Wednesday, October 31, 2018

Restoration


Based on Job 42:1-6, 10-17
First delivered Oct. 28, 2018
Rev. Dr. Kevin Orr

             Today we come to the end of the book of Job and hear Job’s response to God’s response. It has been quite a journey for Job. Having lost so much and burdened with unimaginable suffering, Job has had to contend with three friends who tried to reason with him. But as each one made their case that surely Job had done something to deserve all this suffering, Job would argue back, making it clear that he had done nothing wrong. His responses to his friends were filled with angst, bitterness, sometimes with a tinge of despair. He cried out to God, demanding to be heard, to make his case, to even put God on trial.

            Finally, God responds to Job’s cries and venting. But God doesn’t answer Job’s “why” questions. Instead, God details how God created everything that exists, and not just creates but sustains creation, from worlds to baby ravens. Rather than answering Job’s question of why God brought all this suffering on him, God reminds Job of who God is, the one who creates and sustains all life, including Job’s. Job still doesn’t know why he had to suffer so much. But it is made clear to Job how awesome, powerful, and providential that God is. God had not abandoned Job, but was there all along, knew everything that had happened to Job, and sustained Job even as he cried out in anger toward God. God’s grace and mercy bathed this whole terrible and traumatic experience of apparently random and unjust suffering.

            So what is Job’s response? He finally has his audience with God. The One who Job was convinced had either made a mistake or who was capricious, uncaring, perhaps even cruel, the One who needed to be held accountable for what had been unleashed on Job, he finally has God’s attention. Job now has his chance to tell God face to face what he really thinks of this whole situation. So what does Job say?

            He starts by summing up his understanding of God’s response. In a short and sweet summary, Job says, “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.” Job had gotten the message that God had a hand in making everything that exists in the universe. And further that God’s creative activity was not done randomly, but that God did this in an ordered way, in which everything fits together. And God didn’t just create everything just to set things up and then watch how everything works out. No, God’s creativity was done with purpose, the purpose of demonstrating who God is, the one who cares for and provides for all that God has made. That God created anything at all, and maintains all that God has created, was done for the purpose of revealing who God is: creator, sustainer, restorer. That’s what Job got out of God’s response.

            Job then takes the first two sentences of God’s response and reacts to them. The first sentence is, “Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?” It’s God basically telling Job, “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” And Job admits as much, saying that he did utter things that he didn’t understand. He talked about God without knowing the whole picture. The ways of God are too wonderful, too complex, for Job or any of us to fully comprehend. That is, after all, why God is God. Aspects of God will always be a mystery to us. And Job acknowledges his presumption, of thinking he understood God when he didn’t.

            The second sentence God spoke was, “Hear, and I will speak; I will question you, and you declare to me.” It was God telling Job, “Now it’s my turn to talk. I have some questions for you and I want you to answer them.” Then, as we know, God’s barrage of rhetorical questions communicated to Job just how awesome, powerful, and providential God is, that everything in creation has God’s fingerprints on it, that God knows what is going on, and that God acts to provide for all that exists. Job’s response is that he has heard what God was saying. But not only has Job heard God, he now sees God in a different light. His understanding of God, his perspective, has been broadened. He doesn’t only know about God, he knows God in a deep way. Their relationship has been established because God has graciously revealed a bit of Godself to Job so that now Job more clearly sees who God is. And this new understanding, this broader perspective, prompts Job to confess his repentance.

            In both of his responses, Job is basically saying that he admits to his prior ignorance. After this experience of God, Job revealed his character by humbling himself. He was willing to admit that he had made a mistake, that he didn’t know everything about God. Having gained a new perspective about God, he had the capacity to repent, to leave behind his old beliefs about God and to embrace a new understanding, not based on what others have told him, but by his own direct experience of God.

