Creekside Church Sermon of October 26, 1997 "Big Questions, Perplexing Answers, Faithful Living" Job 42:1-6	Rev. David Bibbee
Send this sermon to a friend

Next to the slump in the Hong Kong stock market, the hottest topic of conversation this week has been my chin. In years past, sprouting facial hair was no big deal. But where once the growth was black, now it is not black. The whiskers have broken the barrier of denial. I am a middle-aged man. Now I am at a point where I can better appreciate Judy Viorst's poem called, "When Did I Stop Being Twenty?"

At three in the morning I used to be sleeping an
untroubled sleep in bed. But lately, at three I'm
tossing and turning Awakened by hypochondria, and gas, and nameless
dread whose name I've been learning.

At three in the morning I brood about what my cholesterol
count might reveal and the pains in my chest start progressing from gentle to wracking
While certain intestinal problems make clear that the
onions I ate with my meal plan on counterattacking.

At three in the morning I reach for the bottle of pills that
I seem to possess increasingly larger amounts of as every year passes
Except that I can't tell the ones for my nerves from the ones
for my stomach distress till I put on my glasses.

At three in the morning I look forward to the future with
blankets pulled over my ears. And all my basic equipment distinctly diminished.
My gums are receding, my blood pressure's high, and I
can't begin listing my fears or I'll never get finished.

At three in the morning I used to be sleeping, but lately
I wake and reflect that my girlhood is gone and I'll now have to manage without it.
They tell me I'm heading into my prime. From the previews
I do not expect to be crazy about it.

There comes the time when reality sets in and with it comes big questions that could be kept at bay in our younger years, but which now won't leave us alone. Harold Kushner says we know when we have entered middle age when our questions change. "How far can I go? How high can I climb? How successful will I be?" becomes "What does it all add up to? What is the point of it all? What does it mean?" Big questions won't settle for easy answers, and the response we hear or don't hear in no small way shapes how we live.

That's why I want to turn your attention toward Job, the supreme questioner of the scriptures. His story begins, "There was a man whose name was Job who was blameless and upright, who feared the Lord, and turned from evil." Job was a good, good man with a beautiful family. Righteous, virtuous, religious, prosperous was he. Job had it all, but in a sudden string of catastrophes, Job lost everything. All things considered, he handled it remarkably well. He kept it all in perspective. "God gives. God takes away. Blest be God," he said.

But things went from bad to worse. He was inflicted with hideous sores from head to toe. Sitting in misery on a heap of ashes scraping his sores, his wife comforted him by saying, "Curse God and die!" His friends came to console him. "Things like this don't happen for no reason. God wouldn't permit this unless you had done something wrong." But Job had done nothing wrong and he knew it. Something had gone terribly wrong with the picture.

Growing up I got the impression that when bad things happen, you don't question it. You endure it. Someone will explain it with a Bible verse and that settles it. But as I grew older, this approach didn't settle it. Absurd things were happening and I wanted to know why. Terrible things were happening to people I loved. On the day his first grandchild was born, Ray dropped dead from a heart attack at age 48. Arletha, the most saintly Christian woman I had ever known, was stricken with cancer. What's the point? What does it all mean? Why?

"We must have the patience of Job," I was told. Then in college I took a course on the book of Job and one of the first things the professor said was, "Job was not a patient man." He blasted the reasons of his miserable comforters to bits. He wasn't going to roll over and passively take it. In our text Job seems docile, resigned, apologetic...but you don't understand his mood at the close until you know what happened before. Job declared, "I will complain in the bitterness of my soul. I would speak to the Almighty and argue my case with God." Then Job shouted a complaint that lasted thirty chapters. He did not accept pious platitudes. He wouldn't tolerate his friends' lame arguments. "Your maxims are proverbs of ashes, your defenses are defenses of clay." (13:12)

Don't let anyone ever tell you the Bible discourages questioning. Don't let them say it's unbecoming for the person of God to pound their fists and protest over the bad things that happen. For thirty long chapters Job rants and raves, protests and pleads. "When I looked for good, evil came; when I waited for light, darkness came." I don't deserve this! Why is this happening? Why? Why? Why?

When my sister, Ann, was killed in an automobile accident in 1977, one of the hardest things to endure was the support of well-intentioned, but misguided comforters. They filed past her casket and said, "We can't understand these things, so we must accept it as God's will." "God needed her more than you do." Or, "God had another plan for her life." It was all I could do to keep from responding, "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard!" "Your maxims are proverbs of ashes, your defenses are defenses of clay." I knew why the accident didn't happen. It wasn't God's will. It wasn't because Ann had sinned or because God had other plans. I knew why not. I didn't know why God allowed such a thing to happen.

Looking back, I realize how easy it is to stay stuck with the questions. Job complained, "Where is the place of understanding? Humanity doesn't know the way to it." (28:12) "Question everything," the saying goes. It's a sign of stamina and bravado to live in the face of unanswered questions. But to live courageously with only the questions easily turns us toward cynicism.

