Sermon Preached at Church of the Good Shepherd
Fort Lee, New Jersey
Sunday, October 6, 2024, at 8:00 and 10:00 A.M.
By the Rev. Stephen Galleher
Powerlessness & Power!
There was—long, long ago, at least in the lore of
scripture—a man named Job. And Job has come to represent
every single one of us—in our complaining and despairing
moods. But this character Job was completely unlike us by being
blameless, even if so like us in his moods. At least we are told
that he led a blameless life. I’m not sure I know or have ever
known anyone remotely like him, although at times I feel in a
self-righteous mood and think I’m above all the rest of you
miserable creatures. That’s when, like in the reading this
morning, when the Devil wants to have his way with me—for as
soon as I think I’m above anyone else, that’s when I’m most
vulnerable and fail to remember just who I am and where I come
from. When I forget the source of my life, my mind wanders to
myself as self-sufficient, a law unto myself, and pretty darned
good at whatever I decide to do, thank you very much!
2
The amazing and interesting thing about what happens
when the Devil visits hardship on Job, is that Job, instead of
cursing the Devil, as he does later in the book, says, “Shall I
receive the good at the hand of God and not receive the bad?”
How many of us have this level of acceptance?
A few observations.
First, is there even one of us who has not been visited with
a serious hardship, challenge or sorrow in our life? There is
nothing like the loss of a family member or the loss of our job or
the announcement of a serious illness to knock the pins out from
under our self-sufficiency. What happens to our fancy sense of
being on top of the world? It’s called powerlessness and it faces
all of us at one time or another, and usually more than once.
And as an observer of what goes on around us, we
experience powerlessness. Asheville, North Carolina, we’ve
heard described as the ideal place to go and settle. Very chichi,
very chique, very in. And so very true until last week and
hurricane Helene. How lives can change in the twinkling of an
3
eye, or the sweeping through of a deadly storm like Helene. And
those caught in that storm could not do one thing to prevent it or
stop it.
And, similarly, what could the people of Israel, Gaza or
Lebanon do to prevent the hideous war that evil people are
doing to assert their territorial power, as if missiles and high-
powered guns and rockets will really settle anything. As for
those caught in the middle of such insanity, what could they do
to stop it?
Powerlessness. Just how much power do we think we have?
And over what? What do you think you can control? Can you
control your thinking? Can you control your moods? We have
limited sight and think we can control a certain number of
things. We look back over our lives and congratulate ourselves
on some of the things we have done. Good for us, we say to
ourselves.
This is not to discourage us, but to ask how much of what
we’ve done and accomplished and are even proud of do can we
4
really ascribe to our own doing? Wouldn’t we like to think we
have a lot more to do with what unfolds in our lives than what is
really the case?
This is not to say that we are merely puppets or automata
and are buffeted about my the fickle finger of fate, but it is to
suggest that just as we needn’t brag too heavily about all those
things we have done (it can bring us down off our high horse),
similarly, it can prevent us from being too down on ourselves
when we are feeling sorry for ourselves and down in the dumps.
“I haven’t really made much of myself all these years” or “I’m
just a knucklehead!” or some other self-repeating chorus that
keeps us feeling down on ourselves. Isn’t it the case that we
seem to either be feeling too grand about ourselves or not grand
at all? Perhaps when we give up both thinking too highly and
thinking too lowly about ourselves that we can relax and breathe
a new life of freedom?
5
A friend once suggested that true freedom wasn’t about
stopping thinking less about ourselves as it was about thinking
about ourselves less.
What a contrast:
Thinking less about ourselves vs
Thinking about ourselves less.
Of course, there’s not much chance of abandoning all thoughts
about ourselves. We still have to eat and take care of ourselves.
We have careers to pursue and all that. But we don’t have to
operate as if we were the only people in the universe. Perhaps
taking a more realistic view of who we are can increase our
appreciation and love our lives and give us a freedom we never
thought we’d enjoy.
Free at last, free at last. Free to be me, the me that God
created and loves, not the me that is beholden to silly ideas of
who I think I ought to be or who I mistakenly thought I was from
being so hard on myself.
6
So, it is important as we live in a world with natural
disasters like Helene, which in a few hours can sweep away
hundreds of our neighbors, as it has done in Florida and North
Carolina, or as we live in w world where people can kill innocent
women and children, as it is doing daily in Gaza, Lebanon and
other places where human beings think it is perfectly okay to kill
citizens in another part of their world…it is important for us to
come to grips with just how powerless we are. Sure, we are free
citizens of a supposedly free country; but let’s ask ourselves, just
how much control do we have over much of anything?
And then we ask as did Job, who represents us as we live in
a world where suffering is inevitable, just who is in charge. The
end of the book of Job, as we remember, ends with God
appearing to fretful Job out of a whirlwind and asks the uppity,
know-it-all Job:
“Where were you when I created the earth? Tell me since you know so
much. Who decided on its size? Certainly, you know that! Who came up
with the blueprints and the measurements? How was its foundation
7
poured and who set the cornerstone. While the morning stars sang in
chorus and all the angels shouted praise?”
This is one of the climaxes of scripture. It may not put all
of our unease to rest or quieten our unending questions about our
lives, about why things are going the way they are. But this
climax of Job pushes the question to where it belongs, and the
question is “Just who do we think we are?” And dare we be
honest about all this?
I read in some detail this past week the entire last chapters
of Job, when God lays out in beautiful detail just who he is, and I
couldn’t help but come to the conclusion that God is just about
everything. Everything. And I saw the beginning and the growth
of faith is about my giving into this God, surrendering to the
beautiful God who brought every one of us here today. There is a
freedom in this, isn’t there? For I don’t have to fret and fume and
say to myself how much better a job I could do of things if God
would only let me. Well, I’ve discovered that when God lets me,
8
I soon conclude that I’m better off letting God be in charge. He is
in charge anyway, so all I need to do is get with the program!
Amen.