            Perhaps most of all, Job came to terms with the fact that, at least for now, he isn’t going to get all his questions answered. Why God allowed such suffering to pour down on Job will remain a mystery for him. But even though Job’s questions aren’t going to be answered, he now knows deep in his heart that God cares for him and provides for him. Even when he was crying out against God and railing against God, God still cared for him and sustained him in his grief. God never abandoned him. For whatever reason, whether God was complicit or not, Job knows that God cares about him and about every little part of all of creation.

            And so now, with this response of humble confession from Job, his confession of a deeper knowing of God, a deeper and stronger relationship with God, then God responds. God does not respond with words. No, God responds by doing what God does, which is restoration. How does God do it?

            The restoration of Job doesn’t just fall from the sky or rise up from the ground. It didn’t just magically appear. We are told that Job’s family and friends started coming around. They had a banquet for Job. They consoled him in his suffering. They gave him money and rings, restoring his fortune. Apparently Job’s relationship with his wife was restored because Job received more sons and daughters. In time he was able to build back up his livestock. He got his health back, able to live to a ripe old age, long enough to see his great-great-grandchildren. So God restored Job’s fortune through his family, his friends, his wife, and his own efforts. With the co-operation of so many people, God restored Job. He was better off than he was when his great suffering began.

            So what are we to make of Job’s story? What are the lessons? I suppose there are many lessons, depending on how you understand this book. It’s a complicated book. We have only been exposed to a few snippets. If you dig down deep into the speeches of Job and his friends, there are a lot of issues that are brought up. All through this book, Job is challenging the standard views of his day about God, justice, the linkage of sinfulness and suffering, and more. The big question of why bad things happen to good people runs throughout the book. But, of course, that’s the “why” question that God doesn’t answer. So what can we take from this story that we can apply to our lives today? I have thought of three takeaways.

            I think one lesson we can take is that our perspectives are limited in comparison to God’s perspective. I know that sounds obvious, but we sometimes forget obvious things. We forget how broad and deep God’s perspective is. God is everywhere in the universe. God is present and aware of everything that happens, everywhere, every second, from right here to the farthest reaches of the universe. Our minds literally cannot conceive how vast God’s awareness is. I believe that God not only knows everything that is happening all the time, but God also knows every possible future happening. God knows everything that can be known. And with that kind of knowing, God’s perspective is total and clear, without confusion. And this is good news for us. Whatever happens to us, either good or bad, God knows about it, God knows what might happen next, and God, through the Spirit, is trying to influence each of us to respond in the best possible way. I guess what I’m trying to say is, we don’t know the whole picture, or why things happen, or what might happen in the future, but God does and God is always at work to influence the best possible response in every situation.

            Another takeaway from Job is that even in times of great loss, God is with us. When we are faced with the reality that there is so much of our life that we cannot control, God sustains us. That’s maybe the biggest lesson Job learned and it’s a lesson that we can hold on to. It is this lesson that keeps our chins up, that empowers us to keep moving forward instead of collapsing into despair or bitterness. It is claiming this lesson that helps us be resilient when life is hard. With God, we can get through anything. That’s good news.

            Finally, a lesson we can take from Job is that healing and restoration can come to us when we stop trying to figure things out and instead submit to the mysteries of life. We have to make peace with the fact that there are a lot of things that happen to us that we will never understand why it happened. We will not know the reasons for everything that happens in this life. Why did he die and not me? Why am I suffering from muscular dystrophy? Why does someone get in his head that sending pipe bombs in the mail to political enemies is ok? Why does a white man, a U.S. citizen, feel so threatened by Jews that he can go into a synagogue and open fire? These are questions we will not get answers to. And even if we did, how does that help? The pain is still there. The suffering, the brokenness, the sorrow and grief, it doesn’t go away. But God doesn’t go away either. God is still in relationship with us, still providing for us, sustaining life. For that we can be grateful. And we can be grateful for those people in our lives who can be with us like God is with us…no matter what. In times of suffering, loss, tragedy and grief, we don’t need answers. We need friends. Are you suffering today? Please know that you are not alone. God is with you. And you have friends who will stand with you. Do you know someone who is suffering today? How can you let them know that you are there for them and will stick with them no matter what?


