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In our class on Job (catch up with the following classes: the introduction to Job, the Prose Section, the Poetry section Part 1, and the Poetry section Part 2), we've talked a lot about ideas of Justice. One of these ideas on Justice that Job's friends present him with is that good things happen to good people. If someone, like Job, is suffering, it's because they did something wrong. If someone is "living it up", if that person is rich powerful, and famous, then that someone is doing something right.
And it's how we feel about things too. In shows and books like Game of Thrones, it's always the most powerful or the most clever guys the king has around him. We might ask, If the king wants the powerful behind him, then shouldn't we too? If the king sides with the powerful, then shouldn't God too?
After all, God is a king. That's what we hear in Ephesians and Matthew this morning. And if God is a ruler, then he's gonna support the most powerful out there.
Well it turns out that the ways of God are not the ways of man. And God isn't the sort of king, ruler, or head of whatever that we might expect.
In Ezekiel, we are told the exact opposite. God isn't for the strong; he's for the weak. He isn't there to build up those who already have strength; He's there to be a shepherd, a fierce caretaker. He's there to bring the lost back to Himself. He's there to save His flock. He's there to bind them up, to heal them.
In Matthew we get the same message. God isn't siding with the strong. God is siding with the weak. In fact, God identifies with the weak so much that we're told if you've clothed or feed the needy, visited the prisoner, the downtrodden, you've done that thing for God Himself. Not only does God identify with the weak, He's right there in the midst of it all with them.
It's so easy for us to miss the signs. It's so easy for us to say that those who are rich and powerful or famous and strong must have had someone looking after them. It seems they must have had God's favor upon them.
And God is a king. He's the ruler of all. And rulers like to surround themselves with the strong. We see that in our literature and our stories. We see that in the world around us. As soon as someone becomes a liability to those in power, as soon as they show a sign that they're weak, they're gone. In fact, the one of the only story I can think of where the one in power chooses to give that power to the weak, or the at least the seemingly weak, is The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, a thoroughly Christian story.
God may be a king, but He chooses to go on a different path from the rest of the world. He chooses to be the one who heals. He chooses to be the one to find the lost. He chooses to be present with those who suffer while they are in their suffering.
He chose to weaken Himself, to become human and die. He chose to do it to heal all those who needed His help: the sinful, the weak, everyone.
God doesn't side with strength. He sides with those who need Him, and He loves them. He loves those who, at first glance, don't seem very blessed to us.
God turns our expectations on their head. And so as Christians we are called to do the same. We are called not to be like the world and champion the strong. We are called to champion the weak: the ones who need us, the ones who need God.
We are called to help bring all together. We're called to bring all back from this destructive way of thinking. We're called to no longer champion the strong as the world does, but instead to recognize that we are all sinful, that we are all weak, and that God is there for each and everyone of us. God is there to bring us all back to Him.