Evidence of Things Not Seen
Job 23:1-9, 16-17
October 15, 2006
Right after we were married, we bought our first couch. A really cheap couch. Had a wooden frame, cloth straps instead of springs, and cushions that never stayed in one place for very long.
After I had been out of seminary for three or four years, we decided that it was time to buy a new couch. So we went to Sears and picked one out. It was a pretty good couch because we kept it until we moved here back in 2004. Before we moved, we gave it to Goodwill.
But I remember the day they delivered it. This was a day for which we had been waiting for a long time. The guys on the truck got it into the living room and took off the plastic cover…and I noticed that there was a huge tear in the back. They apologized, took it back out to their truck, and told me that they would deliver another couch the next week.
The next week came, the same truck with the same guys arrived at out door. They took the couch off the truck, carried it into the living room, took off the plastic cover, and discovered that there was a huge tear in the back. They apologized again, took the couch back, and said they would be back the next week.
The next week came and they drove up to our house. Now, you are going to think that I am making this up, but I’m not. I went out and climbed into the back of the truck to inspect the couch. You guessed it. There was a huge tear in the back.
Toni and I headed off to Sears…to talk to the Furniture Department manager. I’m usually fairly timid with guys like this, but this time, I was hot. I told him that I couldn’t believe that they sent three couches to us and all three were damaged. I wondered what sort of outfit they were running.
The manager said that they would try again. I remember saying that if I were him; I would personally get on the delivery truck and show up at my door with our new couch.
He said that that wasn’t going to happen.
I said that we had just purchased our last furniture from Sears, which, as it has turned out so far, was a true statement. He said, “Do you know how many times I hear that?” I said, “If you hear it all the time, maybe that ought to tell you something about your product or your service.”
The end of the story is this. The next Tuesday, the manager of the Furniture Department at Sears in Glenbrook Mall knocked on our door. We were living in Huntington at the time. He told us that he had our couch. He had personally inspected it and this one was not torn. And I felt really good. Sometimes your complaints are heard.
My daughter spent the summer at home. She came home one evening and told me that she was going to get a free overnight stay at some resort. I asked her how she managed that, and she told me that she just signed up for it. There was some guy who was going to give her a call and come over to make some sort of presentation or something. She had no idea what it was about.
She had the name of a company which I never heard of, so I called the Better Business Bureau to find out what was going on. I gave the name to the lady on the phone and she said, “Vacuum Cleaners.” She told me that their home demonstrations usually lasted between two and two and a half hours. I said “thank you,” hung up, and went to find Dominique. She had no idea what she had signed up for and wasn’t too happy about having to spend so much of a Saturday afternoon with a vacuum cleaner salesman.
Have you ever been ripped off by a business? Have you ever had trouble with a product that didn’t live up to its advertising? Has any company treated you unfairly? Has a large corporation ever refused to listen to your complaints? Has a small business ever tried to get away with some shady deal?
If so, there is a website for you. You can log on to www.ripoffreport.com. This is a worldwide consumer reporting website for consumers who want to be able to file and document complaints about companies who ripoff their customers.
Unlike the Better Business Bureau which keeps track of successful negotiations and satisfactory outcomes, this website never reports those things, but does keep complaints forever.
Have you ever had a complaint about God? I have. You all know that I played in the high school band. I loved music. Concert Band, jazz band, pep band, marching band…that is what got me through high school. I love all kinds of music. I think that I’ve told you this before, but if you were to go through my CD collection you would find classic rock, country, folk, jazz, movie sound tracks, classical, Contemporary Christian. I have The Who, The Beatles, Jimi Hendricks, George Strait, Tony Bennett, Amy Grant, The Notre Dame Folk Choir, Peter Paul and Mary, the soundtrack from RENT, The London Philharmonic Orchestra, and so much more. I think that I know music pretty well. I’ve been around it all my life.
I love music…and I love to sing. The problem is that I couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket if doing so meant the coming of world peace. I have carried around a big chip on my shoulder for decades now. I’ve complained to God ever since my youth. Why in the world, I want to know, did God give me such a love of music, but not a voice? It makes no sense.
I remember reading a book years ago by Andrew Greeley titled, “Complaints Against God.” In the book, he was trying to make sense out of some of the stuff that goes on in God’s world: poverty, racism, violence and war, corruption in government, that sort of stuff.
