240623 Sermon on lamenting to God (Pentecost 5) June 23, 2024

Audio recording 

Sermon manuscript:

“When I am weak, then I am strong.”

“Don’t you care that we are dying?”
That’s what the disciples said. The wind was too strong. The waves were too
high. Some of them were probably trying to use anything they could find to bail
out the boat. They were fighting for their lives. What was Jesus doing? Sleeping.
Didn’t he care?

Our Old Testament reading is from the book of Job. Job had
been a very good man. He loved his family. He prayed for his kids every day.
Then his life became miserable. His property was destroyed. His children were
killed. He lost his health. Most of the book of Job is made up of conversations
between Job and his friends. They discussed how God could do this to poor Job.
Didn’t God care?

In both of these situations you can tell that there were
some pretty raw emotions. When the disciples said, “Don’t
you care that we are dying?” they were yelling so as to be heard above
the wind and the waves. Job, also, in his discussions, said stuff like, “Why did you do this to me God?” and “I wish I had never been born.” They were fighting with
God.

Fighting with God doesn’t seem like it should be a good
idea, but this is one of many instances having to do with our relationship with
God when we should not be led by our reason. We should let our reason take the
lead with many things in life, but not with our relationship with God. Our
reason has a surprising amount to say about the topic of God. We naturally have
ideas about how things should be, how God should be, what he should do. Our
reason says that God should act in such a way where we don’t ever have to fight
with him. If we are fighting with him, then things must be really bad, our
reason says.

The Scriptures speak differently. The greatest figures in
the Bible struggle mightily with God. Think of Abraham. God commanded Abraham
to sacrifice his son, his only son, Isaac, whom he loved. What a fight Abraham must
have had!

Think of Abraham’s grandson, Jacob. One night Jacob was at
the lowest point in his life. He was pretty sure that at least half of his
family was going to be annihilated the next day by his brother Esau and his men.
Then, in the middle of the night, a strange man shows up out of nowhere so that
Jacob had to fight for his life. This was God. And God played kind of dirty—he
popped Jacob’s hip out of joint so that he walked with a limp the rest of his
life. Jacob, though—that wonderful man—wouldn’t let God go until God blessed
him. And God did bless him. God gave him his new name of “Israel,” which means
“wrestler with God.” The people of God in the Old Testament came to be called
by this name, Israel, which means “wrestler with God.”

There are almost countless other examples I could give you.
Wrestling—fighting—with God is not forbidden. In fact, it seem to be how we
grow. But it’s hard. It’s deeply unpleasant. We don’t want God to act in such a
way where we have to wrestle with him. We want what those disciples undoubtedly
wanted. We want smooth sailing forever. Each day should be better than the one
before. But then suddenly, out of nowhere, a great windstorm arises and you are
in a fight for your life.

What are you going to say about that when that happens? Is
it just bad luck? Has the wheel of fortune landed on bankrupt? Does God exist?
Would a good and omnipotent God do such awful things? These are the kinds of
thoughts that our reason comes up with in order to avoid fighting with God. We
want a nice life, and if God isn’t going to help us have a nice life, then be
done with him.

But this is the worst thing that we can do. Even with human
relationships, the lowest point is not when there is fighting and wrestling.
The lowest point is when the person despises the other, won’t have anything to
do with them. There’s no fighting. There’s no heart-to-heart. The best to be
hoped for is polite chit-chat.

There is a way to have a kind of spiritual chit-chat with
God, too. The politeness reveals something terrible—a huge distance between the
person and God. God never commands us to be polite with him, nor do the
examples from the Scriptures bear that out. The disciples were not polite with
Jesus. They screamed at him: “Don’t you care that we
are dying!” And Job too: “I wish that I had
never been born. I wish I had died while I was still in my mother’s womb.”
Those are ugly thoughts. They are accusatory too. “It’s your fault, God!” “Why did
you do this?”

The many examples of the greatest figures in the Bible give
us permission to open our hearts to God and let him have it. This is called
lamentation. We have a book of the Bible that’s called Lamentations. We have
psalms of lament. King David, the greatest of the psalmists, composed the
saddest songs. He said stuff like, “God, why won’t you
answer me?” and “Why have you forsaken me?”
and “Turn away from your fierce anger and be merciful
to me!”

One of the benefits of using the Psalms is that they teach
us a much larger vocabulary for our prayers and praises. Our vocabulary is very
often limited because our reason tells us we need to be polite. I could imagine
that God might get sick of all this politeness, just like we get sick of the
cold politeness we receive. God wants our heart. The greatest commandment is
that we should love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, strength, and
mind, and that we should love our neighbor as ourselves. We need to open
ourselves up to him. Tell him what you really think. And that might mean that
you will wrestle with him and fight with him.

And what can we expect to happen when we wrestle with God?
Our reason is very interested in this question. We want what’s best for us, and
so will this wrestling and fighting business make us better off? The answer is
that we will be better off, but not the way we would expect. We expect that we
will become stronger, but what the examples from the Scriptures reveal is that
we will become weaker.

Jacob, for the rest of his days, walked with a limp. Job
finished up his conversation with God by saying, “Therefore
I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” Consider the words that
Jesus spoke in our Gospel reading. He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?” Maybe
before this ordeal they thought that they were doing pretty well, that they had
a strong faith. After wrestling with God they discover that they had no faith
at all.

Why should a person enter into a contest with God if it is
only going to reveal one’s own weakness, helplessness, faithlessness, and so
on? A person should do that because of this wonderful saying from St. Paul with
which we began. He said, “When I am weak, then I am
strong.” Paul knew that when he was weak then he was strong because God
had said to him, “Don’t worry about your failings. My grace
is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

It’s God’s power that we want and need, not our own power.
When I feel good or strong or righteous or whatever, that doesn’t mean
that I really am those things. A windstorm could show up out of nowhere,
and prove that to me. When I am weak, however, when I’m not relying upon
myself, when I’m placing all my trust and hope in Jesus, then I am strong—even
infinitely so, because Jesus is infinitely strong.

We see this play out in a wonderful way in our Gospel
reading today. The disciples’ wrestling match with God—the disciple’s wrestling
match with God’s wind and God’s waves—revealed that they were not as strong as
they thought they were. Their terror during the ordeal revealed that their
faith wasn’t as resilient as they thought it was.

But what does any of that matter? We don’t save ourselves by
our own strength, nor do we save ourselves by our estimation of our own faith.
Jesus saves! And through this experience the disciples were turned away from
themselves and became completely captivated with Jesus. They tinkle with fear
and say, “Who is this that even the wind and the sea
obey him?” That is the spot to be in.

I know that for some of you terrible windstorms have come
upon you. Out of nowhere the smooth sailing is over. Learn from the Scriptures what
to do. The Bible teaches us a different way, as we have talked about today. Open
your heart to the God who has wounded you. That takes a lot of courage! Don’t
let him go until he gives you a blessing, and you will be blessed. As David
says in Psalm 51, “The bones that God has broken will
rejoice.”

“Cast all your anxieties on him,
because he cares for you.” Amen.