Job 38:1-7, 34-41 Mark 10:35-45

The past two weeks, while I've been preaching on forgiveness and prayer, the lectionary has been featuring the book of Job as the Old Testament reading. And because next week, when the lectionary concludes its time with Job, I once again will be using other scriptures, this is my one chance to talk about one of my favorite biblical stories.
The story of Job is an ancient one, and since Job is not a Hebrew name, scholars believe that the Hebrew people borrowed this story and used this very ancient saga to talk about their God. It is a very familiar tale, but to get us to our scripture reading this morning, I'm going to do a quick recap of Job's story.
“Have you considered me servant Job?” That is the question God asks his emissary, Ha Satan. And the story begins.

Now this Ha Satan should not be confused with the demonic figure Satan, who became part of Jewish theology much later, centuries after Job already existed as a Jewish writing.
In Hebrew Ha Satan means “the satan” or the agent or adviser to God. Ha Satan's job is to go down to earth and see what God's creatures are up to, then report back to God. The story begins with Ha Satan challenging God, saying that the only reason why humans fear God is because they get rewarded if they do.
But God challenges Ha Satan right back with the question that shapes the book - “Have you considered my servant Job?” God tells Ha Satan that Job is righteous and upright, not because he believes God has rewarded him, but just because Job is a good man. At that point Ha Satan decides to put Job – and God to the test. He tells God that if Job lost all his rewards he would turn away from God just like every other person. And God says, “Go ahead – and just see what Job will do.”

Eventually Job looses all his possessions, his children are all killed, and Job himself is struck with a skin disease, the worst thing in ancient Hebrew thought that could happen to a person. Only his wife remains, and she, probably in utter exasperation, tells Job to just get it over with. “Curse God and die,” is her advise to her tormented husband.
But even then, after all the calamity and tragedy, Job remains faithful. He answers his despairing wife - ‘You speak as any foolish woman would speak. Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?’ And the writer then adds - In all this Job did not sin with his lips.
The Job is visited by his three friends, and for seven days they sit with him in the ash pile where Job has taken up residence. Remember last week how I said silence is often the most intimate expression of a relationship? That's true here too. Job's three friends join him quietly in his suffering.
But then, after a week, they can't handle the silence anymore, and they open their mouths. And it's all down hill from there. The three friends must defend God. It has to be Job's fault that all this had happened. Surely God is not to blame.
“If you'd just confess whatever it was you did wrong, God will forgive you and everything will be OK. Stop being so pigheaded about how good you are. You did something wrong and God's punishing you. Just say you're sorry.”
And Job gets angry. He defends his righteousness to his friends, protesting his innocence to all their insinuations of his guilt. And remember – even God has said that Job is a truly righteous man. Job is right and his friends are wrong. He is blameless; he has not sinned.
But Job also gets angry at God. He demands an audience with God to plead his case. “O that I knew where I might find him, that I might come even to his dwelling! I would lay my case before him, and fill my mouth with arguments. I would learn what he would answer me, and understand what he would say to me.”

In the midst of Job's speech a fourth friend, a younger man, shows up and gives his opinion, once again feeling the need to defend God against Job's rantings. In his speech he asks several rhetorical questions about God's power and might, and then suddenly, God interrupts and begins to speak. And God speaks for four chapters.
“Where were you,” God asks, “when I laid the foundation of the earth?” And with those words God retells the story of creation. And by the time God has finished speaking Job no longer to know why, but is satisfied that God heard his complaint and came to him in person. “I know that you can do all things,” says Job, as he stands in humble awe before God.
And this, I think, is the essence of the book of Job. This book is not so much about why bad things happen to good people, but about the majesty, the awe, the wonder, the power of God. All the woes that befell Job, are, in this ancient and ageless drama primarily the writer's way to set the stage for God's self-revelation.

We are drawn into a story that is not so much about a human tragedy as it is about divine glory. It's not about us; it's all about God.
And it is about surrender – our surrender before the power and glory of God. Job comes to understand that it is when he turns himself over totally to God that he has everything he needs.
And that was Jesus' point to James and John as they try to wrangle seats of glory from Jesus. “It's not about your glory. It's about you glorifying God.” And if you want to glorify God, you need to give up your power and your greatness, and be ready to serve. Be ready to surrender yourself to God, and when you do, you will be great, you will have all you will ever need.
It's not about defining God in ways we think God ought to be, as Job's friends did, but it's about letting God define us as God wants us to be. And to hear Jesus tell it, that's as a servant.

In a talk at Presbytery this past Tuesday, speaker Steve Boots mentioned what I have heard so often. Churches that focus on what the church can do for themselves, what keeps them feeling happy and secure, are not the churches that grow – either numerically nor spiritually.
A church that exists to serve only its own members is not answering Jesus' call to be the Body of Christ. The deeper the relationship with Christ exists in a church, both with individual members and as a congregation as a whole, the more the church experiences the power of Christ moving them to more effective ministries of service and love.
One of the handouts we received asked a similar question to what Jesus was asking James and John. “Do we love Jesus with our heart and soul and mind and strength, or do we love something more?”
And a second question. Is our core value to know Jesus deeply and serve him fully, or is some other value driving us and our church?

Or – in other words - to whom or what are we surrendering? To whom are we giving the glory? Who's the boss? Who's got the power?
Most of us, I think, have a rather negative image of what it means to surrender ourselves to someone or something. We think we become losers.
I don't know what images come into your mind when you think of surrender, but I have two. The first is of police arriving at a crime scene with sirens screaming and guns drawn. They get on their bullhorns and shout, “All right. Come on out and surrender now if you know what's good for you!” And then you see the perpetrator coming out of the building with hands in the air.
The second image is of an armed conflict with some bedraggled soldiers limping into view – and one of them is waving a white flag to signal surrender. In either case the one who surrenders winds up a loser.

But when we surrender to God, when we let God lead our lives, when we see ourselves as servants rather than expecting to be served, when we deny glory for ourselves and give it to God, we come up as winners.
And it doesn't make any difference about whether I'm talking about our individual lives, or who we are as a congregation. When we let God lead, when we are willing to serve as disciples of Jesus Christ, we will have new life.
Now I'm not saying the going will be easy, but the rewards will be amazing. When you surrender to God's glory you know personal glory in a whole new way. Not in stuff, not in grand accolades and commendations, but in knowing the peace of God that comes only through Jesus Christ.
My mind still goes back to the Amish families, who, in the midst of their enormous grief, could forgive, not only the family of the man who killed their precious little girls, but the killer himself. They seem to have such peace.

Then I think about all those whom I read about who demand revenge for hurts that are far less tragic than those in Nickel Mines, PA or those who seek restitution for wrongs done long ago to people whom they never knew, and I wonder about their hearts and spirits. How heavy they must be.
I think about folks who are so concerned with prestige and looking good, who never seem to have enough. How frantic their souls must be.
Then I think about Job - “I know that you can do all things,” he says to God and he is at peace, even in his torment. I think of Jesus. “If you want to be great, you must be a servant; if you want to be first, you must become a slave.”
“If you want to know salvation you must give your life over to me.”
The invitation is given, the call has been made. God calls us to be servants to one another and to God in the name of Jesus Christ. And it is in such service that we find greatness. It is in the giving of ourselves that we know new life.

God's glory is before us. Christ's hand is extended, waiting to lead us on his way – to serve, to love, and to be saved.