August 9, 2026 - Job 38:4-18 - Proper 14

Job has it pretty rough. Granted, if we saw more of his life in detail, we might think his life isn’t so bad. The little we hear at the beginning of the story and at the very end suggest he lived pretty well. But, for the bulk of the book that bears his name, things are looking pretty grim. It’s certainly not anything anyone would be signing up to try.

Job sits through most of the book, understandably wallowing in his misery. Many of his friends gang up on him too, arguing that his must have done something truly terrible to be deserving of such a fate. Job maintains his innocence throughout, but it doesn’t get him anywhere. After all of that, God finally enters into the conversation directly. Rather than giving Job any kind of immediate relief, God verbally slaps Job down. Job can’t even catch a break from God himself. This section from God’s lecture is just a small portion. Verse after verse of God showing Job just exactly how tiny and inconsequential he is. You thought Job was feeling down before. Apparently he hasn’t gone down quite far enough.

Whether you’ve been in Job’s exact position or not, you can probably relate to his situation. Life is already pretty miserable and just when you think it might be getting better, you find that it can actually get worse. Given how Job’s story began, this all feels like a colossal injustice. Our modern court system would probably rule this “cruel and unusual punishment,” assuming it found Job actually guilty of anything at all. Sure, Job is a sinner and we can’t argue that he’s completely innocent. Still, what would justify this kind of treatment?

We can usually say the same thing for our own situations. When life keeps kicking you when you’re down and then has the gall to kick dirt in your face while you’re down, you’re probably leaning toward despair or anger. Either you give in to the misery or you try to fight back against anyone or anything that might contributing to your sorry state. Job had been putting on a brave face up until now. What is he thinking as God continues to pile the humiliation on him? We aren’t told. God has the microphone here and everyone else has to sit and listen. How is this story going to end? For the moment, we don’t know.

There’s a phenomenon that’s been popping up more and more recently. I know it’s always been there, but there have been a number of instances lately that have popped up on my radar. Producers have been making tv shows and movies based on books for years and years. That’s nothing new. Every so often I’ll see a trailer for one that I’m familiar with. I’ve read the book and I’m curious what these folks will do with it. For instance, even if you haven’t read the books, you probably know the name J.R.R. Tolkien. You’ve probably heard of The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings and may have some notion of what it’s about. Though the Lord of the Rings is by far Tolkien’s most popular and well-known story, Tolkien wrote a number of other stories that are all part of the same world and the same history. There are bits of history the characters in the Lord of the Rings refer back to. Some Tolkien published and others are just left to the reader’s imagination.

One of the bits of his world’s history that is published was deemed a worthy subject for a tv show a couple years ago. This particular portion of history isn’t detailed extensively, but Tolkien wrote enough about it to tell us how important it is to what happens later in the Lord of the Rings, that anyone who wants to know more will be interested to learn about it. I had read it, but I was still curious. Seeing these characters portrayed and seeing the culture described in the books brought to life, it’s always neat to see someone’s take on these things.

For many people, myself included, the show was a complete disappointment. The sets were detailed and ornate. The world the people lived in was vibrant and alive. But, that’s about where the resemblance to Tolkien’s story ended. The characters had the same names but they acted very differently. Events unfolded strangely, in an order that conflicted with the book and led to things being all jumbled together. It was as if someone had taken the basic pieces that Tolkien was working with and used them to create a completely new picture.

While that isn’t necessarily wrong, when your show sells itself as telling part of Tolkien’s story that rarely gets told, it should be no surprise that your show tanks. Anyone who knows more than the basics of the story ends up confused or upset at the disconnect. It’s almost as if the show’s writer thought he could tell a better story than the original writer. It takes an awful lot of hubris to come to that kind of conclusion. Given that Tolkien almost single-handedly popularized the fantasy genre of fiction, his book sales just for the Lord of the Rings are in excess of 150 million and top $2 billion dollars, it feels a bit presumptive to think you’re somehow going to improve on the story. It isn’t even like you’re telling a new piece of the story. You’re trying to take something already written and change it. All of the meddling just ends up making it worse.

