“Watch where you plant your feet!” That’s the command I hear every time I work in the garden. “Watch where you plant your feet!” My job is to clear out dead leaves and old twigs. I open up the flowerbeds for spring. But to do that I have to step into the flowerbeds; I cannot reach all the clutter from outside. I must plant my feet inside. But from the mistress gardener at my house comes the worried cry, “Watch where you plant your feet!” She is concerned that my weight will press down on some tender shoot. She knows that I cannot tell a willow from a weed. She worries that I do not know where I am or where I need to be.
That is a parable of our lives. Much of the time we do not know where we are or where we need to be. We do not know where we are in our lives; are we at the beginning of some new venture? Or are we just beating the same old dead horse? We do not know. The very “dailyness” keeps us from knowing where we are. We are busy trying to pay bills, clean house, go to work, study, manage this task, do that chore, and when it is Sunday, get ourselves to church and pray, “God bless this mess”. We don’t know where we are in our lives.
And if we do not know where we are now, it is certain that we will not know where we need to be. It is not clear to us where we need to put our feet down and do some work, because we have forgotten what God has done in us. Our greatest sin is that we have forgotten where we are and we do not know where we need to be. So “Watch where you plant your feet!”
Job found out where he was and where he needed to be. But it was not pleasant getting there. First he had to lose everything he held dear. You know the story by now – how he lost health, wealth, family, everything but his very life. Where was he after all that loss? Physically, he was on the town garbage heap, surrounded by rotting debris and three lousy friends. Where was he after all that loss? Spiritually, he was not sure. He didn’t know. But he did learn. Job learned that where he is now is where he needed to be.
That’s the heart of today’s message: that where we are now, uncomfortable though it may be, can be where we need to be. In the providence of God, though our feet are planted in what feels like rubbish, that just may be exactly where we need to be. In our Scripture, Job says to God:
“You put my feet in the stocks, and watch all my paths; you set a bound to the soles of my feet.”
In other words, Lord, you’ve got me nailed down. You’ve planted me right here. There doesn’t seem to be anything else but this, every blooming day. Thanks to you, Lord, I’m stuck. But why is being stuck the way Job came to know that where he is is where he needed to be?
I
Job began by wanting to be everywhere. He started out wanting to be unlimited. Job wanted no boundaries. He saw no reason to plant himself in any one place; he wanted it all. Remember how wealthy Job was, and how righteous? Job was a great man in his time. Possessions, esteem, position, he had a great deal. But he wanted more, he wanted it all.
As this chapter opens, Job has listened to his friends; he has heard all of their theologizing about why he is suffering. And Job tells them, when they finally take a break from their windy speeches, “I don’t need you. I don’t need to hear what you have to say. I already know everything you know. But I want more. I expect more. I want to be without limits. I want no boundaries.” Here’s the way Job said it:
"Look, my eye has seen all this, my ear has heard and understood it. What you know, I also know; I am not inferior to you. But I would speak to the Almighty, and I desire to argue my case with God.”
“What you know, I also know.” I know where I am. I know all your ideas. But I want more. “I would speak to the Almighty, and I desire to argue my case with God.” Job is not satisfied to live life out the way it is. He wants to go right to the top. “Just get out of my way and let me go all the way up to God Himself.” Don’t fence me in! I want it all, no boundaries.
When I talk with young people, that’s what I often hear. Young people want to be without boundaries. No restrictions, let me have it all. Young people see everything as wide open. Some of you know Aaron Oke, the young son of Victor Oke, who was on your staff for a while. The Oke family were parishioners of mine at Takoma Park. When Aaron woke up on his fourth birthday, he told his dad, “I’m four years old now. I can do anything!” Wow!
We smile, because we adults think we know that you cannot live life without limits. We know there are going to be boundaries. Unless you are Bill Gates, you are not going to have multi-megabucks. Unless you are the Hoyas’ Jeff Green, you are not going to set the sports world on fire. And guess what, even Jeff’s knees will wear out! We know that life is going to have limits.
But let us applaud the desire of young people to live without limits. Let us understand that the need to break boundaries is natural and God-given. Our sin is that we have settled for the same old same old; we forget how to expand our experiences. We have believed the old adage that you cannot teach an old dog new tricks, and so we’ve quit trying. Job’s friends wanted him to settle for a routine miserable life. They told him that what had been was what will be, so give it up, Job. Que sera, sera. Quit trying to press forward, just settle for what you’ve got.
