Where Were You?

Scripture Lessons: Hebrews 5: 1-10 and Job 38: 1-11 and 38: 34 – 41 Sermon Title: Where Were You Preached on October 17, 2021 Do you ever look up at the stars? Way out in the country, away from the city’s lights, have you ever laid on your back in a grassy field, and just stared up so that all you see is a sky full of stars? That can be a nice thing to do. It can be a romantic thing to do. It’s also one of those things that can make you feel very small, and so the Psalmist says: when I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? These are important questions to ask: What are human beings in the great scheme of things? Why is God mindful of us? Why does God care for us mortals? The night sky can make you ask these questions, and if we stop asking questions like these we can get into all kinds of trouble. Plenty of people do. We talk a lot about how people suffer from low self-esteem, and that’s one thing. Low self-esteem is a way to describe ourselves when we feel so small that we can’t imagine that God or anyone else would care anything about us, and it’s one problem, which, it seems, our society knows to address. A problem we talk less about are those who suffer from high self-esteem. Do you know anyone who suffers from high self-esteem? Who walks out into traffic and is surprised that cars don’t stop? The Psalmist asks: What are human beings in the great scheme of things? In a sense, we’re just blips in this massive universe, and it is massive. The light that we see has traveled from stars so far away, that were we to look up and notice the twinkle of the star Alpha Centauri we’d be seeing light from four years ago. There’s a star called Betelgeuse in the constellation Orion which is about 640 light years away. If Betelgeuse exploded tomorrow, we wouldn’t know about it for hundreds of years because that’s how long it takes for the light which these stars produce to travel so that we can see it. The universe is massive. It’s huge. And I’m 5 foot 10, almost the size of the University of Georgia’s quarterback, Stetson Bennett, who is 5 foot 11. Stetson Bennett is a very big deal today now the Georgia is ranks first in the nation, but what about tomorrow? What are human beings in the great scheme of things? If we say, “Not much,” that’s not entirely correct. However, do you know anyone who thinks they’re big enough that the universe ought to revolve around them? For example: Have you ever met someone who thinks she’s the Queen of the DMV, and is going to make sure you know it, by smugly asking you to go to the end of the line once you’ve found a notarized copy of your original birth certificate and seems to enjoy doing so a little too much? I once had a bad experience with a home inspector. Back in Tennessee I made the mistake of paying our contractor before the inspection, so when the home inspector showed up, pointed out how the bolts on the deck were too small and the pipes under the sink needed a studor vent, our contractor was no longer taking my calls. Therefore, I had to do all that stuff myself, which began with me finding out what a sudor vent was. It took me a few days to complete the punch list. Then, proudly, I invited the inspector to come back, only a different inspector came. Probably because she was just doing her job, not abusing her power, she just turned the knob on the sink, saw that water came out, and we passed our inspection. She didn’t even look at my studor vent. And this is my point: there are people in this world who abuse the smallest amount of power. Yet, when it comes to human power, considering the size of the universe and the majesty of God, what even is human power? Job has been seeking out God because he has a bone to pick with Him. That’s what’s going on in today’s Second Scripture Lesson. We’ve been reading about Job for three Sundays in a row now. We’ll hear from him once more next Sunday. Job seeks God out because he has some issues with how God has been running the world, only then God shows up and says to Job: “Gird up your loins like a man, I will question you… where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Surely you know!” And “what would you eat if I didn’t make it rain?” “Can you lift up your voice to the clouds, so that a flood of waters may cover you?” “You don’t even know where the mountain goats give birth or where the hummingbird lays her eggs, but you’re ready to take issue with how I’m running this place?” It’s an incredible and beautiful speech which God gives here, and surely it shook Job to his core, which is what must happen to us all from time to time, for it is too easy to misunderstand our true place in this world. I’ve heard it said that humility is just remembering that God is God, and we are not. I’ve also heard it said that the key to understanding our place in the universe is remembering on the one hand that we are of immeasurable worth, yet, what’s also true, is that all flesh is as grass, and the grass withers, the flower fades. Thinking of both sides of our reality, both our worth and our finitude, two questions must be asked at once: To those who abuse even the smallest degrees of power, so that when given a clip board they proceed to walk around making people change their plumbing, God must ask, “Where were you when I shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb? Yet you think you’re the king of the studor vents?” That’s a question to keep us from getting too big for our britches, but to those who can barely scrape themselves up off the ground, so beaten down and abused are they, the question must be asked, “Where were you when they crucified my Lord? Do you know that he died for you?” You see, there are two questions. One is direction towards those who read a couple articles on the internet about the CORONA Virus and think they’re epidemiologists. To them God must ask, “Who has put wisdom in the inward parts, or given understanding to the mind? Yet you think you have it all figured out?” Another question must be asked to those who feel they have no right to even form an opinion. We must ask them, “Where were you when they nailed him to the tree? Can you not see that for you, for you, Christ suffered?” To those who get pretty good at reading the Bible and suddenly think they’ve mastered the Christian faith (Have you ever met someone who stopped practicing their religion because they thought they’d mastered it? Who, when you get into a discussion about something controversial but important, don’t listen so much as wait their turn to tell you why they’re right?), to them God must ask, “Can you hunt the prey for the lion, or satisfy the appetite of her young? Do you know where the mountain goat raises her young? Can you lift your voice to the clouds, so that a flood of waters may cover you? Then who are you to be so sure that you comprehend the majesty of God?” And to those who are sure that God has cursed them, or that they have no place here, to them the Church must ask, “where were you when they laid him in the tomb? For He died for you, that you might know your worth. And he rose for you, so that you might know that his love for you can never die.” There are many people in this world who have confused faith and certainty. Because they are so sure they know, they’re no longer open to who the living God is. That’s a dangerous thing, because I have many convictions that I feel very strongly about, one main one being that I have more to learn. Still, I also know this, and I can be sure of it, while to me God will always be beyond my comprehension, God is never far from those who suffer. To illustrate this point, the Lord answers Job in our Second Scripture Lesson for today, and the answer to all Job’s questions is basically this: you may never understand how this world works or why life is the way that it is, yet you will never be alone in the darkness. You will never walk alone through the valley of the shadow of death. You need not fear the shadow, for while this universe is beyond our comprehension, we are precious in his sight. This morning at the 8:30 service, a bird interrupted me when I was giving the charge and benediction at the end of the service. She flew into the sanctuary, and everyone was looking up as she flew around that big room. Nancy Tatnall told me she was a sparrow, which reminded me that I while I am not the center of the universe and I don’t have it all figured out, if His eye is on the sparrow then I know he watches me. Amen.