Job 

We often speak of the patience of Job. An alternate view, especially appropriate for our time, would be to speak of the impatience of Job. 

Order of Service - Script 

for Sunday  April 3, 2022 

NIUU, Jeanie Donaldson, Pastor Fred 

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Prelude - Jeanie Donaldson - "Through the Maze" 

Welcome and Announcements: 

If you have troubles, come in and tell us about them.

If you have none, come in and tell us how you do it.

- from a Church sign

Come into this circle of love and compassion,

Come into this community where we can dream and

Believe in those dreams—

Welcome to North Idaho Unitarian Universalists where we accept, we support, we transform:  Ourselves, Our Community. Our world.   

Offering Information 

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CDA ID 83816

Lighting the Chalice: 

The creation story says, "Let there be Light," and so we light our chalice, symbol of our UU faith. As the light shines here may we find our way to deeper meaning and understanding of our own lives, our world, and the people with whom we will come in contact. 

Opening Words: 

As we gather together this morning

By Bets Wienecke

As we gather together this morning,

May we learn to recognize and affirm

The pieces of possibility --

The bits of good -- we bring.

May we encourage rather than control;

Love rather than possess;

Enable rather than envy.

Allowing our individual gifts to weave a patchwork of peace:

The soft deep blue of sensitivity and understanding;

The red energy of creativity;

The white heat of convictions;

The risky, fragile green of new growth;

The golden flashes of gratitude;

The warm rose of love.

Each of us is indispensable

If we are to minister to a broken and wounded world.

Together, in our gathered diversity, we form the whole.

So be it.

Hymn #38: "Morning Has Broken" 

1. Morning has broken like the first morning,

Blackbird has spoken like the first bird. 

Praise for the singing, praise for the morning! 

Praise for them, springing fresh from the Word!

2. Sweet the rain's new fall, sunlit from heaven,

Like the first dewfall on the first grass. 

Praise for the sweetness of the wet garden, 

Sprung in completeness where God's feet pass. 

3. Mine is the sunlight! Mine is the morning! 

Born of the one light, Eden saw play! 

Praise with elation, praise every morning,

God's recreation of the new day

Covenant: 

Love is the spirit of this church, and service its law

This is our great covenant:

To dwell together in peace,

To seek truth in love,

And to help one another. 

Meet and Greet / Check-in  / Joys and Concerns /  Sharing

Story: 

Members of a family of a church I served in Texas a few years back really loved to go skiing together. They would invite friends and travel together to beautiful ski resorts in the Rocky Mountains. 

The husband and father of the family was pilot of a small airplane, and so the trip was usually not as long as it would have been if they had been traveling by car. 

On the trip I'm thinking of, near the summit of the Continental Divide, they encountered a powerful and unexpected winter storm. Their plane crashed in deep snow and winter's cold. 

They were in a remote area, on their route and flight plan, but they would not be easy to find. 

After a few days of waiting, the husband and father made an understandable but fatal mistake: He left the plane to look for help. No one knows exactly what happened to him, but his body was found a few months later. 

Meanwhile, still waiting in the small airplane, the rest of the family and friends managed to stay alive by scraping ice off the inside of the windows and melting it for drinking water. They had not brought many provisions, but they shared the few snacks and candy bars they had. 

Someone had also brought a Bible. They opened it to the Book of Job and took turns reading. At least it brought them something to do and something to think about instead of the danger of their predicament. I'm not sure how much hope they drew from the story, but there was comfort in thinking about it together. 

They read the entire Book of Job, with all of its discussions of life's meaning when bad things happen to good people. Just as they reached the end of the book and closed their Bible, they heard the whirr of the blades of a helicopter that had been sent to rescue them. 

 

Meditation: 

from Frederick Buechner, the following words were 

  originally published in Beyond Words: 

Disaster

ON THE EVENING OF THE DAY the World Trade Center was destroyed by terrorists, a service was hastily improvised in one of the largest New York churches, where crowds of both believers and nonbelievers came together in search of whatever it is people search for at such times—some word of reassurance, some glimmer of hope.

"At times like these," the speaker said, "God is useless.”

When I first heard of it, it struck me as appalling, and then it struck me as very brave, and finally it struck me as true.