But Job does not want to give up so soon! Job wants more. “I would speak to the Almighty; I desire to argue my case with God [Himself].”
Is it true that some of us think we are finished? Is it on target that some of us are just waiting for the next funeral? Have we given up on having it all? But no, God has made us in His image and after His likeness, and that means we are meant to be creative. That means we have the ability to go beyond old limits. No matter what your age, you can reach out, you can discover new horizons, you can break old boundaries.
I’ve told you about a young man, who thought that at age four he could do everything, and you smiled. But smile too at one another of my Takoma Park parishioners, Ruth Gossage, who well into her 90’s was publishing poetry and learning to wield a mean pool cue at the senior center! Smile at adults who refresh and rebuild old dreams. I read just this week about a half dozen seniors who each were given $100,000 prizes from a foundation, simply because they invented new ways of doing things. One of them was a man I know, Wilson Goode, the former mayor of Philadelphia, who in his 60’s earned a seminary degree and then created a nationwide program to help troubled young people. Doesn’t that thrill you and challenge you?
Oh, and give thanks for church members who are prepared to learn new skills, so that they may minister to new people. Shout and praise God for anybody who will push the boundaries and expand the limits, to know more, to be more, and to serve more.
Robert Kennedy, quoting George Bernard Shaw, spoke for Job and spoke for breaking the bounds, when he said, “You see things; and you say ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were; and I say ‘Why not?’” If you know where you are, but, like Job, you want to argue your case all the way up to God Himself, you want to push the limits. And God will bless you for that.
II
But now we do have to get real. Let’s wake up and smell the coffee. Eventually, even though you want it all, you recognize that it isn’t all happening. One day you look back and admit that some of the things you thought you might do you are not going to do. Some of the choices you made foreclosed on other choices. You do wake up at some point and see that you have settled into a pattern that will make it impossible to do some of the things you once dreamed about.
Maybe you are in your forties and thirsty for more than work, but the mortgages and the kids to educate loom very large, and that takes all you’ve got. Or maybe you know you are fifty, fat, and fatigued. Or you are sixty, senile, and set in your ways. Or you are celebrating your thirty-ninth birthday for the thirty-ninth time, and can’t keep up the façade any more. You may not like it, but you do know where you are.
But do you yet know where you need to be? Do you yet understand where God wants you to go and how God wants you to invest your life? Job teaches us that when you know where you are, but do not yet quite know where you need to be, that is the time for risk-taking. That’s the time to do something out on the edge. If you want to know where you need to be, then step out from settled, established comfort. Trust God, and take a risk.
Job is ready to throw the dice:
“I will speak, and let come on me what may. I will take my flesh in my teeth, and put my life in my hand.”
In other words, what have I got to lose? I am going to step out from where I am, I am going to experience what is out there. I am going to be responsible for my life. I am going to take a risk. “Let come on me what may … I put my life in my hand.”
You see, most of us who, like Job, find ourselves in the middle of the garbage heap that is our culture, will look at the mess around us and say, “Ain’t it awful?” Ain’t it awful that people hurt and children are neglected and young people have nothing positive to do? Ain’t it awful; but then we go back to scratching our own itches. We worry over the crime, the poverty, the ignorance, and the sheer lostness of our community, and then, having complained about how nobody is doing enough, we go back to our own problems. Like Job, scraping at his dead skin with a broken piece of pottery, we scratch our own itches, and guess what? They itch all the more. And the garbage is still there. The need is still there.
If you know where you are, but you haven’t figured out where you need to be, trust God, take a risk, do something new, and help somebody. Find a hunger and feed it. Find a void and fill it. Find an itch and scratch it. My friend Walter Fauntroy, former congressman and long-time pastor, likes to talk about “holy boldness.” If you want to know where you need to be, use some holy boldness, take the risk of engaging somebody’s hurt, and you’ll find where you need to be.
