June 23, 2024. Texts: Job 38:1-11; 2 Corinthians 6:1-13; Mark 4:35-41.
Around this time of year, graduation happens. Friends who have accompanied one another for years, in some cases since preschool, plan futures that will send them many directions. What makes them friends is a strange and sometimes weird alchemy.
Full of promise, joy, and ambition, swarms of graduates follow their paths. They are like fireflies that spend their restless energy swirling and darting in the soft summer evening. Some friendships will end, others fade, and some will endure in different ways as the years unfold.
As with the mycelium network that connects trees in the hidden earth, information will pass between these friends over the years. Events will occasionally draw them back together and they will compare notes.
Which ones have found partners? Who has moved on to other parts of the world? Whose life has turned in the most unexpected direction? Which ones have suffered life-ending circumstances? Various kinds of losses will mount over time. Including the unfortunate end of some friendships. But many will remain and despite impediments even grow stronger.
Years ago a high school class of over three hundred students followed this pattern. One popular member of the class was a star athlete and strong student. Even so, he was never impressed by his own status. He was always quiet and kind. He grew close to a three particular friends.
Years passed and the three friends remained in touch. They all ended up staying in the large metropolitan area of their childhood. Two of them found life partners and began their own families.
But the quiet, kind, intelligent friend remained solo. He was well employed and stable. Until in late middle age he became quite ill. Eventually he could no longer work. He struggled to pay his rent. No members of his family could be found to help.
The men who had been his friends since high school heard about this. They put the word out to their classmates who were still connected. Some sent money and cards of support.
But one of the three friends did even more. This man took on legal and financial responsibility for his friend. He offered his family’s own home to his ill friend who by then had nowhere else to go. A few months later the ill man died, having been cared for and supported because of a remarkable and enduring bond of friendship. This is a true story.
Job was friends with God. He praised God and was faithful to God. So much so that one day God commented on it to Satan who was part of the heavenly host and not yet the adversary of humans. But Satan wagered that Job’s friendship with God was because his life was good. One bad day, and Satan was sure Job would curse God.
That’s the background to Job’s story. One bad day didn’t crack Job. Many more trials followed, including a windy storm that killed many members of his family. Job cursed his life; not God.
Job’s friends stuck with him though the losses. It’s a wonder Job stuck with them though. Their spiritual counsel was classically bad. One friend even suggest that Job deserved more punishment from God than he’d endured. Eventually Job told his friends off.
But the problem with God wasn’t solved. Job wanted to confront God with some tough questions about why the righteous suffer. Job believed there was a heavenly witness who could redeem him from his circumstances. But God was nowhere to be found and Job was frustrated.
Then God did show up, with a swirl of questions reminding Job that there are limits to human understanding. Friendship with God means acknowledging that God’s power is worthy of our respect and devotion. To befriend God means making God our center, rejoicing in all that God has done and trusting in the future that God holds for us. No matter what life may bring.
As Paul says, life with God is pure grace. Even so, the community that lives together in godly friendship will experience difficulty and disaster. How we accompany one another and practice faithful friendship is evidence of our spiritual center.
A sound spiritual center eluded the disciples that day on the sea in the storm. They had their friend Jesus with them. They had brought him into the boat and let him fall into a deep sleep.
These people knew the sea, had weathered storms, and were skilled in handling boats. Yet somehow in the moment they lost hope in one another and in Jesus. They cried out, accusing Jesus their teacher of not caring for them in their crisis.
Jesus said, “Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?” He had not left them even for a moment. He stayed with them, teaching them by his own calm center not to fear. But they could only reply in wonder, “who ARE you?” as if they had never really known their friend.
In times of tempest and turmoil, do we present ourselves as friends of Jesus? Do we accuse, blame, and curse, or do we invoke God’s grace. Do we encourage the whirlwind or do we respond from the kind of calm and centered place that the greatest teacher in the world once showed his best friends. It matters a lot you know.