When horrors happen we can't use God to make them unhappen any more than we can use a flood of light to put out a fire or Psalm 23 to find our way home in the dark.

 All we can do is to draw close to God and to each other as best we can, the way those stunned New Yorkers did, and to hope that, although God may well be useless when all hell breaks loose, there is nothing that happens, not even hell, where God is not present with us and for us. 

The following words were published 

    in the Slate Magazine article by Abraham Riesman, 

      "The Impatience of Job." 

Absent the book’s likely tacked-on epilogue, the Book of Job teaches that there is no final victory, no ultimate divine deliverance. As I think about how to respond to the concurrent cataclysms threatening the nation and the globe, I at least want to be Job—not a person with divine patience, but one who cares so much for his fellow mortals that he will spit acidic truth into the face of the Lord to the very end.

What’s the alternative? Giving up? Waiting for oblivion? Such an attitude is its own kind of submissive patience. It’s understandable—but when things inevitably get even darker than they are today, it will be about as useful as waiting for God to save the day. What Job has given me is not exactly hope. But it’s something. 

Sermon: 

The story of Job comes to us from the ancient world, 

  from a time in which the values people lived by 

     were quite different from our own. 

All the same, 

  human nature has changed very little 

    in the period between Job's time 

      and our own. 

The Book opens with a description 

  of Job's large family and great wealth, 

    both regarded in Job's time 

      as signs of heavenly favor. 

To this day, all too many people 

  still see it that way: 

    You are morally good if you are wealthy. 

I have to say that I consider any such idea 

  to be a serious mistake. 

To judge a person by their property in any sense 

  would be to think too highly 

    of someone who has much 

      and too little of someone who has little. 

A person's moral and personal character 

  as well as a person's destiny 

    are not the result of what they own. 

Back to the Book of Job: 

In a scene that obviously comes

  from ancient Hebrew mythology, 

    the heavenly beings are moving about, 

      and among them is the Satan, 

        the Adversary, like a prosecuting attorney. 

There in Heaven the LORD (YHWH) and the Satan 

  make a bet, and Job is their victim. 

The Satan claims 

  that he can make Job hate the LORD. 

The LORD (YHWH) claims 

  that Job will always be faithful. 

He gives the Satan permission to attack Job 

  in every way, but Job's life must be spared. 

In one very bad day, Job receives news 

  that his whole family and all his wealth 

    have been lost, destroyed. 

Even Job's wife advised him to curse God and die. 

Job refused to do so, 

  but he did curse the day on which he was born. 

He also said of God, 

  "Shall we receive the good from His hand, 

    and refuse the bad?" 

Those words of faith may have comforted him, 

  but his friends provided no comfort at all. 

"Job's comforters" is a proverbial name 

  of those who bring accusation 

    in the name of help and comfort. 

As I keep saying, 

  and as most of you already know very well, 

    I'm an incurable optimist. 

Maybe I keep saying it because my deep optimism 

  is and has been challenged in many ways, 

    in my personal life, 

      in the world around me, 

        and in the wider world as I observe it. 

This whole book of Job 

  was written at least in part, 

    to address such challenges 

      when they come about in response 

        to the difficult and painful experiences of life. 

Job was a Hebrew worshipper of YHWH 

  in the years before the Hebrews 

    were known as Jews, 

      the period before the Exile and return. 

The literature of the book of Job 

  includes expressions and phrases 

    that are typical of a variety 

      of times and literary forms, 

        and so the book of Job shows plenty of evidence 

          of editing over the years. 

Among the many things we can say about Job: 

  The book and all its poetry 

    are shining examples of Wisdom literature. 

That simply means that the book of Job 

  teaches about God and goodness 

    by telling stories in which sages, wise teachers, 

      convey good advice and food for thought. 

In the periods of time 

  during which the Bible was being written 

    the writers felt quite free 

      to edit and make changes. 

The attitude that treats the Bible as sacred scripture 

  is a doctrine of particular religions 

    not an eternal reality to be revered. 

On the other hand, 

  many insights about human nature 

    can be gleaned from biblical literature. 

People's needs and deep feelings are more alike 

  despite different times and social morés 

    than we often care to consider. 

The need to understand 

  what is happening to us and why 

    has hardly changed at all. 

In ancient times 

  most humans believed 

    that bad things did not happen to good people. 

