Journey to the Center of the Universe Job 38:1-10, 33-36, I Corinthians 2:1-10

This may come as a shock to you,
then again maybe not.
You are not the center of the universe.
You’re not even close.
That’s hard news to start a morning with but it must be said;
otherwise, we end up like Job.
Even worse, we end up like Job’s three so-called friends.

Now, this is tricky.
The fact that Job IS the central character of the story
makes him SEEM like the center of the universe.
He is the representative human being, after all,
the man whose reputation is so spotless
and whose integrity is so above reproach
that he is God’s darling and the Accuser’s gadfly.
In that great imagined scene in God’s throne room
the Accuser wonders aloud if Job’s good behavior might not be just an act
calculated to keep him on the receiving end of God’s blessings
If the blessings were to stop,
if Job were to suffer loss instead of experiencing gain;
if he were to get a nasty, disfiguring, chronic skin condition
instead of walking around the picture of health,
then he would surely crumble like a week-old birthday cake.
The Accuser proposes a test of Job’s integrity,
and God, aware of the stakes if the Accuser is right, goes along.

But Job is NOT the center of the universe,
nor are his three snarky friends who visit him
and try to convince him to just admit he’s done SOMETHING to deserve
losing his land, his ten children, his livestock and his health.
For THIRTY-FIVE CHAPTERS they go around and around –
the visitors accusing Job of a cover-up
and Job lobbying for a chance to present his case to God,
asserting his innocence and crying for justice!

FINALLY, in chapter 38, God appears to Job in a whirlwind
and invites Job to “gird up his loins like a man”
Now, even this opening address by God
makes Job appear to be the center of the universe.
The King is giving an audience to the lowly subject;
the Creator’s behavior appears to have been modified by the creature.
But, the fact God appears to Job is not to be taken as a sign of God’s weakness
and Job’s power.
instead, God comes to Job as an act of sheer grace.
God appears to Job NOT to answer Job’s complaint,
but to let Job know that, good as Job is, he is NOT the center of the universe.
He’s not even close.

I hope that at some time in your life
you have felt like the center of someone’s universe.
I hope you have felt the complete and unconditional affection of a Mom or Dad,
or that you have been the focus of unbridled love by someone you love back.
But as good as that feels
and as important as it is to have that experience,
it’s not a place to linger.
Being at the center of the universe for too long can be crippling.
You’ve seen parents who make their children the center of the universe –
either spoiling them with every advantage
or grinding them down with demands for perfection.
You’ve seen boyfriends or girlfriends who make their loved one the center
and end up either smothering them with too much attention
or jailing them with jealousy.

But the worst part about seeing yourself as the center of the universe
is that it begins to feel like you’re performing a gymnastics routine at the Olympics.
It seems like everything you do is judged,
and based on your performance you are either rewarded or punished;
and, in turn, you begin to look at every relationship
in terms of whether it makes you look good or bad,
whether it provides you with a net gain or a net loss.

Job and his friends had an understanding of God
such that they saw themselves as the focus of God’s attention’
they were the center of God’s universe.
They believed that everything they did was evaluated by God
and that if they were prosperous it was a sign of God’s approval
and if they suffered it was a sign of God’s displeasure.
The three friends believed that since Job was suffering it was because he had sinned –
somewhere along the way he had messed up, whether he knew it or not.
Job, on the other hand, was confident of his innocence,
so he demanded an audience with God to present his case.
Around and around they went for thirty five chapters,
until finally, in chapter thirty-eight, God has had enough.
God appears to Job in the whirlwind and says, “Guess what,
You are NOT the center of the universe, not even close.”

“Where were you when the foundations of the earth were laid?
“Where were you when the bars were put on the sea?”
Can you throw a lightening bolt?”

The thing we get hung up on is the same thing Job and his friends got hung up on.
We’ve got the steering wheel and we’re gripping it tight
and we’re spinning it first left and then right imagining ourselves to be in control.
But we might as well be holding a pot lid.
We’re only kidding ourselves.
The steering wheel is only a toy.
God is the one driving the world, not us.
God is the center of the universe, not us.
But that doesn’t mean we can just sit back and do nothing.
There’s plenty for us to do.

It’s like when I was a boy and I would go every summer with my family on vacation
riding four hours to Myrtle Beach, S.C. in the middle of July with no air conditioning.
I was the youngest, so I always had to sit on the hump in the middle in the back
squeezed between my older brother and sister.
Dad was driving so I didn’t have to worry about which road to take
or whether we needed to stop for gas. He took care of that.
But if all I thought about was how hot it was, or how unfair it was
that I always had to sit in the middle on that hump;
if we bickered about which radio station to listen to
or made fun of each other or just picked on each other out of meanness,
the trip was nearly unbearable.
But if we played the alphabet game or kept a list of different license plates
or played road sign bingo the time flew by and the trip wasn’t nearly so bad.

Job and his friends spend thirty-five chapters
debating driving techniques and rules of the road
when they’re not even the ones driving.
It’s no wonder that in Chapter 38 God sounds like God’s patience has run a tad thin.

Each week of the past two weeks, Job has presented us with a question.
The question Job raises for us today is this:
What would it mean for me if I were to accept
that life is not a series of rewards and punishments?
What if I acknowledged instead that life itself is a gift from God.
And there is to life an undercurrent of grace
and that undercurrent is always there whether I feel it or not,
whether I’m employed or not,
whether I’m in pain or not.

Paul knew that he was not the center of the universe for his Corinthian friends.
I’m paraphrasing here, but what Paul basically said is this:
“I didn’t come to you trying to impress you with my speaking ability,
or my book-learning,
or my physical appearance.
I didn’t come pretending to be the center of your universe.
But I DID come to help direct you to the Center of the Universe,
that is, God, who is known to us through Jesus.

If you’re looking to avoid suffering, Jesus is not your guy.
If you’re thinking you can scam the system, rig your life somehow
so that you have only good and not bad.
Jesus is not the way.”
What Job finally found out after thirty-seven chapters
and what Paul suddenly saw on the road to Damascus
is that while we are indeed very special to God,
special enough for God to appear out of the whirlwind to Job,
special enough for God to become human in Jesus,
in fact, God is in charge. God is in the driver’s seat.
and you and I are in for one sweet and bumpy ride.