Wednesday, October 24, 2018

God's Response to Job

Based on Job 38:1-7, 34-41
First delivered Oct. 21, 2018
Rev. Dr. Kevin Orr


            You have heard this story before. A famous person, a superstar athlete, the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, gets pulled over by the police for some moving violation. As the officer explains what the driver did wrong and starts writing up a ticket the driver says, “Hey, don’t you know who I am?” They say that with the implication that the law doesn’t really apply to them, or they deserve a break. It’s a power move to avoid being held accountable for their actions. I doubt if such a move works that often. But it doesn’t hurt to try I suppose.

            I thought about these situations when a person with power tries to avoid answering for their actions when reading God’s response to Job’s long and anguished demand to be heard. Job wants God to answer for Godself, to be held accountable for the unjust suffering that Job has endured. As I read God’s response, I could almost hear God basically saying to Job, “Don’t you know who I am!?” God doesn’t try to justify what happened to Job. Instead, God goes on about how powerful and full of understanding God is in comparison to Job. God doesn’t deserve to be held accountable by anyone, especially Job. Who does Job think he is? Doesn’t he know who God is? At least, that’s an impression I got when reading through the passage we have before us today.

            Then, look at how God’s response starts, when God says, “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?” In other words, God tells Job, “You don’t know what you are talking about.” It reminds me of what Job said to his wife after she said the only two sentences she gets in the whole book. She said, “Do you still persist in your integrity? Curse God and die.” But Job responds by saying, “You speak as any foolish woman would speak.” In other words, “You don’t know what you are talking about.” This time it’s Job who is being called a fool. Turnabout is fair play I suppose.

            But let’s look closer at God’s response. As we pay attention to the questions God asks, how God frames God’s response, we may see that God’s intent was not to humiliate Job or make some power move to avoid being held accountable. As I see it, what God is attempting to do is to help Job get a bigger picture of who God is. God is stressing the truth that God relates intimately to all creation. You may remember last week, Job was feeling abandoned by everyone. His three friends were no help. They didn’t understand or sympathize, but accused Job of hiding something. Surely he was being punished for something. His friends were not consolers, but accusers. He was calling out to God but there was no response. He was alone in his suffering and misery. He was wondering, “God, where are you?” Well, God finally responds. And in these questions that God peppers Job with, God asks, “Job, where were you? Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?”

            I’m not going to re-read the questions God asks. We only heard a few sections of chapter 38. If you go back and look at the whole chapter, you will see how God’s response to Job delves into great detail about parts of creation, and how creation works, implying that God is behind it all. It was God who laid the foundation of the earth. It was God who determined how big the foundation would be. It was God who sunk the bases of the foundation into whatever is underneath the earth. Remember, we are going off the belief held in those days that the earth was a flat table. It is God that tells the clouds to rain. It is God that causes lightning bolts to fly. It is God who puts wisdom into the mind. It is God that provides food for lions and ravens.

            Through all these rhetorical questions, God is making the point over and over that God intimately knows every aspect of creation. God had a hand in its making. God is present and active in every part of creation. When Job was asking his question, “Where are you, God?” God’s response is, “Everywhere!” But God isn’t just everywhere, observing everything. God is intimately engaged in everything that happens in creation, even when we don’t sense God’s presence or see God’s activity. Just because we don’t sense God’s presence doesn’t mean God isn’t there. And God is influencing every situation. God is not a passive observer but an active participant in the ongoing processes of creation throughout the entire world, indeed, the whole cosmos. This is not a power trip, of God saying, “Don’t you know who I am!?” Instead, this is a detailed account from God of how intimately engaged God is with every aspect of the creation, even to the detail of measuring the foundation, opening the clouds so rain comes down, and making sure baby ravens are fed.

