God in the Dock

“God in the Dock”

Message @ Jericho Ridge– Sun, Feb 7 2021 (Series: Worst Year Ever)

Hello, friends.  My name is Brad and I’m part of the teaching and leadership team here at Jericho Ridge.

We’ve been looking this past month in our weekly teaching times at the life and experiences of a man named Job, who could have easily claimed, based on his experience of loss and tragedy, that he had the Worst Year Ever.  The poetic book that chronicles his experience is tucked away as part of the Wisdom Literature in the Old Testament. It makes for some fascinating, if complicated, reading.

Job begins the book on top of the heap – a man of great reputation in the ancient world; he had an awesome family and an amazing amount of wealth.  But then Job experiences catastrophic financial loss. Then his 7 sons and 3 daughters died in a horrific accident, and then his personal health deteriorates.  And the rest of the book delves into the very normal question that you and I and most anyone would ask when bad things happen:  WHY?  Why did this happen to me?  Was it something I did wrong? Was God somehow involved in this?  Is God punishing me/us?

Job gets into an extended series of poetic arguments with his friends about the root cause of his suffering.  His friends argue that since God runs the world according to justice, then obviously Job must have sinned.  How else could you explain what has occurred except that God is punishing Job for wrongdoing, they say?  Or perhaps, they argue, Job’s suffering is designed to build his character or to maybe to warm him to avoid some future sin.  

Their arguments can sound convincing according to the laws of cause and effect.  There are those in Job’s day and in ours that assert God mechanistically rewards the righteous and punishes the wicked.  That’s just the way the world works, they say. But we are going to see today that both that vision of God and that sense of how the world works are flawed. 

As the book progresses, Job begins to grow agitated with this unhelpful “advice” from his friends.  The book begins to read like a legal drama, with the friends presenting their case and Job refuting it.  Job registering objections and then his friends countering.  Like a lawyer arguing their case to another lawyer, they go back and forth and back and forth.  I am up for jury duty at the beginning of March for my first time so I’m intrigued to see how all of this works in real time.    

Keeping with the courtroom theme, at various points in the book, Job demands that he get a proper hearing in front on a proper Judge, that being God. Job, like many of us have done, looks to the heavens and pleads to God in 10:2 “Don’t simply condemn me – tell me the charge you are brining against me.” 

Then in Job 23:2-7 he puts his request most plainly: ” If only I knew where to find God, I would go to his court. 4 I would lay out my case and present my arguments. 5 Then I would listen to his reply and understand what he says to me. 6 Would he use his great power to argue with me? No, he would give me a fair hearing.” 

By chapter 31:35 he is at a fever pitch: “If only someone would listen to me! Look, I will sign my name to my defense. Let the Almighty answer me. Let my accuser write out the charges against me. 36 I would face the accusation proudly. I would wear it like a crown. 37 For I would tell him exactly what I have done.”

If this is a courtroom drama, Job wants to change the seating arrangement of the courtroom.  He wants to, in author C.S. Lewis’ famous phrase, put God in the Dock.  Job demands that God take off the robes and role of judge and move into the witness stand.  He wants to put God on trial for falsely accusing Job and for breach of contract.  He wants an answer for why his life has gone from hero to zero.  What has he done to deserve this?  Job asserts his innocence and demands to cross examine the Almighty. 

And then, in Job chapter 38, the most amazing thing occurs…. God actually answers Job!  God speaks and for FOUR chapters gives Job, and us, an incredible picture of the universe.  Job has challenged God, now God challenges Job.  God exposes the limitations of Job’s understanding.  God turns the tables and puts Job into the witness stand for cross-examination!   

BUT, intriguingly, even through the speeches last for 4 chapters, God does not explain Job’s suffering, nor does God condemn Job (which I’m sure his friends fully expected to occur!).  God turns the tables and puts Job on trial!  I want to thank Ali Nicole for so capably reading part of that text for us today and to our digital team, Brady and Jeremy, for assembling the footage to help us engage with the Scripture in a visual way earlier.  With Ali’s British accent, it felt like a bit of a BBC earth kind of moment, didn’t it?    

