I met Janet at a party, several years ago, the kind of combination business/social gathering where people talk shop, and network, and make superficial small talk. It’s the sort of event I usually avoid if at all possible, but of course it wasn’t always possible. Anyway, for some reason Janet started telling me about her life. Real stuff, not just where do you live and how did you get into this line of work. Janet had had two children. The little girl died of SIDS just before her first birthday, and a couple of years later her son had meningitis, suffered brain damage as a result of the high fever, and got permanently stuck at the mental age of 4 or 5. Her husband found that he couldn’t handle the stress and walked out. Janet’s mother, who moved in with them to help care for the boy while Janet worked, had recently begun exhibiting the symptoms of Alzheimer’s. Her company was undergoing restructuring, and Janet wasn’t sure she’d keep her job through the next round of layoffs.
What do you say when you hear a story like that? I probably made some sort of soothing meaningless noises, "Oh, how awful, oh my word," that sort of thing. I think I may have said something like, "What are you going to do?" Because what she said next is the part I’ll never forget. She said, "Oh, I’ll manage. I’ll survive. I always do; I’m strong. My priest said that I should consider it a compliment; he said that it’s only because I am strong that God has allowed these things to happen to me." And then she said, "I stopped going to church after that. If that’s what God is like, I’d rather not have anything to do with him."
Well, can you blame her? What kind of a thing is that to say to someone suffering as Janet had? Of course she felt safer going it alone.
And yet I know where her priest got his theology from. He got it from the beginning of the book of Job. "In the land of Uz there lived a man whose name was Job. This man was blameless and upright; he shunned God and feared evil." [Job 1:1] But then only a few verses later the scene suddenly changes to the heavenly courts, and we overhear a conversation between YHWH, the God of Israel, and a nameless figure called "the adversary," the Hebrew word SaTaN. YHWH is boasting of Job’s piety, saying, "Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him"... and Satan replies, "Does Job fear God for nothing? Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. But stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face." YHWH said to Satan, "Very well, then, everything he has is in your hands, but on the man himself do not lay a finger." [Job 1:9-11\2]
So, you see, the terrible things that happen to Job in the next verses do, indeed, appear to have happened precisely because Job was good. By the end of chapter 2 Job has lost his wealth, his children, his health. He’s lost his wife’s respect, his good name in the community, most of his friends, and his patience is understandably beginning to wear a little thin.
And all this as a result of a cosmic wager God has on with Satan.
Is this the same God who sent Jesus to die on the cross so that we might come to know him?
I don’t think so.
It happens all too often, I am afraid, that people take the wrong bits of Scripture to build their theology out of. Don’t get me wrong. I believe what Paul says in his 2nd letter to Timothy, that all Scripture is "useful for teaching." It is. It’s not appropriate to throw away the bits of Scripture that we don’t like, or don’t understand. But we also have to take the Bible as a whole, and try to see how the pieces fit together, and appreciate the different ways the authors use to get their point across. I am not saying that the prologue to Job is untrue. What I am saying is that it is highly colored and somewhat simplified in order to make a completely different point.
Let me explain what I mean. You all know the story of the Good Samaritan, right? Where a man was attacked by bandits on his way from Jericho to Jerusalem, and was helped by a passing Samaritan. Well, now, what would you say to someone who thought that the point of the story was that the Jericho road is dangerous and you should always have an armed guard when traveling to keep from getting attacked? You’d think they’d missed the point, right? The setting - the road from Jericho, and bandits, and all the rest of the detail - is just a framework for the lesson Jesus is teaching on loving your neighbor.
In the same way the introduction to the book of Job is a framework, an artistic convention, to point us to the main issue. The main issue is, "How do we come to grips with the all too real, all too frequent, sometimes overwhelming issue of unearned suffering?"
There are a lot of easy answers. Too many. And those easy answers, thoughtlessly or carelessly or self-righteously used, serve mostly only to drive people like Janet away from God.
A common mistakes in prosperous, materialistic 20th-century Americans is to think that adversity comes from a lack of faith. What’s called the "health and wealth" movement has taken two or three bits of Scripture out of context and proceeded to promise its followers that "If you just believe hard enough, God will give you everything that you want." Think about using this theology the next time you need to comfort someone who is undergoing a major illness or who has experienced a deep loss. Can you imagine telling Janet in the weeks and months after the death of her daughter or her little boy’s illness that it was her fault because she didn’t have enough faith, or didn’t pray hard enough? This way of looking at suffering has so many things wrong with it that it’s hard to know where to begin. First of all, in its effect on the individual who is suffering. It doesn’t comfort; on the contrary, it loads people down with guilt and eventually pushes them away from God. Second, it just isn’t true. God doesn’t promise his followers an easy life. For chapter and verse on this one see me after the service - there’s enough material there for 2 or 3 more sermons. And third, this kind of theology reflects a deep flaw in the relationship the person holding it has with God. This view shows God as a sort of great candy machine in the sky which will go on dispensing goodies as long as you keep on stuffing tokens into the slot.
