Sermon for the Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity, 10:30am Morning Prayer
“Have you considered my servant Job?”
In the Sunday Office of Morning Prayer, we begin to read from The Book of Job. Job is the proverbial man of troubles. “All God’s children got troubles,” as the old gospel song puts it, but few have as many troubles as Job. Yet the point of The Book of Job is not simply the extent of his troubles. The point is more about the nature of Job’s dealing with his troubles, especially his faithfulness which takes the form of wrestling with God and for God.
The Book of Job is really a kind of play, a drama of the possibilities of salvation and grace which arise out of the awareness of our utter emptiness. Job, like Abraham, is put to the test. But unlike Abraham, with Job we get to see the inner struggle. We get to see how things look like from the inside of the man of troubles.
It is not about a whine, a whinge or a whimper. But neither is it about lying down and letting God, the world, and other people simply walk all over you. In short, it is not about our fatalistic surrender to the seemingly arbitrary and bitter pointlessness of life. If anything, The Book of Job is a resounding testimony to the justice of God which cannot be reduced to human calculation, whim and demand. For no matter how things appear God’s justice runs and moves through all things, including our hearts. As such The Book of Job is a radical affirmation of the doctrine of creation.
