Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost
Scriptures: Job 23:1-9 & 16-17, Psalm 22:1-15, Hebrews 4:12-16, Mark 10:17-31
Sermon
Our scriptures today explore a hard truth about faith: it’s our faith that makes both god and idol. Human devotion is able to make an idol out of just about anything. So maybe it’s a good thing that God is so far beyond our understanding? After all, we can’t control God. Idols are comfortable, and we relate to them on our own terms. Our relationship with God is not on our own terms. It’s risky.
There’s a lot to say about the book of Job, and – I say this as someone who loves the book – not all of it is positive. It’s a story of extremes: a man’s fall from the top of wealth and society to the depths of human misery, a journey through self-destructive devotion and toxic friendship to ultimate reconciliation with community and God. As a whole, the book of Job defies coherent explanation or absolute apology.
It’s possible to view Job as a hero of faith – someone to imitate – or as a fall-guy, set up in an impossibly cruel manner. He’s a righteous man who loses everything short of his life: his wealth, servants, children, and health are all utterly destroyed. Job’s friends decide to confront him in his misery, instead of comforting and supporting him; they paint a simplistic picture of God, arguing that if Job is suffering, God must be angry with him, which isn’t the case. Eventually a stranger, more or less, corrects them all and almost seems to speak for God… until God breaks silence to lay out the truth for them all to hear.
And God, as a character in Job, is in no small part responsible for Job’s suffering, having given permission to Satan in Chapters 1 and 2 to inflict any calamity on Job short of death. This book is a struggle to read from beginning to end, for its length, repetition of theme, and challenging depiction of God.
As such, I say it’s scripture that’s worth the struggle. If we can never wrap our heads all the way around it, that’s ultimately okay, because as with all scripture, we read it devotionally, not just historically and narratively; that is, it’s always worth researching the original context and audience, plus understanding what the story’s trying to say, plus listing deeply for how God speaks to us through it in our lives today.
Ultimately, Job is a story that reveals the captivity of all – every living person and being – to sin, and in the face of that, of us, declares God’s commitment to every person and ultimate design for their best, a promise only God can make.
The rich man in today’s Gospel reading might actually remind us a bit of Job when we first meet him. He’s also righteous, and it’s perfectly reasonable to take his claim at face value when he says that he has kept the commandments since his birth. Others in the New Testament have kept the law. Significantly, the Pharisees devoted their lives to keeping the law.
In his list for the rich man, there’s a significant piece of the law Jesus leaves out. We think of it as the First Commandment.
Luther’s Small Catechism begins with God’s words from Exodus, “I am the Lord your God. You shall have no other Gods.” Luther explains in the Large Catechism, “to have a god is to have something in which the heart entirely trusts. […] [Our] God will tolerate no presumption nor any trust in any other object, and […] God requires nothing higher of us than confidence from the heart for everything good.” Luther explains that God alone provides for our needs, gives meaning to our lives, and brings lasting happiness.
But here’s the challenge. Idols tell us the same thing. They whisper, “I have what you need.” “You’re complete with me.” “Spend your time this way and you’ll be happy.” The thing is, the lie of an idol holds just enough truth to feel correct.
You and I do have a need for money, which allows for some control over the uncertainties of life. Any number of things in life can make us feel “complete,” from friends and family to meaningful hobbies, up to and including our church family and the ministries through which we serve Christ. And there’s any number of ways to spend our time which lead to meaningful happiness; I could spend the rest of our time together listing ways to spend time happily that are absolutely meaningless, but that’s not the point. From watching a great Indy car race, to canvassing for a politician you respect, to reading a bedtime story to your kid or grandkid.
There’s nothing wrong with placing value in things. It’s when they begin to overshadow God in our lives, or when on the extreme they become central to who we are and how we relate to each other, God, and the world, that the temporary takes its unlawful place in the center of our lives.
Think of idols in this way, they’re a way to pass our time on earth that is safe, that we can control, that allows us to place ourselves near, if not at, the center of things. One way to think of idols is this. They’re like a coat we put on over our mortality, hiding us from the reality of death. If something ever tears at or steals this coat, we’re left with a cold, bitter truth indeed.
