The Power of a Story

June 21 2020

Job 2:11-13, 3:20-26, 4:3-6, 5:8-16

         In 2013, as many of you know, we had a tree fall on our house. This was no ordinary tree but was a tree that was almost one hundred feet tall, more than five feet across at the base and was estimated to weigh ninety tons. It was blown over in a micro-burst because its roots had become loose after over ten straight days of rain. If that weren’t bad enough, this tree cut diagonally across our house beginning with our daughters bedroom in one corner and landing in the kitchen in the opposite corner of the house.

         The morning after the tree fell on our house we got up early to go and see just what we could salvage from the wreckage. We were unable to walk down the familiar hallway to our daughters room as the trees massive trunk blocked the way. So, we crawled in a bedroom window. Seeing my daughter’s bedroom with this massive tree lying there, the wet insulation covering everything, her vanity smashed to pieces, it was all very overwhelming. Crying at that point was the easiest thing to do. Then out of the corner of my eye I began to notice that there was a corner of her bedroom that was unscathed. Her bookshelf was still intact so I decided to see what could be salvaged. As I looked over the shelves I saw a large purple cup and saucer just sitting there as if nothing had happened. I remembered that this was one of the presents my Mother had gotten Sarah because she knew Sarah loved the color purple. I picked it up to box it away when I noticed that there was something in the cup which looked like twigs and grass. I asked my daughter just what did she keep in this cup to which she replied that she didn’t keep anything in there. As I looked closer to the contents I realized just what was in there; it was a birds nest perfectly preserved just lying there in the cup. To me I couldn’t help but see God’s hand in all of it as if he was sending me a message. When I saw that bird’s nest, a survivor of the storm just like me, I remembered the words that not a bird falls to the ground and does not your Heavenly Father know it? And you are more valuable than the birds. I had been wondering where was God in all of this mess and the answer I found in that cup was that he was here all along.

         What gave me hope in that morning after the tree fell on our house was that I knew a story. I had heard and read this story over and over from a little kid on up about a God who was our heavenly parent who loved us and constantly watched over not just us but his whole creation. Yet, I didn’t know the importance of that story until the day when I was overwhelmed wondering just where the God I believed in was at in all of my mess. That is when the story I knew came out of my memory to remind me that God was right there. He knew the birds who had lost there homes and he knew that I and my family had lost our home. This is the power of the stories we tell; they are what we hold on to to give us hope when everything seems so hopeless.

         The power of stories is something the friends of Job knew very well. Yet, they were sensitive enough to wait with Job in silence as he mourned the loss of all ten of his children, as he dealt with all his immense fortune suddenly wiped away and then as he dealt with a body covered with horrible sores. Job’s friends came and they simply sat and listened before they spoke. Can you imagine just sitting with someone in silence for a week? This is what Job’s friends did, sitting, waiting, wondering just what or how they could bring consolation to a man who had suffered so much loss.

         Well, the silence was broken when at last Job spoke. Job wishes that he had never been born  so that he would have never had to experience  his misery. As he speaks though, you begin to hear something more. In the fourth verse of the third chapter, Job cries out, “Let it be darkness”, which is just opposite of what we hear God speak in the first chapter of Genesis where he declares, “Let there be light.” Job continues to speak about gloom and deep darkness and then he speaks about the mysterious beast called Leviathan. Now, no one really knows just what this beast was but they do know what was represented by his presence and that was chaos. Leviathan was the terrifying beast of chaos. This goes along with what Job said earlier when he said “Let there be darkness” because God spoke light out of the chaos. Job is speaking words of chaos because this is exactly what is going on inside of Job. When he tells us that the thing he fears has come upon him and that what he dreads befalls him that he has no ease nor is he quiet, he has no rest but instead trouble comes, the word he uses for trouble is a word which is the human equivalent of chaos. Just like the chaos and nothingness that was before God called creation into being, this same chaos is what Job was personally experiencing. Chaos as we see in the creation story, is a total lack of order and the what had ordered Job’s life was his relationships and his work. Now these were gone, his world was shattered, what had given his life structure and meaning was lost. So, now in his grief Job was experiencing an inner chaos that to Job seemed unrelenting.

         As you read along in Job, when and you come to the end of the third chapter it is as if Job just wants to continue speaking about his pain and anguish but he he is interrupted by his friend Eliphaz. The scripture says that Eliphaz answered but it is clear that Job had not really asked any question. This shows in how Eliphaz speaks to Job when he asks him, “If one ventures a word with you will you be impatient? It’s as if Eliphaz is asking Job for permission to speak a word to him because it is clear that want Job wants is to continue to cry out about how awful his situation is. What Eliphaz does is to first remind Job of his past telling him “Behold, you have instructed many and you have strengthened the weak hands. Your words have upheld him who was stumbling, and you have made firm the feeble knees. But now it has come to you, and you are impatient; it touches you and you are dismayed. Is not your fear of God your confidence, and the integrity of your ways, your hope?” Eliphaz is telling Job, look you helped other people when they were down, now you’re the one who are experiencing misfortune and you need people to help you in your weakness but it seems as if you just don’t have the patience to wait for it to happen. Job, why isn’t the fear of God your hope? Here Eliphaz brings into the conversation familiar wisdom language, the fear of God. You might remember the Proverb from the first chapter of Proverbs, the seventh verse where we hear “ The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge…” and from the second chapter of Proverbs we are told that if one seeks after wisdom like one seeks after silver then they will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. For the Lord gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding. What is interesting about this trifecta of wisdom, knowledge and understanding is that these are connected to creation. We are told in the third chapter of Proverbs that the Lord by wisdom founded the earth; by understanding he established the heavens; by his knowledge the deeps broke open and the clouds drop down the dew.” This tells us then that the fear of the Lord as being the beginning of knowledge is in a way that we are connected with creation as we listen to God speak to us about the very order of the universe. That knowledge is about the giving of water from the deeps below and the dew above also tells us that knowledge is about life because there is no life without water. So, when Eliphaz wonders why, if Job has the fear of God why doesn’t he have any confidence, why doesn’t he have any hope, the reason why Eliphaz is wondering this is that the fear of God is the way we begin to learn knowledge and this knowledge is about life and it is this gift of life that is the ground of all hope.

