Lament in Unknowing (Job 2)

Ordinary 28B
Oct 11, 2015
Ancho + Corona

Scripture:
Job 23: 1-17; Mark 10: 17-31

I’d like to open and close this sermon time with a song that my Great-grandfather wrote the lyrics to:

Stars that shine above
Tell of God’s love
For even when clouds hide,
Still, they are there
So, we, dear Father
Though shadows hide Thee,
Know Thou art keeping watch
With tenderest care.

Last Friday was the day of the Ancho Star Party, when we gathered to study the heavens and marvel at God’s beautiful creation. Yet, in Corona, the world seemed shrouded in cloud. It was like a blanket, covering over everything – that cloud clung to the ground and to the sky above. As I drove down to Ancho, I kept thinking that it was like the world was disappearing around me. Even after heading through the Tecalote pass, the clouds covered the skies above. We had gathered to view the heavens, but the heavens were closed to us.

Yet, like the blanket it resembled, it was comforting too. After all, we were able to have fellowship and food – to warm the church not only with the woodstove, but with love and affirmation. Even not being able to see the stars, we studied about the history of the constellations, and practiced with our star charts. Could we identify the stars? Could we remember their relations to each other?

That’s where Job is in our passage today – in the midst of cloud-wrapped darkness. Verse 17, in the Revised Standard Version, reads “For I am hemmed in by darkness, and thick darkness covers my face.” For Job, it’s worse: not only can he not see the stars, but he has no food or fellowship with his friends or his wife. He and his friends have spent 20 chapters discussing theological points, about why Job “deserves” to be punished with suffering, and Job refutes all their points. The arguing has already gone on so long that it’s stopped being about what the other person said. We’ve all had arguments that have done this, right? Where you stop listening to the other person , and just argue, almost against yourself? Well, Job’s response to Eliphaz, which we read today, does not directly address the concerns he raised in the last chapter. It seems as though these friends did their best for Job while they sat with him silently, in vigil for the first week; now, all their yammering is just making things worse.

This darkness that Job finds himself in is a form of unknowing – Job is asking, “how can I know how to find God?” After all, Job desperately wants to see God – look at verse 3, “If only I knew where to find God, I would go to his court.” But why does Job want to go to God? To argue his case before the great judge.

It’s clear that Job initially thinks that God either doesn’t know about his situation, or that God just hasn’t taken everything into account. Look at verse 7 – “Honest people can reason with [God], so I would be forever acquitted by my judge.” Job’s not wrong that God is an honest judge – but he is wrong in thinking that God is avoiding him. Every direction that Job goes, he feels like God is not there. This is directly opposite the experience of God described by the Psalmist in Psalm 139:

Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning, and settle at the furthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me and your right hand shall hold me fast.

Compare that to verse 10 of our Job text: “For [God] knows where I am going, and when [God] tries me, I will come out as pure as gold.” You see? Job thinks God is purposefully avoiding him, so as to not let him come to trial – as Job thinks he will surely come out “as pure as gold.”

Job’s reaction is not to curse God, as his wife suggested last week, or to falsely seek absolution for sins that he truly hasn’t committed – but to lament. Now, this isn’t immediate; remember, we’ve been listening to Job talking for 20 chapters about God; but here, Job starts to address his own fears.

Lament is a Latin word that we’ve adopted through French influence into English. It means, literally, to “weep, wail, or mourn” in Latin – and that’s a good translation of the Hebrew, “saphat”, meaning literally to “tear your hair” or figuratively, to mourn openly. Mourning and Lamenting tend to go hand-in-hand, but lamenting has an extra sense of seeking retribution for unjust treatment. Therefore, we lament more situations than we mourn – after all, when we say the Lord’s Prayer, we are lamenting that God’s kingdom is not yet on earth, and asking for the strength to help build it. When we stand up for not only ourselves, but those whose voices are not heard, we are participating in lamentations.

Job, in the darkness of unknowing, illustrates what to do: Lament! Cry against the systems that hold back justice. Speak up for yourself and others who are being mistreated.

