"From Grief to Gold", a sermon delivered at Townsville Central City Mission, 13 October 2024

Job 23:1-10


Job is undergoing awful suffering. He has lost his family and his wealth. Three remaining so-called friends are telling him that it’s his own fault. He answers one of them. Like us in terrible situations, he is looking for answers from God, but can’t find Him or hear His voice. Still, despite all evidence to the contrary, Job is convinced that God is there somewhere and does know what Job is going through. We are reminded of the old chorus, “Standing somewhere in the shadows, you’ll find Jesus”.


Then Job replied:

“Even today my complaint is bitter;

his hand is heavy in spite of my groaning.

If only I knew where to find him;

if only I could go to his dwelling!

I would state my case before him

and fill my mouth with arguments.

I would find out what he would answer me,

and consider what he would say to me.

Would he vigorously oppose me?

No, he would not press charges against me.

There the upright can establish their innocence before him,

and there I would be delivered forever from my judge.

“But if I go to the east, he is not there;

if I go to the west, I do not find him.

When he is at work in the north, I do not see him;

when he turns to the south, I catch no glimpse of him.

But he knows the way that I take;

when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold.



The Lord be with you!


Let’s pray. 


Heavenly Father, we bow in your presence.

May your Word be our rule,

your Spirit our teacher,

and your greater glory our supreme concern,

through Jesus Christ our Lord.



You can probably tell just from looking at me, I’ve become very unfit in retirement. Thankyou for not saying anything. Not like Lorne, who runs past our house most days. And perhaps not so unfit as the man who went to a doctor and asked, “Doctor, can you give me something for my arthritis?” The doctor answered, “That’s not arthritis, you’ve got early onset rigor mortis”. The same doctor told that patient that he had to diet, cut down on alcohol, and join a gym. Sounds like my GP. “You’re a good Methodist” said the doctor, (actually, if he had been a good Methodist he wouldn’t have been drinking), “pray about it.” So the chap sought a word from the Lord, and received confirmation that his doctor’s advice was sound. He dutifully joined a gym and exercised there five times a week, adopted the CSIRO diet, and reduced his alcohol intake to a couple of glasses of red at the weekend. On his way out of the gym one day, he was hit by a truck. As he lay dying, he looked up to heaven and wailed, “God, I’ve done everything that you told me to do, why have you allowed this to happen?” From heaven, came God’s reply: “I’m sorry, I didn’t recognise you with all that weight off”.


Remind you of a bible reading you’ve just listened to? If you used last week’s Job reading, or if you’re familiar with the story from Jewish wisdom literature, you’ll know that Job was, King James puts it, an upright man. He even sacrificed when it wasn’t obvious that there was any sin to confess, just in case his family or he had inadvertently transgressed God’s laws. He was God’s poster boy. Did everything expected of him. Yet he fell into the hands of Satan, who piece by piece took everything away from him, his home and lands and livestock, his family, his health. Even his previous spotless reputation, his friends are telling him that his situation is his own fault, he must have sinned. The story and how it is repeated in lives today - perhaps even lives here, I don’t know your stories - is at the heart of Rabbi Harold Kushner’s classic work, When Bad Things Happen to Good People. And when those bad things happen, our first reactions are to ask why? Let’s track God down and find out why this is happening to me, or to a person or people whom I love dearly, let’s get an answer. Because the story of Job is not the particulars of the story of Job, it’s the story of every good person to whom bad things have happened. 


Job gets off to a bad start trying to find God so that he can (1) ask why this is happening to him, and (2) lay out a case that he doesn’t deserve what has happened. But he demonstrates great faith in kicking off the search in the first place. He knows enough about God from the time before these calamities, that he is convinced that God will give him a hearing, would not press charges against him. But he goes to all points of the globe, but can’t find God. Compare this with the psalmist in Ps 139:


Where can I go from your Spirit?

Where can I flee from your presence?

If I go up to the heavens, you are there;

if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

If I rise on the wings of the dawn,

if I settle on the far side of the sea,

even there your hand will guide me,

your right hand will hold me fast.

If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me

and the light become night around me,”

even the darkness will not be dark to you;

the night will shine like the day,

for darkness is as light to you.


This illustrates a problem with trying to map Job’s experience to every Christian’s. Because while it seems to some Christians - and non-Christians who turn to God for help in crises - a Jesuit colleague at Wesley Hospital when I was a chaplain there, called them “submarine Catholics”, they sail under the water, no-one knows that they’re Catholic, they might even have forgotten or deny it themselves, but disaster strikes, perhaps a terminal diagnosis, then they poke up their periscope and look around, surface for Mass and Confession and perhaps Anointing, then when the crisis is over, they dive again  - that God has abandoned them and can’t be found, yet others’ experience is that they just can’t get away from God. John Stott, Hound of Heaven, 


I fled him down the nights and down the days

I fled him down the arches of the years


But the hound of heaven tracked him all the way. That’s my experience. The lost sheep parable doesn’t feature a detective sheep finding the shepherd, but a shepherd who goes to extreme lengths to find and rescue his lost sheep. Similarly, I can’t identify with Job’s blamelessness, although on an intellectual level I understand his frustration that his dreadful bad fortune is undeserved. Because when bad things happen, have happened, to me, I know all too well that it’s my own fault. Of course, I still don’t want friends or loved ones to tell me what I know, I’d prefer that they maintain a tactful silence 😊


And what will Job say if/when he finds God? We get tongue tied, don’t know what to ask for, how to express ourselves when eventually we have an audience with God


Romans 8 - we don’t know what to ask for, how to pray, but the Spirit intercedes for us with groans that can’t be uttered. Our own groans, the very topic of our attempted prayer, are transformed by the Holy Spirit into a briefing note for the Father.


Today’s Hebrews reading: Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.


In the whole book, there are at least three instances of Job displaying great faith despite what has befallen him. One is that he sets off on this quest to find God in the first place, God’s apparent absence or unwillingness to be found notwithstanding. Another is the great resurrection statement of faith in chapter 19:


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.



And here in verse 10 of this chapter 21:


But he knows the way that I take;

when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold.


Sometimes that’s all that we can take from what’s happening to us or to someone we love. It might not be enough, but it’s enough to hold on to for now, until the grief gives way to the gold.


Hebrews again: For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathise with our weaknesses. 


He knows the way that we take.


Wisdom 3:

But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God,
and no torment will ever touch them.

In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died,
and their departure was thought to be a disaster, and their going from us to be their destruction;
but they are at peace.

Their hope is full of immortality, they will receive great good,
because God tested them and found them worthy of himself;
like gold in the furnace he tried them,
and like a sacrificial burnt-offering he accepted them.

Those who trust in him will understand truth,
and the faithful will abide with him in love,
because grace and mercy are upon his holy ones,
and he watches over his elect.


+In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit


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