Sermon: Hope Uprooted, Replanted
August 16th, 2020 Rev. Betsy Perkins
Scripture passage: Job 19:7-27 First Baptist Church, Delavan WI
Job’s hope is uprooted like a fallen tree, he says in verse 10. Picture for a moment the images you may have seen of trees uprooted and snapped off in recent storms. Job’s hope has been ripped from his heart…
Hello? Someone has just showed up … excuse me… (Enter Job’s wife)
Forgive me for intruding… Shalom, peace. But it is not really intruding when we are sisters and brothers of the One Father. I have come to join you as you worship God Almighty, as you set aside this time to grow in your knowledge of God and in your understanding God’s will and God’s ways. I cannot pass up an opportunity to share my story for I have been greatly misunderstood and terribly maligned. So when the Spirit invited me to pay a visit Delavan of Wisconsin, I jumped at the chance speak my truth and to bear witness to the work of hope in my life. Excuse me, I haven’t introduced myself. My name is Dinah; sometimes in tender moments my husband would call me ‘Lady Di’ (of course, I lived many centuries before the Lady Di of England). My husband was Job. You know me simply as “Job’s wife”. The Bible doesn’t share my name, but the story it shares isn’t just Job’s, it’s mine, too.
What a life we had, Job and I! God blessed us with ten children beautiful children! Ten times, I felt the flutter of new life within me. Ten times, the midwife came to our home to nurse me through the pain and joy of childbirth. Ten infants nourished at my breasts, rocked and sung to sleep. Job and I would sing the songs of faith, the songs that taught our children to love and honor and praise Jehovah God. We worshipped God together. We worked and ate and laughed together. We celebrated birthdays and danced together at harvest festivals. Our family was knit together with love and with faith. What joy! What pride we had as our children grew and started families of their own not too far away.
Job and I were blessed with great wealth. Job owned vast ranch lands and many cattle. They provided us rich meals of meat and milk, that we loved to share with our friends and neighbors. My home had many comforts. I hosted brilliant parties, and not just for friends. Job had a tender heart for those who were poor. It was Job’s vision, but I was the one who made it happen – a place for those who were downcast, for widows and lepers. We started a school for orphans. Job taught religious classes for the little boys. The women came to me for advice. They admired the beauty of my clothes and jewels.
But that is not what I came to boast of. As I said, I want to bear witness to the work of hope in my life – for hope does indeed work miracles in our hearts and in our souls. I like how someone else put it when he witnessed to another church, to one in Rome, he said, “We boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” (Romans 5:2b-5)
The suffering came without warning. Like a tree falling over in a storm. Tragedy swept over us like a haboob, a dust storm stirred up by desert winds and stampeding armies. In one terrible day we lost it all – all the animals, all the land, all the stores of food. But worse than that – every one of our ten wonderful children. We searched for their bodies so we could at least bury them. Ten graves, and ten thousand tears. We were speechless. The pain of burying a child, losing a life you have poured your life into, your hope for the future, … that is pain beyond all pain. It takes my breath away even now; hope uprooted like a fallen tree.
Job became deathly ill, covered with sores of pus and rotting flesh. Even his breath smelled of death. Our servants fled, extended family appalled and disgusted, and I was left to care for husband alone. I traded jewelry and clothes to buy medicines. I even sold my hair for food so we would not starve. I tended to my Job through dark days and even darker night. God seemed so far away, as I swam in an ocean of hurt and anger and bitterness and despair. Job bore the brunt of it, I’m afraid. There are things I said to him that I regret now.
Has that ever happened to you? In the heat of the moment, have you lashed out at the person closest to you? In the midst of crushing stress, have you ever reacted in less than a godly way? Did you then wish you had a time machine to go back and do or say things differently? Maybe wished you had swallow those words so no one ever heard them? … let alone have them recorded for all eternity, for all to read and judge me? I am forever defined by my lowest moment. My contribution to raising a wonderful family, to supporting my husband, to worshipping Jehovah God Almighty are overlooked. I am accused of being the voice of the Accuser himself. How easy it is to point our fingers at others without walking in their shoes.
