Trusting in God, Neither Tame Nor Tidy

The Rev. Brad Sullivan

Lord of the Streets

June 16, 2024

Proper 7, Year B

Job 38:1-11

Psalm 107:1-3, 23-32

Mark 4:35-41

“The Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind: ‘Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?’” (Job 38:1) Well, Job and Job’s friends were the ones who darkened counsel by words without knowledge. When things first went really badly for Job, his family had been killed, his land and livelihood destroyed, his friends sat quietly with him for days. At that point, they were being great friends. Then they stared opening their mouths, telling Job all the self-righteous platitudes that they knew. They kinda had to because without that, there wouldn’t have been a story. 

See, Job was written as a story meant to be told to give lessons. It’s probably not a true story. So, the story is set up with God and Satan, “The Adversary,” making a wager about whether or not Job, who was a righteous man, would curse God, if all he had was taken away. Satan figured he would, God figured he wouldn’t. This opening to the story shows right off the bat that the tragedy which happened to Job was not because he was sinful. He was absolutely righteous, and tragedy still struck him.

A prevailing thought among some religious folks is that if you’re bad, bad things are gonna happen to you, and if you’re good, good things are gonna happen to you. Right off the bat, the story of Job tells us that ain’t true. 

There was also the question of praising God, and why wouldn’t Job praise God? He’d been blessed beyond measure and never had the slightest reason not to praise God. In the end, with everything taken from him, Job didn’t curse God, but he did put God to the test. Job’s question was basically, “How could you possibly let this happen to me, God? Do you have any justice at all?”

With God’s reply, Job realized that his simplistic view of the world didn’t hold water. As Moshe Greenberg points out on the website, “MyJewishLearning.com,” Job had been so fortunate his whole life, he had never even considered why people who had suffered tragedy might praise God. Before tragedy struck him, Job had been right there with his friends claiming to understand God and God’s world. They all figured Job was blessed because he was righteous, and others who weren’t as blessed as Job were obviously less righteous than Job. Through Job’s experience of loss, Job, his friends, and we the readers see that the world is not so simple as good people are blessed and bad people are cursed. We are shown the fact that there are terrible things that happen to people, and it is not necessarily God’ will or the people’s fault that those tragedies happen. Bad things happen. Period. Through the story of Job, we’re able to face the reality that the world and God’s actions in the world are far more complex than we like to imagine. 

God’s favor is not always seen in life going well. Tragedy is not understood as God’s punishment for sin. We might shouldn’t boast too greatly about our knowledge of how exactly God works in this world, lest like Job and his friends, we darken counsel by words without knowledge. 

As I’ve said before, our brains crave certainty and for things to fit in nice, tidy categories, with everything making easy, understandable, rational sense. Unfortunately for our poor little brains, God doesn’t tend to fit into our comfortable little boxes of easy, understandable rationality. We want God tame and tidy, and God just isn’t tame and tidy.

So, here are some of the tame and tidy platitudes we like to use for God. “Something bad or good happened because God needed it to happen.” “They were bad, so God was judging them.” “God has a reason he put you through that tragedy.” “God doesn’t give you more than you can handle.” 

All of these platitudes point to some aspects of truth about God that we’re given in scripture, and all of these platitudes are darkening counsel by words without knowledge. These simple statements we use to define how God works in the world are ways we try to make sense of our world and try to make sense of God. Unfortunately, these platitudes are also ways we try to control God, to keep God tame and tidy so we can keep some feeling of control over a world we neither control nor understand.

Defining how exactly how God works in the world according to our understanding is ultimately a form of rebellion against God, because we aren’t admitting our lack of knowledge and our powerlessness. By claiming to know how the tame and tidy God works, we’re seeking power and knowledge over God which we do not possess. 

Then, as if that isn’t enough, we often claim to know how God’s judgment works not only on earth in this life, but into eternity as well. 

