Why me: Is God fair? Does God care?
June 24, 2012 | Anita Retzlaff | Job 38: 1-11, Psalm 107, 2 Corinthians 6: 1-13, Mark 4: 35-41

Grace to you and peace from God the Father of our Lord and Saviour Jesus the Christ.  In a moment of silent prayer and meditation this morning I invite you to reflect on a particular time when you felt that life wasn’t fair or when God seemed really far away.  Many of us have felt this at points along our life’s journey. God invites our questioning and does not turn from us as we struggle with the meaning of life and faith.  Let us pray….  Most merciful and compassionate God, hear our thoughts and guide our reflection for you are the One who restores our souls and calms our fear!  Open to us the mysteries of your grace so that we might live with gratitude – at peace with all.  AMEN

We encounter God today through two wild stories; wild in terms of the weather.  Wild winds are the setting for both texts from Job and Mark.  Maybe it is that the image of untamed wind is a great metaphor for the speed at which our society functions at present or maybe the swirling tempest is a provocative reflection of God’s disruptive power in my life as I continually try to keep things manageable, predictable and orderly.  Whatever the case or the cause for the dramatic display of wind in these two stories it is evident to all who listen, that God is present, manifest in Job’s whirlwind and in Mark’s windstorm.

So begins our encounter with God this morning.  In what appears to be chaos and danger, God’s order of things, God’s way in the world, is set out for us to consider.  It might seem a strange way to access God, through swirling wind and tumultuous waves, but I believe there is much to be gleaned from these two dramatic and frightening weather events.

The story of Job is a fascinating one. He endures one trial after another and is a great candidate for some kind of reality endurance TV show.  Just about every tragedy that can befall a person plagues Job; physical pain and disease, the death of most of his family and the loss of all of his property and livelihood.  Job had it all and Job loses it all.  It is hardly surprising that he has a few questions for God.  Our story today is the beginning of God’s response to Job who has been hammering on God’s door for an explanation as to why this is happening to him.  Out of the whirlwind of God’s mystery comes a response.

Now, the disciples are feeling similarly threatened.  Their demise may be more immediate.  Whereas Job’s life has been a soap opera of death, disease and loss the disciples are very suddenly faced with a deathly situation.  A storm blows up out of nowhere and the height of the waves threatens to swamp and capsize their boat.  They are panic-stricken and want to know why Jesus doesn’t seem to care that they are about to die. In the midst of this most fearsome storm comes Jesus’ response.

These two stories are beset with questions.  Take note that both Job and the disciples have pressing questions: questions relating directly to their physical survival.  And God in Job’s case and Jesus in the disciples’ story respond only with more questions. Isn’t that interesting?  What is at the root of these exchanges?  What are we to learn about the ways of divine love? 

I wish to take us on a bit of a tangent for a moment.  These encounters are about God’s justice in an unpredictable world and about what or whom we trust.  Job wants to know why God has it in for him and the disciples want to know why Jesus does not care about them: a question from the Old Testament and a question from the New Testament.  Job wants to know why the Divine One has chosen him for unrelenting disaster and the disciples want to know why the Divine One doesn’t seem to care. 

And what is our question?  Is it something like, “Why isn’t life fair?  Why isn’t God fair?”  In our scientific, fact-oriented world today, we expect a rational and reasoned explanation for most things – and if there isn’t one, then, life isn’t fair.  Yet there are other ways of processing ultimate questions.  Even in our clinical-studied environment there are those who learn by “going for the ride”, by living the experience and learning by doing.

We have a theory about the ways in which we access the world and discover truth.  You might be familiar with the terms left-brain and right-brain thinking.  The theory is that left-brain thinkers are logical, analytical and objective.  They are most skilled at language, critical thinking and numbers.  The right-brain thinkers are more intuitive, thoughtful, subjective and better able in the areas of reading, expressing emotions and understanding images. 

