The Scripture Readings this week are:
- Job 37:14-24
- Psalm 104:24-32
The Sermon title is Can We Understand It All?
Early Thoughts: Sometimes we need to be a little bit humble. Humanity, as a whole, understands a whole lot about physics, chemistry, and biology. We know a great deal about how the world works. We don't know or understand everything -- not even those people who are at the top of those scientific fields claim to know or understand everything. Those of us making do with high school science classes or maybe some post-secondary science can certainly not claim to know how the universe works.
Humility is a good thing.
Which is what led me to look at Job for this week. Job is a strange book, but one which pushes us to consider some pretty deep questions. Certainly, and for some very obvious reasons, it is often used to get into questions of justice and fairness and "why bad things happen to good people?". But I also think as the text pushes forward it raises questions about humility.
The section we are reading this week comes from the end of one of the speeches of Job's so-called friends and supporters (personally I don't find them to be all that supportive to Job). As Elihu draws his soliloquy to a close he pushes Job to consider that he can not know or comprehend the full mind of God. Job can not know how the world God has created works because God's majesty is so far beyond our existence. Interesting theology of nature perhaps, and not one I totally agree with but it raises some interesting questions, particularly given what comes next...
In the next chapters, starting literally the verse after this reading, God finally shows up to respond to Job's complaints and accusations. Speaking out of a whirlwind God asks Job a series of questions and issues a series of challenges about Job's level of knowledge and control over the way the world was created, the way the world works. (There are multiple sections from these chapters that I could have chosen to use this week instead of the words of Elihu.) By the beginning of chapter 42 Job responds in humility, humbled before the majesty of God.
In context both Elihu's words and God's response out of the whirlwind are not really about eco-theological concerns. They are about recognizing the God who is in control and in charge. However I have come to think that humility and being willing to say "we don't know how that works" or "we don't really know how to do that" or (to re-purposes some words of Hamlet) "There are more things in heaven and earth...than are dreamt of in [our] philosophy".
We want to know it all. We want to understand it all. Humans are, and I suspect have always been an inquisitive and curious species. We also tend to be a little bit proud. Sometimes a little knowledge is indeed a dangerous thing. We might start to think we have all the answers. We don't. Interestingly I find that often the people with the most knowledge and understanding are more likely to be the ones who admit there are limits to what we know and understand (and that limit keeps changing as time goes by). Some of the people most insistent that we have all the answers are the ones who have limited direct experience in the field -- take the furor over a certain Olympic boxer this summer and questions around gender as an example.
In the most recent United Church faith statement A Song of Faith God is repeatedly referred to as Holy Mystery. I remember talking to someone whose (either agnostic or atheist) son was a physicist, working at a high-level. The son told his father that beyond a certain point they could not explain how things worked, it was a mystery. Faith and science agree that there are things (they may not always agree on what things) that can not be explained. We have to be humble enough to accept the mystery (at least temporarily -- science and curiosity will continue to explore and search for answers) and trust that there is meaning in it.
HOw do we live with the reality that we don't, or possibly can't, know everything about the world? First are we willing to admit it? Then how do we live in the uncertainty? As people of faith I think part of the answer is trust. Part of the answer is trust in the God who has created and is creating both to continue to reveal the world to humanity and to be at work in the world around us. After all God loves the world that God calls good (and yes that is a faith statement, not a scientifically provable claim).
--Gord
No comments:
Post a Comment