It sounds like a silly thing to do when you think about it, but that doesn’t stop us from trying it ourselves. We take all of the pieces and try to change the story. I look around at my sad estate. I look at how everything feels like it’s against me. If this were a standard fiction story, then that probably means I’m the underdog who perseveres under all of the adversity, who has to overcome the obstacles, and who triumphs at the end. If so, then something has gone horribly wrong. Not only am I not triumphing, but life is getting actively worse. This is not how the story is supposed to go. “You’re telling the story wrong, God. Go back and get it right. The hero is supposed to win, but I just keep getting beaten up more and more. You need to fix it.”

That’s the sentiment Job has been communicating throughout the story. He is innocent. God is telling the story wrong by allowing this to continue. God needs to fix the problem. That’s when God steps in and corrects him. Sure, there’s a part of God’s speech that’s aimed at Job’s pride, but it’s more than that. “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements-surely you know!” God isn’t recounting Job’s story. He isn’t recounting someone else’s story. God is the author. The story is his and we are not the heroes. He is. This story is God’s autobiography. He creates the universe and everything in it. He creates the first people who rebel against him. He works to save wayward humanity from its own destruction despite how aggressively we fight against him. In the end, he is triumphant, saving those who would be saved and casting out those who refuse.

Job tries to turn the story into his story, but it isn’t. God is the hero here. His power and his mercy are both going to be evident in Job’s life. We see a similar situation in the Gospel reading, which the events of Job’s life allude to in a few ways. News has gotten around of John the Baptist’s execution. Jesus sought a little quiet time alone, but the crowds sought him out and he fed them in another of his miracles. After this Jesus sends the disciples off on their own across the water so that he had some time to pray alone. It’s late at night now as they’re sailing across the sea. Some of the disciples are probably sleeping while others are keeping watch and tending to the ship. Suddenly a figure appears on the water, off in the distance. The scene has all of the makings of a slasher flick or some supernatural horror movie, but that’s not the story here. The disciples aren’t the main characters here. Jesus is. Jesus is the hero. Jesus is the savior. Jesus is the one who comes to rescue the world and everyone in it from sin, death, and the power of the devil.

We get mad at God or we fall into despair, thinking he’s telling the story wrong, but the problem isn’t his, it’s ours. God shows Job how good it is that he isn’t the star of the show. If he was, then it would be up to Job to find a way out of this mess. Job would have to pick himself up and find a way to throw off Satan’s harassment. Job would have to put his life back together and rebuild after losing all of his worldly possessions and all of his children all in one day. God condemns Job’s pride, and then God has mercy on him.

God isn’t telling our story through Scripture. He’s bringing us into his story. He’s telling the story of salvation and he gives us a place in that story, not as the saviors, but as the ones who are saved. Pride has no place here. There is no room for indignation and especially no place for chastising God for abusing us. He doesn’t have to write us into the story. He could leave us all as extras, bystanders who are briefly seen and then forgotten. But he doesn’t. Our names are written in the Book of Life because the hero came to seek us out and rescue us from the darkness.

This is why God makes such a point of directing us to the sacraments. In baptism, God is assuring you of your place in the story. You will follow in the footsteps of the hero, the messiah. You will follow in his life, his death, and then in his resurrection. Jesus entered into the darkness to seek you out. Now that he has found you, he leads you back into the light. The path is there for you because Jesus has already gone before you.

Job finds this out eventually, as do the disciples. It’s a message we have to keep hearing. Be glad that it isn’t your story and that you don’t have to be the hero in it. You would be lost if that were true. But it isn’t. God is telling the story and Jesus is the only hero capable of fighting against the terrors and disasters that afflict you. He is the only one who can rescue you, and he has already done the work necessary to ensure your part in his story doesn’t end at your death. In fact, at that point it’s really just beginning.