            But there is something unsatisfying about God’s response to Job. Job was wondering where God was because he wanted God to answer the question of “why.” Job wanted to know from God, “Why am I suffering like this? What did I do to deserve this? Why are you doing this to me, God?” In God’s response, God does not answer Job’s “why” questions. In fact, God does what Jesus often did when people asked him a question. He responded by asking them a question. So annoying! What’s with the questions, just give me the answer! Here, God doesn’t answer Job’s questions. God does not justify God’s actions that contributed to Job’s intense suffering. God doesn’t say, “The reason why you are suffering so much is because I wanted to show Satan how pious and holy you are. At least I didn’t allow Satan to kill you.” God does not share with Job the conversation God and Satan had. The reason for Job’s suffering remains a mystery for Job, an unanswered question.

            But God does make it clear that God is not only intimately present to all of creation, but also provides for creation, actively engaged in all the processes of creation, from the making of worlds to the feeding of birds. Nothing is too big or too small for God’s intimate attention. And that includes Job. God knows intimately what Job has experienced. God has sustained Job all this time that Job was railing against God and crying out in lament. God made space and gave Job the capacity to express his anger and despair. God heard every word. And God kept giving Job the breath and the voice and the brainpower he needed to keep speaking those words of anger and despair toward God. God enabled Job to cry out to God. God never made Job shut up. God never took away Job’s voice. And that is grace.

            Job’s lament is justifiable. The indescribable loss and suffering he had to endure is beyond our experience, and for that we can be grateful. Gratitude is what God is trying to remind Job of as God offers the long awaited response. When considering the vastness of God’s creative work, and how God is present and active in all of it, even in our own lives, is something to be grateful for. Sometimes, life is simply brutal. Although not at the same level as Job, we experience times of devastating loss. We are confronted with a terrible illness that sends us to the hospital, and perhaps even prompts us to consider the real possibility of our own death. There are times in our personal life, our family, and in our community and nation, where lament is called for. Our whole nation entered into a time of lament after the attacks on 9/11. But in our collective grief over all that was lost that September day, not only the loss of life but the loss of our sense of security, there was also much that prompted gratitude. People lined up to give blood. Outpourings of support for the emergency workers in New York City gave them a bit of relief. We saw so much of the best of our common humanity in the days and months after. God was in the midst of all of that, prompting, influencing, making possible, all the individual acts of kindness, support, and healing. What we experienced then, Job was being encouraged to do by God, which was to hold together the tension of lament and gratitude; naming the hurt, crying out with sorrow, even rage, but also being grateful: for community, for life, for the rising of the sun and the calming grace of a full moon, the brilliant show of a lightening filled sky, the sparrows flitting around the bird feeder, the bees getting heavy with pollen from the sunflowers, all made possible by God’s hand. The holding together of lament and gratitude: there is wisdom in that.

            Rather than brush Job off as a foolish man, God not only responds to Job but responds in a way that helps Job gain understanding and wisdom about God and how God relates intimately with all of creation, tending and caring for every bit of it, even in times of great loss. God is not absent. God is intimately present. That’s what God is telling Job, without answering Job’s question of “why.” When it came to answering Job’s question, “Why did I have to suffer for no good reason?” God does not answer the question. The mystery of why bad things happen to good people, of why God allows evil and suffering to happen, remains an unsolved mystery. The ancient mystery of theodicy, if God is all powerful and all loving, then why is there evil, is an unsolved mystery in the book of Job. God shifts the focus away from “why” questions and instead focuses on God’s intimate knowledge, loving care, and constant presence in all of creation.

