Who Do You Think You Are?

Sermon as preached at Lambs and Evington UMC 10/21/12

Scripture- Job 38: 1-7, 34-41

When we last left Job, he was in a state of utter despair. He felt as though God was nowhere to be found. We talked about how often we feel as though we are not supposed to be angry at God or have any doubt, but that in fact it is perfectly normal. We discussed that for Job that though he did not understand why all of these horrible things were happening to him and though he felt as if God was nowhere to be found, though his faith was dwindling, his hope in the Lord remained strong. He had a hope that God had not abandoned him. He had hope that there was some reason for all of the things that were happening to him. He had hope that if only he could present his case before the Lord that he would be judged an innocent man.

            ….Well, as they say, be careful what you wish for.  In our passage today we finally see God responding to Job. Job gets his chance to plead his case before the Lord, but I don’t think that Job was prepared for how the Lord responded. And let me just say I love God’s response to Job. My friends and family know that I am actually a very sarcastic person, so when I first read the passage for today I actually laughed, because there is definitely a hint of sarcasm in the words of God. This is what God says to Job, “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding.⁵Who determined its measurements—surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it?⁶On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone⁷when the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy?⁸“Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb.” ““Can you lift up your voice to the clouds, so that a flood of waters may cover you?³⁵Can you send forth lightnings, so that they may go and say to you, ‘Here we are’? There are  plenty more of these amazing rhetorical questions, in fact they continue on for a couple more chapters in Job. I love these questions because I can almost hear how God is saying them. This is because they remind me of some of the ways in which we sometimes respond to people questioning us. For example there is the backseat driver. We all love the backseat driver.  You’re driving along and all you hear is, Why didn’t you turn there? You should have taken this back road. You’re going to fast, get in this lane. Finally you just want to turn around and say, “I’m sorry, did you want to drive.” Or another example, you invited friends over to a cookout, and you and your friends are all gathered around the grill (because we all know you just can’t grill alone) and as you’re watching the burgers cook, your friend starts to tell you to “flip the burgers you’re going to burn them, put this one more in the center, turn down the temperature a little (that is if you have a gas grill), don’t open the lid so much.”  Finally you just stretch out your hand with the spatula and say, “I’m sorry, I didn’t know you had culinary training, please go ahead and cook.” I can almost hear that same sarcasm in these words from the book of Job today.  It is almost as if God is saying to Job, “I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were God. Tell me how would you have created the Earth. How would you rule over it?  Please Job since you seem to know all about my job, how would you protect the lion cubs and the ravens? When God asks Job these series of questions of was he there when, does he know how to… what God is really saying to Job is, who do you think you are?

            Who do you think you are? Do you think that you are God? This is a question that we really need to ask ourselves. Do we think we are God? Of course we will be quick to say no of course we aren’t, but let’s truly think about it. How much trust have we put into our own intellect, our own ability to reason, our own understand of the world as it is, and our own understand of the world as it should be? At first we may still say no we don’t do that, but it really takes a story like Job, to help us see our faults. When everything in the world makes sense to us, when things go as we think they should, or if they don’t, if we have an easy explanation for why, then we can easily say that God is merciful and just. But when we have a story like Job, imagining that we were like Job and did not know about the nature of discussion between the devil and God, then we start to question the mercy and justice of God. If it doesn’t make sense to us as humans, then it doesn’t make sense. I don’t understand why this is happening, and therefore since I don’t understand there must be no logical explanation. Now do you see our folly? We as humans have become so absorbed in ourselves that we think that we are supposed to understand everything. After all the book of Job from chapter three to Chapter 38, our chapter for today, is a great debate between Job and his friends. The whole purpose of this debate was show who knew the way in which God acted. Here in our passage today God reminds us of how foolish it is to think we can completely understand God.

