20061015 19th Sunday after Pentecost B
Slide 1
Title: Going Through a Long, Dark Tunnel
Text: Job 23:1-10
Slide 2
Thesis: It takes faith to keep trying… to keep believing God is active in our lives.
Introduction
Tunnels… The Eisenhower Memorial Tunnel is located on the Continental Divide, about sixty miles west of here. It is the highest vehicular tunnel in the world. It is a twin bore tunnel. The north tunnel was completed in 1973 and the second bore was completed in 1979. The bores are about 1.7 miles in length. The tunnels are much larger than they appear. They are each 48 feet high and 40 feet wide. The electric bill for lighting the two bores is approximately $70,000 per month. They are not straight and you cannot see through them… you would think there is no light at the end of the tunnel if you did not know otherwise.
When people go through a difficult time in their lives, one of the common metaphors used to describe how they feel is that of a long, dark tunnel. They often say, “There does not seem to be any light at the end of the tunnel.”
Transition: It is always something of a shock when we find ourselves in a long, dark tunnel.
Slide 3
I. It may come as a shock but, the ”good life” is not guaranteed.
Illustration: Shortly after we moved here Bonnie and I were visiting Rocky Mountain National Park where we saw the alluvial fan left after the dam on Lawn Lake burst releasing 220 million gallons of water down the Roaring River canyon on July 15 1982. The people of Estes Park went to bed the night before, totally oblivious to the existence of the lake, much less the likelihood of it rushing down upon their community at 5:30 a.m. the next morning.
How many of us have gone to bed at night, slept like babies and woke up the next morning to discover that everything had changed? How many of us have felt the good life slip through out fingers?
• The pathology report came back and it wasn’t good.
• The job you thought was secure was eliminated or you were replaced by younger and less expensive cannon fodder.
• The spouse who promised to cherish you “till death” done departed.
• The son or daughter who never gave you a moments trouble calls you from the police station.
• The scenarios are endless…
Job was a good guy. The bible describes him as blameless, a man of complete integrity. He feared God and stayed away from evil.
So, when God expresses his pleasure and pride in Job to Satan, Satan, who is also known as ‘the Accuser,” suggests that Job has good reason to be a devoted God-fearer… after all his life is just about as good as life can get.
A little placard I saw hanging in a window at Estes Park that read, “If you are lucky enough to be is Estes Park, you are lucky enough.” It would seem, that if you were fortunate enough to be Job, you were fortunate enough.
Satan essentially says, “Job is no fool. He is not about to bite the hand that feeds him!”
So it was that God defended Job’s integrity and the genuineness of his faith, by allowing Satan to test him up to the point of taking his life. Subsequently, Job suffered devastating loss after devastating loss until everything was gone. He lost all of his possessions, his children and his health. We know the end of the story… we know that in the end Job is vindicated and his life is restored, but our story today emerges from the middle… between the losses and the restoration.
Transition: The story begins with Job’s losses
Slide 4 (A. and then peel up B. at the transition)
A. Job’s losses
Job 1:13-19
In one day, calamity upon calamity…
• A servant arrived and told Job that his oxen and donkeys were rustled by the Sabeans, who took all the animals and killed all the servants…
• While he was still speaking, another messenger arrived announcing that lightning had struck and killed all of his sheep and shepherds\..
• While he was still speaking, another messenger arrived and said the Chaldeans stole your camels and killed your servants…
• While he was still speaking, another messenger arrived and announced that, his ten sons and daughters were having dinner at the oldest brother’s house when it was struck by a tornado, which collapsed the house and killed all of his children.
Those familiar with the story know, Job’s initial response was to humbly accept the sovereign will of God. In his grief, he shaved his head, fell to the ground before God and said, “I came naked from my mother’s womb, and I will be stripped of everything when I die. The Lord gave me everything and the Lord has taken everything. Praise the name of the Lord!” Job 1:21
Even after the loss of his health, sitting among the ashes covered with boils and scraping his skin with a broken piece of pottery Job asked, “Should we accept only good things from God and never anything bad?” Job 2:10
Transition: Job not only felt loss… he felt shock and dismay by it all.
