Looking for God

 

Our two readings today are both about people who can’t find God.
Firstly Job, and then the man who we call “The rich young ruler”.

So, Job.
It's a funny old story, isn't it, this story of Job.
Do you know, nobody knows anything about it –
what you see is totally what you get!
Nobody knows who it was written, or when, or why, or whether it is true history or a fictional story –
most probably the latter!

The Book of Job is incredibly ancient, or parts of it are.
And so it makes it very difficult for us to understand.
We do realise, of course, that it was one of the earliest attempts someone made to rationalise why bad things happen to good people, but it still seems odd to us.
I think one of the oddest things is that picture of God as almost an earthly King, with his court around him.
And Satan as one of the heavenly beings belonging to that court.

You know the story, of course – how God allowed Satan to kill all Job’s children, destroy his crops and herds, and ultimately give him a plague of boils – some sort of blood-poisoning, perhaps, or monkey pox or something like that. His wife, who must be suffering equally as much as Job, if not more so, says “Curse God and die!” but Job refuses to do that, although he does, with some justification, curse the day he was born.

And you will remember how his three friends come to “comfort” him (in quotes), and spend their time trying to make Job admit that he has done wrong and deserved everything that had happened. Job knows quite well he hasn’t, but he is stuck. He can’t see where God is in all this.

“If only I knew where I could find God,
I’d pound on the door and demand a hearing.
God would have to listen to me state my case
and argue my innocence.
Let’s see what God would have to say to that!
Then I could get God’s answer clear in my head.

Would God simply pull rank and rule me out of order?
I don’t think so. Surely God would listen.
Surely if an honest bloke like me gets a fair hearing,
God would judge in my favour
and clear my name once and for all.

But I can’t find God anywhere.
I look up, down, forwards, backwards – nothing.
I think I catch a glimpse to the left, but no;
I rush to the right, but God vanishes like a mirage.”
©2000 Nathan Nettleton LaughingBird.net

That’s a modern paraphrase of part of our first reading.

We know what happens in the end, of course –
God does eventually answer Job, and, in some of the loveliest poetry ever written, tells him that he’s all wrong.
He’s looking in the wrong place.
He’s looking at all his problems and trying to find a reason for them,
but where he should be looking is at God, at his Creator:

“Do you give the horse its might?
Do you clothe its neck with mane?
Do you make it leap like the locust?
Its majestic snorting is terrible.
It paws violently, exults mightily;
it goes out to meet the weapons.
It laughs at fear, and is not dismayed;
it does not turn back from the sword.
Upon it rattle the quiver, the flashing spear, and the javelin.
With fierceness and rage it swallows the ground;
it cannot stand still at the sound of the trumpet.
When the trumpet sounds, it says "Aha!"
From a distance it smells the battle, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting.”

Wonderful stuff, and it goes on for about three chapters, talking of the natural world and its wonders, and how God is the author of them all. My father loved these chapters so much that he asked me to read chapter 39 at his funeral, which I did – in the Authorised Version he had grown up with, and preferred. It is very lovely, whichever version you read it in, but the Authorised Version has unicorns:
“Will the unicorn be willing to serve thee,
or abide by thy crib?
Canst thou bind the unicorn with his band in the furrow?
or will he harrow the valleys after thee?”
Sadly, all the more recent translations say “wild ox” instead of “unicorn”, but I prefer unicorns, don’t you?

If you ever want to rejoice in creation, read Job chapters 38, 39 and 40.
And at the end, Job repents "in dust and ashes", we are told, and then his riches are restored to him.

Job, you see, was looking at his problems, so he couldn’t find God.

And so we turn to the Gospel reading, the story of the rich young ruler.
Well, all three gospels tell us that the person who came was a rich man, but Matthew tells us that he was young and Luke tells us that he was a ruler.
He was probably a ruler in the synagogue.
So we call him the rich young ruler.

Anyway, he comes running to Jesus just as he –
Jesus –
is about to leave town.
I wonder why he left it so late?
Perhaps he really didn’t want to ask.
If he was a ruler in the synagogue, he probably thought he ought to know better than this travelling preacher who has come to town.
Or perhaps he was held up by looking after business –
people with a lot of money do seem to have to spend an awful lot of time looking after it.
But whatever, he comes racing up, falls at Jesus’ feet, and addresses him as “Good Teacher!”

Jesus fends him off by saying “No one deserves to be called ‘good’ except God”.
But he sees that the young man is in earnest –
he really does want to know how to gain eternal life.
He is looking for God.

So Jesus reminds him of the Commandments, and the young man says he’s followed them all since he was a boy.

Jesus looked him straight in the eye and, filled with love for him, he said, “One thing you lack. Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

And we are told that the man went away, very sad, because he was very rich.
The rich young ruler was looking at his money, his property, his business, not at his Creator. And when he did try to find God, he was looking at the rules, not at any kind of relationship.

Job was looking at his problems, not at his Creator. He couldn’t find God, because God was not in his problems. God was absolutely there with Job, but Job was focussing on what was wrong. All too easy to do, isn’t it? And please, I’m not saying that if we turn to God, all our problems will magically vanish – you know, and I know, that that isn’t how God works! What I am saying is that God is there with us, even if it totally doesn’t feel like it, and if we possibly can, we need to look at that. “In all things,” says St Paul, “Give thanks.” That doesn’t mean being thankful for the bad things – what sort of a monster would God be if we were expected to do that? But we can still remember that God is there with us. We can still praise God – using other people’s words if we can’t find any of our own just now; that, after all, is what the various hymn and prayer books are for!

John Wesley reminded us of what he called “The means of Grace” – prayer, Bible Study, fellowship and the Sacrament. These are still the foundation stones to help us grow our faith – but Wesley points out that they are only means to an end. They are not ends in themselves. But as a structure, they can really help when our problems threaten to overwhelm us.

In one way, that was where the rich young ruler went wrong. He was focussing on the commandments as ends in themselves, not looking past them to the One who gave them. And he was also focussed on his wealth. We don’t know – we can’t know, at this distance – what the problem was. Was he insecure, and felt that he needed his money, his familiar things, to be safe? Did he want to keep his money safe to pass on to his children when the time came? All we know is that for him, his money was an obstacle that came between him and God.

What are you looking at that comes between you and God? Obviously we’re all going to be looking at our problems much of the time, because we’re human. But if we can, even for moments, look past them and reach out to God, God will be there with us. “Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief!”

What, if anything, is stopping you from finding God?