Whirlwinds and Consolation - Job 38:1-7, 34-41

I was in California a couple of weeks ago at the Bishop’s Ranch for a clergy retreat. The Ranch is an Episcopal camp and conference center, but it’s really the Garden of Eden. It’s full of fruit trees and hummingbirds, in the middle of gently rolling hills with vineyards as far as the eye can see. The Ranch is also surrounded by miles of hiking trails, dotted with quaint refuges to stop and rest in along the way. On any given day, you can see foxes, turkey vultures, and goats busily clearing the underbrush for fire management. During my visit, the Lord was kind to shield my eyes from any rattle snakes and mountain lions, leaving me with a rather idyllic experience.

The highlight of the trip for me was a guided walk with the resident naturalist, who is also a preacher. Like any good naturalist, she pointed out details we would have walked right by, like the paths created by nocturnal creatures or the way vultures swirl in the air, not just for hunting, but also for the fun of it on cool drafts. About half way through our walk, we stopped at a refuge and sat by a large iron sculpture of Christ on the Cross, which blended into the surrounding beauty.

As clergy, we were interested to know about our guide’s journey to seminary, and how being a minister and a naturalist fit together. She said it all began when she was a park ranger in Yosemite. She would be on duty, ready to take people’s photos in front of famous landmarks, or keep them from doing the kind of thoughtless things that start wildfires. Over and over again, someone would look up at El Capitan, and turn to the ranger to ask their biggest spiritual questions. Occasionally there were spontaneous confessions. And sometimes people were just speechless, experiencing true awe for the first time. These were holy moments for her, when people wanted not just a park ranger but a spiritual companion. There is something about Yosemite, and the grandeur of God’s creation, that puts our own lives into perspective. The experience of awe can decenter our human egos and expand our view.

In the 38th chapter of the Book of Job, God gives Job such a view. The previous chapters are about how Job, a righteous man, ends up suffering horrible things. He loses his children and his property, and he suffers physical agony. He yearns to talk to God, to find out why these things have happened to him. It’s the same question we have when we suffer. And the Lord answers Job out of the whirlwind.

It should be noted here that the poetry in the Book of Job is stunning. The Hebrew is elevated and nuanced. The whirlwind could be the whirlwind Job has been enduring in his suffering. Maybe you know the feeling. Or it could be an awe-inspiring, overwhelming tempest out of which God speaks. I think we’re meant to hold both possibilities. And whenever God speaks in the book, the Hebrew for divine speech is even higher, breathtakingly beautiful, and layered with meaning.

The Lord says, ”Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up your loins like a man, I will question you, and you shall declare to me. Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements—surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone when the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy?”

To the question of Job’s suffering, God has answered with a creation story. And not the one from Genesis, which gives humans dominion over the earth. In this version, there is no human at all. Job has been thinking that there must be some way for his life and his experiences to make sense. That the world should work for human thriving. God responds by de-centering the human altogether. God gives Job a glimpse of what it has taken to create and run the world, a complexity no mortal can grasp. God has laid the foundations of the world as a meticulous architect, to which the morning stars sing their joyful praise. There is too much in creation to fit within a human frame of reference. Job’s questions, our biggest questions, are simply too small.

That might sound discouraging, as if we can’t ask big enough questions to understand pain and suffering. But this can also be freeing, even comforting. Verse 36 speaks to this: “Who gave wisdom to a rooster?” Or mind, both translations are possible. In its wisdom, the verse made it into the Jewish Daily Blessings, which says: “Blessed are you God who gives understanding to the rooster to tell day from night.” The rooster, like the human, knows the things it is meant to know (Bibleworm, episode 543). We know the things we are meant to know. And there simply is not a human-sized answer to the question of suffering.

And God does not leave us there. God’s poetic response to Job’s question insists that we are not alone: the whole world is here with us. Our deep connection to creation, our sense of awe at what God has made, can help us in our loneliness, and help us endure difficult and painful times. There is a beautiful world around us, which offers respite and refuge for our souls (Bibleworm, episode 543). In the 4th century, St. Augustine used the language of consolation, that the handiwork of God in creation can offer consolation to our souls while we are on our earthly pilgrimage.

To put it another way more recently, in The Sovereignty of Good, British philosopher Iris Murdoch describes a moment when the creation ministered to her. “I am looking out of my window in an anxious and resentful state of mind, oblivious to my surroundings, brooding perhaps on some damage done to my prestige. Then suddenly I observe a hovering kestrel. In a moment everything is altered. The brooding self with its hurt vanity has disappeared. There is nothing now but the kestrel. And when I return to thinking of the other matter it seems less important.”

I thought of this image at the Bishop’s Ranch, where a woodpecker put on a show outside my window every morning. Perhaps it’s easier to glimpse the bigger picture when you’re in the Garden of Eden. But creation can tend to our souls anywhere. We just have to notice the quality of light on these beautiful autumn days, the rustling of leaves, and the chill in the morning air.  If you happen to find yourself in Job’s shoes from time to time, may these things and more bring you consolation. And may they always remind us of the One who laid the foundations of the earth.