9 September 2018 Job 1:1; 2:1–10; 10:1-9; 38:1-7; 42:1-6 When the world is in chaos First Mennonite Church

The words of Job are spoken in the midst of chaos. Job has just lost his home, his farm. All Job's children are dead. Now he has lost his health, his body disfigured with open sores. My days are without hope, he says (7:6). He wishes he were dead. Let the day perish wherein I was born (3:3). Job asks God, why? Why is light given to one in misery? (Job 3:20)

I sat down this week and read through the book of Job to get a feel for it. I’ll be honest with you—it’s not an easy book to read, let alone preach on. Anytime anyone attempts to speak about God the Creator and human suffering, there's a good chance that we're going to sound like Job's friends—Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar, and Elihu. They come, at first as friends to console and comfort Job as he goes through the valley of the shadows. But, in the face of Job's sores, his dead children, how do his "friends" comfort and console him? Here's a sampling:

Eliphaz: Now Job, think who that was innocent ever perished (4:7). Are you perishing? Now, let's figure out what you’ve done wrong to deserve this. Bildad: Job, are you suggesting that God is unjust? If you were pure and upright, God would answer you with prosperity (8:3-6). Zophar: How dare you question God's ways! God is all wise, all knowing. God knows what is best for you. You're just a guilty sinner, Job. (11:3-8). Get well soon. Love, Zophar.

There is the old saying, with friends like these, who needs enemies? You see, Job's friends have keen, keen sense of God's justice. Because God is the 1

Creator...because God is all powerful and in control...it follows that the world ought to work in a certain way. Like the rhythm of the seasons where we plant gardens in the spring and harvest in the fall or where birds fly south for the winter and return north in spring. Creation is ordered. God's moral order ought to work the same way, right?

Before we criticize Job's friends too much, let’s think about what people say to those who are suffering today? Listen to this. It's God's will. You'll have to accept it. God never puts more on us than we can bear. She has gone to a better place. God needed another angel.

Have you ever heard these words spoken to people who are suffering?

Aids? It's their own fault. Lost your job? You should have worked harder. A man born blind? Someone must have sinned. Surely there must be some neat connection, some direct correlation on why people suffer.

We mean well...but what we say is often SO inadequate, like a couple of sandbags against a raging flood. Many years ago, I went through a personal crisis.

People didn’t know what to do or what to say. Like Job’s friends who came to support him and sat with him for many days. I remember quite vividly someone who tried to comfort me with Paul's words from Romans: We know that all things work together for good for those who love God... (Rom 8:28). This person was being very sincere, trying to give me hope, but I couldn’t hear it. Rather, I felt as if this person couldn’t confront the darkness and chaos with me. They quoted the Bible because they thought it would give me hope, but ironically, it had the opposite effect. It's not that the words in Romans aren't true; I believe they are. I think there is a time to quote scripture, but there is a time to be quiet and be present.

Upon being told "it’s God's Will" by a friend, on the death of her son, she said, "If this is God's will, then I want no more of this God." Or, as said Job, "Why is light given to one in misery?" In the face of chaos such inadequate platitudes by "friends", it's no wonder that some are driven to greater despair.

So, realizing the inadequacy of our theology of chaos, many have learned to mutter the more sophisticated, "Well...er...uh...we'll be thinking of you." 2

Here’s the thing: Job says this world is NOT in order, NOT fair. Things don't work out. Creation is not ordered, but chaotic.

Why is light given to one in misery?

It’s not fair that a couple of years ago a friend of mine in her 20s collapsed in class and then found out that she had a brain tumour. It’s not fair that little children are taken from their homes by their parents because of a vicious civil war only to die in the Mediterranean Sea. It’s not fair.

I’m sure we’ve all asked ourselves, why do bad things happen to good people when the corrupt, the unjust, and the arrogant live long full lives? It doesn't make sense.

Job, the man on the ash heap was, at first, resigned to his fate. Let the day perish wherein I was born. But Job moves from resignation to defiance and anger.

Job says to his friends, • You are all miserable comforters! Have windy words no limit? Or what provokes you that you keep on talking? (16:3). • God has broken me. God has taken me by the neck and dashed me to pieces (16:12). • Will God hear my cry? (27:10). Oh that God would hear me!...that the Almighty would answer me! (31:35).