            How does Job respond to God’s response? That’s for next week’s sermon. What is your response? What do you lament today? What are you grateful for? Let’s take a moment and have a conversation with God. We know that God is with us. So in the quiet of your heart, speak to God what you lament today. And then speak to God what you are grateful for today…


Tuesday, October 16, 2018

Alone


Based on Job 23:1-9, 16-17
First delivered Oct. 14, 2018
Rev. Dr. Kevin Orr


            Do you all remember the repeated scenario in Peanuts where Charlie Brown and Lucy are outside with a football? Lucy always promises Charlie Brown, “I won’t pull the ball away.” And Charlie Brown trusts her. He runs up to kick the ball and, at the last second, Lucy pulls the ball away anyhow, and Charlie Brown spins through the air and lands on his back side. Every time. And we all know what will happen. We almost want to yell at the newspaper or the screen for Lucy to cut it out. Don’t you wish that just once someone would see what was going on and tell Lucy to stop doing that? But there’s never anyone else around. It’s just Charlie Brown and Lucy. There is no one to intervene. Lucy goes off laughing and Charlie Brown says, “Rats!” Poor Charlie Brown is alone in his experience of injustice. It’s not fair, what Lucy does to Charlie Brown. And there’s no one around to make sure that Charlie Brown gets his fair shot at kicking that ball. Charlie Brown is alone.

            In a few days, the Westerville Police Department will host a community forum, led by The Center for Family Safety and Healing. They will address the topic of domestic violence, a reality that is too common. It is found across the board, regardless of race or class. And cases of domestic violence are underreported. How many people suffer in an abusive relationship and are afraid to speak out or do not know who to reach out to? They are afraid to speak out because of what their abusive partner might do to them. Or there is fear about what others might think. The one being abused doesn’t know who to talk to. If they tell someone who knows them, what if it gets back to their partner? The thought of airing one’s personal life to a stranger also doesn’t feel right. The abused is trapped and alone.

            By the way, there is help. On the door of my office you will find some information about how to respond to domestic violence, if you need help or you know someone who does. You can also go to www.familysafetyandhealing.org. No one who is abused has to suffer alone.

            But they do anyway. They feel trapped and don’t know where to turn. They may even cry out to God for help. They may cry out for justice, or deliverance. But the cries go unheard. There is no discernable response from God. The abuse continues. To be alone in your suffering and not able to turn to anyone who can make things right, or not knowing who you can turn to, that’s a recipe for despair. For too many people in our community, this is their reality.

            Job was alone in his suffering. At least, that’s how he perceived it. Sure, he had his three friends. But they were no consolation. They kept arguing with him that he must have done something very sinful to get the suffering he has. They question Job’s honesty. They are not supportive and understanding. Surely God is with him. God is everywhere, right? But God was nowhere to be found. Job says he looks in every direction but can’t find God. He can’t sense God’s presence. His friends are no support. God is silent. Job is alone.

            There’s no doubt that Job believed in God. Job was incredibly righteous and pious. He knew that God was a just judge. And he made every effort to assure that neither he nor anyone in his family would receive God’s wrath. As Faith pointed out last week; when Job’s kids had drinking parties, Job would offer burnt offerings for each of his kids on the oft chance in their partying they may have done something that would have prompted God to punish them. Central to Job’s belief in God is that God is a righteous judge. God is just. Job is convinced that if he could just state his case before God that God would immediately acquit him from whatever was causing his great suffering. He just wants his day in court, if you will. But he can’t have his day in court because the judge is absent. The One who can easily fix this situation, clear up the misunderstanding, make things right, give Job justice, is missing, hiding, unreachable. And there is nothing Job can do about it. The One who can give him justice is nowhere to be seen.



            What do you do when you experience injustice but the one who can give you remedy is absent? Such a tough position to be in. You just feel impotent. It hurts. You want to cry out, “It’s not fair!” Whether on the school playground, in a street protest, or an argument between a parent and child, we hear the cry, “It’s not fair!” How many of us have told a child who said, “It’s not fair”, and said back, “Life’s not fair.” That’s a true statement. Life isn’t always fair. Justice is not always served. Yes, we have a justice system that strives to be impartial. But the system is made up of people. And we all have blind spots, unperceived prejudices, that skew judgment. All the necessary information to make the right judgment is not always received. It is a tough situation to try to make a right judgment when not all the facts are known, or can be known. When there is no corroborating evidence, judgments have to be made and they may not always be the right one. Sometimes our justice system produces a miscarriage of justice. What do you do when the justice system has failed you? Where do you turn?