Jacob the Baker was a wise Jewish man. A young man approached Jacob and said, "I want to believe in God, but I don't understand God." "Neither do I," Jacob said. "God isn't designed to fit into my mind. We're from the hand of God. None of us is the hand." "Well, how can you have faith when you look at all the terrible things that have happened to innocent people?" "Because there is great sadness in life doesn't mean God does not exist. I choose hope over despair." "But you have no proof." "Most of us find what we are looking for," said Jacob.

He looked up and saw clouds forming to rain. "Walk with me," Jacob said. Then without explanation Jacob stopped and told the young man to find a tree they could plant. "A tree? If we plant a tree by the road someone will certainly chop it down." "Very well," said Jacob. "I'll plant the tree." "But what shall I do?" asked the young man. "You? You'll find someone to chop it down!"

To question God is inevitable, even necessary. Questions can lead to planting, but if we stay stuck with the questions, we can become choppers. It's not that hard to dwell on, "What's the point? Why?" The real issue is whether we can live with God's answers.

Finally, in the 38th chapter, God answers Job. "Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up your loins like a man and I'll question you." God is like a college professor. Ask a question and you get a question. As is often the case in the Bible, the answers are confusing, hard to get a hold of. Why do the righteous suffer and the wicked prosper? Why all the misery and injustice? Just listen to God's answer.

"Where were you when I laid the foundations of the world? Who determined its measurements? Have you commanded the sun to rise? Do you know when the mountain goats give birth? Is the wild ox willing to serve you and spend the night by your barn? The wings of the ostrich wave proudly; but are they pinions and plumage of love? Is it by your wisdom that the hawk soars? Did you give the horse his might? Behold the hippopotamus which I made like you. Can you pull in the crocodile with a fish hook?"

What kind of answer is that? "God, apparently you didn't understand the question. What I want to know is why, if you are so good, such terrible things happ..." "No!" God says. "You're not hearing my answer!" What do God's answers have to do with the question? Why is there suffering? Mountain goats. Why is this happening to me? I made the hippo. Why is there evil? Ostrich feathers. The big questions, we know. God's answers, we don't, at least not without some pondering.

God responds in perplexing, hard to grasp, mysterious ways. But God does respond. The answers may not seem satisfactory until you consider some of the alternative answers we could have to these questions. Why do people suffer? Because they've sinned. Why was my sister killed? So God could get your attention. Why did 168 people die in the Murrow Federal Building? Timothy McVeigh detonated a bomb. Why? Because he was a militia member. Why? He saw government as an enemy. Why? Because of what happened in Waco, Texas. Next question!

We live in a world where there are answers for everything. But the really big questions that trouble us most won't be laid to rest with nice, neat, logical answers we concoct. The God who laid earth's foundation and brought forth the sunrise, who made the horse and the hippo and adorned the ostrich with feathersþhis ways are so beyond us and won't be squeezed into our schemes. We may not understand, but bank on one thing...God answers us, and gives himself to us. By chapter 42, Job doesn't have the answers he looked for. He had something far greater. He had God's presence and the assurance God was in charge.

I know you can do all things. No purpose of yours can be thwarted. I uttered what I did not understand. I will question and you declare to me.

There are at least two responses we can make to God. We can conclude that there are no answers and turn away because God's sense is nonsense. Or, despite all the perplexity, we can respond to God with faithful living. It finally comes down to a choice. You will either be a planter or a chopper, you will either hope or not, trust or not, follow or not. In tough times when we carry surplus pain, our questions may be met with God's silence, but never God's absence. The answers may not be immediately satisfying, but God's presence is security enough.

Though you don't always understand, will you follow him still? Will you trust?

A few years ago, before I began asking middle-aged questions, I found some century-old verses by John Henry Neuman which bring this challenge of faithful living into focus. I share it at funerals and in trying times when the question "Why?" looms large. I leave it with you as a faithful living credo to guide you through life's big questions and God's sometimes perplexing answers.

"God has created me to do him some definite service. He has committed some work to me which he has not committed to another. I have a mission. I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. Therefore, I will trust him. Whatever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve him. In perplexity, my perplexity may serve him. If I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve him. He does nothing in vain. He knows what he is about. He may take away my friends. He may throw me among strangers. He may make me feel desolate, make my spirit sink, hide my future from me...still he knows what he is about."

I am indebted to Dr. William Willimon whose sermon, "When Answers Don't Fit the Questions", inspired the structure of this sermon.

All of the sermons that have appeared in text form on our Web Site since August 1996 are available here in the On-Line version. Use the search engine below to find the sermon you want. You may search by date, sermon title, or content. The sermons are full-text searchable.

Sermon Search:



Exact phrase    All words (AND)    Any word (OR)