THE STRAIGHTFORWARD PULPIT

Text:  Job 23:1-9, 16-17

Theme:  "Every Which Way But Loose"

20th Sunday after Pentecost

October 14, 2012

First Presbyterian Church

Denton, Texas

Rev. Paul R. Dunklau

 

+In the Name of Jesus+

Then Job replied:

² “Even today my complaint is bitter;
his hand^[a] is heavy in spite of^[b] my groaning.
³ If only I knew where to find him;
if only I could go to his dwelling!
⁴ I would state my case before him
and fill my mouth with arguments.
⁵ I would find out what he would answer me,
and consider what he would say to me.
⁶ Would he vigorously oppose me?
No, he would not press charges against me.
⁷ There the upright can establish their innocence before him,
and there I would be delivered forever from my judge.

⁸ “But if I go to the east, he is not there;
if I go to the west, I do not find him.
⁹ When he is at work in the north, I do not see him;
when he turns to the south, I catch no glimpse of him.

¹⁶ God has made my heart faint;
the Almighty has terrified me.
¹⁷ Yet I am not silenced by the darkness,
by the thick darkness that covers my face.

They say that a good minister ought to have the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other.  (Well, I don't have the newspaper in my other hand, but I do read the Dallas Morning News and USA Today on my iPad; I wish they had an app for the Denton Record Chronicle.)  If the minister doesn't have some sort of newspaper in his hand, he runs the risk of being out of touch with what some call the "real world." 

Now turn it all around.  If the minister has only the newspaper in his hand and not the Bible, what's the difference between the preacher and some editorial writer or AM talk radio jock?  Very little.  The great preachers -- from Jesus, to St. Paul, to Billy Graham, and so forth -- were very much tuned in to the "real world"; they were only too aware of the facts on the ground.  But, more importantly, they delivered the truths of God's Word to very real people, in very real situations, with very real joys, and very real concerns. 

I mentioned USA Today.  Every now and again there comes a piece by Cathy Lee Grossman, and it always gets my attention.  She writes the articles on all things spiritual and religious.  This past week she reported to the nation some of the latest findings of the Pew Forum.   If you want to know what's going on with religion in America, you go to the Pew Forum (www.pewforum.org).  It will give you more information than you want. 

The big news, last week, is as follows:  in 2007, 53% of Americans were "affiliated" with a "Protestant Church."   Let me bring you up to speed.  We are a Presbyterian Church.  Presbyterian churches are part of the Presbyterian tradition.  The Presbyterian tradition is part of the Reformed tradition.  The reformed tradition is part of the Protestant tradition.  The modern evangelical churches -- or non-denominational Bible churches -- are also part of the Protestant tradition (whether they care to admit it or not).  Alongside the Protestant tradition, you have the western catholic tradition which includes the Roman Catholic Church.  The eastern tradition of Christianity, still very much part of the mix, includes the orthodox churches including the Greek Orthodox Church and the Russian Orthodox Church.  If you didn't get all that right now, I'll have it on the web for you later today!

Back to the news:  in 2007, 53% of American were "affiliated" with a "Protestant Church."  But now, in 2012, for the first time in our nation's history, the percentage has dropped below fifty percent.  Protestants are no longer a majority in the USA.  Grossman, to her credit, asks the obvious question:  What happened?  She goes on to answer:  "Where did they go?  Nowhere, actually. They didn't switch to a new religious brand, they just let go of any faith affiliation or label."

This group of non-affiliates, called the "Nones", says Grossman, is now the nation's second-largest category only to Catholics, and outnumbers the top Protestant denomination, the Southern Baptists."

