Sermon for March 23rd, 2025

Job 16:1-16

Today's scripture passage is not particularly long (at least not compared to other chapters of Job) but it is pretty dense, so I'm going to incorporate the reading into the sermon itself. I'm actually going to go through the passage line by line, explaining and commenting along the way--so this would be a great day to follow along in your pew bibles as we go. As we prepare to hear God's word and God's message to us today, let us pray...

The Book of Job: Innocent, Part III

In just a moment, we'll jump right into verse 1, but before we do that, I want to set the stage. Today's passage is about perceptions--specifically perceptions of guilt and innocence (which is our theme throughout the season of Lent).

Lee Atwater, who was a political strategist during the 1980s and 90s, made famous the saying "perception IS reality." What he meant was that voters in a political campaign are just as likely to act on what they perceive to be true (what seems true to them, or what aligns with their inherent biases and worldviews) than on what is, in fact, demonstrably true. And in this way, our perceptions (true or not) have the ability to shape and even change reality, to create and destroy careers, to influence elections, public policy, and the lives of those who are the object of the perceptions.

Perception is reality. While I understand the concept, I'm not sure I would agree that it's a good thing. And sometimes, those perceptions can backfire.

I'm reminded of the story about Mildred and Frank: Mildred was the town gossip and self-appointed police of town morality. She loved to stick her nose into other people's business, and while most did not appreciate her efforts, they feared her enough to maintain their silence. Frank, on the other hand, was a relatively quiet person. He mostly kept to himself, until one day Mildred saw his truck parked outside of the town's only bar, and so she began to accuse Frank of being a drunkard. She told Frank (and several others) that anyone seeing his truck parked outside that bar would know exactly what he was doing there! Frank didn't say anything; he didn't explain, defend, or deny. He just turned and walked away. Later that evening, Frank quietly drove his old pickup truck up to the front of Mildred's house. Then he got out and walked home. He left his old pickup truck parked in front of Mildred's house all night.

In today's scripture passage our protagonist, Job, is innocent, but everyone around him--his friends, his community, perhaps even God--perceive him to be guilty of something (although no one is quite sure what). This has been weighing heavily on Job, and in verse one, he launches once more into his desperate poetry:

1“My spirit is broken; my days are extinct; the grave is ready for me.

In the original Hebrew

2 Surely there are mockers around me, and my eye dwells on their provocation.
3 “Lay down a pledge for me with yourself; who is there who will give surety for me?
4 Since you have closed their minds to understanding, therefore you will not let them triumph.
5 Those who denounce friends for reward--the eyes of their children will fail.

6 “He has made me a byword of the peoples, and I am one before whom people spit.
7 My eye has grown dim from grief, and all my members are like a shadow.
8 The upright are appalled at this, and the innocent stir themselves up against the godless.
9 Yet the righteous hold to their way, and they who have clean hands grow stronger and stronger.
10 But you, come back now, all of you, and I shall not find a sensible person among you.

11 My days are past; my plans are broken off, the desires of my heart.
12 They make night into day; ‘The light,’ they say, ‘is near to the darkness.’
13 If I look for Sheol as my house, if I spread my couch in darkness,
14 if I say to the Pit, ‘You are my father,’ and to the worm, ‘My mother’ or ‘My sister,’
15 where then is my hope? Who will see my hope?
16 Will it go down to the bars of Sheol? Shall we descend together into the dust?”

• Lee Atwater: "Perception is reality."