A sermon on Job 40:6-8, 41:1-4
by Rev. Chris Bohnhoff
Will you pray with me? Creator God, it’s easy to give thanks for all the beings that sustain and enrich us: the plants and animals that feed us, the flowers and majestic creatures who gift us with their beauty, the waters that make life possible. It’s the parts of your creation that destroy that we need some help with: the animals who think of us as food, the landscapes that encroach on our best-laid plans, the unknown chaos of the wilds. Help us cultivate right relationship with all your creation, especially the corners that we fear. Amen.
My childhood obsession with downhill skiing began in an unlikely place. Not in the mountains, not watching the Olympics. It all started on drives to see my grandparents in the flatlands of southern Minnesota – drives that took us down I-35 past Buck Hill. From the highway, skiing looked like the coolest, most graceful, most exciting thing I could imagine doing. But my parents didn’t ski, so neither did I.
Throughout my teenage years, starting early in junior high, to feed my skiing obsession, instead of actually skiing, I subscribed to skiing magazines and sent away for information from all the big ski resorts in the Rockies: Sun Valley, Vail, Big Sky, Heavenly. Even their names were exciting! I would spend hours reading how to make the perfect turn, stare at trail maps, and dream of powder bowls and glade runs.
Then a small miracle happened: a few times each winter, my junior high ran skiing field trips. Since it was the ‘80s, sending unsupervised twelve-year-olds who didn’t know how to ski out on the slopes was a perfectly reasonable thing to do! With a bare minimum of instruction, I finally got to live my dream. The ski hill was my playground, the stage where I would become the daring, agile, graceful, powerful skier I imagined.
Turns out, skiing is not as easy as it looks in a magazine, especially on rental skis made in 1982. But I made progress past the snowplow turn, even if it came with the occasional spectacular wipeout.
Then came a special field trip to Spirit Mountain in Duluth. I was so excited to go to a bigger playground to live out my skiing dreams. The day of the trip was one of those classic, deep winter days: sunny, wind gusting up to 30 mph, with a high of zero degrees. The slopes that day were wind-scoured skating rinks. I didn’t turn down the green runs that morning, I skidded.
After lunch, though, we mustered up our courage and set off for a blue intermediate run. About a third of the way down it was clear how big a mistake we had made. The next second I saw the woods at the side of the run coming at me way too fast and I bailed, hoping that my body would somehow stop in time if it weren’t upright. Too late. My momentum carried me off the trail and into the woods.
I looked up from where I finally stopped. I saw that I had somehow threaded my way between a few big trees. That was the good news. The bad news: I couldn’t get up. Somewhere in the tangle of limbs and skis I had banged my knee, and it wasn’t working. I have no idea how long I laid there, but eventually my friend looked over the edge of the trail and found me. He asked if I needed the ski patrol and I said yeah, and the snow cat brought me back to the lodge. The next day the doctor removed an impressive amount of fluid that had pooled in my knee joint and I healed up, a little more respectful of gravity and the elements.
Anybody who has camped, skied, gardened, or really done anything in the natural world can attest that as much as we would like to deny it, we’re not the ones calling the shots when we’re out in the natural world. It’s not only what we think that often determines the course of our lives; it’s also the infinite complexity of weather patterns and the unpredictability resulting from sharing space with all the world’s beings and their competing priorities.
But even though our bodies know our powerlessness compared to the natural world, our brains love the challenge of ratcheting up our sense of control. Our advanced traction systems tame the snow and ice, our layers of insulation defeat the cold, our cooling systems conquer the heat, and our weapons protect us from the wild creatures. It’s enough to tempt us into thinking that if we have enough – enough gear, enough knowledge, even enough faith – that we will be enough to finally be safe.
The Book of Job tells the story of a good man suddenly hit with tragedy after tragedy. He loses his business, his family, his health, everything. His friends come to him, first to comfort him, then to accuse him in every possible way of having done something that made God angry. Otherwise, why would he be in such suffering? In response to every attach, Job responds that he has led a good life, that he’s been kind, truthful, helpful to the poor, a devout follower of God. He has done everything God and the world asked of him. Finally, after being badgered mercilessly by his friends that he is to blame, Job breaks and tells them, ‘You know what? I wish I could debate God because I would win! I haven’t done anything to deserve this suffering.’ Then God comes to Job and says, in effect, Oh, you think you know how the natural world works? You know the rules of life on earth? Let’s talk about the Leviathan.
Leviathan: the biggest ocean creature you can imagine. What, are you gonna catch a whale with a fishing hook? Will it speak soft words to you, little man who knows how the world works? Will it make a covenant with you to be taken as your servant forever?
God reminds Job, and us in turn, that the natural world cannot be tamed with our feeble human cause and effect logic. We are not the biggest kids in the sandbox, and we never will be. And even “girding our loins” with righteousness, human wisdom, and technology doesn’t mean that we have dominion over our own lives, let alone our environment. It’s an undeniably harsh lesson, but our experience bears it out.
Believe it or not, there is good news to be found in our precarious position, and it is this: our potential is not limited by our knowledge or physical prowess or even our imagination. Through the infinite complexity and majesty of the natural world, God shows us that, as amazing as what humans have accomplished in our short time on earth, it can’t compare to what the rest of the natural world has made.
Our reliance on the natural world isn’t just for what it gives to us. The natural world isn’t just our supermarket, museum, and playground; it’s our school, our teacher, our family of being. It’s alive. It’s our superior. As I learned on the slopes and as Job learned, it demands our respect. And when we understand in our bones and in our brains that we can’t dominate our way to safety, maybe we can turn to co-create with what’s around us: with Leviathan, with God.
Whether we’re talking about our family, our community, the Leviathans of the world, or God, it’s all about relationship. May we bring humility and respect to every relationship, especially the ones that threaten to destroy us. And may we feel God’s presence even there. Amen.
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