How often do we hear people talking about who will be going to Hell when they die? We’ve got whole doctrines in the church defining who goes to Heaven, who goes to Hell, and exactly how that all works. That work is darkening counsel by words without knowledge. Scripture specifically tells us not to ask such questions, Romans 10:6.

See, the thing is, we don’t know exactly how God’s judgment and mercy work, and we don’t need to. We aren’t taught to understand exactly how God works. We are taught to trust in Jesus and follow his ways. 

Why? Why are we taught to trust in Jesus? We see in today’s Gospel story and our story from Job, why we would trust in Jesus. At the end of Job, Job is reminded that he doesn’t really know what he’s talking about because he wasn’t there when God made the seas and determined just how far they would stretch, what their limits would be. The seas obeyed God’s voice in creation.

Then, in our story from Mark, we hear about the seas obeying the voice of Jesus. A windstorm arose as Jesus and his disciples were in a boat on the sea, and Jesus basically said to the seas, “Shut up! Quiet down. Be at peace,” and the seas obeyed Jesus’ voice.

“Were you there when I laid the foundations of the earth?” God asks Job. In our Gospel reading, we find that Jesus’ answer to that question is “yes.” “Who is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” Jesus’ disciples asked. He was the one who laid the foundations of the earth and told the seas, “Thus far shall you come, and no farther,

and here shall your proud waves be stopped.”

We’re taught to trust in Jesus because unlike all of our tame and tidy versions of God, Jesus actually is God and actually did lay the foundations of the earth. So, rather than try to keep God in our tame and tidy boxes of understanding like Job and his friends did, we are encouraged to marvel at God with awe and wonder, as Jesus’ disciples did. 

Rather than trusting our tame and tidy understandings of God, we are asked to trust in God, to trust in God’s goodness, as unfathomable as that sometimes is. We’re called to trust in God’s love which extends far beyond and is much wilder than we can conceive of. 

We are called to accept our limitations. We’re called to accept our lack of knowledge. Rather than put our trust in doctrine which is often used to explain why we are right and others are not, rather than put our trust in that tame and tidy doctrine, we are called to put our trust in God who is neither tame nor tidy. We are called to put our trust in God who is good and loving. 

Who is this Jesus, that even the winds and the seas obey him? I can’t tell you exactly, but I can tell you that I trust Jesus. I trust him for being there when the foundations of the world were laid, and I trust him for his goodness and his love.  

A Mystery Beyond My Comprehension, and That’s Enough For Me

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Emmanuel Episcopal Church
June 20, 2021
Proper 7, B
Job 38:1-11
2 Corinthians 6:1-13

Mark 4:35-41

A Mystery Beyond My Comprehension, and That’s Enough For Me

I don’t remember the first time I heard the story of Jesus sleeping through a terrible wind storm at sea and then silencing the storm with a word, but I imagine it went something like this.  I heard the story and then went, “Wow, how’d he do that?”  “Well,” I was told, “Jesus is God.”  “Oh, ok.”  See I was never all that amazed by Jesus’ miracles.  Not that his miracles weren’t amazing, but starting from a place of believing Jesus is God, it seemed totally natural that Jesus could control the weather, heal people, multiply food.  Jesus, being God made all of this, everything, “laid the foundation of the earth…when the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for  joy,” so of course he could do anything at all.  So, going from that belief about Jesus and then hearing that Jesus could control the weather with a word, I figured, “Well yeah, of course he can.” 

For the disciples, on the other hand, Jesus’ controlling the weather was rather mind blowing.   “Who then is this,” they asked, “that even the wind and the sea obey him?”  Rather than starting from a place of believing Jesus to be God, they were gradually coming to know who Jesus was, and they had barely scratched the surface.  Like Job, when God said of him, “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?”, the disciples, though they knew Jesus well, were also realizing the enormous depths they had not even begun to plumb.