            The movie Bruce Almighty depicts idea extremely well. The movie is about a Buffalo city news reporter who is having a rough time in his life. After losing his job and being mugged by a gang, he yells out to God that God should have been the one who was fired. Later God responds to him, gives Bruce the ability to try his hand at being God. At first Bruce uses his new abilities for random purposes. He divides his soup like the dividing of the red sea, and then uses his power to get revenge on the gang that attacked him. While he was enjoying this great power he was all of the sudden overwhelmed by voices in his head. These voices turned out to be prayers. Overwhelmed by the voices he tries to find ways to organize the prayers. First he has them organized into files, but filling cabinets quickly overran his apparent. Then he tried something smaller, post it notes, but they too overran his apartment. Finally, he had the brilliant idea of organizing them all into emails. After he did this, he then realized that these prayers could not just pile up in his inbox unanswered, that he actually needed to answer the prayers. After reading and answering a few, he realized there were way more than he could handle, so he ended up creating a reply all of yes to all of the prayers, meaning he granted whatever the people were praying for. Time went on and all seemed to be well until everything started to fall apart. Sports fans prayers were answered and the Buffalo Sabers finally won the Stanley Cup. At the same time all of those who prayed to win the lottery won the lottery, meaning that the winnings were shared amongst them all and were very small. These and other events led to a riot in the city and Bruce, runs in fear to the place where he first met God. There they have a wonderful conversation.  Bruce in a moment of confessions states, “there were so many, I just gave them what they all wanted.” To which God responds, “Yeah, but since when does anyone have a clue about what they want?”

            “Since when does anyone have a clue about what they want? “ Yes these are words from a Hollywood production, and these are not really the words of God, but they sure do resonate with our scripture for today. Why do we think we know what is best. When our prayers are not answered in the way in which we asked for them, we claim that our prayers are not answered. We claim that there is no God. Sometimes we are like Job, questioning God, questioning why God is not working in our lives in a way that makes sense to us. Even worse, far too often we act like Job’s friends. We act as if we know all about God’s justice acting as if we know all about God’s mercy. We are quick to point fingers at others telling them when they are sinning, telling them that they are falling short of the Kingdom of God, telling them that we know where they will end up when they die, if they don’t change their lives. Too often we act as if we are the judges. But, it is Christ who sits on the throne of judgment separating the sheep from the goats. As we say every Sunday in the Apostle’s Creed, “He ascended into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God the Almighty, from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. If this scripture today teaches us anything it teaches us that WE ARE NOT GOD!

            And yet, for however condemning this sounds, however much this sounds like God putting us in our place, which it is; at the same time the proclamation that we are not God is also a word of hope. In those rhetorical questions that God asks Job, we see the greatness of God. We see a God who created the earth and the stars, a God who takes care of all of the creatures of the Earth, and a God who put wisdom into our minds. It takes me back to the beauty of Psalm 8 which says, “Lord, our Lord,how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory
in the heavens.² Through the praise of children and infants you have established a stronghold against your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger. ³ When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, ⁴ what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?^{[c] 5} You have made them^[d] a little lower than the angels^[e] and crowned them^[f] with glory and honor. ⁶ You made them rulers over the works of your hands; you put everything under their^[g] feet: ⁷ all flocks and herds, and the animals of the wild,⁸ the birds in the sky, and the fish in the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas.⁹ Lord, our Lord,how majestic is your name in all the earth!

            When we hear these descriptions of the glory of God, a God who with just the work of his fingers  set the moon and the stars in place we can only stand back in awe. What a mighty God we serve. We like the psalmist ask ourselves what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? And yet we then here the amazing words of hope, “You have made them^[d] a little lower than the angels^[e] and crowned them^[f] with glory and honor. ⁶ You made them rulers over the works of your hands; you put everything under their^[g] feet: ⁷ all flocks and herds, and the animals of the wild,⁸ the birds in the sky, and the fish in the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas.⁹ Lord, our Lord,how majestic is your name in all the earth!” Such a mighty God, cares so much for us, us who when compared to God as so insignificant. The God of all creation, still heeds a listening ear to Job.  This passage reminds us that we are not God, and thanks be to God for that. Nothing we know, nothing we could do, nothing we could ever say, can ever come close to the glory, the mercy, the love, the justice, and the power of God. So when God reminds us that we are not God,  the only thing that I can say to that, is thanks be to God.