Scratching For Peace

Our reading for today, (which here in Baldwin was also World Communion Sunday and the Sunday we received a Peace Making Offering) came from the Old Testament Book of Job 1:1, & 2:1-10.

In these early passages the situation of Job is put before us. He is suffering, not because of any action he has taken, but due to forces beyond his control. Such is the situation of many people throughout our world. In the midst of such a dilemma, how is Job to find peace?

The sermon can be found here.

We are confronted daily with issues that we have no control over. War, hunger, injustice, and poverty to name but a few. Most of the time they seem so overwhelming we feel there is nothing we can do. As Billy Joel sang, “We didn’t start the Fire”.

Job gives us some guidelines towards action.

1. Scratching for peace. Job is covered in sores. Naturally he begins to scratch. Such is where a search for peace or justice usually begins with us. Something gets under our skin and we can’t ignore it any longer. It becomes personal and we start to take action.


2. Questions for peace. Job is challenged to believe the conventional wisdom of the day. Bad things happened to bad people; therefore Job must be a bad person. He protests his innocence. His wife suggests he should curse God and die. Job expresses surprise that one so close to him had been taken in by such shallow arguments. He will not curse God but rather protests that God was not subject to the same ground rules as mortals! We should not stop at scratching, but start to ask questions about the issues that draw our attention.

3. Surrender for peace. Job s powerless to change the events that have befallen him through his resistance. Instead he seeks a path of surrender in the hope that through his situation God would work some unknowable purpose. In a similar way, our hopes for change must rest in God, not in our own self-sufficiency. It is through ordinary lives such as our own that the Kingdom of God is being constructed.

Prayer. “Thy will be done on earth as in heaven”. Lord, as we pray such words help us to respond to the challenge of being Kingdom builders, of bringing Your perspective and love to bear on issues that trouble and disturb our lives. Create within us a servant heart. Help us to accept that whilst we can never fully understand, there is still so much we can do! Amen.”