A wonderful book 

  was written on the subject about 40 years ago: 

    When Bad Things Happen to Good People 

      by Rabbi Harold Kushner. 

In the book, Rabbi Kushner argues 

  that God is not omnipotent, 

    that He is not all powerful. 

In other words, 

  God cannot necessarily do exactly as God pleases. 

There are limits, even if the limits are self-imposed. 

The book of Job can be understood 

  as an ancient, biblical version of an attempt 

    to respond to the same question. 

That's very much the way I understand Job 

  within the context, faith, and literature 

    of ancient Israel. 

Job and his friends all believed 

  the same thing that most ancient people believed, 

    that bad things did not in fact 

      happen to good people. 

That's why Job's non-comforting friends 

  all seem so cruel to us, 

    even though we may sometimes refer to them 

      as "Job's comforters".

It's also why Job suffered 

  from such cognitive dissonance

    in addition to the pain of the bad things 

      that had happened to him. 

Job knew that he was a righteous person 

  according to the Law of God, 

    the Law of ancient Israel

      as he understood it. 

His response to his situation 

  was to accuse the LORD of being unjust. 

In the voice out of the whirlwind, 

  the LORD asked him, "Who are you 

    to accuse me of anything?" 

Have you ever heard a whirlwind speak? 

I have, but it seemed to me 

  to be more of an imp than God. 

I served as pastor of an inner city congregation 

  in Houston for about eight years. 

One day, 

  when I was out in the front yard of the church, 

    I saw a dirt devil form. 

(It's interesting 

  that we call those common, 

    small whirlwinds dirt DEVILS, isn't it?!) 

The dirt devil crossed the street 

  and picked up a paper grocery bag full of trash. 

It brought the bag into the church front yard, 

  turned it upside down and dumped the trash. 

    Then it dropped the bag and moved on. 

I had to laugh! 

What else could I do? 

If I hadn't seen all this myself, 

  I would not have believed it! 

In any case, whirlwinds seem to have a long history 

  of bringing messages. 

In my case, it was just a joke from an imp (maybe). 

In the case of Job, 

  it was at least an answer to his conundrum, 

    as unsatisfying as the answer may have been. 

Job replied to God's unsatisfying answer, 

  saying something that has long been mistranslated. 

The KJV of Job has him responding to God, 

  "I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." 

Based on the best current understanding 

  of ancient Hebrew, 

    Job said, instead, something nearly the opposite: 

"That is why I am fed up:

  I take pity on “dust and ashes.” 

By "dust and ashes, Job means humanity, 

  including his own humanness. 

For this remarkable response, 

  Job is commended for his honesty. 

If you want to pursue the literature of Job further, 

  I highly recommend an article in Slate magazine 

    by Abraham Riesman, 

      from which I derived part of the theme 

        of today's service and part of the Meditation. 

The title of the article was, "The Impatience of Job." 

As Riesman said, 

  the book of Job does not necessarily bring us hope, 

    but at least it brings us something! 

I submit that the something 

  is akin to creative thinking. 

We need not believe 

  what we are too often told today: 

    "You must have done something to deserve that!" 

Maybe we didn't! 

There may not be much comfort or hope 

  in such a simple answer, 

    but maybe, just maybe, like Job, 

      we can continue to grapple with the question. 

According to the Bible, 

  God restored the fortunes of Job, 

    and Job ended up with more family and property 

      than ever he had before. 

As such, the ending is more like a fairy tale 

  than the struggles of real life. 

In any case, as UU's 

  we are not required to believe the fairy tale part, 

    and we can receive more meaning 

      from the book of Job, 

        from the example it is of great, ancient poetry. 

Amen. 

So let it be. 

Blessed be! 

Congregational Response 

Extinguishing the Chalice : 

We take the light of our chalice into our hearts where it will continue to illuminate our UU faith. 

We extinguish the flame, but the brightness of the light of our worship time together guides us, each and all, along our way. 

 

Closing words: 

Sometimes we gather with questions, seeking answers. 

Sometimes we gather with answers we want to question. 

Mostly we gather because we draw comfort in the presence of others who have questions, answers, neither, or maybe both. 

As we depart from this sacred time and space, may we take with us a seed of new thoughts that can bear fruit in life's meaning. 

Amen. 

Let it be. 

Blessed be.