But let’s take a few moments to trace the contours of God’s response to Job then we’ll look at what it means for you and I before we deal with the puzzle of how the book ends.

In chapter 38, God takes Job on a tour of the created world and asks Job questions which, to be fair, Job could not possibly know the answers to! 

God reminds Job of several key roles that God plays in the universe.

Role #1 - Creator – The language is of construction… Laying foundations. God is the One who crafted and forged the depths.  He is the great architect of all that we see and all that is unseen.  God asks “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth (38:4) – um, not yet born?!. 

Then the language switches to a more maternal tone: the language of wombs and birthing creation into being. In all of this, God is reminding Job that Job wasn’t there at the dawn of creation, Job is part of the created order and therefore sitting in judgement on how God runs the world is not within the capacity or prerogative of us as human beings.  It’s not that you and I are worms, never meant to question the actions of a sovereign God, it’s just that God says ‘your vantage point because it is limited by time and space, is not a good vantage point from which to make judgments about God’s governance of the world.     

Role #2 is God as the Sustainer of all that is – look at 38:19 – where does light come from and where does darkness go? Can you take each to its home? Do you know how to get there?  But of course you know all this!  For you were born before it was all created and you are so very experienced!”  God essentially says to Job: Oh do you keep the constellations in their place – Orion and Ursa Major? I didn’t think so.  (sounds like God is being not a little sarcastic!). 

Or in the language of the New Testament book of Colossians the writer says “Through [Christ] God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth. He made the things we can see and the things we can’t see— such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world. Everything was created through him and for him. 17 He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together.” Sustains all things.

When we went to Maui a few years ago, we got up in the middle of the night and drove up to the rim of an ancient volcanic crater over 10,000 ft above sea level.  The place is called Haleakala which means "house of the sun" in Hawaiian, and legend goes that Maui lassoed the sun from its journey across the sky as he stood on the volcano’s summit, slowing its descent to make the day last longer.  (I just got Moana vibes there, kids) 

And in the pre-dawn chilly darkness at the top of this mountain, a park Ranger comes out as the sun crests above the clouds and sings the sunrise up into the sky for the day.  It was so majestic and powerful I get chills thinking about it even now!  But let’s be clear -  that singing didn’t make the sun come up that day.  Psalm 19 reminds us that God has set the earth and sun and heavenly bodies in their place and whether you get up tomorrow ot pull the covers back over your head in COVID defiance, the sun is still going to come up tomorrow (you know, except when it comes up but we can’t see it in the midst of rainy and wet January).    

The third role that God plays is that of Provider.  The flow of thought switches from the cosmic world to the animal kingdom.  God asks Job “do you give the lions mountain goats, wild donkeys, oxen, ostrich, horse, hawks and eagles their food and their homes?  Do you know where and how and when the bring forth their young? (again, the answer is clearly NO). 

The writer also brings up two mythically powerful images from the ancient world: Behemoth, which could be a hippopotamus.  If you watch the TELUS commercials, you likely don’t think of the hippo as a symbol for dangerous strength.  BUT surprising fact we learned in Tanzania in the Serengeti: hippos kill more people in Africa each year than lions.   Do not go near the hippos - they are seriously dangerous creatures, people!   

The character of Leviathan is also mentioned.  We also meet this beast in Psalm 74:13-14 and in Isaiah 27 where the sea is a symbol of chaos and disorder and over both the brooding waters and Levithain, God asserts God’s control. 

 But what is Most interesting to me is that in 4 chapters of talking, God does not actually respond to Job’s question of the why behind suffering.  As Bible scholar Pete Enns says “God’s answer reminds me… of teenagers asking their Dad “what in the world did I do to get grounded?”  They ask their Dad and their Dad answers, “Do you go to work every day? Do you pay the bills? Do you keep the lights on? Were you there when I married your mother? When we bought our first house?”  It’s a kind of non-answer to a very direct question.     

