10-17-2021 “How Fragile We Are” ~ Pentecost XXI Job 38:1-7, 34-41

Dr. John Tamilio III, Pastor

Many of you know I spent my latter teenage years and my early twenties playing in a band. I still do, from time to time. Ever since I can remember, I have been a huge music fan. My parents had one of those massive cabinets in the living room that had a record player and an AM/FM radio built into it. I would listen to albums that my older siblings would buy: everything from the Carpenters to Kiss.

Over time, I purchased my own records — and, to this day, I am a total audiophile. I listen to everything from classical music to hard rock and everything in between, except country music. (I’m sorry, but I just cannot get into it. I can only listen to so many songs about drinking beer, losing one’s girlfriend, and having a truck that won’t start.)

I am particularly fond of singer-songwriters who make the world come alive with their words. Maybe it’s the poet in me. I can listen for hours-on-end to Bob Dylan, James Taylor, Neil Young, and a host of others. I also love Sting (AKA Gordon Sumner) who was the lead singer and bassist for the British ‘80s pop group The Police. I like Sting’s solo music better than anything else he recorded. It is more intense, more profound.

In 1987, he released his second solo album: Nothing Like the Sun, the title an allusion to Shakespeare’s 130^th Sonnet. On that album is a song called “Fragile,” a beautiful, sonorous ballad played mostly on the classical guitar. The chorus is gripping:

On and on, the rain will fall

Like tears from a star

One and on, the rain will say

How fragile we are

We are fragile. Although I know this, it really hit home for me over the past couple of weeks. As you know, my wife Cindy and I had the Coronavirus. We were both vaccinated. In fact, Cindy had the booster shot. We can only imagine how sick we would have been had we not been vaccinated. It staggers me that a microscopic virus can pack that much of a punch.

We’re lucky. My symptoms were a low-grade fever, chills, and achy joints. Cindy’s symptoms were similar. On one of my first nights with the virus, I laid in bed and prayed for God’s will to be done. No, I did not think that my life was at risk or anything like that, but who knows: who knows how bad it could have been. So far, there have been 44,518,018 cases in the United States with 716,370 deaths. Those numbers are on the rise. And this is just one of the many diseases that plague humanity. What about cancer, heart disease, and diabetes? What about Parkinson’s Disease, Alzheimer’s, and MS? When you add to the equation that anyone of us could be the victim of a random act of violence or could end up in the wake of a natural disaster at any time, it’s enough to make you despair.

At times we feel like Job in today’s Hebrew Bible Lesson. He is at his wits end. He can no longer tolerate his suffering and the fact that his friends are blaming him for what’s happening. He calls God to the carpet because he wants God to justify himself. God appears out of the whirlwind and turns the tables. He commands Job to answer him.

“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone — while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?”

The questions continue. In the end, Job does not know what to say. He responds to God by simply saying, “Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know” (42:3b). Job’s fortunes are restored. All’s well that ends well, to coin a different title from Shakespeare. (I guess I’m in the mood to quote the Bard today.)

One of the overarching themes to Job’s story comes much earlier in his story. At the end of chapter one, Job, in the midst of his misery, declares,

“Naked I came from my mother’s womb,

and naked I will depart.

The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away;

may the name of the Lord be praised.”

He maintains this faith until the end of his story.

To have such faith! How many of us have this much faith? I am so moved at what Job says right in the middle of his story:

“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 flesh, I will see God;

I myself will see him

with my own eyes—I, and not another.”

But we (you and I) can have this faith. Here’s the secret: it isn’t something that we have to achieve on our own. (I am not even sure that we can.) However, it is available for the asking. If we turn to God in prayer on a regular basis and genuinely implore him to plant in us an unwavering faith that will sustain us in good times and bad, God will give us what we need. As we recorded in Mark 9:24, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”

The skeptic might say, “Yeah, right. Sounds like wishful thinking to me.” Or someone less skeptical might say, “I’ve tried this, but it just doesn’t work. I still feel alone in a silent universe.” Fair enough. But here’s the thing: this is not about you really doing anything except surrendering — allowing God to fill your heart and soul to inform, reform, and transform you. If we allow God into our hearts and souls, he will show up. As Jesus said, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened” (Matthew 7:7-8).

We are fragile. Incredibly fragile. But we need not worry. In Luke 12:27, Jesus says, “Consider how the wildflowers grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.” Jesus also said, “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” (Matthew 6:26). The question is rhetorical: we are worth more. The Psalmist writes, “Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings” (17:8). We are the apple of God’s eye, as cliché as that sounds. We were created out of love to be in a loving relationship with God. All we have to do is say, “Yes!” and let God do the rest. And…he will. Amen.