Upper Path Valley Presbyterian Church

Job 1:13-22

“A Mission of Hope” Rev. Meagan M. Boozer

One day when his sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in the eldest brother’s house, a messenger came to Job and said, “The oxen were plowing and the donkeys were feeding beside them, and the Sabeans fell on them and carried them off, and killed the servants with the edge of the sword; I alone have escaped to tell you.” While he was still speaking, another came and said, “The fire of God fell from heaven and burned up the sheep and the servants, and consumed them; I alone have escaped to tell you.” While he was still speaking, another came and said, “The Chaldeans formed three columns, made a raid on the camels and carried them off, and killed the servants with the edge of the sword; I alone have escaped to tell you.” While he was still speaking, another came and said, “Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother’s house, and suddenly a great wind came across the desert, struck the four corners of the house, and it fell on the young people, and they are dead; I alone have escaped to tell you.” Then Job arose, tore his robe, shaved his head, and fell on the ground and worshiped. He said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there; the LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.” In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrongdoing. (Other versions translate the last line with these words: “In all this Job did not sin or blame God.” Another writes, “In all this, Job did not sin by blaming God.”)

There is the phrase people use sometimes that goes like this, “You must have the patience of Job.” I think they are referring to Job’s ability to withstand calamity after calamity and still be able to hold it together. As each messenger came running to Job to tell him all the bad stuff that had happened, it seems from our reading, that he kept his head about him, and that he kept his faith about him. “You have the patience of Job,” we say. I think Job’s greatest attribute was that he kept his faith strong and growing by waiting patiently for God to work his purposes out in his life. Job’s unswerving faith allowed him to hope beyond what he could see. James, the brother of Jesus, wrote in James 5:11, “You have heard of the endurance of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.” Another translation reads, “You have heard of the steadfastness of Job…”

1. Able to Endure, 2. Patient, 3. Steadfast, 4. Unswerving faith, 5. Hope-filled.

Are these words we would use to describe ourselves?

This week 9 people will be heading to Camden, NJ – a city that has endured many losses. It once was a thriving city, but with the closing of the Campbell Soup Factory and the RCA Victor Company, which were both housed in Camden, it seems the city was beaten down and couldn’t get back up. The mission team will be helping to minister to people through the ongoing work of the Romero Center, a Roman Catholic, social justice agency committed to helping the people of Camden rebuild their lives as they rebuild their city. One of the most difficult parts of our trip to Camden last year, was being able to minister to the homeless population without judgment. It was hard for us, who have never experienced anything like what they experience every day, to understand why “these people” just can’t just “pull themselves up by their bootstraps,” get a job, get an apartment, and become responsible citizens like the rest of us. I think this was one of the hardest things we had to grapple with last summer. I suspect it might be a little easier for those returning this year, but then again, if they see the very same faces they saw last year, maybe it will be even more difficult. I was skimming an article this week from World magazine entitled, “Addicted to the Streets.” Listen to some of what was written in this article about the homeless in Washington, DC: (About a man named Carl) “He hates the streets, he says, but they are better than a (homeless) shelter; Homeless services come with “too much red tape . . . You go there, they’ll wrap you up like a mummy with that tape – they say it’s for your protection, the red tape is – all the while you’re suffocating inside.” “The Community for Creative Non-Violence in Washington, D.C. is the nation’s largest homeless shelter with 1,350 beds. It gives residents temporary asylum from the streets and from the drugs and violence that pervade them. Many who come are handout addicts, plagued by listlessness and laziness. Two men, Smith and Carver, could work, but see no point when they have their physical needs met in return for little or nothing. Life isn’t great at the center, they say, but here they get meals, a bed, showers, and free cable TV. Smith says he thinks there is a job placement program, but he’s never looked into it. “You can get addicted to free stuff,” he admits, but denies he is. He says he plans to leave there – one day.” “Homeless individuals line up early on Sunday morning at the Church of the Epiphany, three blocks from the White House. This Episcopal building is the first stop on a historical downtown tour – but for the homeless (including addicts and mentally ill people) who wander the food circuit, it’s the first stop on their free-breakfast tour. Some arrive at 6 a.m. to sign up for a hot breakfast of eggs, biscuits with gravy and grits, because only the first 200 in a semi-chaotic line actually get it. After a 45-minute worship service, the breakfast gatekeeper announces names from a clipboard, numbered one to 200. People with high numbers sit and wait, and at the back a woman furtively shows her neighbors what’s in her hand, whispering, “I got cocoapuffs” – street slang for joints rolled with the double whammy of marijuana and cocaine. Above her is a stained-glass window, a gift in 1910 from the famous Tiffany Studio in New York. It depicts a soul drawn near to God. The woman misses the irony. The church’s volunteers pray that she might be the soul” – drawn near to God – through their ministry. Part of us wants to just do nothing to help. If they won’t help themselves, why should we take our time & energy to help them? Another part of us wants to do something because we know we shouldn’t give up on people. Ever. Whether we’re talking about people in Camden, Washington, D.C., or right here in our community – we shouldn’t give up on people. Ever. God alone knows the heart of a person, God alone knows what it is going to take to bring a person to have “the patient faith of Job.” Until then, that person (so many people) are stuck in a place that all they can see is the calamity – all they can see is all that’s wrong – because they are people without hope. Job was able to endure all his losses because before the losses, he knew and loved the Lord. We know this from the very first verse in the very first chapter. “There was once a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job. This man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil.” Job knew the Lord before trouble hit, and therefore he was able to withstand the trouble, the sorrow, and the losses without losing hope in a better day ahead. Most of the people stuck in the homeless lifestyle didn’t know the Lord before their trouble hit, and now in the midst of their trouble, have decided that:

