Scripture: Job 6:1-4; 11;21
Can we pray together — God among us, we pray today for Job. We pray for everyone who is entangled in the snarled cords and cables of this world — we have known that feeling of being stuck, and maybe we also know the feeling of being disentangled — so we ask you to clear the way for all of us this morning — to use your holy shears and plowshares to cut away that which has us in its grips, so that we might see your grace, and know your grace, and enter your grace, and in so doing, be freed to radiate your love for all the world.
This morning, let the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be found transformative and filled with the Good News that you have in store for us, O Lord our rock, our tower, and our redeemer. Amen.
Friends, I am so happy to be back in the fullness of worship together this morning. One of the things that I have missed about Newman Church is the sacred serendipity and magic of a Sunday morning worship. For hundreds of years, this church has cultivated a sacred sensibility here on the flat open plane between the Seekonk River and the Ten Mile River. We never know exactly what God has in store for us on a given week — but we live in hope that God will inspire us, and transform us, and shift us each week — helping us to become more fully ourselves. And so we come to worship today having been opened to the sacred once again. Where will God move us this morning?
Our scripture reading locates us alongside Job.
For those who aren’t familiar with Job, he is the focus of the 18th book of the Bible, the first of the texts known as the Ketuvim (or Poetical writings). One of the first things we learn about Job is that he is the best. He’s just the best. He is the best farmer, and best father, and best friend — he is full of faith and piety. He understands his wonderful life to be the result of his faith in God.
But there is a tragic turn in the story. There is a character who is something of a fallen angel, called the advocate. This is someone whose goal in life is to bring other people down, trying to poke holes into God’s good creation.
The advocate says, “God, you are so proud of your faithful servant Job, but you know that if life gets hard for Job he will turn and curse you — he is only good because he has never struggled. Job will not be so wonderful if he is tested by suffering.
We expect God to defend Job. But instead God says, “okay. Let’s find out.”
God takes nearly everything from Job, his family, his livelihood, his health, his possessions.
Poor Job, a human who becomes recklessly entangled in the whims of Gods and angels.
The COVID-19 pandemic is one global touchstone we have for a kind of swift and all-encompassing loss.
Many of us lost loved ones, and lost the ability to see family, and lost the freedom to move freely. A cloud hung above our heads.
I remember my first day of teaching high school humanities in the summer of 2020. I was experiencing a kind of entanglement. To slow the spread of infecetion, the school administration had given all the teachers a packet of N95 masks, face shields, and clear visors. At that time I also had a beard like Hagrid from Harry Potter.
But even still, I dutifully put on my mask over beard and my plastic visor over a big head of hair, and went in to teach my first classes, like a knight in too much armor. It felt like something of a disaster. Nothing seemed to go right that first day, or for many months after, entangled as I was. It was the end of the year when restrictions had begun loosening up, that one of my students who I had gotten to know pretty well helped wake me up, so to speak, by asking me, “Rev., why does it seem like you’re tip-toeing into the classroom before class?”
It hit me that I was still caught in the cautious tangle of the beginning of the year and walking on eggshells, even though I didn’t have to be.
After that, I had an easier time being myself.
Maybe you have had an experience like this, where someone noticed something about you, or loved something about you that helped you to be more fully yourself going forward.
This is poor Job’s strength. Even in the pit of Job’s despair, he is himself and does not lose what is most unique and precious about him.
Job has lost so much, but his loss does not change him. His friends tell him to give up and curse God, but he will not do it.
You could say that I chose this scripture reading today with the help of Newman Church’s first minister, Rev. Samuel Newman.
Before there was the internet, or Google, or artificial intelligence, Samuel Newman published a book that was like a search engine for the Bible. His book listed every instance in which a term was listed in the Bible.
According to Newman’s 1643 Concordance book, Job 6 is one of about ten times in bible when the word heat is used.
I’m worried about the heat. I’m worried about our warming world. I’m worried about the ways that a heating world will change us as people over time.
Will we have the strength of Job to not lose ourselves in a changing world as one-hundred degree days become the norm each summer?
In a time of heat, we hear Job remark in verse 17 that he feels in his life like the waters have dried up and the rivers have stop flowing. The caravans that live off the living water of the river are forced to turn inland in search of water. The merchants and traders all search for water an become distressed when they find none.
Job is a good teacher for us in a time of heat, as our changing world tries to change us — when God’s care and protection feel faraway, Job shows us how God is near, even when we don’t feel it. We can have resolve like Job to keep caring for our planet and advancing policies that keep carbon out of the atmosphere . . .
Like our church solar panels which turn ten this year.
Rev. Jim Antal once said, “If we’re not regularly preaching on climate change, in a couple generations every sermon we preach will be on grief.”
But Job does not give in to grief, and neither will we with the help of God. For there is something in Job and in us that is indominable, even when God brings him to a time of trial and tribulation — he does not curse God.
Friends, life is constantly testing us. We are a country still making war. We are mourning the loss of loved ones. We are navigating health challenges. We are struggling to make ends meet. We are feeling disconnected from other people. We are concerned about the future for our kids and grandkids. We are doing the best we can. Take heart and take hope, that God is in the struggle, and that you have intrinsic strength. We ask God to send the sacred to us this morning, and go with us in this time of heat. May it be so, Amen.
