God is Like Nature
In worship this week we will experience an original composition by Dr. Brenda Portman, our resident organist, Ekklesia during worship. The multi-movement piece gives voice to God’s creative power through the Holy Spirit working through the people. Ekklesia is the Greek word for all God’s people. We will be treated to the movement of the Spirit as our worship is enhanced. Pictures on the screen will enhance our experience. It will overlay our sermon series and provide hints of What God is like.
As we continue our series this week we will hear from Job12:7-10. In the passage from scripture Job is responding in the whole of Chapter 12 to his friends who have been using cliché as a method to speak to Job of his predicament recorded in previous chapters.
You know Cliché don’t you?
“God helps those who help themselves.”
“God has a plan for your life.”
“He/She/They are a pillar of the Church”
Job is suffering and has been suffering. Cliché is not going to hold the meaning, but all his friends can muster is shallowness. They don’t know what to say. Human experience is predictable. Fill the uncomfortable spaces. “Say something”! If you experience a moment like this, where you feel compelled to fill an uncomfortable moment, I would suggest silence. “Silence is Golden” – oops another cliché!
Part of Job’s search for depth in the midst of the shallowness of his friends he points to nature. In nature we can find Gods examples of a well lived life. In nature there are no easy answers. Think of life and death in the food chain animal world. The power of natural disaster. The beauty of the sun rising and setting. The power of storms. The promise of the rainbow. The natural world for Job is real comfort. No cliché. No easy answers.
In their book, What God is Like, Rachel Held Evans and Matthew Paul Turner share this sentence –
“God is like a rainbow, vivid and full of color, a dazzling reminder of promise and hope for all people after a storm.”
The imagery of the rainbow is a powerful and universal sign of God’s presence and hope for the future. Whether in the Noah’s Ark story or in Ezekiel’s theophany moment, or in Revelation around the Throne all point to God’s favor wrapped up in the notion of hope.
There is no rainbow for Job, but he is looking for it. He knows that creation, the natural world points to the depth of God. Are you searching too?
Pastor Todd D. Anderson