1. There isn’t a God. Everyone is on their own. (An atheist) 2. If there is a God, I don’t want to know him, because this God allows the rich to get richer, and allows me to get poorer. 3. If there is a God, he must not care about me, so why should I care about him?

And then, these clean, happy white people from Spring Run walk into their lives and … And … And, what? How can we possibly relate? How can we possibly help?

John Piper has written an interpretation of Job in a book entitled, The Misery of Job and the Mercy of God. He writes the following lines after Job has found out that he has lost his children and his herds: And now come, broken, to the cross, Where Christ embraced all human loss, And let us bow before the throne Of God, who gives and takes his own, And promises – whatever toll He takes – to satisfy our soul. Come, learn the lesson of the rod: The treasure that we have in God. He is not poor nor much enticed Who loses everything but Christ.

As Christians, I think that we think we understand this concept of losing everything but Christ. We have read and heard the verse, “Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” (Matthew 16:24,25) We have heard Jesus’ words to the rich young ruler, “There is still one thing lacking. Sell all that you own and distribute the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” We know in our heads that Jesus tells us we must not hold on to the things of this world too tightly, for he knows how quickly these things can become our gods. We know in our heads that even though we lose people around us to death, if we haven’t lost Christ, we still have everything. We know this in our heads, but sometimes our hearts take over. There was a moment when our daughter Katy was in labor with Luke this month that brought this lesson home to me. Luke’s heartbeat was fluctuating greatly during labor. It would go from 60 beats to 160 beats, up and down, down and up. The monitor that had been placed on his head was reading it, and the chart looked like preschool scribbling – wildly chaotic on the page. Katy and Josh were not paying attention to this chart. I was. It was as if I couldn’t keep my eyes off that chart, just like we could hardly keep our eyes off the heart monitors several months ago with John’s dad. And then there came a moment in that labor room that I had to step off to the side because I thought I was going to lose it. Katy and Josh didn’t see any of this, but I had tears rolling down my face. Molly and John came over. “What’s wrong?” they asked. “Don’t you see what’s going on with the heart rate?” I replied. Molly said, “Mom, it’s fine. Everything’s fine. The doctor, the nurses, they aren’t worried. Everything’s fine.” But see, I allowed fear into my heart. And fear said, “It’s been a terrible year. Everything keeps going wrong. If something goes wrong here, I just don’t think I can hold it together.” All this from your pastor, the one who is supposed to have the patience, the faith of Job, right? Listen to me, please. We all have our troubles. Some of us have bigger troubles than others at different times than others. Our faith is constantly being challenged. God allows our faith to be challenged as he allowed Job’s faith to be challenged. God wants us to know in our heads and in our hearts how frail and feeble our faith really is. He wants us to know how much we need him to make it through. He wants us to get to the place where all we can really say and know with certainty is this: Jesus Christ is enough. He is my home. He is the place where I dwell in safety and peace. Craig Barnes, pastor at Shadyside Presbyterian Church and a professor at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary writes this in his book, Searching for Home: “Home is the place where we were created to live from eternity and for eternity – with our true Family of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. That is where we find life. It is where we belong, and we will never be content with any place other than that communion.” The Apostle Paul, in the first chapter of his letter to the church in Ephesus, called us to live in Christ ten times in fourteen verses (!) because he knows that when we are in Christ, we are completely at home! Those who are homeless are not just those who live on the streets. Some of us, sitting right here, are homeless. Your neighbors might be homeless. The people you see every day at Bairs, the Uni-Mart, John’s restaurant, at school, at work, they might be homeless because until we place our complete trust in Jesus Christ, relying on him in every way, every day, we’re not really home - we’re just getting in line now and then for a free meal that will temporarily take away the emptiness inside. The greatest help that we can offer to people in Camden or anywhere else, is to first recognize our own homelessness apart from the saving work of Jesus Christ. We cannot offer hope to other people if we aren’t full of that hope ourselves. It starts with us – but it mustn’t end with us. The hope that we have must be shared; It must be free to pass through us to other people, and most especially to people whose hope has been lost in despair. Mission team, it is not an easy task we send you to do for us in Camden. But, we recognize that all of us, whether we are here or there, are called to lead people all the way home to Jesus. May you as a mission team, bring back stories of lessons learned – stories that will help all of us know better how give ourselves away as we fulfill our common mission of sharing the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He is our hope. He is our home. Amen.

Upper Path Valley Presbyterian Church

07-30-2006