This is part of what makes the book confusing.  Remember at the start of our journey we said that the book isn’t designed to answer some of the questions we bring to it / demand of it.  The book of Job is designed to help us ask better questions about the way the world works. The writer of Job is asking What’s the link between prosperity & piety? If I am ‘good’, doesn’t God OWE me ‘goodness’? If I’m experiencing bad things, doesn’t this mean I was bad? 

To that question, God basically says “as a created being, you are not in good a position to judge the answer to that.”  Maybe, just maybe the point of the book is actually to focus less on the answers and more on the questions that Job raises.  Job forces us to ask good questions.  Ones like “what kind of God am I in relationship with?” and God answers Job: “I AM the one who created you, who sustains the world in which you live, the One who made the world so wonderfully complex and chaotic. Yes, bad things happen but I am still very much in control and you can trust Me.” 

You see, we want to wrestle simple answers out of the book of Job: If God is so good and powerful, Why is there suffering in the world?” and God responds to that line of inquiry by saying “you are not in a position to make that claim.  I created a world that is both ordered, beautiful, but also wild and dangerous.  The world is not designed as a giant cause and effect slot machine where you put good things into it and good things come back to you.  Sometimes in this life, wicked people prosper and good people suffer.  Sometimes good people prosper and wicked people suffer.  But God is not in the business of transactional piety.  God will not be bullied into blessing you just because you think you are on your best behavior. 

Even Job’s restoration at the end of chapter 42 is not some kind of magic formula.  Notice the language – In 42:10 it says that the Lord restored the fortunes or returned or “turned the captivity of Job”.  The language of double portion is often used throughout Scripture to indicate God’s restoration and healing of that which was broken.  In Isaiah 40, God gives a double portion to those who have been exiles who return to God.  This isn’t the prosperity gospel, this is a great parabolic moment of relief and vindication that Job and God are still in right relationship with each other.   

So what does this all mean for you and me?  I find myself most challenged by Job’s two responses to God.  The first one is at the start of chapter 40.  Look with met at verses 1-5 “Then the Lord said to Job, 2 “Do you still want to argue with the Almighty? You are God’s critic, but do you have the answers?” 3 Then Job replied to the Lord, 4 “I am nothing—how could I ever find the answers? I will cover my mouth with my hand. 5 I have said too much already. I have nothing more to say.”

Job’s early response in the book is to rail and question and ask why and get angsty with his friends.  But his first response when confronted with the deep and mysterious ways in which God works as Creator, Sustainer and Provider is perhaps the most helpful response of all:  Job chooses Silence. 

Instead of launching back at God with a half-baked retort, “how can you expect me to answer that?”  Why are you not listening to me?  What is up with the questions to which there are no good answers?”  Job realizes that the best response in the face of the mystery of the unknown is not more words, not to rail harder, not to ask for a mis-trial, but rather to sit in silence.  Psalm 46 :10 invites us in similar language to ‘cease striving’ - to “Be still, and know (recognize and affirm) that I am God! I will be honored by every nation. I will be honored throughout the world.” 

When we quiet our hearts, be it at the start of the day, for a moment at the red light, in the quiet of that midnight hour when we tip toe out of our toddlers room after they are finally asleep… When we pause from the pushing and questioning to be quiet before God, to simply breathe out anxiety about the unknown and to breathe in and receive the loving presence and power of God.  When we do that, we realize that sometimes more words or more action is not the solution… silence is. 

So let me ask you “When was the last time you sat in silence?”  we are going to talk more about how to do this well in our next series.  But till then, maybe for you, your take away for today is to take some time this week to be still.  To quiet the noise all around you about the future and COVID and the chatter of the daily news cycle and the constant din of social media and the dinging of your phone and just be silent for a period of time and say to God – I have nothing to say.  I come just as I am to You.  I am here, not to get something from You, Jesus, but to be with you.  In silence. I wait for You. 