In the Scripture lesson for today, Job is complaining. You all remember why, don’t you? Job was a very successful man. He had wonderful children, had his health, and was wealthy beyond imagination. But God and Satan were engaged in a discussion one day. Satan said that the only reason Job worshipped God was because he was prosperous. Take away the prosperity, said the Devil, and Job won’t give God a second thought.
God permitted Satan to heap piles and piles of troubles on Job. He lost his property and his goods, his children, and his health. Now, we know the end of the story. We know that in the end, all of this and more is restored to Job. But in the lesson for today, he is in the middle of this mess, and he is complaining.
Job’s friends were insisting that he must have done something wrong. He must have sinned in some way. Surely, God was punishing him for something. But Job couldn’t see it. He just didn’t understand. He told God that he didn’t deserve any of this. He was a good, upright, God-fearing man. Nothing that happened to him was making sense. So he said, “I’m not letting up – I’m standing my ground. My complaint is legitimate. God has no right to treat me like this – it isn’t fair.”
Job says, “If I knew where on earth to find him, I’d go straight to him. I’d lay my case before him face-to-face.” The problem is that there is no Better Business Bureau to complain to. There is no agency to which Job can go with his complaints. He doesn’t have an advocate looking out for his best interests. He feels like he is caught in a situation in which there is no way to win.
You have to remember that we know the end of the story. But Job is caught in the middle of it. The end is not yet in sight for him. He doesn’t know how this will end. He can’t know what will happen in his future.
Everybody has felt like that at some time or another. Everyone, if you are honest with yourself, will admit that there have been times when God has seemed not just distant, but completely absent.
But what we discover is that this trial for Job is a test. God wants to know if Job can withstand the test and come out of it with his faith intact. This is a faith story. It is a story of one man whose faith, though strained to the limits of imagination, still remains true. Earlier in the book, Job admits, “Though he slay me, yet I will trust him” (13:15).
If Job were to make the decision about whether or not to trust God on the evidence, he certainly couldn’t make it. The evidence is pretty clear. God doesn’t seem to be around when Job needs him the most. Yet, he had a foundation of faith. Faith, after all, is more of a foundation for an experience than it is an experience itself. He had lived his whole life in obedience and trust. He knew that God could be trusted despite the evidence. The writer of the book of Hebrews in the New Testament understood this when he wrote that faith, “is the evidence of things not seen” (11:1).
A couple of weeks ago, I remember listening to an interview on NPR. I’m sorry that I’m pretty fuzzy on most of the details. But there is some guy who has just written a book on religion in America. I wish I could remember the title. He says that religion is responsible for many of the problems facing the country and the world today. He says that radical religion, whether it be the Christian Right in America, or radical Islam, or Radical Zionism is the root of our problems because when people feel as though God is on their side, they feel justified to do anything they want. He goes on to say that moderate religious believers are just as bad because they are afraid of offending anyone, so they remain quiet while great abuses of religion occur all around them. He is amazed that rational people can be as superstitious and gullible as to put their faith in a God for whom there is no proof. He said that nobody believes in Zeus anymore, and it is time to put the idea of God to rest as well, because there is no evidence.
Of course, we have to admit that there are egregious perversions of religion today. Much more than that, people of faith are not superstitious, but rather are able to believe, in spite of the evidence.
Job refused to let his doubts win. He refused to give in to despair. Of course he asked God hard questions. Of course, he complained – it is only the human thing to do. Though his faith was tested to it breaking point, it remained intact.
There are times when we all struggle against incredible odds and unforeseen circumstances. There are times when we don’t know if we can go on. There are days when we feel that we are stretched to our limit. Sometimes it feels as if we are hanging on to the last knot in the rope and discover that it is beginning to unravel. That is when we can feel abandoned by God. That is when we can feel alone. That is when we can imagine that no one cares, not even our Lord.
When Job was at that point, it took faith to keep on trying, reaching, and searching for answers. It took faith to continue to believe that God still existed. But that was the point, where Job met God in a profound way, a way he never would have experienced God if he had not been tested.
I don’t know how you are being tested right now. I have a feeling that some of you have profound questions of fairness and unfairness, just like Job. I have a feeling that there are some of you who are wondering just exactly where God is at this point in time. I have a feeling that there are some of you who wonder where the strength for tomorrow will come from.
It was at that point that Job found himself, somehow, able to keep on trying, to keep on having faith. And it was at this point when Job encountered God in a new way. It was at this point that Job received the evidence he needed to believe that God had never really left.
Perhaps you are at a point in your life when you are about ready to meet God in the questions of life. Don’t give up too easily. God is there. Will you be?
