Dealing Gently with the Ignorant and Wayward

Scripture Lessons: Hebrews 5: 1-10 and Job 38: 1-11 and 38: 34 – 39: 4 Sermon Title: Dealing Gently with the Ignorant and Wayward Preached on October 21, 2018 I titled this sermon, “Dealing Gently with the Ignorant and Wayward.” That’s a line from the 1st Scripture Lesson from Hebrews, where the author claims that Christ, our Great High Priest, deals gently with the ignorant and wayward, which is good news to me, because I am often both of those things. This is the third sermon on the book of Job. For the third Sunday in a row we turn to this book that’s hard to understand; a book that I’ve been wrestling with and trying to preach a good word from. I could have called an expert on Job for help, but I didn’t. That may be the very definition of ignorance – having the opportunity to gain knowledge but choosing instead to dwell in ignorance. I could have asked our resident Job expert for help but I didn’t. Dr. Brennan Breed is our new Theologian in Residence. He’s an Old Testament Professor at the seminary and he’s teaching a great Sunday School Class in the Sanctuary. You knew that already, but what you maybe didn’t know is that so much of his work as a scholar is dealing with how we should understand Job. He’s by all definitions a Job Scholar, but I was slow to ask him for help. Why? I realized that I wanted to write these sermons all by myself. Sure, I read some books, but I could have called one of the guys who wrote the books. I realized that last Sunday. Here I’ve been wrestling with Job, trying to understand it, and I could have just asked for help, but I was slow to do so, because I am often ignorant and wayward. And I’ve been this way for most of my life. My mother’s in town. She can tell you about other times I’ve chosen ignorance. Since she’s in town this weekend, so I’d like to tell you two stories about my mother that might embarrass her. The first takes place at a fancy restaurant, maybe the first fancy restaurant I’d ever been to. I was six or seven and my order came with a piece of parsley on it as a garnish. I’d never seen something so fancy before. I asked my mom what it was for and she said it was just to make my plate look pretty. I asked her if it was edible, and she said, “Try it and find out.” Not all of her parenting techniques are what you’d call typical. Then once, when I threw a temper tantrum, frustrated with something that she’d asked me to do, something really unfair like asked me to clean my room, she said something equally surprising. I was probably 6, and I told her I’d be running away. She said, “well, let me help you pack.” That was not what I was expecting her to say, but then it got stranger. “What are you going to eat out in the world all by yourself?” she asked. I didn’t have a plan for eating, so we made some crackers and peanut butter. She wrapped them in a handkerchief and tied the bundle to the end of a stick, just like the hobo’s used to do. Then I barged out of there to start a life on my own, living by my own rules without my mother interfering all the time. I walked up the sidewalk about 100 yards, but all that walking made me hungry, so I sat down and took out my crackers. Once I finished eating them, because I had depleted my store of food, I swallowed my pride and went back home, realizing I didn’t want to do things all by myself, and my mother welcomed me back in because she also deals gently with the ignorant and wayward. On a grander scale I believe God does the same for Job in our 2nd Scripture Lesson. It seems to me as though God is saying to our friend Job: “You don’t like this world I’ve created? Well, let me help you pack.” God shows up and says to Job (Job, this man who’s had all these complaints): “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, but you’re ready to take issue with how I’m running this place?” It’s an incredible and beautiful speech – and surely it shook Job to his core, which is OK because sometimes we all get too big for our britches. We say: I don’t want to ask for help, I’d rather do it myself. Mom asks us to clean up our room, and we want to hit the road, but once we’re out on our own we realize how big the great wide world really is, so it can be comforting to be put back in our place. Embarrassing, but comforting. I think that’s what happened to Job. I remember something similar happening in an assembly at Hickory Hills Elementary School when I was a student there. The speaker was an inventor and she wanted to know if any of us kids had ever invented anything. She called up all the little inventors and one by one they went down the line, reporting on their inventions. One kid had invented a basket that went on the back of his bicycle and held his lunchbox. Another made pants with Velcro around the knee, so he could take the bottom part of his pants legs off and they could quickly turn into shorts (I hope that kid made some money by now, because now you can buy those things). But what I remember best was this little kindergartner who got up there and told us all that one time she and her grandma got a pitcher of water and a packet of mix and they invented Kool aide. We all laughed at that of course, but how arrogant all of us can be. While we didn’t create this world, so often we walk around like we own the place. God invited Adam to name the animals, so what do we do? We shoot them and mount them on our walls like we’re the King of the Jungle. The Lord spoke and created continents, but just because we draw borers upon them, that doesn’t mean that they’re ours. Stewardship Season is here again. And I know you don’t like Stewardship Season all that much. Believe it or not, I don’t like asking you for money very much either – but with Stewardship Season comes this very important reminder that’s so much like God’s reminder to Job. Stewardship Season is the time where we look at our pledge card and decide how much of our money we’ll so generously give to the church, but God is asking, “You think any of that money’s yours?” CS Lewis says it’s like our father gave us $10.00 and sent us to the store to buy him a Father’s Day Present. But we spend nine dollars on our self and one on the gift. We might as well be claiming we invented Kool Aid. God asks us: “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? “Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out through the womb?” “And I know that you have that nice office and a fancy paycheck, but just who do you think you are and where would you be had I not given you the means to make that money in the first place?” In our Second Scripture Lesson for this morning, the Lord answers Job, but it’s the kind of answer that turns our lives upside down but right-side up, because all of a sudden, we realize that we’ve eaten all our crackers on the sidewalk 100 yards from our house. We can see how ignorant and wayward we really are. Trying to control. Fearing the truth. Have you seen the things that people do today to hold on to power? It’s time to go back home, isn’t it? To submit to the higher authority. It’s time to let him hold the whole world in his hands, because we can’t hold it ourselves. It’s a good thing “He is able to deal gently with the ignorant and wayward,” because that can be us – and when God puts us back in our place we are free from all the anxiety that comes from trying to play God ourselves. There’s this great quote from GK Chesterton: “How much happier you would be, how much more of you there would be, if the hammer of a higher God could smash your small cosmos”. That’s what God did to Job – and I’m thankful, for when God does the same for me, I see that the world He has created is so much greater than the little fiefdom I’ve tried to control. It’s a gift to realize how little we know – for in confessing our ignorance the world of knowledge opens up. Once we stop trying to control what the truth is – the truth will set us free. It’s also a gift to return to God, for when we remember that there is a God in heaven, we realize we don’t have to be Him. A grandfather told me about it last week. I was asking Andy Tatnall what it’s like to see his daughters hold his grandchildren, and he said, “I wish I could have seen that moment when they were younger. Had I had this picture of them being such wonderful parents in my mind while they were young, I would have been a more relaxed father, because when they were young, and I was their father I spent so much time worrying about how they would turn out. Now that I’ve seen them be these incredible parents I realize I worried over them when I could have been enjoying them.” May the Lord deal gently with us, the ignorant and wayward, and ease us all back from our desire to control what we cannot, that we might enjoy this world He has created. Amen.