, the oppressed

o  To go and speak out on their behalf

·     And that’s not necessarily attending a march or demonstration, though it might be; could mean writing letters to govt reps, maybe even running for office!

·     It could be confronting a co-worker or boss or family member or neighbor about racism or sexism or homophobia or fear of the other

·     It might look like listening to a person express their point of view and then daring to share a different way of looking at the situation, knowing that it may cause discomfort in the relationship

·     It is not easy; sometimes even harder when it’s someone we are close to; there’s a lot at stake

·     We may ask God, “Who am I to go…?”

·     God didn’t let Moses off the hook, and God doesn’t let us off the hook either

GT: But when God sends Moses, God sends him with a promise: “I will be with you.”

·     God is sending Moses back into a fear-inspiring situation, but God doesn’t send Moses alone

·     God promises to go with Moses, just as God promised to be with Abraham and with Isaac and with Jacob, just as God promised to be with Joseph

·     This name for God is a reminder of the one who has stood by Moses’ ancestors, one who has a history of following through, of leading each of them through struggles and trials, never abandoning them

·     The work God gives Moses to do won’t be easy – Pharaoh doesn’t let the people go without a struggle (you remember those stories!) – But no matter how scary it gets, God stays with Moses to fulfill God’s plan to deliver the people from slavery into freedom

·     And God sends Moses with others – like his brother Aaron and sister Miriam – to help him and support him along the way

GW: The promise is for us too. When God calls us into uncomfortable situations and places when our voices shake and quake as we speak truths that are hard for others (and sometimes even ourselves!) to hear – God says, “I will be with you.”

·     We aren’t called to follow God into these places alone

·     God promises to be with us – to lead and guide, to encourage and inspire, to empower our voices when we would rather stay silent

o  Jesus final words in Matthew: “Go, make disciples… and remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

·     God never sends us to do work without God’s presence right there beside us

·     And God sends us with one another to proclaim God’s love, to live out God’s mercy, to share God’s good news of a coming kingdom

·     May we speak of God’s vision of freedom and justice to those who need to hear it, even if our voices shake, knowing that God is with us, just as God promised.

·     Amen.