Proper 25

The movie Rudy (which I highly recommend) is based on the true story of a young man named Daniel “Rudy” Ruettiger. Rudy lives in Joliet, IL in the late 1960s and dreams of playing football at Notre Dame, but lacks the grades and money to attend, and the talent and physical stature to play major college football. So the five-foot-six, 165 pound Rudy enlists a caring priest as his spiritual advisor, who helps him enroll in nearby Holy Cross College. The priest hurts for Rudy, and wants very much for his prayers to be answered.

At one point, Rudy has run out of options. He’s desperate. And so he goes and sits in church. The priest sees Rudy sitting in a pew and approaches him.

“Taking your appeal to a higher court?”

Rudy replies, “I’m desperate. If I don’t get in next semester, it’s over. I’m done. Notre Dame doesn’t accept senior transfers.”

“Well, you’ve done a hell of a job, kid, chasing down your dreams.”

“Who cares what kind of job I did? If it doesn’t produce results, it doesn’t mean anything.”

The priest looks at Rudy kindly. “I think you’ll discover that it will.”

“Maybe I haven’t prayed enough,” Rudy replies.

“I’m sure that’s not the problem. Praying is something we do in our time. The answers come in God’s time.”

“Have I done everything I possibly can? Can you help me?” Rudy asks.

The priest smiles and says, “In 35 years of religious studies, I’ve come up with only two hard, incontrovertible facts: there is a God, and I’m not Him.”

Here’s an educated man, a priest who has spent his life in service to God. What kind of answer can he give people who want to know about the Lord? “There is a God, and I’m not Him.”

If we were to ask Job what he knows about the Lord, I suspect this would also be his answer: “I know there is a God, and I’m not Him.”

After many chapters of wrangling with his wife, his friends, and God, Job learned to re-submit his life to God’s sovereign rule.

Actress Marilu Henner once said, “The key to life is how well you deal with Plan B.”

Most of us have a Plan A in mind for our lives. We have a road map for our own success and happiness. At 22, I’ll graduate from a top-notch university. At 25, I’ll be happily married to an attractive, intelligent spouse. By 35, I’ll have two perfect children and a dog that never makes messes in the house. By 40, I’ll be vice president at my firm. By 60, I’ll retire and travel around the world. I’ll always be healthy, vigorous, and financially secure.

But what happens when Plan A falls apart?

What did Job do when his life fell apart, when the road map for a great life suddenly took a savage detour? He questioned God. He listened to God’s answer. And then Job re-submitted his life to God’s sovereign care.

“My ears had heard of you,” Job said, “but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.”

In today’s Lesson, Job is recognizing his humility before the Everlasting God. He is saying, “Before I saw You, I thought I had all the answers. I thought I could stand in judgment of Your ways. But now that I have seen You, I repent, I ask for mercy. And I return control of my life to You and to Your plan.”

This is the sum and substance of the believers’ response to pain and suffering. We turn control of our lives over to God.

Sheila Walsh is a Christian author and singer.  Although she counseled numerous people, Walsh did not share her troubles with others. Finally, after years of inner turmoil, Walsh checked herself in to a psychiatric hospital and got some help. In an interview, Walsh remarks about that time in her life, “. . . the greatest thing I discovered . . . is [that] sometimes some of God’s most precious gifts come in packets that make your hands bleed when you open them, but inside that’s what you’ve been longing for all your life – to be fully known and fully loved.”

Have your hands bled lately? Has your heart? Has a friend betrayed you? Has a loved one left? Are you facing an uncertain future? All you can see is that the perfect plan for your life has crumbled like a house of cards. But is there some joy hiding there in the pain? Can God’s grace reach you even in your darkest hour?

Violinist Itzhak Perlman was performing at Lincoln Center when one of his violin strings broke. He continued to play, improvising new arrangements of the music to avoid the one broken string. The concert was a huge success. Afterwards, Perlman commented, “Sometimes it is the artist’s task to find out how much music you can still make with what you have left.”

So your Plan A didn’t work out. Are you going to reject God? Are you going to turn inward in self-pity? Or are you going to improvise a new arrangement for your life? Are you going to re-submit your life to God’s control and find out how much music you can still make with what you have left?

After Job had prayed for his friends, the Lord made him prosperous again and gave him twice as much as he had before. All his brothers and sisters and everyone who had known him before came and ate with him in his house. They comforted and consoled him over all the trouble the Lord had brought upon him, and each one gave him a piece of silver and a gold ring. After this, Job lived a hundred and forty years; he saw his children and their children to the fourth generation. And so he died, old and full of years (42:10-11).

Note that verse 12 reads, “The Lord blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the first.” How exactly could that be? It says in Job 1, that Job “was the greatest man among all the peoples of the East.” In the beginning, Job lost 7,000 sheep. God returned to him 14,000. Job started out with five hundred donkeys. Now he has one thousand. We can do the math.

But is the author of Job referring to material blessings? I doubt it. No amount of wealth can make up for the loss of Job’s children, the critical attitude of his closest friends, and the neglect by his community when he needed them the most.

So how did God bless Job? The biblical author doesn’t tell us, but we can gather a lesson from all those down through history who have suffered sudden, senseless, and savage losses. Nothing else prepares the heart for true joy like the power of suffering. Nothing else opens up the mind to new horizons, nothing else sets our minds on eternity like the presence of pain. The blessings God bestowed in the second half of Job’s life were joy, peace, assurance, and strength. These are the spiritual blessings that come through weathering a storm in the presence of God.

A few years ago, a car accident claimed the lives of Gerald Sittser’s wife and one child. Sittser was left to raise his other three children alone. He claims that his grief has driven him closer to God. He cherishes every day, and sees beauty in the most common things. He writes, “I still want (my family) back, and I always will, no matter what happens as a result of their deaths. Yet the grief I feel is sweet as well as bitter . . . Never have I felt so broken; yet never have I been so whole . . . My soul has been stretched. Above all, I have become aware of the power of God’s grace and my need for it.”

When we suffer, invariably, if we open ourselves up to the Almighty, we will discover God in a fresh and wonderful way. Have faith in the extravagance of God’s abundant love and mercy. For God’s grace is a gift. And through Jesus, we are offered that gift in a free pass, for all of eternity.

We all have storms once in a while. But remember: God’s love and mercy can overcome any storm, even a perfect storm. And God’s unexpected forgiveness and grace can turn any storm-tossed life into a rainbow of beauty, truth, and goodness. You can’t plan it, achieve it, order it, or make it happen. Just repent, and trust the giver.