Coming Down to Earth: The Wisdom of the Universe Preached at Wollaston Congregational Church On October 17th, 2021 Scriptures: Job 38:1-11, 34-41 This week our sermon series of three, on the book of Job, comes to a conclusion. On the first week we read from the first two chapters of the book of Job. These chapters are in prose, and tell the story the mischief maker, Hassatan making a wager with the Lord God, to try and lead God’s faithful servant, Job, away from faithfulness. Job is then afflicted by the loss of his family and belongings as well as a terrible skin disease. This is an ancient fable that challenges the assumptions of retributive justice – that is, the idea that God rewards good behavior with good fortune and punishes bad behavior with bad fortune. Later Job’s friends flip this argument, by making the assumption that Job must have sinned because he has been afflicted. The story wraps up neatly in the final few verses of the book. But the middle and largest portion of the book of Job consists of dialogue between Job’s friends and Job, and finally – this week, in chapter 38 – the Lord God enters the conversation. Scholars have concluded that the poetic section of Job was written by a different author and at a different time from the narrative sections: the first two chapters and the very end of the book. The poetry reflects on the problems of Jon’s suffering and God’s response to that suffering. Today, we began to read the text at the moment that the Lord God began to speak. This is momentous. For chapter after chapter, the friends had offered advice and Job had lamented his terrible suffering. Job cried out to God to come and answer his case, that he does not deserve to suffer because he has not done anything wrong. Suddenly, the four men are silenced by what happens next. A great whirlwind sweeps toward them, from across the wilderness, creating vast clouds of dust and sand. The sight and sound of it are overwhelming. Job and his companions, cower in fear, awe and self-protection. Now God speaks. The Lord tells Job, gird up your loins … get ready to answer these questions, mortal. Job has been wishing God would answer him … but as they say “be careful what you wish for.” My Old Testament seminary professor used to say that God takes Job on a “magic carpet ride” across the cosmos. God shows Job the marvelous work of creation. God demands: "I will question you, and you shall declare to me. Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements--surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone when the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy?” (Job 38:3-7) Job might well be trembling in his sandals by now. God’s speech goes on well beyond the verses that we read today: “Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth?” (Job 38:18) “Do you know when the mountain goats give birth?” (Job 39:1) “Is it by your wisdom that the hawk soars and spreads its wings toward the south?” (Job 39:26) Who does Job think he is, daring to challenge the very creator of the universe? Wisely, Job does not try to answer God’s questions, instead he bows low and says “I have uttered what I did not understand, … therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes." (Job 42:3,6) Even in the midst of his suffering, Job is awed by the majesty of God’s creation. Job is reminded of his position in the order of things. Have you ever experienced the awesomeness of God in creation, in the midst of grief? Do you go to the ocean, or the mountain, or the lake, when things seem too hard, overwhelming, or sad? Recently I’ve been thinking about my earliest memory of a spiritual experience. It was a time of sitting alone, and becoming aware of my place in the world. I was around 9 or 10, maybe a little older. My aunt and uncle had a vacation cottage by the North Sea coast and we sometimes used to go and stay with them there. My cousins, my brother and I had a lot of freedom to go outside and wander. We usually went together to create “dens” in the undergrowth near the cliff path down to the beach. But on this occasion I went to sit on the top of the cliff looking out over the North Sea. It was a windy day, not warm. The waves were not steady, but rough and fierce. The noise of them was powerful. The wind bit my face and whipped my hair. I was mesmerized by the rolling waves, never ceasing. I could see the horizon, and yet I knew that the ocean continued far beyond it, eventually reaching northern Germany or Denmark. I loved the starkness of it all. I can’t remember what was going on for me at that time except a certain kind of melancholy. I don’t think I was particularly upset or sad. I just had a deep well of longing. I don’t know what I was longing for except the assurance that there is something so capacious and intimate, that there is an experience belonging. Alone in the wind on the cliff, I felt part of it all. I felt appropriately small in the midst of it. And in those feelings I also felt held and loved. Since that time, I have often returned to nature for times of prayer or to simply be in the presence of Spirit. Last summer in the midst of pandemic uncertainty, I sat beside a lake and watched a flock of birds swoop over the water. I asked my spiritual director “why is nature so settling at times like this?” Then I answered my own question: the birds, the fish, the animals, the water, the trees and the grasses are unaware of human suffering. They go on doing their thing, swooping, swimming, running. The wind goes on blowing. The ocean goes on rolling in. I find reassurance in their ongoing life. We are comforted by the lack of impact of our troubles on their lives. As I prepared for this week’s reflection, I was reminded of a poem that Scott Cleveland read during Ellie’s Memorial Service last year: “Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver. [1] I wish I had known that Ellie enjoyed Mary Oliver’s poetry, it’s something we could have talked about. During Ellie’s Memorial Service we remembered her passion for nature and her deep interest in learning more about the created world. We were comforted by the images of Ellie in all stages of life. Most of all I will remember the Bluegrass song “I’ll Fly Away” and the image of Ellie bending to pet the enormous sculpture of a dragonfly. Her delicate frame showed that she was almost ready to fly away too. Like Job, and every other human who lived before and has lived since, we all return to the dust to the earth. And in doing so, we fly away to God. God’s interruption to Job’s lamentation is expressed in the form of poetry. Some aspects of God can only be expressed in poetry, music, or visual art. Words are inadequate, the hard and brilliant truth too overpowering for human thought. “Wild Geese” tells the timeless truth using different imagery: Wild Geese You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -- over and over announcing your place in the family of things. [2] May all God’s people say, Amen [1] https://www.vanderbilt.edu/olli/class-materials/2017Summer.MindfulnessWk1.pdf [2] Ibid.
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