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Why?                        Job 38:1-41; Mark 4: 35-41                   June 21, 2009

Children ask questions. It's what they do. Pretty much all of the time.

When they are first born, the only way children have to communicate is to cry. They use the same sound to mean, " I'm hungry," "I'm bored," "This diaper's on too tight," "I hurt!" "I miss you!" and the myriad of other things they experience, feel, and think.

When children first begin to learn real words, the meaning of the words they use often don't match the meaning we adults think of when we hear them. Often a specific word is used to indicate an entire category or visa versa. "Dog," for example, might mean any animal, while, on the other hand "meow" might mean "cat" - but only a particular cat.

I remember the first time my son saw a pheasant. "Big pigeon," he said, pointing to the bird. You can tell he was raised in the city.

Before too long, though, children are able to speak in sentences, and this happens at about the same time their curiosity, imagination, and creativity skyrocket.

So they begin to use the one-word sentence, "Why?" again and again and again.

We fathers - and mothers - are familiar with the "why" questions.

Why is the sky blue, Daddy? Why is the ocean salty? Why do some things float and some things sink? Why do the leaves on the tree turn colors? The "whys" just keep on coming.

It's not just children, though. Adults are also fond of asking "Why?"

"Why am I struggling with this illness?" we ask. "Is God trying to teach me something?"

"Why? Why was I the one let go at the office? I have a family to support. Why?"

"Why did my mother have an aneurysm?"

"Why was my child hit by a drunk driver? Why?"

At the root of all of these questions, of course, is this one: "Why is God doing this to me?"

These are the questions of the faithful in the face of suffering.

The thing that prompts us to ask these "why?" questions is a difficult-to-accept yet unavoidable truth: The God who reaches out to us, embraces us, cares for us and comes to us does indeed do all of those things - but not always.

There are times when we earnestly come to God in prayer, yet our prayers are not answered. There are times when we cry out in distress, and are not delivered. There are times when our cries of "why?" are left hanging in the air.

When we reflect on this truth, Job often comes to mind.

So listen, fellow askers of that difficult question, "why?" to the story of Job.

As Job's story begins, as the curtain rises, we look upon a drama that, as one scholar puts it, "is as old as the hills and as new as the last bad thing that happened to us."

The first few scenes of the drama move swiftly, you may recall, as Job, a righteous, religious man is stripped of everything that is dear to him.

One after another, he loses his camels, his oxen and sheep, his sons and his daughters - all for no apparent reason.

And then, as if losing all of that were not enough, Job also loses his good health. Disease infects his body. Covered with painful sores, he sits down in a pile of ashes to think about his fate. Everything is gone. He has nothing.

All that remains of Job's former life is his wife and a few friends.

His wife, showing her frustration, tells him to curse God and die.

He rejects her advice.

Job's friends then come creeping toward him, hesitant to get too close, yet curious. They can only stare; not daring to believe that this figure hollowed out by loss is indeed their old friend. At first they weep for him, but even their weeping recedes into a stunned silence as they gaze at the living worst-case scenario that he has become.

Job's friends can't sit still for too long, though, and they soon move into a litany of well-intentioned attempts to provide a rationale for Job's experience. "You have sinned against God," they tell him. "Why else would you be in such a state as this? You are being punished. Repent, and soon your affliction will be over."

This, of course, fails to help Job, so he rejects their advice as well and one by one the friends depart, frustrated by their own helplessness.

Finally, God enters the drama.

"Why me?" Job asks again. "Why me?"

But though Job begins with the question "Why me?" thankfully he does not end there.

Job does not receive satisfactory answers to any of his questions. But something else happens. God speaks to Job out of a whirlwind.

Evidently God has paid careful attention to the cries and whines of this man Job, for God comes prepared with a long list of God's own unanswerable questions.

In a speech that goes on verse after verse, God roars about the mighty mystery of creation, a riddle Job will never be able to solve.

"Were you there when I laid the foundation of the earth?" God asks. Can you command the morning or can you cause the eagle to soar? Do you have an arm like God? Can you thunder with a voice like God's?"

After hearing Gods great speech, Job, at last, is a changed man. Humbly, he answers, saying, "I know that you can do all things. I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now I see you with my own eyes. I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes."

My favorite scene in the movie Rudy, a feel-good, based-on-real-life story about a kid whose dream of playing football at Notre Dame finally comes true, is a conversation between Rudy and a priest who has tried to help him get accepted to the University.

"I'm desperate," Rudy says to the priest. " If I don't get in next semester, it's over, done. Notre Dame doesn't accept senior transfers."

"Maybe I haven't prayed enough," the kid continues, "Have I done everything I possibly can? Can you help me?"

"Son, the priest responds, "in years of religious studies I've come up with only two hard, incontrovertible facts: There is a God. . . and I'm not Him."

That simple exchange between the desperate young Rudy and the wise old priest nicely sums up the message of Job. God is God. And we are not.

We all know that. But knowing it doesn't always help.

"For Job," writes Barbara Brown Taylor, "there were really only two alternatives: either 1) all of this terrible stuff was happening to him because there was something wrong with him, or 2) all of this terrible stuff was happening to him because there was something wrong with God.

Since Job knew that number one was not true - the very first page of his story says that even God knew it was not true - that left him with alternative number two. God had made a big mistake, dumping all of this misfortune on Job when Job was one of the most loyal followers God ever had."

The problem with that logic, however, is that it misses who God really is. That was Job's mistake - and it is often our mistake as well.

"Why?" Job asks. "Why?" And God responds to Job's one-word question with a three-word answer.

God replies, "Are you God?"

When God appears to Job in the whirlwind and recites for him the mysteries of creation, God reminds Job that he is not God. Reminds him that he is not the center of the universe. God's creation did not begin with Job and it did not end with Job. Job mattered - after all, God did show up and confront him - but he wasn't all that mattered.

"By focusing Job's attention on the majesty of the things that ignore him," Brown Taylor goes on to say, "God offers Job some relief from the self-centeredness of his pain. As Job regards lions feeding their young and mountain goats giving birth, he takes a little breather from his exhausting campaign for justice for himself."

You see, the moment Job drops his albeit valid concerns about himself, his relationship with God is restored. His relationship to God is restored because he sees before him a God who is incomprehensibly powerful, but still, a God who believes he - Job - is worth saving.

You and I came here this morning to worship God. But if we're honest, we are also came here hoping to receive comfort, enlightenment, meaning, a sense of peace, a reason to go on living, and a host of other things that we think we need and deserve.

Instead, today, a living, sovereign, all-powerful, Creator God, has met us.

I haven't noticed a whirlwind this morning, but God has shown up here, today. Perhaps the best thing we can do, in response to God's presence, is to do as Job did and say:

I know that you can do all things, God, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.

I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.

I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I repent.

I surrender to your power and rely on your grace.

Oh, and the next time we find a "Why, God, Why?" question about to escape from our lips, perhaps the best thing we can do is go out on a clear night and look up at the sky and view the moon and the stars and the planets - none of which we had even the slightest hand in creating, and remember that while we may not be at the center of God's universe, neither are we insignificant in God's eyes.

Will our anguish and pain go away? Probably not. It's easy to be objective when we read about Job's pain, but when it's our pain, that is a totally different story.

But we do have a choice.

Our choice, like Job's, is to do one of two things: we can curse God and die, or we can do as Job did, finally. We can stand in the presence of the awesome God of the universe, allow ourselves to be surrounded by the whirlwind, and live.

May we choose wisely.

                                                                             AMEN

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