TESTING 1,2,3

(Job 2:1-10 and Mark 10:2-16)

Do any of you have recurring dreams? I have a variety of them. One centers around waking up in a strange place and not knowing where I am or how to get home. Still another is where I am in a public place and find myself suddenly and quite unintentionally half-naked. But the ones that still haunt me most are school-related. Despite the fat that I am no longer a student in an academic setting, those dreams still haven’t faded for me.

My most prominent student dream is missing the test – not failing the test, but missing it all together. I wake up late and get to class, only to find the door locked and the teacher won’ let me in and so I get a zero on the test. Or occasionally I have a dream where someone goes back and re-averages my math or biology scores from high school and suddenly I am forced to go back and make up work from years ago. Do any of you ever have any dreams like these?

But none of these dreams, no matter how bad, could compare to the nightmare that Job was living. I bet he wished he could pinch himself and wake up. But there’s so much to the story that our reading today leaves out. So, I want to do a little review with you. We begin this man’s story by a scene where God is bragging on good old Job and telling what a faithful guy he is. Satan makes a bet with God that this faithful man will turn coat once all his good fortune and well being are removed. God takes the bet and Satan goes to work.

First, Satan kills all of Job’s livestock. Then he has his children die by one disaster or another. And finally, Satan covers Job in boils, great big, nasty, oozing sores. And yet, through all of this, Job does not turn his back on God. Now we see the wife’s response after all of this. She’s had enough. She can’t walk away from him. In those days, a woman wasn’t allowed to divorce a man. So she says to him, “Oy, Job, why don’t you curse God and die? I’ll collect the insurance money, start over…you’ll put us both out of our misery.” What a supportive wife, huh?

As if poor Job didn’t have enough on his plate with his wife resenting him and nothing more satisfying than a fragment of pottery with which to scratch his disgusting sores… Job has some “friends” who also come to visit him during his time of crisis. These friends, are old school, for you see, they believe in what scholars refer to as deuteronomistic theology, or a theology of retribution. In other words, if something bad happens to you, it’s because you did something bad to deserve it – not altogether unlike the Hindu belief in the laws of karma.

This belief is also illustrated in the popular TV show “My Name is Earl.” When I first heard of this show, I thought by the sound of the title it must be stupid. But one night, with little to do, I watched. It turns out the lead character, Earl, was a two bit hustler and con artist. He wins 100 grand in the lottery and is immediately hit by a car. He decides his karma is out of whack and needs a little work. So he makes a list of everyone he’s ever wronged and makes it his life mission to make amends to everyone on his list. …. The show is heart-warming, funny, silly, and usually has something redemptive in each episode.

Well Job’s friends tell him he needs to figure out how he’s offended God, make amends and things will get better. But Job’s not like Earl. He has no list. He’s wronged no one. He’s just sitting there in ashes, scratching his sores, still mourning the loss of his life as he knew it. Yet amidst this horrific and seeming capricious testing, he proves his metal. He remains faithful to God, despite the unsolicited advice to the contrary.

When you look at Job’s life and you see all that he went through, it really does seem unfair. It’s a hard story to read and understand how and why God lets all this happen to someone so faithful and good.

But we might ask the same question of all that Jesus went through. He was the son of God, perfect and without sin. Job was a really good and faithful guy, but he was no Jesus. And yet in our Gospel reading this morning we see that the Pharisees are at it again. This group of guys feels really threatened by Jesus. He’s constantly going around blowing holes in their theology of rigid legalism and they don’t like it one bit. So they conspire to entrap him get him in trouble, one way or another, so they can shut him up and resume life as normal (not unlike the motivation we saw in Job’s wife).

So in our reading this morning it says the Pharisees came, and to test him they asked him a question. Now we won’t deal with the precise content of the question, for that is material for a whole other sermon. But what I do want you to notice is that Jesus, the son of God, the great high priest, the lamb, the alpha and omega, was tested – over and over and over again. They quizzed him, harassed him, tried to throw him off a cliff, ran him out of town, beat him, entered false testimony against him, and finally they killed him.

Talk about unfair! He really never did anything to deserve any of that. And Jesus teaches us in another passage that the students aren’t any greater than the teacher…. Translation – if Jesus didn’t escape the trials and pitfalls of life, neither will we. Life is sometimes unfair to us. We are tested. We are tempted. We sit in desks as children and youth, but our learning and being tested has only just begun.

And the ways in which we are tested are so varied. Someone presents you with an opportunity to excel in a class or get a promotion at work by taking and claiming knowledge that is not your own…. The doctor comes in with the lab reports in his hands and says that it’s malignant and it’s matasticized…. The person who was always so kind and wonderful turns out to be the one who not only stabbed you in the back, but they twisted the knife as well…. Yours is the only house in the whole neighborhood that the tornado hit.

Okay, so the reality is that none of us is exempt from the test. Life can be hard and unfair. So where’s the good news? --- Well, it may not be the “yippee, let’s throw a party” kind of good news, but if you cling to it in those moments of darkness, I think you’ll find that it’s enough….. The good news is that Jesus knows what you’re going through. Jesus has suffered too. He’s been the victim of cruelty and tragedy…and he cares about you. He knows how you feel and feels I with you, because whether you’re aware of it or not, he’s right by your side.

The other piece of good news is that because Jesus suffered, died and was resurrected, he has conquered death…and evil will not get in the last word. No matter what you’re going through…it won’t get in the last word either. Cling to your faith, cling to your God and ride through the storm. We are tested, and sometimes we fall. But we have a savior who pulls us back up if we’ll let him and a God who is still in charge and will not fail us.

I’m sorry I can’t offer you a primrose path kid of message; but you’ve lived enough of life to know that if I did, I’d be lying. But I do hope you’ll take the good news home with you…. Jesus knows, Jesus cares, and Jesus is with you…. And nothing that you do or that ever happens to you will separate you from the love of God, which is steadfast and sure.

This is the Gospel. Thanks be to God.