Job is angry at God. Does that offend you? Here's Job, a fellow sufferer, fellow questioner rising off his ash heap, clinching his fist and teeth, ranting and raving at God. Defiantly demanding to know, WHY?

Job's friends - Bildad, Eliphaz, Zophar, and Elihu - are soooo helpful. They take up almost 35 chapters to prove how helpful they are! They respond to the horror of Job's chaos with the same old, trite, Sunday school clichés: God is all powerful. 3

God makes the rules; we're made to keep the rules. Keep the rules and you'll be blessed. Break the rules, you'll be cursed. Nice and neat. No loose ends. This will all work out for the best. Who that was innocent ever perished? (4:7)

Job cannot square his experience of suffering with this nice neat moral order that his friends are painting. He demands an answer. The thing that I noticed when I read Job was the use of legal language. But I would speak to the Almighty, and I desire to argue my case with God. Job is angry at God, wants to get God into court. But he can't get God into court. For God is not a mortal, as I am, that I might answer him, that we should come to trial together.

But Job isn't just angry with God; he goes further. In his anger, Job even accuses God of being a criminal. For he crushes me with a tempest and multiplies my wounds without cause. (9:17). Job says, I am blameless...when disaster brings sudden death, God mocks at the calamity of the innocent. The earth is given into the hands of the wicked; he covers the eyes of its judges... (9:21-24).

This is powerful stuff.

Job is very angry and asks some tough questions. If God is the Creator, then why do the innocent suffer? If God isn't responsible for the suffering and injustice in the world, then who is? Whose world is it, anyway? Perhaps there are powers out there that are stronger than God?

You see, Job is not impressed with God's creation. Yes, God holds back the waters, but then there's a drought. Yes, God opens the bottle, but then there's a flood. Job sounds like a farmer! Yes, God is powerful, but it's indiscriminate, arbitrary power. God's power is not equated with justice.

Job, on the ash heap, ranted and raved for a long time. Prayed, but received no answer. Just silence. To Job's surprise, (38 chapters later), God arrives. Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind...gird up your loins. This phrase, gird up your loins, carries the meaning of preparing for an impending war, or preparing 4 for hard work. Job, it seems, has work to do. He must work through his grief and work at gaining a new understanding of who God is. Job also had a very keen sense of God's justice.

In the drama of a court room setting, God takes the role of the defendant, but very quickly takes on the role of the Crown Attorney. Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Have you commanded the morning since your days began? Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth?

If your image of God has always been of one who is gentle and soft-spoken, think again. This God takes on Job as a Crown Attorney takes on a hostile witness. The book of Job is like the TV show, Law and Order. And God answers with a lot of questions. Where were you? Who are you? What can you do? In other words, all the questions God fires at Job are a clear signal to Job to finally be quiet.

And Job does just that. See, I am of small account, says Job. What else can I say? I put my hand over my mouth. I spoke once. I won't speak twice. (40:4-5).

What else was Job supposed to say after God's cross examination? Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? ‘Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades, or loose the cords of Orion? Can you lead forth the Mazzaroth in their season, or can you guide the Bear with its children? Do you know the ordinances of the heavens? Can you establish their rule on the earth? (Job 38:31-33)

• Pleiades (plea a dees), is also known as the 7 Sisters star cluster that you can find in our night sky. • Orion is one of the most recognizable constellations in the night sky. 5

• Mazzaroth probably refers to the 12-star constellations that make up the Zodiac. • The reference to the Bear with its cubs is appropriate to the two constellations Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, otherwise known as the Great Bear and Little Bear constellations.

But is silence, resignation before God the end of the story? No. God speaks again. Will you over turn my justice? Will you make me out to be evil in order to sustain your innocence? (40:6) These are important questions.

God continues. Behold now Behemoth (bee he moth), which I made even as I made you (40:15). Behemoth? In some Bibles there is a footnote saying that Behemoth is the Hebrew for hippopotamus. But the meaning is uncertain.

Can you draw out Leviathan with a fishhook? Can you put a hook into Leviathan's nose? Will Leviathan speak soft words to you? Leviathan? Again, some bibles have a footnote saying that Leviathan is the Hebrew word meaning crocodile. Again, the meaning is uncertain.

