Community Church Sermons

Year B

June 21, 2009

The Third Sunday after Pentecost Sunday

“Where Were You?”

Mark 4:35-41; Job 38:1-11

Rev. Rhonda Abbott Blevins

“Where were you when I commanded the morning? Where were you when I caused the dawn to know its place? Have you walked in the recesses of the deep? Have the gates of death been revealed to you? Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth? Tell me, if you know all this! Have you entered the storehouses of the snow? Have you seen the storehouses of the hail? What is the way to the place where the light is distributed? Where is the east wind scattered upon the earth?” [1]

“Where were you when I created the cosmos?”

On and on it goes, God’s diatribe to Job. Chapter 38, chapter 39, chapter 40, chapter 41. . .all dedicated to God putting Job in his place by reminding him of the vast expanse of the universe and created order. God begins the invective with a fitting piece of Father’s Day advice, “Brace yourself like a man.” “I will question you, and you shall answer me.”

You see, throughout much of the first 37 chapters of the book of Job, Job has questioned God, demanding answers . . . an explanation for why he has suffered so profoundly. And to Job’s credit, his life had certainly been tragic. His seven children all died the same day in a wind storm. A wealthy man, Job lost just about everything he owned as a result of violence, theft, and fire. All of this misfortune happened on the same day. Then a little later Job’s health faltered. The Bible says he suffered “loathsome sores” from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head. His friends and even his wife proved more harmful than helpful. Job surely suffered. And in the face of that suffering over and over again Job demands to know why God has treated him so unfairly.

When we read between the lines in the book of Job, we discover that Job and his friends held a fairly simplistic religious ideology: God rewards good and God punishes evil. So the suffering of a righteous man did not fit in their theological framework. Job demanded an answer for his question “Why do bad things happen to good people?” Or perhaps more pointedly, “Why have you allowed these bad things to happen to me?”

Have you ever asked that question? I know I have.

The first time I remember dealing on a deeply personal level with this question happened to be my first year of seminary. When I first began my theological education, I was utterly zealous for the Lord, full of excitement and ready to change the world. But that all changed very quickly. I suppose it was the “perfect storm” in my young adult life. Back home, my father’s health was deteriorating; my family was falling apart. My support systems--all my friends--were 1,000 miles away. My childlike faith was being challenged everyday by the academic study of religion. And on top of all that, I found myself in the middle of a denominational war that opened my eyes to how ugly religious leaders can act.

Those were difficult days for me. I was feeling pretty sorry for myself most of the time, and my faith was like the car I drove back then, barely held together by duct tape. “Why do bad things happen to good people?” Or perhaps more pointedly, “Why have you allowed these bad things to happen to me?”

And then God spoke to me.

It was the summer before my last year of seminary; I was working on a team leading youth camps at various places throughout the American Northwest. Our last stop on that tour was in Washington State, at the base of Mount Baker, between Seattle and Vancouver, British Columbia. We held camp there for two weeks, and after the last camper said goodbye, my team and I decided to take a trip up the mountain to take in some scenery.

I’ll never forget what I experienced that day. It was mid-July; I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt. But as we neared the summit, I realized that the mountain was still covered in snow. When we made it to the top, I slipped away from my friends for a few moments of solitude. The sky was sapphire blue. The jagged, snow-covered peaks reflected on the lake below so clearly that I had to look twice to be sure it was only a reflection. With sweat on my brow and snow under my feet, I had never beheld anything so beautiful, so majestic, so awe-inspiring.

God spoke to me in that moment. God called out to me from the beauty of this amazing creation, God’s creation, and I suddenly felt so fully alive! A sense of joy came over me, and a simultaneous peace. And for the first time in a long time, I knew that God was real.

As I reflected upon that experience this past week, struggling for a way to articulate what I experienced and how to interpret it so that it would benefit you these years later, my first inclination was to say that in that moment when God touched me in such a profound way, all of my doubts and all of my questions and all of my troubles went away. But that’s not exactly true. Those difficulties were still present. But what happened that day as I stood atop Mount Baker marveling at creation was that mystery became my friend. When that happened, those difficulties didn’t disappear, but suddenly they had less hold over me. It’s as if God said to me in that moment, “You don’t know everything, and you never will. Embrace the mystery!”

“Where were you when I created the cosmos?” God demands of Job over the course of four chapters in the Bible. What transpires as the monologue unfolds is that God simply opens Job’s eyes that Job might stand in awe before God’s magnificent creation. “You don’t know everything, Job, and you never will. Embrace the mystery!” Did Job’s doubts . . . did his questions . . . did his troubles go away? No. But as he began to marvel at creation, mystery became his friend, and suddenly Job’s troubles had less hold over him. And he eventually confesses to God, “My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you.” And eventually, the scripture tells us, “The Lord blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the first.”

Where were you when I created the cosmos? The question rings out today just as in the day of Job.

We certainly know more about the cosmos than Job and his contemporaries knew. We know that snow and hail are not kept in storehouses, for instance. But for all of our knowledge, the universe is still so vast, and we understand so very little!

I was recently reading the latest issue of Discover Magazine. It’s a magazine that explores the cutting edge of scientific discovery and couches it in language that the lay reader can understand. I subscribe to Discover because I’m curious about God’s creation and because it helps me expand my thinking and opens me to mysteries beyond my imagination.

In the most recent edition, [2] the magazine includes a transcript from a discussion held by a panel of top astronomers. They talk about things like the expansion of the universe and dark matter and topics that boggle the mind. Then the panel fields questions from the audience like, “Do you think there could be life on other planets?” Big question! A professor of astronomy at San Francisco State University answered this way: “To me, it’s hard to imagine that there isn’t life somewhere else.”

Another person asked, “If a person [fell] into a black hole, where would he go?” Big question! A professor of astronomy at UCLA, answered, “The problem with falling into a black hole is that you would never make it. You’d get sheared apart. As you fell in your feet would feel a pull so much greater than your head that you would be torn apart. It would be a really bad ride.”

In other words, “We don’t know everything, and we never will.”

And God cries out through the ages, “Where were you when I invented the cosmos?”

As you leave from this place today, your assignment is to go behold God’s creation:

Marvel at the sunset.

Gaze at an orchid.

Consider the intricacies of your own hand.

Wonder!

Creation is bursting with mystery! Embrace it that your eyes might see the Lord! Amen.

[1] A paraphrased summary of Job 38:12-24.

[2]“The Frontiers of Astronomy,” Discover Magazine, May, 2009