            You can say to yourself that God knows what happened and someday you will get your justice. You can have faith that God will make things right. But when will God make things right? Will it be the Judgment Day or will it be while you are still alive? Nobody knows. You can become bitter when you don’t get justice. You can despair about ever getting justice. You may wish to tear the justice system down. You may lose your faith in God. Or you can choose to remain hopeful. You can choose to be resilient, to say to yourself that yes, you have suffered an injustice, and it hurts. But your value is so much greater than any injustice or indignity you must endure. You are still a beloved child of God, no matter what. You are loved. By God’s grace you can endure.

            Job wanted to disappear into the darkness. He just wants to fade away. But since he isn’t fading away, he chooses to keep arguing with his friends and with God. He would not let God off the hook. He knew he was innocent. He knew he didn’t deserve this unjust suffering. He knew that God was just. He would not allow God to just blow him off. He would persist, demand, that God give him a hearing. Job eventually gets to the place where he wants to put God on trial for what he sees as a travesty of justice.

            Like the persistent widow, Job was not going to give up. You remember the story? Jesus told the story of an old woman who demanded justice from the judge. But he would not listen to her plea. So she kept coming, and kept coming, and kept coming, until the judge said to himself, “I can’t take it anymore! I’m going to give this woman justice before she wears me out with her constantly coming to me.” It took a lot of persistence for her to receive her justice. Sometimes persistence is required to get justice. Job has the same mindset. He will persist, demanding justice from God, even if it seemed like he was shouting into the wind. Job refused to give up on God, even though God seemed absent, missing, perhaps hiding. Job may feel alone, but he was not going to give up proclaiming his innocence.

            How little Job knew that it was God who allowed this suffering to happen to Job. God allowed the suffering to happen just to prove Satan wrong. The God Job looked to as the just judge is the one who gave permission to suffer so much, so harshly, so unjustly. God, the righteous and just God, is complicit in Job’s unjust suffering. Surely it is unjust. Surely Job did nothing to deserve this suffering. Surely God could have handled Satan’s accusations in a different way so that Job didn’t have to suffer so much.

            Let me go out on a limb and suggest that it appears that God is complicit in Job’s unjust suffering. I call it unjust because it was allowed by God in order to prove Satan wrong. What are we to do with this? If it happened to Job, could God sometimes be complicit in your own experiences of unjust suffering? Such a question goes against the grain. It’s a question that I don’t want to consider. I don’t know about you, but it is hard for me to contemplate the possibility that God would be complicit in unjust suffering as God appears to be in Job’s situation.

            What kind of God is this? How can a righteous judge, who God is, be complicit in unjust suffering? I wonder how Job would answer that question. I wonder how Job would respond if he found out that all this suffering that Satan afflicted on him was allowed by God just to show Satan how pious Job is, just to win an argument, to prove a point. Knowing Job, I doubt if he would just shrug his shoulders. He would demand an answer to that question. He would want to know why God that that was ok. Job would want to ask, “Is that fair?” But the one who could answer that question…is silent.


Wednesday, October 3, 2018

Blessing Sunday


Based on Psalm 124
First delivered Sept. 30, 2018
Rev. Dr. Kevin Orr


            “Our help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.” What a great statement of faith. It is a statement of faith that grounds us, comforts us, gives us courage, and hope. This is not the only place where this statement shows up in the scriptures. Just a few psalms before, Psalm 121, we have that beautiful lyric: “I lift up my eyes to the hills—from where will my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.” What a vivid and strong statement of faith.

