Sermon for February 8th, 2026
Job 38:1-11; 22-41
1Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind: 2“Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? 3Gird up your loins like a man, I will question you, and you shall declare to me.
4“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. 5Who determined its measurements—surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? 6On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone 7when the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy? 8“Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb?— 9when I made the clouds its garment, and thick darkness its swaddling band, 10and prescribed bounds for it, and set bars and doors, 11and said, ‘Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stopped’?
22“Have you entered the storehouses of the snow, or have you seen the storehouses of the hail, 23which I have reserved for the time of trouble, for the day of battle and war? 24What is the way to the place where the light is distributed, or where the east wind is scattered upon the earth?
25“Who has cut a channel for the torrents of rain, and a way for the thunderbolt, 26to bring rain on a land where no one lives, on the desert, which is empty of human life, 27to satisfy the waste and desolate land, and to make the ground put forth grass? 28“Has the rain a father, or who has begotten the drops of dew? 29From whose womb did the ice come forth, and who has given birth to the hoarfrost of heaven? 30The waters become hard like stone, and the face of the deep is frozen. 31“Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades, or loose the cords of Orion? 32Can you lead forth the Mazzaroth in their season, or can you guide the Bear with its children? 33Do you know the ordinances of the heavens? Can you establish their rule on the earth? 34“Can you lift up your voice to the clouds, so that a flood of waters may cover you? 35Can you send forth lightnings, so that they may go and say to you, ‘Here we are’? 36Who has put wisdom in the inward parts, or given understanding to the mind? 37Who has the wisdom to number the clouds? Or who can tilt the waterskins of the heavens, 38when the dust runs into a mass and the clods cling together? 39“Can you hunt the prey for the lion, or satisfy the appetite of the young lions, 40when they crouch in their dens, or lie in wait in their covert? 41Who provides for the raven its prey, when its young ones cry to God, and wander about for lack of food?
Faith & Film XIV - Train Dreams
- Film Clip #1: Trailer
Three Minute Film Summary
Robert Grainier (Joel Edgerton) is an orphaned boy who rides the Great Northern Railway into the Idaho panhandle and grows up tough, quiet, and mostly alone. He leaves school early and drifts into the work that will define his life: railroad construction, logging camps, and whatever hard seasonal labor will keep him fed.
As a young man, Robert meets Gladys Olding (Felicity Jones). They marry, build a small log cabin along the Moyie River, and welcome a daughter, Kate. For a time, Robert lives a life he didn’t think he’d ever have: a home, a family, a place that feels permanent. But the money is still out in the woods, and the work that provides also pulls him away.
Robert moves from camp to camp with men who are rough, funny, unpredictable, and sometimes cruel. He watches a Chinese worker thrown from a bridge by white laborers, an image that won’t leave him. In the forest, accidents come without warning: a falling tree kills men in an instant, and grief is marked with whatever small rituals the living can manage. Robert befriends Arn Peeples (William H. Macy), an older hand who talks too much and tries—clumsily—to teach Robert how to survive the job and his own thoughts.
After World War I, the work gets thinner and the world starts changing faster than Robert can track. He and Gladys talk about settling down for good. Robert takes one more logging run. When he returns, he finds devastation: a wildfire has swept through, their cabin is ruined, and Gladys and Kate are gone.
Robert is hollowed out by grief, and then forced—day by day—to keep living. Friends sit with him, help him rebuild, and he carries on with smaller jobs closer to town. Years later, he meets Claire Thompson (Kerry Condon), a Forest Service surveyor who understands loneliness and loss. She offers him company without demanding explanations.
One night, Robert believes Kate has returned—injured, half-wild, and wordless. He tends her wounds and falls into exhausted sleep. By morning she is gone, leaving only an open window and a question Robert will never solve. He stays in the cabin anyway, in case she ever comes back.
Decades pass. Towns grow. Technology advances. Robert grows old. He rides a train into Spokane and watches John Glenn’s spaceflight on television, stunned at how far the world has traveled while he stayed rooted to one stretch of river and trees. Near the end of his life, he takes a short flight in a biplane, and as the plane tilts and loops, memory rushes in until, for a moment, he feels connected to it all. Not long after, Robert dies in his sleep in November 1968—leaving no heirs behind, only the traces of an ordinary life lived under an extraordinary sky.