Behemoth. Leviathan. These are two dark mythological creatures of the Canaanite religion. The Canaanites were Israel's neighbours. The Canaanite religion consisted of a number of powerful forces of chaos, like Behemoth and Leviathan, which wreaked terror and destruction on the earth.

Do you see what has happened here? God has moved Job from the natural world of stars and constellations to the supernatural world of Behemoth and Leviathan. God has not reprimanded Job for getting angry. By bringing in Behemoth and Leviathan into the picture, God reveals to Job something about what it's like to be God in the world. It's not the God and not the world envisioned by Job, Bildad, Zophar, and Elihu - a flat world of simple black and white answers, easy moral formulas, rules and rewards. God shows Job a deeper, darker, confusing creation, beyond which live Behemoth and Leviathan.

Can you imagine Behemoth? I made him just like I made you. Can you pull out mighty Leviathan with a fishhook?

In other words, “Job, if you think you can deal with this world, this dark chaotic, foreboding world, then go ahead…be my guest. You may find out what being God is all about. You'll find out that justice is a good deal more complicated than you think.” 6

Leviathan and Behemoth give us a hint of the disorder and dark chaos with which God must wrestle. Can you pull out mighty Leviathan with a fishhook? Yes, God has created all things. Yes, God is in control of Behemoth and Leviathan, evil and chaos. They are strong too, but God restrains them. But they break away from God's grasp every now and then and wreak havoc upon the world, upon our lives. God's battle with chaos is a lot like a war. We know who will win the war. In fact the war is over. But, like most wars, even when it's ended, there's some mopping up to do, some pockets of resistance that need to be brought under control. It's a vision of the world that's extremely complex, not simple and easy. It's a big and complex world that God must deal with all the time.

Job has cried out in his chaos and disorder in his own life. But how much greater the chaos against which God strives? If you came here this morning anticipating me to give a nice neat theological answer to the issue of chaos, I’m sorry. What I’ve said may not be a great answer. It’s not answer Job wanted to hear. But it's a picture of reality in which God struggles. Human suffering is only part of the chaos, one little corner of the chaos against which God is in battle.

In some ways Job's understanding of God was the same as his friends. Job's friends had a very simple, black and white understanding of God. God is the Creator of the world. Follow God's rules and you are blessed; break the rules and you are punished. Job, in many ways had a similar understanding of God. Before encountering God in the whirlwind, Job believed in a God who sat around and meted out justice in a stable, orderly clockwork world. God rewards the good; punishes the evil. That was, of course, before he lost his home, family, and health.

It was only after his suffering, his ranting and raving against God, did he encounter God, and then come to a new understanding of God. What was the new understanding?

God doesn't answer Job. God doesn't explain away the question, why the innocent suffers. That's because there isn't one. There is no answer to the question WHY. Rather, the answer why the innocent suffers lies somewhere in all our questions, our struggling at making sense of it all. For those who are willing to question and question, for those who are willing to work, really work at their grief, for those who are prepared to rant and rave against God, hurl questions against the dark silence...these are the people who may well encounter God and be changed by the encounter. 7

We say, prayer changes things. But what things does it change? We often think that if we ask God long enough and hard enough, that God will grant our wishes, our demands and desires.

Psalm 23 says, Even though I walk through the darkest valley…it doesn’t say avoid, fly over, or walk around the darkest valley, but through. Perhaps, it may not be the situation we find ourselves changes; rather it is us that are changed because of the questioning, the struggling as we go through the darkest valley. It's not that God will change the situation we are in, but that our understanding of God will change. In this way, prayer changes things.

Job came to have a new understanding of God. A God who is busy, struggling with chaos, struggling with suffering, the darkness.

This is also the picture of God in the New Testament. Not a simple one of a God who removed from the cares and concerns of the world. Not a picture of a God who is sitting comfortably in an ivory tower. Rather the NT paints a picture of a God who comes down to us. God lives and dies on a cross, beside two thieves. There, at that time between the cross and that first Easter morning, God made war on chaos, Behemoth and Leviathan, and defeated them, once and for all. The resurrection is a sign of the new creation. God with us. This is where our hope lies. Amen

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