To see what happens when we don’t lament, let’s take a look at our Gospel lesson. Here, we see Jesus approached by an unknowing man. He runs up, throws himself at Jesus’ feet, and asks Jesus how to inherit eternal life. The man is showing such enthusiasm – even calling Jesus, “Good Teacher,” a title which is never repeated by anyone else in the Bible. But Jesus deflects his question, first responding that no one but God is truly good. The man shows that he is listening by next calling Jesus by the plain title, Teacher.

So, Jesus asks him if he’s kept a series of commandments: Don’t murder. Don’t commit adultery. Don’t steal. Don’t cheat/defraud. Honor your father and mother. It’s interesting that these commandments are all (but one) from the Decalogue, the ten commandments. The ones left out from that list are all about God: Keep God first, make no idols, keep the Sabbath.

Oh, and one is swapped – Jesus says don’t cheat or defraud, instead of don’t covet. We’ll come back to this in a bit.

The man responds that he has kept them all, and Jesus tells him, “But wait… there’s one more thing! Go, sell all you have, give the money to the poor, come and follow me.” There are five verbs in this “one more thing” – Go, sell, give, come, follow. And this seems straightforward, if a bit convicting: Just keeping the commandments isn’t enough. One must also eek the bettering of the world – acting against the injustice of poverty.

But… that’s not the whole story. Look at the question and answer again: “What must I DO to INHERIT eternal life?” Jesus' answer: Commandments. The commandments Jesus lists – even the wonky “don’t cheat/defraud” – are proscriptions against actions that you DO to get an inheritance. Don’t murder – you can get an inheritance usually only after a person dies, so murder might seem like a way to get it. Don’t commit adultery – Well, Jesus has just finished saying that divorcing someone and remarrying is committing adultery. Whether or not we still hold to that today, the point is that by re-marrying someone, you could receive an inheritance from someone else. Don’t steal – this is straightforward, don’t steal someone else’s inheritance. Don’t lie – don’t say that an inheritance is yours in order to receive that inheritance. Don’t cheat/defraud – this is similar to don’t lie – don’t pretend to be someone else to receive their inheritance. If Jesus had said, “don’t covet,” it wouldn’t have been as strong an indicator, as coveting often leads to a desire to cheat/defraud. Honor your father and mother – after all, if you don’t, they’ll cut you out of their will, and you won’t receive an inheritance.

All of this is Jesus checking to see if this man has done anything that he REALLY shouldn’t have. It is this man’s unknowing – of the fact that inheritance isn’t something you DO something to get – that leads to Jesus’ exchange that it is difficult for the rich to enter heaven. Often, wealth is associated with power, or with goodness – just look at Job’s friends, who think he must have done something bad, since he’s lost all of his wealth. With that mindset, you might very well think you can DO something in order to secure for yourself what you want – that is, what you covet.

This man wanted eternal life for himself – and wanted to throw his wealth at the problem in order to get it. But you can’t buy eternal life! It’s not like you’ll find it on Amazon or E-bay, listed under “Salvation – Eternal life!” So, Jesus is telling the rich man to publicly lament – to cry against the injustice of poverty and do something about it.

Job has lost everything, and laments that God seems far away – and so, Job laments in the darkness of unknowing. He cries against the injustice and cries for a fair trial. The rich man has lost nothing, has much, and wants more. Jesus calls him to lament against the injustice of his standing, and the way society is structured, and he refuses, going away sad. 

That leads us to this question: Which of these men does God look on with favor?

The answer? Both of them – but only one is truly seeking God.

Just as we at Ancho were seeking the stars – by studying, and waiting together, the clouds cleared up just in time. It was a beautiful miracle that that which we were seeking was revealed to us when it suited God – in God’s own time. As we’ll see next week, that’s how it is with Job, too.

May you seek God – lamenting against injustice, and doing what you can to help bring God’s kingdom here on earth. Amen.

I am not afraid
When the shadows fall
And it grows too dark to see
For Thou, dear Lord,
Who watches over all,
Will care for my loved ones and me