         How different are the words of Eliphaz than the words of Job. Job speaks of chaos desiring for the world to collapse back into chaos and experiencing that chaos within himself. To this Eliphaz speaks to Job a different story, a story grounded in creation. That Job does not appear to have the hope from knowing such a story is evidence that Job only knows God as a power for his own use.Job does not appear to know God as the Creator the one who spoke creation into being out of the chaos. If he knew God as the Creator then he would know that God created this world with a purpose which was to see a world teeming with life. And because God had a reason for creating his creation then he also had a reason for creating Job and each one of us; no one is an accident. It is this reason that we hold fast to when the world seems so unreasonable. It is this reason that that doesn’t seem to be part of Job’s story which seems stuck in a wash of never ending chaos. This is why Eliphaz  when speaks to Job it is so important that Job hears a different story, a story of a God who does great things and unsearchable marvelous things with out number. Here how Eliphaz speaks about God the creator takes care of his creation, bringing rain upon the earth and waters on the fields, how he sets on high those who are lowly and how he lifts to safety those who mourn. The order of God’s creation is seen in the justice he demands causing the crafty to have no success and bringing the schemes of the wily to an end. This is a God who saves the needy from the mighty so that the poor have hope so that injustice has no chance to speak. This is the knowledge of the Lord, the knowledge of a God ordered life that we should be afraid if we would miss out living it.This is the story Eliphaz speaks to Job in order to give him hope. Even though it appears that in his world chaos reigns, there remains a God who can speak into that chaos and bring forth order. Those things that fill our days and appear to give our life order, our relationships, our work, our projects, all of these are temporary as Job so tragically found out. When we know God as our Creator then we begin to understand that only this God has an order for our lives that is eternal, an order that brings hope into our life. This is what Jesus spoke about on the night he was betrayed as recorded in the fifteenth chapter of John. There he told his disciples a story of a vinedresser who had a trustworthy vine. This vine had many branches and the branches that did not bear fruit he took away and the ones that bore fruit he pruned so that they would bear more fruit.  Then Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, and he told them, find your life in me and I will live in you. Just like the branches could not bear fruit unless they received life from the vine so also you cannot bear fruit unless you find your life in me. Whoever finds their life in me and whoever will allow me to live in them this is the person who is going to bear much fruit because apart from me you can do nothing. There is that word nothing, the nothing that was before creation, the nothing of the chaos that Job describe, the nothing that so many people experience when they, like Job, discover that all that brought order to their life, all of their work, all of their business, all of their relationships in the end were mere nothing as all things apart from Jesus are want to be.  Only those who know God as their Creator, the one who cares for his creation as a vinedresser does for his fruit bearing vine, only this God is the God whose story should shape our life. Only as we fear him, knowing that he is the God who brought forth life and graciously gave us this life and that he did so with a purpose, only then will we be part of a story that will give us hope. This purpose for us being created, what should order our life is the bearing of fruit, the bringing forth of more life just as God did in the beginning. This bearing of fruit is the doing of good works, the sharing of your food with the hungry, the giving shelter to the homeless, the giving of clothing who need it, and the bringing of justice to those crushed by injustice and in this way you life helps give life to someone else. In doing these things we display in our life the very order of creation witnessing to the knowledge of God which called this world out of chaos. This knowledge as Eliphaz told Job comes from the fear of the Lord and this gives us confidence even when the order of our personal world is shattered.

         Job in his pain appears unable to find any solace in the story of Eliphaz, to hear the wonders of a God known as the Creator. It is because Job does not know that God as our Creator created  this creation with a purpose, a reason and therefore each person created is a person who has a reason for being here. We are part of this story that God is speaking out through his creation and our part of the story is important.  This is what keeps us from crying out like Job does in the sixth chapter, “ For the arrows of the Almighty are in me; my spirit drinks their poison; the terrors of God are arrayed before me.” How tragic that in his tragedy Job falsely believes that his disaster is God’s displeasure with him. Yet if all Job knew was that God was the ultimate power then who is to say just what this power will do? What Job failed to realize is that being powerful is just an attribute of God, what he is capable of, it is not who he is. Praise God, that we can be so certain of this because of Jesus. Jesus lived a life and died a death that displayed the power of God yet Jesus witnessed that God is more that he is thew God who is our Creator. Jesus placed his faith in his Heavenly Father who is the God who can bring the dead to life and bring into existence that which does not exist. This is the power of our Creator God; the power of life.This is the power revealed when Jesus stepped out of the grave three days after he hung upon the cross. This is the power that lives in all those who have faith in this same God. This is our story and this is what gives us hope even in the most chaotic of times.

         The question I leave you with today is this: just who needs to hear this story from you today? Who is it that you know believes that God is out to get the bad people or that only the good people go to heaven, whoever those good people might be? Who is hurting from the losses they’ve suffered, the loss job, the loss through the death of a loved one, the loss of security living in a world that appears more shaky by the day, who like Job needs to hear a story of hope? I pray that God will lead you to someone who needs to experience the power of your story today.Amen!