            This faith claim is a statement of power. It declares that God is more powerful than any other entity in existence. Surely, the one who made everything is the source of power itself. And so, in comparison of God’s power and the power of the enemies of God’s people, surely God has more power. For Israel, a relatively small people in a larger world with much larger peoples, such as the Assyrians, the Egyptians, the Persians, they saw great nations, with large armies and massive wealth. Then there were the Romans, a whole different level of power and strength. Israel was so small in comparison to these great empires. But it is God who made the heavens and the earth. And Israel belongs to God. So the enemy may be powerful and fierce. But our God is greater in power and strength.

            Psalm 124 is a psalm of deliverance. It starts out by saying that if the Lord had not been on their side when their enemies attacked them then Israel would have been utterly destroyed. They would have been swallowed up as if an earthquake cracked open the earth, or engulfed as if a torrential flood swept them all away. God prevented Israel from being chewed up like a lion’s prey. Israel escaped like a bird breaking free from the fowler’s snare. In their time of need, when their enemies, stoked with anger, bore down on Israel to destroy the people, God intervened and delivered them from sure destruction.

            We don’t know which enemy the psalm is referring to. Some have suggested that this psalm was written after the great exile, the time when the Persians invaded and destroyed Jerusalem, and most of Israel were taken in exile to Babylon. But the exile came to an end. Cyrus, the king of Babylon, allowed Israel to return and rebuild Jerusalem. So maybe this psalm is a way to celebrate collectively how God has delivered them from the Persians. But maybe it wasn’t the Persians. Maybe it was when the Assyrians threatened to destroy Israel. Or it was the Egyptians. Or it was the Romans. In their history, Israel has been overrun a number of times. But eventually, all these foreign powers lost their hold on Israel. At some point, God delivered them.

            So Israel may not have been wiped out like being deluged by a flood, but they did get wet. God did come to their rescue. God was on their side. But that didn’t mean that Israel did not suffer. For most of their existence Israel was an oppressed people. They were often under the thumb of some other foreign power. And this psalm picks up on that history. The psalmist says that they escaped from the fowler’s snare. The snare was broken and they escaped captivity. But they were captive first. The enemy had caught them, bound them, held them against their will. But the fowler’s snare was broken. The power of the foreign enemies was broken. And the psalmist infers that it was God who broke the snare, who broke the chains, that set Israel free from their oppressor. Yes, oppression happens. The oppressor does have its way with the oppressed. But the time will come when God will act, and the oppressor’s chain will be broken, and the oppressed will be set free. For God is on the side of the oppressed.

            What a relief this psalm must express. In spite of the great suffering of Israel’s experience of oppression, they are not destroyed. Over their history, Israel has suffered oppression in ways that most if not all of us here can never understand. We must never forget the Holocaust, the determined attempt to eradicate Jews from the face of the earth. Nevertheless, in spite of all the suffering that Israel has endured over the centuries, Israel still exists. They are not destroyed. God has come to their rescue to prevent their utter destruction. If it wasn’t for God’s intervention time and again, surely Israel would have been destroyed. Yet, Israel exists. God was on the side of Israel. More broadly, God is on the side of the oppressed.

            But I want to take this a step further. This powerful statement of faith, that God is the maker of the heavens and the earth, implies that God cares deeply and loves the heavens and the earth. And if God loves and cares for what God has made, then surely God seeks to protect the heavens and the earth. In other words, God is on the side of the heavens and the earth. So if the heavens and the earth are experiencing oppression, are being attacked, injured, invaded, occupied, in the process of being destroyed…God will intervene because God is on the side of the oppressed.

            Do the heavens and the earth have enemies? Are there any peoples that seek to overwhelm and dominate the heavens and the earth? I think perhaps there are. Maybe intentional or maybe out of ignorance, I believe there are people who oppress the heavens and the earth. Now, I said last week that we can’t do much to the heavens. We can and do pollute the air. But we have no impact on the sun, moon and stars. We are impacted by these entities, but impacted in ways that help us thrive. Our life depends on the sun. The beauty of the moon gives us comfort. The billions of stars in the universe provoke from us awe and wonder.

