Half of the Whirlwind
Job 40:1-9, 41:1-5, 42:1-6

June 30, 2002

It really is understandable, especially from the point of view of our spiritual grandparents of 1912, that the Book of Job doesn’t sit very well with many of us. Bad things continually happen to good people and there never seems to be a good reason.

Despite our scientific sophistication, tornadoes and hurricanes, earthquakes and floods, fires and droughts, and, lest we forget, bombs happen. 90 years later our society may not feel it needs Godly piety anymore, yet in the face of so many natural and human disasters lame answers are still the order of the day. We may have to listen to Job.

And the Lord said to Job, “Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty? Anyone who argues with God must respond.” Hey, we are specialists at faultfinding. We are capable of blaming anybody and often do so with relish. We call it honesty and accountability, especially if the fault is in someone else. Just think of the field day we would have today in finding fault after a cyclone like the one in 1912: the architects would have been sued for flimsy buildings, the police and fire and governmental agencies for ineffective disaster control, the weather office for incompetent prediction.

We love to control the past, to analyze to death what happened, and to assign blame, for our assumption is that we should be the ones in control. In 1912 along with Job we finally get the point. To be humble means to know and act that you are not in control. It is only when you understand in a small way your place in the universe and among fellow human beings, that you are able to hear the still small voice of God. Job wasn’t listening: he was complaining and faultfinding, so a noisy whirlwind was required to drown out his loud voice.

“Why did this happen to me?” is the question of someone who is dead. “How should I now live?” is the question of one who has been resurrected, who has decided to live in the now and in the future. These congregations and Regina have demonstrated how to live in the wake of an undeserved but real Job-ian tragedy. “How should you and I now live?” does not go away, never grows old, and is never a question about the past.

Job believed he had it all under control. He was a good man, doing good things, treating others well. Now he finally saw what he had only heard before: he was not the Creator, the Lord of the Universe, and he was silly thinking he was the one in control.

It may have taken a date, September 11, for most of us to realize that we are not in control. Hopefully, we have become more humble, no faultfinders any more. Now we are able to love with abandon, because you cannot really love those people you control. The Christian love we proclaim is love with no thought of gain or reward, love for no purpose except to love. The only time that matters for this non-controlling love is now, and in every now in the future.

God suffers in our suffering, and there was plenty of it in 1912. We knew then the questions of the past were foolish, and we have demonstrated in the 90 years since an imperfect, very human way of how we should now live. The question is still alive.

Preached by Robert Kitchen
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan