Job 38:1-11  Mark 4:35-41

Today’s reading from Job and today’s Gospel have a common theme, and that theme is questioning – humans questioning God and God questioning humans. 

In our Old Testament reading God asks Job:

“Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?”

In the Gospel, we have a series of questions. During the storm the frightened disciples wake Jesus up and ask him:

“Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”

Jesus stills the storm and then asks them:

“Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?”

And the passage ends with a further question from the disciples:

“Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

Let’s take God’s questions to Job first. 

“Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?”

“Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?”

For many years I misread this passage. Job has been questioning God about an issue that concerns and puzzles us all – why do bad things happen to innocent people. God’s questions to Job sounded to me as though God was pulling rank on Job.

I have come to realize that God isn’t pulling rank, but rather offering Job something that Job badly needs – a sense of perspective. When we experience distressing events, hopes disappointed, serious illness or bereavement, we feel that our confidence has been challenged, perhaps even broken. And if we, like Job, are religious believers it is our trust in God that is called into question. 

What Job needs, as Carol Newsom writes in her commentary, is

“…recovery of trust in the fundamental structures of existence”

God’s answer to Job, which extends over several chapters, is all about the glory, goodness and grandeur of creation, but also about the element of the uncertain and the chaotic in creation. The challenge to Job and to us is to hold in a trusting tension the belief that creation is good and our experience that creation is precarious, even dangerous. 

That precariousness, that danger are exactly what the disciples are experiencing in today’s Gospel. They are terrified by the storm which threatens to sink their boat. In their fright, their trust in Jesus is weakened. There’s a very telling detail in the Gospel passage. We read that Jesus was 

“in the stern, asleep on the cushion...”

In those days that was the place in the boat usually occupied by whoever was steering. Some commentators have suggested that Jesus had been given the job of steering and, perfectly trusting in God, had fallen asleep. If that’s the case, the disciples’ question: 

“Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” 

has a deeper significance, for it is a question that Job and many of us have asked in times of trouble and despair:

“Is God asleep on the job?”

Faith would be much easier and simpler if God always responded to our prayers in the way that we wished. For many people, especially for young people, unanswered prayers are the reason why they give up on the idea of God. When someone close to them dies and their prayers for healing have gone unanswered, they conclude either that God is asleep on the job, or that God doesn’t exist at all. 

Job needed to learn that the goodness and the precariousness of creation are not contradictory. Another way of putting that is that he and all of us need to learn that we are unreservedly and fully loved by God but that doesn’t mean that the universe will be run for our comfort and convenience. 

Job acknowledges the narrowness of his own faith when, in chapter 42, he responds to God by saying: 

“I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear but now my eye sees you” 

The puzzled disciples, though they have been saved from shipwreck don’t yet fully understand who they are seeing when they look at Jesus. Hence their question:

“Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

The understanding of who Jesus is will only come to them at Easter. Before it comes they will see their teacher submitting to the evil powers who inflict suffering and death on the innocent. Their response to the Passion must have been an anguished questioning as to where God was when those terrible events took place. At Easter they learned to see, to see that God was right at the centre of that suffering, that moral and natural evil do not have the last word. Only then were they able to echo Job’s words:

“I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear but now my eye sees you” 

That understanding did not free them what the Prayer Book calls “the changes and chances of this fleeting world” and for many of them their sharing of the Gospel led to persecution and martyrdom. We too experience those changes and chances, sustained I hope by the belief that God can bring the whole of creation, including us, to perfection.

When I was teaching three decades ago we always began the new school year by planting spring bulbs; that we would hope would grow in secret over the coming months and bring us great joy in the dark months of the new year. The bulbs of daffodils and hyacinths never failed to delight the children or the staff and they came to represent more than just pretty flowers blooming in the Winter.

For me they became a symbol for the ‘secret growth’ my young changes were undertaking during the academic year. As the bulbs came to maturity so too were my class maturing and coming to flower - by showing the new skills and abilities they had learned and developed. For many this might have been becoming fluent readers, or more self-confident in their skills in PE or Maths or whatever. Their growth was almost unnoticeable until you stopped to look for it and to think back to what the children were like at the beginning of the Autumn term.

Today’s first and third readings have much to say about secret growth as does the second but in a more human way than the botanical analogies used in the other readings. In the botanical analogies growth comes from seeds and cuttings, pruning and tending the soil. In the second reading growth is explained by the ways in which our faith can grow as our life experiences develop and our self-confidence blossoms. In all the readings the hope is expressed that we will all see new growth in ourselves and each other in ways that will deepen our faith and lead us to know God more fully.

Most of us, no doubt, will at sometime rejoiced in the growth seen in loved ones, pupils, friends and ourselves. That sort of growth is always worth celebrating. Our parents, probably rejoiced in us as we passed certain milestones or achieved various things, or explored new vistas. I think today’s readings fit with the secular theme of today - Father’s Day,

as many fathers are good at praising their offspring and celebrating the new growth they see. Growth that has been going on in secret until its bursts forth as new skills. Not all fathers, however, or all mothers are good at noticing new growth and celebrating it in their children. This is sad, for both parent and child lose out on something that could be life- affirming.

Earthly fathers do not always get it right but we can be assured that our heavenly Father does get it right with us because as St.Paul writes: “...we ourselves are well known to God ...”  2Corinthians 5:11b

God rejoices in every bit of our secret growth, development and acquisition of skills. He rejoices in the things we get and do right and despairs when we get things wrong - but hoping that we will get them right in the future.

Our heavenly Father is always loving, attentive and forgiving beyond measure but he is also a parent who gives us the space to grow and learn new things each day. He gently guides us

and never fails to support us, even when we are unaware of it and that’s something we should give thanks for.

“... the Lord, he gave them the Garden of Eden, and everything that was needed to feed on, except for the tree of the knowledge of life, but he hadn’t reckoned on Adam’s wife!”

Those are words from a song I sang in primary School about 50 years ago! It goes on the tell the story of Adam and Eve’s temptation and the gaining of knowledge they didn’t need to have which led to God’s displeasure and despair of his human creation.

Adam and Eve were very content in the Garden of Eden, until they ate of the tree of the knowledge of life. God had warned them not to do so because he knew that thy would not be able to cope with knowing how the universe functions and how creation happens. The created can never fully know all that the Creator knows as it would be mind blowing and more importantly it would put the creation on a par with the Creator. Although we are made in God’s image, in the image of our Creator it does not mean that we are the Creator or that we are divine.

Once Adam and Eve ate of the fruit of the forbidden tree they became plagued by a knowledge of good and evil, guilt and shame and obvious self-loathing, all of which God had sought to protect them from. This knowledge is now part of our human condition. We know both good and bad, joy and pain, beauty and ugliness and we don’t always cope very well with that knowledge as we live our lives.

This morning’s piece from the Book of Genesis implies that we could have lived our lives blissfully unaware of anything nasty or unpleasant, difficult or evil but that the first humans, chose through temptation, to eat the fruit we were not supposed to eat. Adam and Eve freely chose to eat that fruit, even if they were tempted.

We the descendants of Adam and Eve now have to live with the consequences of their free will actions. That is the price of us humans having free will.

Whether or not Adam and Eve actually existed is down to how you choose to interpret Scripture. I see the Creation stories or myths as wonderful allegories that seek to explain how we have come to be as we are, in ways that our brains can comprehend.

I also puzzle and ponder over whether or not I am grateful that Adam and Eve ate that fruit. Would I choose to live a life free from the knowledge of bad things? It is a tempting proposition but actually, I think, I prefer to know the difference between good and evil and to have the free will to choose between the two, rather than to live some sort of hermetically sealed ‘safe’ existence. Even if having that free will means that bad things as well as good things will not pass me by.

What about you?
What would you prefer?

The life we have and the life we live is far from perfect but what we can and do learn from each other join both the good and bad times is, I think, invaluable. In valuable as all knowledge increases our capacity to learn and understand and therefore, ironically, to enable us to cope better with the knowledge gained from the ‘Tree of Life’.

The human capacity for knowledges increases day by day and in person upon person. I wonder what Sir Issac Newton the 18th century physicist would make of the late Professor Peter Higgs or Professor Brian Cox and their phenomenal brains? Much of what they have discovered is built upon Newton’s theories though. Knowledge leads us to knowledge and what each of us discovers over our life times is actually quite phenomenal.

There is, however, a responsibility that goes with this knowledge, a responsibility that Adam and Eve discovered as well. If you have knowledge you have to learn how to use it properly and responsibly. You have to be mature enough to know what the right thing is

to do with your knowledge. For example in the mid-twentieth century we discovered how to split the atom, rather than using that knowledge to good ends alone, our human immaturity led us to create the atom-bomb.

We humans have the opportunity to understand the wisdom of the universe, but unlike the Divine Creator, we can never fully comprehend that wisdom or our human brains could not cope with it all. We can never be the Creator. This is, I think, a good thing for just like Adam and Eve, too much knowledge too soon is painful and can lead us to do things we would be better off not doing.

As human beings we need to remember that there is always going to be a consequence for every gain in knowledge we make and like Adam and Eve, sometimes those consequences might be more that we are actually willing to pay!

“Observe the Sabbath day and keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. For six days you shall labour and do all your work.” Deuteronomy 5:12-13

Although keeping the Sabbath is not in the top three commandments, it is closer to the number one spot that say number 10. So, like all the commandments in their due it is important in our faith and religious practice. Why though, is it one of the Ten Commandments and does it have much relevance to life today?

Personally, I believe that we should pay great attention to this commandment (and all the commandments in fact) if for no other reason for our own individual health and well-being and for the good of our community and society as well. All of us need at least a day ‘off’ each week, even if we are supposedly retired, for all of us tend to live busy lives and a day doing

something different is important, as it enables us to re-charge our batteries and gain new energy to give to the things we do on other days. Even God had a day off:

“Thus the heavens and the Earth were finished, and all their multitude. And on the seventh day god finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work he had done in Creation.” Genesis 2:1-3

The opening chapters of our Scriptures tell us that God worked on Creation for six days and then rested on the seventh. No matter how you interpret these chapters, they tell us that after a period of intense activity God rested. God has set US a template by which to live our lives. We are to work, to be creative and active but we are also to rest. Taking a rest, however, is something many in the 21st century need to be reminded of and that many employers need to be instructed to ensure.

None of us can work seven days a week, week in and week out without damaging our health, well-being, bodies, mind and souls. If you work all the time or are forced to work all the time, then you have no time to spare for yourself, let alone God or anyone else. So if God rested on the seventh day, then so should we. If we fail to get everything done, then we need to examine our own time management or our employers need to be brought up sharp regarding their exceptions and working practices. this is not to encourage underperformance but to ensure that we give of our best without destroying ourselves. Everyone needs time off to ‘just be’ to recharge, in order to be productive and creative in the longer term.

I know what I am like. I tend to drive myself to get ‘everything done NOW’! When sometimes I do not need to do so and actually if I can step away for a time, I can usually get things done in half the time once I am refreshed. I also know that I am quick to ensure others take time off or are encouraged to do so but slow to do the same myself! I have to constantly remind myself that taking a rest does not mean that I am giving up, far from it.

When God rested he was not absent from the Creation he was just sitting back and watching it happen. He was not removed from it in doing just that he was in fact allowing it to develop in its own way without his contain tinkering with it. God is not removed or absent from Creation today, he is still intiamertky involved with it as we are, co-creating creation day after day after day.

Creation as we perceive it is not an act set in stone but an ever evolving process, in which God is involved intimately with and at the same time distant from it observing its development. God is both immanent and transcendent. In our lives we need to try and take a leaf out of God’s book, to ape God’s way of working; to be able to be involved and observing at different times. We need to be able to stand back and watch as well as being up to our elbows in everything. In that way we can make change and difference more easily.

God models for us a way of working that we need to copy. Like God we need a regular break from our work or routine life. we need to take time off and to enjoy it. To do something different and to appreciate the difference it can make in our lives. at least one of the days each week needs to be a ‘day off’. I know how grumpy and tired and narrow visioned I can become when I don’t get time off in a week. And, don’t think because you may be retired that you don’t need a day off each week either. For retirement can be just as busy as a working week, except you don’t get paid for it!

On of the important things about keeping the Sabbath is that it can offer us opportunities to spend quality time with God. I don’t necessarily think that a Sabbath rest has to be on a Sunday, it isn’t for me; but as the German Theologian Jürgen Moltmann suggested it needs to be a 24 hour period in the week. A full day off in which to relax and do something different or not much at all. As people of faith if we take a sabbath for no other reason we shoal take it to give quality time to God.

Modern life, despite all its gadgets and labour saving devices is busy and fast and all too often 24/7! Emails, texts, social media notifications, calls and meetings all demand our instant attention and response and after a wheel we can easily be left drained, with nothing left to give to anyone. We clergy are just s bad as everyone else at taking time off and we need to change our ways and to lead by example - and I’m talking to myself here as well.

