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God’s arrival amidst the storm

Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time (B), Job 38:1, 8-11.

By the time the reader of the Book of Job gets to chapter 38, he or she has heard about a dozen speeches. In some of them, Job’s interlocutors (one hesitates to call them friends) have tried to explain Job’s sufferings by insisting that he must have sinned, otherwise he wouldn’t be punished like this. In other speeches, Job defends himself vigorously against such allegations. He has not done wrong, he says. If his suffering is a punishment for sin, then he is being made to suffer unjustly.

Now God enters the conversation. God does not provide a ready explanation of what is happening to Job. Instead God speaks in awesomely poetic ways of His own works. The creation, the management of the universe, dominion over the great wild beasts: these are what God busies himself with. Can Job second-guess the Lord of such variety and power? Can Job demand that God explain himself to a mere creature, guiltless though he may be?

God does not ever really answer Job. Instead God gives Job to understand that the rationale for His actions cannot be comprehended by human beings. To understand why God acts as He does would require divine knowledge on the part of human beings, a knowledge that is beyond humans’ capacity to provide for themselves, beyond human capacity even to receive as a gift of God. The only answer that can be provided to certain human situations is to acknowledge that God is God and that God’s ways surpass even the deepest levels of human understanding.

The reading that the Lectionary provides for this Sunday is from the beginning of this final section of Job. God now addresses Job "out of the storm." In the Old Testament, the power of God is frequently expressed by God’s association with storms. (See, for example Psalm 18:10: God "inclined the heavens and came down, with dark clouds under His feet.")

What follows is God’s description of His control over one of the mightiest forces of nature: the sea. From the moment the sea was born, God had it under control. God put the sea where He wanted it to be. He determined how the sea was to be clothed: in clouds and darkness. He set the limits beyond which the power of the sea could not pass. He tamed its proud waves.

Often in antiquity the sea is presented as an untamable monster, an unbridled force, a source of fear. That’s not how Job’s God looks on the sea. God has absolute control over the sea from the very beginning. He deals with it as a stern parent deals with a child. That’s how powerful God is! How can people like Job even think of demanding that God be accountable to them?

Obviously these verses were chosen to set the scene for this Sunday’s Gospel reading (Mark 4:35-41). There we see Jesus quietly asleep in the boat’s stern while a storm begins to arise from the sea around Him. There is no need for Him to be concerned. He knows how to deal with the sea. The apostles are not so confident. "Jesus, do something!" So Jesus gets up from His nap and with a few words quiets everything down. It’s like God saying in Job, "Here shall your proud waves be stilled."

It is clear that Jesus is here exercising the might of God. Effortlessly, He stills the storm. His disciples are awestricken. "Who is this that even the wind and sea obey?"

God is powerful. God’s works are beyond human understanding. And Jesus is God. That’s what our readings teach us on this Sunday.

We are often tempted to overlook the incomprehensible power of God. Because we understand more about nature and its workings than the ancients did, we tend to think that we understand everything about everything. While we cannot calm the storms, we can predict them and take precautions to stay out of their path. We can deal with some kinds of human storms, too, by means of counseling and medication. We are highly skilled in turning to our own purposes the powers that God has hidden in His creation. We can rein in rivers to make electricity for us. We can use the tiniest components of creation to make explosive devices powerful enough to destroy the world itself. The most fundamental threats to our human life, hunger and disease, are increasingly coming under our control.

Yet we do not have all the answers. We cannot control everything. There are aspects of creation that seem to be far beyond our understanding, far beyond our power to regulate. There are aspects of our own selves that are beyond our grasp. We dare not pretend to give directions to God. We dare not underestimate the powers that only God can know and direct.

For reflection and discussion

What storms has God stilled in my life?

What storms is the world experiencing presently?