October 7, 2018, "Certainty Not Security"

Job 1:1-2:10 Mark 10: 2-16 Seeing that we had Job for this morning, gave me pause. Knowing relationship between a Pastor and congregation, for Better and Worse, is like a Marriage, reading what has been referred to as “Jesus’ condemnation of divorce,” gave me no comfort. However, I made a decision before last Sunday, not to follow the advice of friends to wait until the Sunday prior to leaving, then rush as quickly as possible head-long through departure, for someone else to clean up; but that there is vital importance to taking time with one another, to name how we feel, what we believe, and to seek resolution. Our world is filled with unresolved wounds. People going from relationship to relationship, carrying with us baggage, hurts and abuses, that we do not realize we inflict on others. In the first place, I do not believe Jesus was condemning divorce! A loving forgiving Savior does not condemn. What I read in the Bible, what I believe is that Pharisees, the Lawyers of their culture, tried to Test Jesus. They sought to trap Jesus in a Legal question, about Divorce, either that he would shame the people involved, or Jesus himself would be shamed for not following Moses’ tradition. Trying to explain this passage in the 5th century, St. Augustine described that in Latin there are two kinds of LOVE: “UTI” and “FRUI”. Uti is where we derive the word “Utilitarian” meaning for a purpose. UTI Love is our love of “money”, most of us do not love money for its smell or color, weight or feel, we love money for what we can do with it. With money I can buy stuff, pay for a roof over my head, a car for transportation. To tell the truth, I am uncertain “Love” is strong enough to describe “FRUI”. I love Ice Cream, not because of what I can do with ice cream. Not because it gives me high cholesterol or fat, but simply because I love ice cream. God created us to be “FRUITful”, because God loved us and God’s desire was we would love God. However, we confuse the two, we try to approach God and all our relationships with an underlying test of “What do I get out of it?” We make God into a Cosmic Rabbit’s Foot, a Good Luck Charm, or Genie, that we say a prayer, hoping to have Success and Happiness, parking spaces and health. We have our weddings inside the church, and our children baptized, so they will be blessed, as if a Spiritual insurance or vaccine against evil. Then, all we have is a cardboard cutout, a flat 2 dimensional drawing, not a faith with depth or integrity, we practice SAFE SECURITY rather than believing with CERTAINTY and CONVICTION. When problems arise, we question “Why do bad things happen to Good People? Why don’t Sinners Suffer more?” I sincerely believe God’s intent is that all the world live in balance and harmony. What I have been most troubled by in all the Supreme Court testimony and the Me-Too Movement, is disclosure that at least 1/3 - ½ all the women in the World and ¼ - 1/3 of men have suffered Sexual abuse. We were created to love, not to get our way, not to satisfy our desires on the weaker. What a simple reality, if we approached LIFE, and the Kingdom of God, as we receive a child. Knowing children go through periods of screaming, the fun of responding to questions “NO!” then learning instead to answer every statement with “WHY”, I do not believe what Jesus said was to approach the Kingdom of God like a Child. But instead, like receiving a child. Fearing how to hold and care for life. Witnessing a child’s fingernails, and lips, eyelashes, and having our hearts soften that is the FRUI kind of Love we are to have toward everything in God’s creation, one another, God. Prosperity Gospel thinking was popular long before Joel Olsteen, or Norman Vincent Peale. The wish-fulfillment of being Rewarded for Doing right, being good, doing the right thing in the right place does work for potty-training. But as a rule for life, equating sin & suffering, religion & rewards, does not work out and never has. The Book of Job, wrestles with all of these ideas. Job’s friends assume a flat Security Gospel, that there is suffering in the world because of Sin. So either Job sinned and needs to confess; or there is a cosmic imbalance like a high pressure weather system passing over, where there is so much sin in the world, Job needs to beg forgiveness. But the Bible puts forth a different reality. God created the Universe and everything within Creation to be Good, Blessed, and Job is a prime example. God loves Job and showers blessings upon him. Job has 7 sons and 3 daughters thousands of sheep, cattle, camels, goats and servants. And Job loves God Throughout literature, we have created a malevolent creature of Evil, with horns and a tail, a pitchfork and soul patch beard, that we call Satan, Mephistopholes, Baalzebub, The Devil. That is not The Satan described in Job. Instead, “The Satan,” is more like a Title. The Satan literally means “The Adversary,” like the Angel in the path of Balaam, or Guarding the way into the Garden of Eden, this is a Creature of God, whose purpose is to test us, to reveal the Certainty of our Conviction. In this Once Upon A Time story of Job, God points out to The Satan that in all the world no one is as faithful and right with God as is Job. And the Adversary challenges: “Is Job faithful only because God has showered blessings upon him, or not? If you took away the blessings, will Job complain about God, even curse God? God authorizes the test, but with the restriction to spare Job’s life. And in one afternoon, Job suffers the loss of his property and servants; all of his cattle, sheep, camels and goats; as well as the death of all 10 of his children. But Job is faithful. And the Satan responds to God, yes but Skin for Skin, afflict his health and body, and see what happens. Job is left sitting atop a dung heap, a pile of ash, covered in loathsome sores, so itchy he scratches and cuts at them with a piece of pottery. From this point on, The Satan is not part of the story. Job is a test of God and of Job. I once owned a piece of property that had both Poison Oak and Poison Ivy, and I literally became covered in weeping blisters from head to toe, Yes, there too. I have known families who have done autopsies to try to know Why, the Security that we tried everything; what we want is not Why, but Certainty: Comfort sorrows, soothe our pain. We have become very adept at fixing situations. Clearly an all powerful God could have created a world of perfection, with robots who do not feel. But instead God created us human, we suffer, but we can experience Love. What Jesus promised was not to take away all the problems in the world, but that all the problems in the world, the power of Armies, Kings and Emperors, the greatest depths or highest mountains, even death itself, could never keep us from the love of God.