Make one day a week your Sabbath. Try and do something different and learn from God who all those aeons ago set us a template to follow. Never feel guilty about taking time off either, for if it was good enough for God then it is certainly more than good for us!

Just occasionally during the school trips to Russia that I led it was possible to allow the pupils some free time and to have an hour or two of pleasing myself in Moscow. On one of these occasions, I headed straight for the Tretyakov Art Gallery. The painting I most wanted to see was the one reproduced on the appendix to this week’s pew sheet. It’s a fifteenth century icon by the great Russian master Andrei Rublev. It’s usually spoken of as the Old Testament Trinity, though that’s not how Rublev would have named it. In his day, icons depicting this scene were known as the Hospitality of Abraham. On one level, the icon illustrates the story in Genesis of Abraham and his wife Sarah entertaining three angelic messengers, but on another level the three figures represent the three persons of the Holy Trinity.

The angel in the centre is dressed in a way that would have prompted Rublev’s contemporaries to recognise him as Jesus, and the fact that he is seated in the position of the host and the gesture of blessing he is making over the chalice in the centre of the table reinforce that identity. 

Jesus gazes towards the figure who is seated on the left of the picture, the figure which represents God the Father. Jesus sees God with absolute clarity, understanding and love. The messages for us are precisely those which Jesus gives to Nicodemus in today’s Gospel when he says:

“…we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen.”

and then we read that

“…God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, to that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”

Jesus looks towards God the Father,  but he is painted in such a way that it seems that he has just turned his head in that direction and that a moment before he was gazing at the third figure, the one on the right of the image, the one that represents the Holy Spirit. That figure faces in the direction of Jesus and of God the Father. And in our Gospel reading Jesus speaks of the transforming power of the Holy Spirit, of the possibility of new birth in the Holy Spirit.

Together the three figures form a circle of mutual contemplation and love. The arched backs of God the Father and the Holy Spirit are two arcs of that circle. 

Many people have found the doctrine of the Trinity difficult or even impossible and I have considerable sympathy with those difficulties. Yet without it there are other important things which become impossible to believe.  The most important belief which makes no sense without the Trinity is the simple and vital proposition that you’ll find in the 1^st Epistle of John:

“Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.”

Not “God is loving” or “God is compassionate” or “God is merciful”. Those are ways of speaking which we can apply to other human beings. “God is love” is a statement of a different kind. Love is about living in relationship, and for the words “God is love” to make sense, there has to be relationship within God, there has to be the mutual love and contemplation which the icon shows. 

And what about us? We read in Genesis that we are made in the image and likeness of God. If God is loving and relational, we aren’t created to behave like self-made people, finding and asserting our individuality. We are made to relate lovingly one to another and to God. We are made to work together. As one of Susan’s carers said to me last week:

“Teamwork is Dreamwork.”

None of the figures in the icon is looking directly at us and yet the icon invites us in, encourages us to participate in the love of God the Holy Trinity. The three figures are seated on a platform and, if you look carefully, you will see that the perspective of that platform is reversed. It points towards us. There is an empty space at the table which we are invited to occupy. We too can be part of the circle of love. 

Over the Christian centuries, writers and thinkers have used different word pictures to describe that invitation to belong to God the Holy Trinity. St Paul writes in today’s Epistle that we are invited to be “children and heirs” – members of a family. Some theologians have likened the Holy Trinity to a dance which we are invited to join. We might also think of it as the invitation to be part of a team. Andrei Rublev chose the metaphor of hospitality – Abraham’s hospitality to the angels seen as the Holy Trinity’s open and loving offer of hospitality to us. 

To that invitation, the obvious, the honest reaction is “Who me? The person who is so often grumpy, bad-tempered and selfish?” That’s what the priest-poet George Herbert was getting at in the poem you will find beneath the icon. 

Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back,
            Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
            From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
            If I lacked anything.

"A guest," I answered, "worthy to be here":
            Love said, "You shall be he."
"I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear,
            I cannot look on thee."
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
            "Who made the eyes but I?"

"Truth, Lord; but I have marred them; let my shame
            Go where it doth deserve."
"And know you not," says Love, "who bore the blame?"
            "My dear, then I will serve."
"You must sit down," says Love, "and taste my meat."
            So I did sit and eat.

And so we are invited to be nourished and transformed by the God who is love.