So indulge me a moment, and allow me set the record straight. Perhaps then you might find it in your heart to extend grace to me, as well as to others who have had moments they regret. What I said to Job, and overheard by his friends who, by the way, hung around long after their welcome had run out, was “Barak Elohim va’mut.” Barak means bless, “Bless God and die,” but sarcasm doesn’t translate very well. It certainly doesn’t reveal my true heart: how hard it was to see the man I loved suffer so much, to be desperate for him to be free of pain, and to have given up hope for his recovery. I did not want him to suffer any longer: “Bless God and die.”
Job understood. But his words in response to me have also been twisted and misinterpreted. What you are missing is the tone of his voice and the look in his eyes. Unlike many men of my day, Job took only one wife, just me. He made a pledge to me at our engagement, to never look lustfully at another woman (31:1). He gave his heart to me alone. He was unwaveringly faithful, a man of total integrity. My husband cherished and admired me, loving me deeply, loving me well. And when my mouth opened and I spoke those hurtful words, my Job gathered me in his arms. He cradled my head in his blistered hands, catching my tears, stroking my hair, and said, “Oh wife of mine. You are talking like a foolish woman.” In his eyes I could hear him add, “Not like the strong, loving woman of God that I know.” He then reminded me, “Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?”
Eventually we made it through the uprooted hope and the heart-break, as we offered our tears and protests to God. As we whispered our laments in the night, more and more we received unlikely flashes of hope and faith. Hope would flash, like brilliant lightning in the storm, unexpectedly and momentarily allowing us to see the truth of God’s love and God’s plan. Recall for a moment a dark, stormy night when there is no light and suddenly it’s lit up – you can see the whole room, the person beside you, like it is mid-day. You can hear the thunder of those lightning strikes, those hope strikes, in my Job’s words. Let me read them for you:
It started as a longing, a distant rumble of “if only…” A far off realization of what is needed. Job cried, in 9:33 “If only there were someone to mediate between us (between God and him), someone to bring us together and remove God’s rod from me.” A flash of understanding came to us, that someone was needed to come and set things right between us and God, to bring reconciliation. Next, 13:15, “Though God slay me, yet will I hope in Him.” In a sea of despair and darkness, a flash of hope, a flash of trust. A flash of awareness that there is more to life than life. Job wondered, “If someone dies, will they live again?” and in answer came the flash of hope and truth: “I will wait for my renewal to come… Surely then you will count my steps, and not keep track of my sin. My offenses will be sealed up in a bag; you will cover over my sin.” (14:14-17) O how that began to replant hope in my heart!
As Job and I cried out, God poured out more hope, more understanding of the extent of His love: (16:19-20) “Even now my witness is in heaven, my advocate on high. My intercessor is my friend as my eyes pour out tears to God.” In the brilliant flashes of hope, we could see more and more clearly God’s ultimate plan, his plan to rescue, to save, to redeem the brokenness and injustices of this world. As you read earlier, my Job declared what was revealed, “I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end He will stand on the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my skin, I will see God! I myself will see Him; with my own eyes I will see Him.”
That hope was fulfilled. Job did see Him and I have seen Him, too. The one who redeemed us and will redeem you is the Christ. His name is Jesus. One day, if you hold onto God with hope, hold on with faith and trust, one day, you too will see him face to face. In the meantime, in the storm, offer to God your sadness, your mistakes, your regrets, offer your uprooted hope. And God’s Spirit will take you in his arms, and nail scarred hands will cradle your face and wipe away your tears. Your hope will be replanted to grow strong and true again. Hope does not disappoint… for our Redeemer lives! Amen.
There’s a hymn we sing in heaven; you usually just sing it at Easter time – but every day is Easter Day in God’s Kingdom. Sing it now, sing it to the Lord, sing it to one another. And in the future may you think of me and of others more kindly, with more grace, as God does.
Closing Song: “I Know that My Redeemer Lives”
(Inspired in part by a Women’s Bible Study blog “Let’s Dive In”, by “Snoodles”, July 2016)
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