We’re like this with everyone we know.  My brother, Kevin, and I are identical twins.  We share the same DNA, and we grew up together, so we are very close and know each other very well.  Still, if we plumb the depths long enough, we get to places I don’t know and he doesn’t know.  We begin darkening counsel by words without wisdom.  We can know people our entire lives and still be surprised by them.  There are always greater depths we can plumb, new awareness and understandings of each other to discover.  

Being that that is the case for our knowledge of other human beings, we have to admit our knowledge and understanding of God is greatly limited.  God is known and has been revealed to us, and God is a mystery.  Whenever we try to define God too much, we end up with God’s response to Job, “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?”  We think we know God.  We sometimes construct rather tight models of God and have rules around how and who and what God is, and then something happens that we can’t fit into our God understanding box, and our tightly constructed models of God come crashing down.  Far from a disaster, what that means is we get to plumb the depths of God even more fully.  When our understandings of God prove insufficient, we get to be the disciples in the boat with Jesus, wondering, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

As I said at the beginning, as a child simply hearing, “Jesus is God,” was enough for me to say, “Oh, ok,” to the question of how Jesus could control the weather with a word.  Of course he could, he was God.  Through further decades of study and plumbing the depths, I’ve barely scratched the surface of much anything more, though I have brought about a lot of helpful questioning and come to a greater heart knowledge of who Jesus is.  God is still a vast mystery and yet I have come to experience God as goodness and love, healing and freedom. 

I believe we are called to accept and embrace the mystery of God, and to be content with what we can say we know.  God is love.  Sounds simple enough, but what force or action on earth has greater depth and mystery than love?  God is good.  We don’t always know what that means, but we can trust in God’s goodness and give up some of our need for and illusion of control at all times.

Here’s what I know personally:  when I spend time in prayer and meditation, seeking God’s will, and setting aside my efforts at control, I find peace and unity with people and within myself that I don’t otherwise find.  Who is this that brings such peace and unity to life and relationships?  God, whom I don’t fully know, and that’s enough for me.  

Accepting some knowledge of God as well as great mystery of God, I get to see God all around, in the beauty of creation:  in the earth, the skies, the trees, the wind, the water.  Seeing God everywhere in the earth brings greater awe for all that is around me, greater respect, and a desire to honor the earth in how I live.

Seeing God in others helps me to see each person’s beauty and to want to give them respect and to honor them in how I live.  We see in Jesus’ teachings and actions, that such is his desire for us.  

I don’t understand how all of that works, but I accept it as true because it is beautiful and because the fruits of that belief are greater peace, love, and honor towards others and to the earth.  Accepting some of these mysteries of God brings the very love, healing, and freedom which I believe God to be.

Looking at another mystery of God, how can Jesus be fully human and fully God?  How is it that Jesus could calm a storm with a word?  Well, on the one hand, what can’t God do?  On the other hand, how exactly does that work, God being everywhere and also that one person?  I don’t know.  I don’t need to fully understand it.  I don’t need to understand how God was specifically there in the human being, Jesus, while also being fully present as the Holy Trinity in the heavenly places, while also being in and through all creation in the known universe and beyond.  

I don’t need to fully understand how we are both here living finite, mortal lives on this earth and we are at the same time alive with God in the heavenly places fully united to one another in Christ.  Paul writes about that in his letter to the Ephesians, and I don’t know how that works.  On this Father’s Day, however, I think about my dad who died six years ago.  I still miss him, and I also have joy because I believe that like Paul wrote, I’m not only waiting here on earth to be with my Dad again; I’m already with him in the heavenly places.  Now that’s a mystery of God beyond my comprehension, but I don’t have to understand it.  I believe it, and that’s enough for me.  

How does connecting with God through prayer and meditation, connecting with God through people, connecting with God through nature, how does any of that bring love, healing, and freedom?  How are we both here and with God in the heavenly places all at the same time?  How does all that work?  How does God make all that happen?  Well, I’ve got the same answer as my parents had for me when I was a kid asking, “How did Jesus calm a storm?”  He’s God.  Then I can figure, “Oh, ok.  Goodness, love, healing, freedom, of course God can do all that.”