“Job said to God, ‘Do something!’ God said to Job, ‘I did. I created you.’ It’s up to us. Here. Now.” Proper 7B St John’s Wilson, St Andrew’s, Burt June 24, 2018

+In our first reading this morning God is responding to the long lament of poor ol’ Job. What I find interesting is that
nowhere in God’s FOUR CHAPTER response does he say to Job, “I’m sorry” nor does God explain why such horror befell Job. Instead, God’s response is more along the lines of “I’m God. You’re not.” Period. But I don’t think God’s being dismissive—-I think God is saying to Job…and to us…. you are one speck, one moment in the history of all things. I have created everything that has been and everything that will be. Don’t worry about my motivation, worry about yours.
OK let me explain.
I don’t know about you, but for the past week I’ve struggled, feeling helpless and hopeless regarding the fate of immigrant children on our border. Now let me be clear—I’m not wanting to engage in a policy debate.
But as the Bishop of Washington DC, Mariann Budde wrote this week:
This is not a partisan issue that divides us. It is a moral concern that unites us as Americans, as people of faith, and especially for those of us who follow Jesus.
Our faith implores us. It demands of us, it expects of us that we never…and I mean NEVER… sit idly by while one of God’s children is in anyway demeaned, disrespected, or dismissed.
If anyone sitting here today could listen to the recordings of those children calling out for their mamas and papas, if anyone sitting here today could watch video of children in cages without any familiar loving adult with them and not be sick to your stomach, heartbroken, outraged, despondent and felled to your knees in prayer, then you may need to do an assessment of your soul.
It’s easy to say, I didn’t vote for him
It’s easy to say, the media has blown this all out of proportion.
It’s easy to say, these laws have been in the books for a while, this President is just implementing them.
It’s easy to say that the actions of the government are out of our control.
It’s easy to be like the disciples in this morning’s Gospel and just sit back horrified and terrified waiting for Jesus to do something.
But that’s not how it works.
We have a role to play in this.
Yes, we must pray.
But prayer without action is, as St Paul tells us, a clanging cymbal, a noisy gong signifying nothing.
My friends, we must act.
As followers of Jesus Christ we must seek and serve Him in all persons, loving our neighbor as our self. We must strive for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of every human being. These promises that we make in our Baptismal covenant mean that we cannot sit idly by while our government participates in state sponsored, taxpayer funded child abuse. When we hear children crying for their mothers, when we see these children in cages, when our own President echoes the words of the Third Reich saying that these immigrants, these refugees, these children will “infest our country,” we better do something.
You see it is fine and good to pray to God to stop this insanity but guess what? It can’t stop there. We have a role to play too. It’s the point God is making with Job.
God has created everything and everyone.
Including us.
God created us. With our brains and our passion, with our free will and with our faith.
God created us to have dominion over the earth.
Jesus tells us to go and make disciples, to seek and serve him in all that we do.
The Holy Spirit was bestowed upon us to give us the strength and the motivation and the courage to do the work that we’ve been given to do.
And what is that work? To love as we have been loved.
To speak up for the voiceless
To stand up for the downtrodden
To love as we have been loved.
What is this work we’ve been given to do?
To be afraid but then to go forward anyway.
To have faith that God will be with us as we do this work.
It’s not our job to shake our heads and say, what a shame.
It’s our job to raise our voices, saying “there must be another way. A better way. A loving way.’
Job says to God do something.
God says to Job, I did. I created you.
You do something.
It’s up to us my friends. Here and Now.
It’s not over, it is clear that our country is full of intolerance and hate. It’s full of fear and trembling. It’s full of despair and despondency.
And this week it seems to be a country where somehow it seemed ok to use children as pawns in a political debate.
In this country at this time, we are putting children, alone and afraid, ripped from their parent’s arms, in cages.
In the name of God let us do something.
Because God didn’t create us to be spectators God created us to be participants.
In the name of all that is holy, in the name of our redeeming sustaining and ever-loving God we must make sure that hate never wins, that hope is never lost and that Love in all its forms reigns supreme. Amen.