In that moment of silence, Job realizes the complexity and the immensity of the world.  He has a perspective shift (which can be helpful for us from time to time). 

Job’s second response at the start of chapter 42 is a bit more puzzling because while it sounds similar in English, the Hebrew (the original language it was written in) is some of the most ambiguous in the whole of the Old Testament, making it very difficult to translate or to build your case for the meaning of the book of job on it.  Job 42:6, for example, could be saying ‘I am still IN my dust and ashes’ – meaning that Job is saying ‘I acknowledge you are God”. Or it could be saying “I repent CONCERNING my dust and ashes” – meaning – I’ve learned my lesson, God.  Or it could mean ‘I repented OF my dust and ashes” meaning – I am leaving piety behind; this whole God thing is nonsense!”  I don’t know where you are at on your spiritual journey friend, but I want to invite you today to continue to wrestle.  Continue to ask good, hard questions.  God can handle them, and we as your journey partners here at Jericho can handle them.  Your questions might be “does god even exist or care?” or they might be hyper specific – know that we are a community that invites you to bring your whole self, including your questions, to the table for a lively dialogue.    

I love what the Lexham Bible Commentary says about this puzzle.  “The book [of Job] presents in implicit argument that theology – reflection on the nature of God – is not so much systemic thought as the diverse and often conflicting claims about God believers make as they grapple with a world beset by the dualities of joy and sorry, wonder and dread, prosperity and poverty, war and peace”. 

All of us hold, in other words, many claims about the nature of God and the way the world is that complete vigorously with one another.  And God doesn’t swoop in and give a categorical answer to the problem in an abstract way.  God answers Job’s questions in a personal way. 

This gives us insight into how God deals with the world and with the problem of evil.  Not theoretically, but personally.  We are going to move into a time of celebrating communion together digitally.  And so I want to encourage you to ready the elements you have with you at home.  Whatever you have will do - bread or crackers; wine or orange juice. This time is about a right response to the revelation of God in Jesus, it’s not about whether you get the elements just right.  You can pause the Live stream if you want or need to prepare yourself and some bread / juice. 

The words of our communion response song make me think about the tour of creation that God gave to Job – plumbing the heights of the heavens and the depths of the inner workings of nature.  And yet, the songwriter rightly says,  

“Were the whole realm of nature mine, That were a present far too small; Love so amazing, so divine, Demands my soul, my life, my all.”

The message translation puts Job 42:5-6 this way: Job says to God “I admit I once lived by rumors of you; now I have it all firsthand—from my own eyes and ears! I’m sorry—forgive me. I’ll never do that again, I promise! I’ll never again live on crusts of hearsay, crumbs of rumor.”

Friends, one of the great tragedies of life is that we can live on crusts of second hand-God knowledge, the crumbs of the rumour of God’s loving presence when you are invited to know One who is Creator and Ruler over all. 

Coming to the communion table is a way of saying “here I am, God.  I want to meet with you.  I want to know you more. To see you with me own eyes.” And when we come, we humble ourselves and say “forgive me. I want to know you more”.   So friends, Jesus calls us, here and now. Come to this table, you who are beloved in Christ. Come, not because you must, but because you may.

Take & eat, the bread.  Representing the body of Christ that was broken for you on the cross.  Jesus was broken, not rhetorically, but bodily, so that you could be made whole. Take. Eat.

Take and drink of the cup.  Representing the blood of Christ that was shed for you. Jesus poured out his life not metaphorically but literally and physically, so that all who believe in Him might have life everlasting.  Take. Drink.   And let’s worship together.

As we move into this time of responding to God in worship in song, friends, I invite you to sit in silence or to sing and receive the vast end endless grace of God’s love for you.