Folks, if these trends continue at their current pace, it could very well be that the Presbyterian Church, as presently constituted, will cease to exist while some of us are still alive.  A few years back, when I "affiliated" with the Presbyterian Church, I recall a Presbyterian Church running an advertisement that said:  "We're not your grandpa's Presbyterian Church."  The point was that this congregation was new, hip, relevant, and all of that.  My point, and the Grossman article bears this out, is that "new" and "hip" and "relevant" isn't cutting it either.  Across the board, people are just -- plain and simply -- dropping out.  We used to be called a "nation of joiners."  I don't know if that's true anymore.

If anyone ever had a doggone good bunch of reasons to drop out and become unaffiliated or non-affiliated, it was Job.  Job had lost his children, had lost his wealth, had lost his health.  He hung on, like some crazy man, to his belief in God.  He continued, as the story goes, to walk "blamelessly" before God and with integrity.  His wife had seen enough.  God was absent, A.W.O.L., nowhere to be seen.  If God were present and accounted for and if there's at least a chance that God cares, then Job would never, ever have to endure the horrible fate that was his.  "Are you still hanging on, old boy?" she seems to say.  "Curse God and  be done with this nonsense." 

That was last week's text.  Today's reading jumps ahead a few chapters, and those few chapters include conversations poor Job has with some friends of his who came to comfort him in his pain.  Read it all through, and you'll conclude that with friends like that who needs enemies. 

Job was running out of people to count on.  If you can't count on your friends and your own spouse, who can you count on?  What about God?  Where was God in all this horrific mumbo-jumbo? 

Some of you known that I'm that strange sort of Presbyterian minister who happens to be a Rolling Stones fan.  Well, that band -- that is celebrating its fiftieth year in rock and roll this year -- came out with a new single called "Doom and Gloom".  Interestingly enough, the lyrics capture the mood of Job.  They go like this:  "All I hear is doom and gloom. All is darkness in my room."  It is the voice  -- the most current and very popular voice -- of existential despair.  And this voice is particularly loud among the number who have set spiritual and relligious matters aside, particularly loud among those who have dropped out, particularly loud among the "Nones." 

Job, despite his massive afflictions, was a tenacious guy.  He hung on for dear life.  Where in the world was God?  Job says: 

But if I go to the east, he is not there;
if I go to the west, I do not find him.
⁹ When he is at work in the north, I do not see him;
when he turns to the south, I catch no glimpse of him.

Job is nothing if not a spokesman for all these people who are dropping out.  It sounds exactly like something they would say.  But there's this one difference:  Job didn't drop out.  He looked every which way and he didn't find God.  But he didn't cut loose.  He was every which way but loose. 

Job had to have known, down to the very strands of his DNA, that he would ultimately deal with God.  He had lost nearly everything, but he didn't lose his voice.   And it may sound harsh to our quiet and polite Sunday morning ears, but this is what he says: 

God has made my heart faint;
the Almighty has terrified me.
Yet I am not silenced by the darkness,
by the thick darkness that covers my face.

He looked every which way -- north, south, east, and west -- and didn't find God.  But he didn't cut loose; he didn't let go.  Neither did Jesus Christ.  He could have given in.  He could have said to the devil in the wilderness:  "You know, you're right."  But He didn't.  He could have forsaken the cross.   But no, he accepted the cross and was forsaken of God.  "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"  But he didn't let go.  It was still:  "MY God, MY God!"

Finally (and this is unfortunate), they snipped out a key verse in this text from Job23:  that is, verse 10.  Remember verses eight and nine (which are part of today's text):  "But if I go to the east, he is not there; if I go to the west, I do not find him.  When he is at work in the north, I do not see him; when he turns to the south, I catch no glimpse of him."  Here comes verse ten which they omitted:  "But he (meaning God) knows the way I take; when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold."

I invite you, challenge you, beg of you to draw inspiration from this -- for today and every day:  when your own search for God seems to turn up nothing, cling to the thought that God's search for you, in Jesus Christ, was successful.  Life will be tough.  God, at times, seems unfriendly, absent, or even non-existent.  But in every which way I go, I will not cut loose.  I'm going to come forth as gold.

Amen.