            But we do impact the earth in dramatic ways. We enrich soil to make it even more fertile. We channel water for the purposes of irrigation and for hydroelectric power. We take sea water and take the salt out so that it can be used for irrigation or for drinking. With time we are able to transform desert places into fertile fields. We can protect animal species, moving them from near extinction to full flourishing again. Someone recently told me that there is a bald eagle nest near Grandview, which is pretty cool, especially because I remember when I was a kid that the bald eagle was very endangered. No longer. I remember when the grey wolf was near extinction. They now run free in Yellowstone. I have hope that one day bison by the hundreds will once again thunder across the plains.

            But we also make a lot of roads. We tear up what used to be farm land to build more houses in the suburban sprawl. We pump chemicals into the ground. We spray pesticides that threaten the survivability of bees. We continue the deforestation of the Amazon. Fertilizer run off creates massive algae blooms that kill off the fish. Lead leaches into the water that then comes out of the water fountains of elementary schools, not only in Flint and in Detroit but in other places as well.

            We, as the human species, impact the earth in many ways. Some of the impacts foster life and renewal. Some of the impacts are destructive and deprive the earth of life. Some of our impacts liberate the earth to bring forth life, which is what the earth is designed to do. Some of our impacts oppress the earth, undermining and even preventing the bringing forth of life, frustrating what the earth is designed to do. We know that God, who made the earth, is on the side of the earth. So here’s the question: are you also on the side of the earth? Do you stand with God as a faithful steward of the earth or not?

            I can’t imagine there are any of you who would readily say that you are not on the side of the earth. I am sure we are all concerned about the well-being of the earth. We all know that the earth is our home. It’s the only home we have in this life. And not just for us, but also for our children, grandchildren, all the generations that will follow us. This is our home. Surely all of us want to be responsible stewards of the earth, not just because God commanded as much in Genesis 2 but because we want there to be a habitable earth for the generations to follow. For better or worse, previous generations have handed the earth to us to care for. And our care is a mixed bag. Lake Erie is much cleaner than it used to be, back in the days when the water caught fire in Cleveland. Poor farming practices that turned the fertile prairies of Oklahoma and Kansas into barren sand in the Dust Bowl days of the 1930s have been restored through conservation efforts. The harm done to the earth in previous generations can be repaired. We do have the capacity to bless, restore, heal the earth.

            The hopeful thing about all of this is the conviction that God will intervene to protect the heavens and the earth from destruction. But the frightening thing is that the human species might be wiped out as a consequence of God’s protection of the earth from destruction. Now I know that might sound a bit alarmist. Maybe God would intervene in some way to prevent humanity from being wiped out as a consequence of the destructive impact humanity will make on the earth in the years and centuries ahead. The fact is that whether you see the earth as your responsibility to tend and care for or as a resource for you to extract for your own purposes, we all suffer from the consequences of our collective failure to care for the earth. We rise and fall together. That’s not to say that some suffer more than others. For example, there is a reason why massive pig and chicken farms are located in rural areas and often near the populations of people with brown or black skin. Environmental racism exists. Still, environmental degradation has no borders. We are all affected. And if entire species can become extinct, with or without human causes, then why couldn’t the same thing happen to the human species? Maybe God would prevent that from happening. Maybe the long term plan is for humanity to leave the earth and resettle on Mars and from there to the stars. Who knows?

            What I do know is that it would be wise for all of us to commit ourselves to be on God’s side. If God is on the side of the oppressed, then we should be on the side of the oppressed. If God is on the side of the heavens and the earth, then so should we. This has consequences for how we live, what we eat, what we buy, how we tend our corners of the world. So this is my challenge for us as this series of sermons during the season of creation comes to a close: I challenge us all to do what we can to protect and care for the earth, trusting that God is our help, the one who made heaven and earth.