I’ve known some real risk-takers. When I was at Takoma Park, we were blessed to have a number of people respond to the Lord’s call to enter the ministry. What astounded me was that not one of them was what we used to think of as a typical seminary student. I, for one, went to seminary fresh out of college. In fact, I was so eager and so ready to get there that I enrolled in a summer course two days after getting my university degree at age 22. There wasn’t much risk in that for me. I was still young and unencumbered (that means unmarried!), and, had it not worked out, I could have done something else in a heartbeat. But the folks who went to seminary out of my church came to that after living lives in other disciplines and with many responsibilities. One of them, though still relatively young and single, had embarked on a successful career in entertainment; she dropped it to go to seminary. Victor Oke, whom I have already mentioned, was a biochemist, a husband, and a parent with young children to support. He trusted God and took the risk of going to seminary. Still another was an energetic, resourceful career woman who had raised her family and was able to do well anything she was asked to do. But all of them stepped out to take on a rigorous course of study, not knowing where it would lead, but they trusted God and took a risk. Can’t you just hear old Job, “Let come on me what may. I will take my flesh in my teeth, and put my life in my hand.”
Oh, I know that we just want things to be predictable. Some of us shy away from excitement and challenge. We may be, like Job, sitting on a garbage heap, but at least it’s our garbage heap, and we don’t want to change it! I know people who, whenever any new idea is brought up, will shoot it down by saying, “What if?” What if my money runs out? What if my energy wanes? What if it rains? What if it doesn’t rain? What if, what if, what if? I read of somebody who refused to go to see Venice, because what if the tides rose while he was there? I had a friend in college who refused to drive his car on Interstate highways, because what if the engine overheated? What if, what if? Job has an answer, “Let come on me what may ... I put my life in my hand.” Risk, yes, and faith too!
Oh, for people who will not let “what if” stand in their way! Oh, for Christians who will trust God to empower them. I want to challenge you today to find some risk, this week, this very week, and take that risk for Christ and for humanity. If you cannot wade deeply into human hurt, if tackling a tough teenager is too much, if feeding a hungry person takes your breath away, then at least do this: take the risk of sharing the Gospel with a struggling soul. Just tell somebody about Christ. There is no other answer for the future of Luther Rice church, or of any other, for that matter. Just tell the love of Jesus, and say He died for all. Take that risk.
If you know where you are in your life, but are not sure where you need to be, then take a risk, trust God, and you will be on your way to where you need to be.
III
But now, when Job does take that risk, he prays that God will move him toward where he needs to be. Job has struggled with his losses, but he has stood up on his hind legs and has affirmed that he wants to set out on something new, beyond his boundaries and limits.
And Job has announced too that he is ready to be a risk-taker; he is willing to take his life in his hands and step out on faith. So what will it be? What should Job do now? How does he for sure know where he needs to be?
Job prays. Job prays. And in Job’s prayer I see a desire to live connected with God, joined to God’s purposes. Job’s prayer takes him toward knowing where he needs to be:
“Only grant two things to me, then I will not hide myself from your face: withdraw your hand far from me, and do not let dread of you terrify me. Then call, and I will answer ...”
Job, in prayer, finds out where he needs to be. He finds out that he simply needs to be with God. He needs to be reconciled with God. He needs to be in fellowship with God. Nothing else really matters. For if you discover that where you need to be is with God, then everything else falls into place. The address you live at, the job you do, the church you are a part of – all of that is transformed. All of that becomes what God wants to give you rather than what you’ve never received. All of that becomes God’s gift rather than your problem. It is being in the presence of God that makes all the difference.
So Job prays that God would erase his fears and deal with his shortcomings. Job prays that God would be intimately involved in his life. “Do not let dread of you terrify me .. then call, and I will answer.”
Do you know where you need to be? We need to be wherever God is. We need to be with God, wherever God has put us. We do not need to look for someplace better; we only need to see what God wants us to do for Him right here. It is not for us to fantasize about what great things we might do if we had another place to do them; it is for us to plant our feet right here, in God Himself and in what God is doing here. It is for us to see our lives as opportunity and not as waste.
“Watch where you plant your feet”. Russell Conwell, the founder of Temple University, liked to tell a story about a man who traveled the world over, in search of diamonds, only to discover acres of diamonds in his own backyard
“Watch where you plant your feet.” When my wife-gardener tells me to watch where I plant my feet, she is not telling me to wander far afield in search of something to do. She is helping me know that right where I am, there is a mountain of trash to deal with, a heap of problems to be solved. If I will just take the risk of stepping out of the safe zone, under the gardener’s guidance, I will soon know exactly where I need to be.