There is a commercial on TV right now that illustrates the different ways we have of accessing the world.  It advertises the 2012 Kia Optima.  As a beautiful silver car streaks back and forth across the TV screen we hear a voice in the background say, “Dear left brain, I bought us a car that has class leading 35 mpg and a 5 star safety rating.  Dear right brain, I bought us a car with a 274 horse power turbo-charged engine and panoramic sunroof.  Now both of you shut up and let me drive.”  So there it is! Two ways of valuing the same thing!  One is practical and the other experiential.  One is what we would call more logical and left-brain and the other is emotive, expressive and right-brain.  The driver just wants the competition between the two parts of his brain to stop so that he can experience the complete joy of the drive.  This is the end of my tangent.

It may be that we have to suspend our default line of questioning, that demand for fairness, in order to enter into the conversation that the biblical stories set up for us this morning.  We need a little more right-brain thinking, more intuitive, expressive and imagistic ways of discerning the tough questions of life.  There may not be a left-brain logical answer to our queries.  Job demands to know what he has done todeserve destruction.  The disciples want to know whether Jesus cares at all about their immanent destruction.  As it turns out these are the wrong questions.  Through the course of God’s windy and mysterious ways a response is forthcoming.  This is not a left-brain encounter of scientific probabilities.  It is a relational encounter: an encounter of heart and soul, of love and trust.

Job asks, “Why me?” The disciples ask, “Don’t you care?” We ask, “Is God fair?”  The divine response, “Do you still not know me?”  If we are intimately attuned to the ways of God, these questions are not be the ones to ask.  All of our agonizing over what is fair or who is at fault or how to steer clear of pain and suffering are not the most pressing concerns on the mind of our Creator. All we can truly know through faith is that God is with us in that windstorm, through the whirlwind, in the frightening things of our lives.

In a profound and poetic rejoinder God asks Job directly, “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?”  Who are you Job that you think you know how God’s justice works?  Who are we to question God on our level of human understanding and expect that we have the whole picture?  In order for us to figure out the mind and design of God’s creating we have to reduce God to what is human because that is all we know.  And that is our big miscalculation.  We are human, the created ones, with significant limitations. It is the height of folly for us to demand an explanation from God for the times in life that we are not happy.  Why is it that when we experience loss we think that God is not fair?

The disciples too had to face the truth of their line of questioning. What they asked of Jesus was misdirected.  It is not a matter of Jesus’ lack of care for his friends that is at issue in the storm-tossed boat but rather that they did not trust the power of Jesus’ presence to help them come what may!  Jesus’ love for them was never in doubt and yet that is their first thought.  When we face illness or family crisis, financial loss or the death of someone close we too often think that God has deserted us or is taking revenge – somehow we have done something to deserve the pain in life. That was Job’s line of reasoning too.  He knew that he had done nothing wrong so he couldn’t figure out why God let all of this bad stuff happen.   Do you realize the end result of that kind of God; the God of reward and punishment?  Good guys prosper and bad guys lose.  These are not God’s ways.  The cycle of life and death is much more complex, mysterious and deep.

My Dad had major surgery 10 days ago.  The surgeons cut deep into his gut. With a history of metastatic prostate cancer and the fact that he is now almost 80 instead of 30 we all silently had reservations about what the end run of this surgery might be.  Dad told us all that at 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday June 13 he woke up in the recovery room and realized that he was alive.  He felt euphoric.  He had survived the surgery and was thrilled to be alive.  And of course so were we.  Now had he not survived the surgery would God have been any less gracious and loving?  I think not. Wrong question! 

The disciples in the boat might have died.  Would that have meant that Jesus did not care about them?  Of course not!  It may sound rough to us who live in a society of access and money and power always geared to fight off death at every turn.  The real question for us disciples is that even if we are perishing do we trust the God who never leaves our side?  Do we believe that all is well just because God loves us?

The story of creation out of chaos, the story of the Old Testament tribes and prophets and kings is the story of God’s relationship to a people chosen to become God’s companions.  The story of God with Israel, the story of Jesus and his disciples and the story of us today, alive in the Spirit, is the same story; a story of trust and love. Out of the whirlwind of mystery we learn to trust that God is there for us - come what may.  I thank God today that fairness is not the basis on which I am judged and that God cares for me even when I don’t care so much for God.  Why me?  Why has God chosen to love me?  By the very grace that has hovered over this world since the beginning of creation!  O give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever.  AMEN