B. Job’s shock and dismay
Job said, “Cursed be the day of my birth, and cursed be the night I was conceived… why didn’t I die as I cam from the womb? Why did my mother let me live? Why did she nurse me at her breasts? For if I had died at birth, I would be at peace now. Job 3:3, 11-13
After several days of over-whelming grief… the extent of his loss finally got to him. He rues the day of his birth. He laments, citing the weary and miserable would be much better off dead. He says, “It is a blessed relief when they finally die.” Job 3:22
Illustration: Jill Briscoe, writing In the Father’s Arms told of her three three-year-old grandchildren, Search, Destroy and Demolition. She wrote about her experience babysitting Demolition and how in the middle of the night the little guy woke her up and said, “Nana, me’s havaing a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day…” She said he was covered from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet with chicken pox. And she wondered how and why something like this would have to happen to her little Drew. She wrote that she gave him an oatmeal bath and wrapped him in a big, fluffy town and held him against her heart as he kept saying, “Nana, hold me. Nana, hold me.”
I wonder if that is what Job was wishing for as he cried out in his misery?
Transition: But, in that moment when he most needed comfort, his friends lost patience with him.
Slide 5
II. When good friends get judgmental, your support system collapses
Bonnie and I have been blessed with very good friends over the years.
Illustration: When my dad passed away, our car was in the repair shop in Topeka and would not be out of the shop in time for the funeral. One of Bonnie’s co-workers came to the rescue and offered us their van. When our son passed away we received cards, phone calls, and memorial gifts from friends who have been life-long friends.
Transition: Job knew what it is like to have friends you can count on.
Slide 6
A. Good friends come through when you hurt.
“When they heard of the tragedy, Epiphaz, Bildad and Zophar got together and traveled from their homes to console Job… they sat on the ground with him for seven days and nights and no one said a word, for they saw that his suffering was too great for words.” Job 2:11-13
Transition: Unfortunately, Job also knew what it is like when friends are insensitive.
Slide 7
B. Good friends sometimes say bad things that hurt.
They repeatedly say hurtful things.
“Then Eliphaz replied to Job, “Will you be patient and let me say a word? For who could keep from speaking out? Stop and think! Does the innocent person perish?” Job 4:1 and 7
“You must have
• lent money to your friend and taken his clothing as security…
• refused water for the thirsty and food for the hungry…
• sent widows away without helping them and crushed the orphans.” Job 22:6-9
“Stop quarreling with God! If you turn to the Almighty and clean up your life you will be restored.” Job 22:21-23
Illustration: Stephen Covey tells of his experience on a New York subway. People were sitting quietly when a man with several rambunctious children got on the car. The man sat down and closed his eyes as though oblivious to his children. The once quiet subway turned into a place of chaos… until finally, Covey confronted the man about his children. He said, “The man opened his eyes, as if unaware of the situation and after a moment said, ‘Oh, you’re right. I guess I should do something. We just came from the hospital where their mother died about an hour ago. I I don’t know what to think and I guess they don’t know how to handle it either.’”
I suspect Job was similarly shocked by the insensitivity of those around him, who immediately concluded that his recent setbacks were God’s judgment upon his life for sin Job was refusing to acknowledge.
Transition: Job was no different than we are when it came to dealing with the indignity of injustice.
III. Job wanted to let someone know that he had a complaint.
Job was caught between a rock and a hard place. Job was going through a long dark tunnel, and there was no light at the end of that tunnel. Job felt like his prayers were falling on deaf ears.
Where was he supposed to go for justice? Who would hear his story? Where could Job file his complaint?
Illustration: Bonnie and I recently bought two accent chairs for my study. I picked them up at the warehouse and brought them here to church and unpacked them. One was broken, so I did as Diana Hult suggested and called the folks who sold us the chairs and asked them to bring out a new chair and swap it out for the broken chair. They said, “You should have looked at the chairs before you left the warehouse.” Essentially, if you want the chair swapped out, return it for another. They sell me a broken chair and I have to rent another pickup truck to return the broken chair they sold me, in order to get the unbroken chair I purchased.
I called them again and said, “These chairs have no legs. Aren’t they supposed to have legs?” Do I have to bring them back and get chairs with legs? The lady said, “No just turn them over and unzip the zipper and you’ll find your legs.” Who would have thought to look for a zipper on the botton of a chair… who would think that chair manufacturers would hide the legs in a little bag tied to the underside of the springs?
A. Where can you file a complaint?
If you find yourself in an aggrieved situation you now have an alternative to the Better Business Bureau… you can take your complaint to the Bad Business Bureau. If you go to www.ripoffreport.com you can at least let off a little steam.
Illustration: The ripoffreport web site promo reads, “[Are you a ] Victim of a consumer Rip-off? Want justice? Rip-off Report™ is a worldwide consumer reporting Website & Publication, by consumers, for consumers, to file & document complaints about companies or individuals who rip-off consumers.
