We Are Who We Entrust

Job 23:1-9, 16-17 Mark 10:17-31
Rev. Alan Claassen October 11, 2009


We are in our second week of our Annual Stewardship Campaign. This year’s campaign is a little unusual as it based on a song and a dance, the Hokey Pokey. The focus line of the song that is the key to the campaign is, Put Your Whole Selves In.
You begin the dance by warming up slowly: right hand, shake it all about, left hand, shake it all about, right and left leg, front side, back side, warming up slowly until you are ready to put our whole self in, shake it all about, and then turn it all around.
What if the Hokey Pokey is what it is all about? What if the journey of our lives is to see, that each moment of our lives, tears and joys, successes and failures, is always turning us around until we see what it is really all about?
Like whirling dervishes we are spun around and around by the circumstances and choices of our lives.

What keeps us from getting dizzy and falling down?

On each Sunday of this five week Stewardship campaign we are focusing on one way in which we live and grow together as a community of faith. We began last week with the word connecting.
Today’s focus is on Learning.

And I want to suggest to you that what keeps from getting dizzy and falling down with all the twists and turns of life is Wisdom.
And I want to suggest to you this morning that the Book of Job is an excellent source of Wisdom, even though today’s passage, taken out of context, might make you doubt that claim.

In our adult Bible study, Listening to Scriptures, we are learning that knowing the context of the author of a book helps us understand the text so much better. We are learning to ask such questions as,
“When was this book written?”
“What, if anything, do we know about the author or authors of the book of the Bible that we are reading?”
“What do we know about the community that the author was writing to?”
“What literary form is being used? Is this passage history, myth, poetry, parable, part of a worship service or ceremony?”

Bob gave us some context for the reading from Job this morning. I want to add a little more to what Bob said, because I love the Book of Job.

So some context. When was the Book of Job written?
During the time of Jewish exile. In the 6th century before Christ the great ancient civilization of Babylon was rising and it swallowed up Israel. As a means for controlling this province the victorious army took all the significant leaders of the Southern Kingdom of Judah and Jerusalem to Babylon.
And the exiled leaders were treated well. They were allowed to live together, and worship together.
But these 50 years of exile was a very challenging time. They had equated their connection with God in relation to the promised land.
Now that they were in exile, where did that leave them in relation to God? Had God abandoned them? Could they maintain the covenant while living in a strange land? Were the gods of the Babylonians more powerful than their God? Many questions came up for the Jewish people at this time. That is the historical context for the Book of Job.

What is the literary form of the Book Job? Two answers to this question.
“There is a body of literature in the Hebrew Bible that stands apart. It is often referred to as “wisdom literature,” and has little to do with Israel’s distinctive sacred history or the prophets’ call for return to the covenant. Books like Ecclesiastes, Proverbs, and the Psalms fit here. And because it raises philosophical questions of God’s justice, … so does the Book of Job.” (pg 95, Understanding the Bible, John A. Buehrens)
Wisdom literature both advises us on what it takes to live the good life, as well as questioning the assumptions of our best made plans and formulas.
The Book of Job calls into question the assumption that if you do the right thing you will be rewarded, and the corollary, if your life is going miserably, then you must have done something wrong to deserve punishment.
The Book of Job, was asking the question that the Judean exiles must have wondered, “What did I do, what did my innocent children do, to deserve this?” Centuries later this question is still being asked and Rabbi Harold Kushner is famous for addressing this question in his popular book,
“Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People?”

Which brings me to the second answer to the question, “What is the literary form of the Book of Job?” The particular passage that was read today is a lament.

“Lament is one of the most important, and often most neglected, forms of prayer in Hebrew Scriptures. Nearly one third of the Psalms are laments. The responses of Job to his three self-righteous friends are laments.


“Laments are protests and complaints raised in times of need or crisis, whether of individuals or community. One reason for their neglect comes in the manner the laments address God. These are not polite, soothing words, rendered in timid submission to God. The emotions are on the surface and God is sometimes depicted, as in Job 23, with images that are not easy to hear.
“God’s hand is heavy… the Almighty has terrified me.”
“Psalm 22 begins with some of the most devastating words of any lament, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Laments cut across the grain of culture and religion, that doesn’t want to hear distressing things. Those who raise laments are counseled, as Job was by his friends, to stop saying such words.

“The fault must be yours Job. Be quiet.”
Taken out of its historical and literary context, this lament of Job may appear to be a denial of faith or avoidance of relationship with God.

But quietness in this case is not faith. Lament is faith.
Why?
Because it keeps the dialogue with God alive.
Lament does not throw hands up in the air and walk away unheard.
Lament hangs on to God, pleading and protesting in hope of a response to the need or crisis that overwhelms.
In spite of experiencing the “heaviness” of God’s hand, in spite of wishing to vanish into darkness, Job clings to God as the One who can be reasoned with; as the one who can offer an answer.

And though he could not have known it at the time of his lamentations, God is going to provide Job with an answer that will bring an abiding connection with eternal life, no matter what the outward appearances, wealth or poverty are.

And that leads to the one of the most characteristic and surprising elements of lament in Hebrew Scriptures. Once the protests have been sounded, once the rawness of the complaint has been laid open, lament typically ends in trust and in hope of God’s action.
And there also comes a deeper sense of wisdom, of understanding the limits of one’s previous understanding of the situation at hand. A new insight is awakened in our heart of hearts.
What comes of Job’s lament? We will discuss that in two weeks. Of course, if you can’t wait that long for the answer, you can always read the Book of Job.


Or hear this words from a man of great faith who endured great suffering, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who said, “Let us remember that there is a great benign power in the universe whose name is God, and God is able to make a way out of now way, and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows. This is our hope for becoming a better people. This is our mandate for seeking to make a better world.”

Though not as noble or historic I hear a similar faithfulness in the words of Jack Williams, a songwriter from South Carolina, who wrote a song of lament in remembrance of the disappeared cotton fields that he remembered as a young boy.
Cotton, high cotton. The more I see the less I know.
The well runs deeper than the bucket goes.
Swing high, swing low. High cotton.

The well runs deeper than the bucket goes.
The well runs deeper than our lamentations, our limitations, our mistakes, our anger. Even though we may be at the end of our rope that doesn’t mean that the well is empty. We may just need a longer rope, a deeper understanding. Wisdom.
The way to learn what you need to get your bucket deeper into the well is to put your whole self into your community that centers itself in God’s unconditional love.

As with the lawyer who asked Jesus, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus replies, keep the commandments and care for the poor with everything that you’ve got.

Today’s word is learning. What part of your life is asking a question that this community of faith might be able to answer? What wisdom do we seem to have a grasp on here that we believe would benefit our community?
Our beliefs are initially informed by what we are taught and we thank God for our teachers. But we are transformed by our experiences. Wisdom comes from being shaken up, turned around, and then hearing, from the whirlwind, God calling our name, saying,
“You are my beloved. I have been by your side all the time. Let me show you something you seem to have missed that is front of your eyes.”
And in sharing with one another, our deepest questions in ways that are honest, open, and safe, we will uncover the wisdom that we have been entrusted with, by the grace of God.
And that my friends, is what it’s all about.

Let the people say, Amen.