I’ll give you an example of having had my own coat stolen, an idol that I held dear taken from me. Some people here this morning know that I’m a former teacher, and I was really good at it. I could teach a variety of subjects and ages, I had good relationships with my students and fellow teachers, and could see progress in my students and the programs I ran. I was so proud of myself. I defined myself by my job, and honestly, I didn’t know who I was if I wasn’t a teacher. I wouldn’t even necessarily have thought of myself as a Christian first. After about 14 years, I got burnt out.
To continue with the image of a coat, I took this one off, threw it on the ground, and burned it. I was done teaching… the problem was, if I wasn’t a teacher, then I was nobody. I had set up such an image of myself – bought into an idol of my own making – that I hadn’t bothered to cultivate other relationships or other elements of myself enough to know just who I was. Fortunately for me – and all of us – God’s Grace and Grace alone is where hope truly lives.
The rich man who comes to Jesus could have made an idol of anything in his life. I say that not to accuse him, but to admit out loud that the law likewise accuses us. The rich man is like us; we’re like him; we’re like Job. We are captive to sin, and cannot free ourselves. We break the first commandment, to have no other Gods, by valuing things that are temporary, mortal, of flesh and bone and of this earth more than our relationship with our creator, and giving the temporary our utmost attention and devotion.
The story of Job warns against human effort to earn or win God’s favor, and puts to lie human self-assurance. In other words, it’s a story about humility. It may be that humility is the greatest weapon we have against idols. Any assurances we have from idols are false. The humble heart amits this.
When the author of Hebrews tells us to “approach the throne of grace with boldness,” it’s not assurance in our own worthiness. The “boldness” is there because of Christ: in Christ, we have a judge who is “able to sympathize with our weaknesses, but” who also, “in every respect has been” subjected to the temptations of the world, “as we are,” but did not sin. That’s the justice of God: that the only one in whom the law is fulfilled, Jesus Christ, judges we who fail in the law with mercy.
And reading Job, justice – at least from the human perspective – isn’t discussed with consistency in this book, suggesting that justice is beyond human comprehension and only comes from God. God is accountable to none (9:19, 32-33). Even sinners prosper – for example, Job counters Zophar’s statement in 20:5 that the wicked only prosper briefly, pointing out in 21:7, 9, and 13 that they may actually thrive. The rationalization that Job’s three friends give throughout the book for his suffering is that he brought it upon himself by sinning, and is making it worse by not confessing or atoning.
The fourth human perspective, Elihu’s as introduced in chapter 32, is the book’s major shift and corrects the others without being definitive. God is committed to redeeming people (33:28-29). Elihu reveals that even Job has it wrong: even if he’s not a bad guy and can’t see his own guilt (27:6), nor can his friends identify it clearly, he’s not sinless (34:31-37), and only God is above judgment (35:2-16). But Elihu reveals that’s not even the point!
We can’t understand God (36:26, 38, 39). St. Augustine once wrote that “if you can understand it, it’s not God,” and I couldn’t agree more. While God’s plan is larger than we can possibly conceive (chapters 38-41), our trust and recognition that God has a plan and includes us in it is where we start to follow. This is the first step in a walk of faith. Confessing where we have strayed from God’s plan, in hopes of reconciliation (42:2-6), is the proper relationship with God. And that’s the book of Job, in a nutshell.
If you’ve never read Job from beginning to end, first off, I don’t blame you, but if you have time this week, I’d strongly encourage you to spend time in what may be the single most challenging book in the Bible, and listen for where God speaks to you. Next Sunday, we’ll read God’s response to Job, Chapter 38, and I look forward to meditating on it with you.
What I suggest we take away from today’s scripture readings is this: we all have our idols. Idols are finite; idols will fail. Faith is not simply knowing the scriptures or simply having the right beliefs. These are parts of a faith walk, but really, faith is a way of life in relationships, not just between me and God and you and God but you and me and neighbors.
How do we recognize our idols. What does it take for us to even admit that we have one, that we have many? I like the image of idols as a coat; so, how is it that we can take off, throw down, and burn away what’s keeping us from right relationship with God, and while doing so move toward wholeness of being in Christ.
It helps me to keep in mind that the one from whom we are hiding, wrapped up in our idols as we are, is the one who can forgive and redeem us – who has redeemed us – who has claimed the final victory over sin and death on the cross, and whose arms are open even now. Let us offer our lives to God with our whole hearts.