Today, Job could have written a letter to his congressman, hired an attorney and filed a suit or gone on Judge Judy. Generally you can blow-off with your family and friends, but Job’s wife thought he should just curse God and die and his friends thought his misfortune was actually God’s judgment upon him for some hidden sin.
But, to make matters worse… his beef was with God.
B. What if your beef is with God?
According to the commentator of Homiletics Magazine, “there is no power on earth that can pressure God to do what God chooses not to do.” I would add, or dissuade God from doing what God has decided to do…
Transition: Job felt God had distanced himself from him.
Slide 8 (Peel up B. at the transition…)
IV. God does not always feel present
A. Job doesn’t know where God is…
Job said, “My complaint today is still a bitter one and I try hard not to groan aloud. If only I knew where to find God, I would go to the throne and talk with him.
Job 23:3-7
The poet, W.H. Auden wrote, “Our dominant experience with God today is of God’s absence.” Auden’s statement is one which many in our century can identify with as well.
Some would say God’s seeming absence is actually proof not only of God’s inattention to duty but non-existence.
Illustration: I’ve never known a barber who was reluctant to share his opinions on just about anything. A man in a barbershop got all tangled up in a conversation in which his barber strongly denied the existence of God. “All you have to do is just go out in the street… look at all the sick people, the abandoned children, war, suffering and pain. I can’t imagine a God who would allow what is going on in the world today.”
The man thought for a moment and replied, “I don’t believe in the existence of barbers. All you have to do is go out into the street and everywhere you look there are people who need haircuts…”
The fact that there is suffering in the world does not prove the non-presence of God anymore than long hair in the world proves the non-presence of barbers.
Transition: The problem for Job was not that God did not exist, but knowing where God was presently holding court.
B. Job couldn’t find God anywhere…
“I go east but he isn’t there. I go west, but I cannot find him. I do not see him in the north, for he is hidden. I turn to the south, but I cannot find him.” Job 22:8-9
Unfortunately, Job was not privy to the goings on in the background. Job had no clue that God and Satan were in a conversation and that God was allowing his faith to be tested. Job does not know that God’s silence is not indifference but restraint. Job does not know that God is simply allowing the testing to continue until Job is vindicated.
Job does not know that what God needs is for Job to stand the test and show that he still trusts God whether he feels God is present or absent.
Transition: Despite his desperation, Job still manages to rise to the occasion to express his ultimate confidence that his life is indeed in the hands of a God who cares about him.
Slide 9
V. There is light at the end of the tunnel… God is at work!
A. Darkness does not mean nothing is happening.
“I cannot find him… but he knows where I am going. And when he has tested me like gold in fire, he will pronounce me innocent.” Job 23:10
Job seems to have had an innate sense of how strong character is developed. The teaching of the New Testament affirms what Job believed to be happening in his life.
“”Whenever trouble comes your way, let it be an opportunity for joy. For when your faith is tested, endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be strong in character and ready for anything.” James 1:2-4
“Trials are only a test of your faith, to show that it is strong and pure. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold… and your faith is far more precious to God than mere gold.” I Peter 1:7
B. God is always present and active in our lives and there is light at the end of the tunnel.
From the place Job was standing, there was no evidence for faith. Faith was opposite reason in his life. There was no justification for what was happening to him. He could easily have concluded that there is no God or that God hated him or that God had something of a mean-streak. But faith was what emerged when Job continued to believe even in the face of the absence of supporting evidence.
Faith was what emerged when Job declared, “Though he [God] slays me, yet will I trust in him.” Job 13:15
Conclusion
Perhaps we might begin to look at faith as a foundation for our experiences. Believing in God is not a warm fuzzy feeling. Faith is the ability to perceive meaning, even in troubled times when there is no explanation to understand or evidence to be seen.
Ann Lamott tells the story of how her son Sam’s father and she split up before Sam was born. There was no contact with the father for years. When Sam was seven he began to wonder about his father and eventually expressed a desire to see him. So she tried everything she knew to find the father.
One night she heard Sam praying for his father and that is when Ann lost it. She complained to God, “Would it have been so much skin off your nose to give my son an answer?” She wondered, “What is God doing? Is God off doing the dishes while my Sam is earnestly seeking God’s help?”
And then she remembered something Wendell Berry wrote, “It gets darker and darker, and then Jesus is born!” So she began to practice radical hope… and when she began to practice radical hope she keep looking and believing God was indeed engaged.
Transition: And that is when Ann Lamott learned what Job learned…
Slide 10
Faith does not take us to dead ends. Faith takes us to divine junctions.
The faith community is a community where we know faith keeps trying… keeps believing God is active in our lives.