Another easy answer to the problem of suffering is that suffering is punishment for sin. This is the way we think things ought to be. If God is just, we think, good people get rewarded and bad people get punished. This view has been around for a long time. Remember the good old Protestant work ethic? Work hard and honor God and all will be well. Good people succeed. Prosperity and standing in the community are signs of God’s favor. This is also a very Hebrew view of the world. It is, in fact, what Job and his friends think. They all start out behaving absolutely correctly.
When tragedy or disaster strikes, in the first moments of shock and pain, may we be able to say, along with Job, "The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. May the name of God be praised." [Job 1:21] May it be possible, for you and me in times of trouble, to remember that God is still worthy to be praised. May we be able, like Job, to accept - at least intellectually - that God’s hand is present in both the good times and the bad.
When tragedy or disaster strikes our friends may we behave with the generosity, the same kindness and understanding as Job’s friends. "When Job’s 3 friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite, heard about all the troubles that had come upon him, they set out from their homes... to go and sympathize with him and comfort him... They sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they say how great his suffering was." The most important and the most healing thing you can do for someone who is hurting is simply to be there. Be there with them, be there for them. Be willing to hear them speak aloud their pain and grief and confusion.
Because, when the shock and the numbness that accompany the first blow begin to fade, the pain and anger and confusion need to be spoken aloud. And Job does just that, crying out in terrible anguish, "Why did I not perish at birth? ... Why were there knees to receive me and breasts that I might be nursed? .. Why was I not hidden in the ground like a stillborn child? ... Why is light given to those in misery? ... I have no peace..."
This is the point at which Job’s friends make a mistake. They think Job really wants theology. They think Job is looking for an intellectually satisfying explanation. And so they begin to lay out their theory of moral order. It’s a very satisfying philosophy, very tidy, with no loose ends, no puzzles or paradoxes.
Eliphaz starts out. "Job," he says, "Job, excuse me, but remember what you’ve always said yourself, that bad things don’t happen to good people? Stop and think. You must have done something really awful for God to do this to you. Don’t rebel against God’s punishment, it’s a warning so that you can correct whatever it is you’re doing wrong. If you can’t imagine what it is, ask God to show you; then you can repent, and God will make everything all better."
Well, understandably, Job isn’t real thrilled with this response. "Don’t criticize me for crying out," he says, "you don’t know what it’s like. I’m at the end of my rope, and you’re telling me I deserve what’s happening? Fine lot of friends you are. You’ve known me all my life. I’ll bet you can’t think of one thing I’ve done that accounts for this." And Job cries out to God again, "Why are you doing this to me? Do you hate me? Why don’t you just leave me alone?"
Then Bildad gets in on the act. "Job, you should be ashamed of yourself, talking to God like that. You know perfectly well that God is just. If you’re really as innocent as you claim to be you’ve got nothing to worry about."
"I AM innocent," says Job, "the problem is that God won’t listen to me. And why should he, anyway; I can’t haul him into court and make him listen to the evidence. And even if I could my tongue would get all tangled up and I’d be worse off than before. No, I’ve been wrong all along. God doesn’t care whether I’m innocent or not. He’s just taken against me for no reason. Oh, how I wish there were someone who could make God listen!"
Well, anyway, these dialogues go on for some time. Job keeps crying out in pain, in pain from the losses he has suffered, and in pain from the silence of his God. And his friends keep telling Job that he must have done something wrong and criticize him for insisting that he doesn’t deserve his fate and for accusing God of injustice. Job knows they’re wrong. And we know they’re wrong, too... remember, we were told in the beginning of the book that Job was blameless and upright. So if Job’s friends are wrong, maybe God is unjust...
But the problem with the answers Job’s friends come up with isn’t only that they are theologically unsound. Theology doesn’t meet the needs of the suffering heart. Theology doesn’t heal.
I met Linda when I was in a therapy group for survivors of child abuse. It wasn’t all that long after I’d become a Christian, and I didn’t have all the answers. I still don’t, but I had even less of a clue about God and suffering then. I certainly didn’t know what to say to Linda in her anger and pain. There was a lot of variation in the levels of suffering that the different members had experienced; my own story was probably the least traumatic; it was certainly trivial compared to Linda’s. Her story was the worst of all. I can still hardly bear to remember, much less recount the details of what was done to Linda when she was 2 and 3 and 4 and 5, by the father who was supposed to love and protect her. Linda said to me one day that if God was love, how could God allow what had been done to her? Where is God in a world where 2-year-olds can be raped by their fathers? I couldn’t answer. I knew the theology. I know the theology. The answer is sin. Not Linda’s sin, but Linda’s father’s sin. Sin wouldn’t be so serious if it didn’t hurt the innocent. But this answer did not reach past Linda’s pain. Theology doesn’t heal.
How does Job’s suffering show us how to comfort those who have been hurt beyond our ability either to explain or understand?
Job has been hurt. Not wounded in the same way as Linda had been, not damaged internally at the deepest level of personal identity. But it isn’t possible to quantify suffering, to say that one kind of pain is worse than another. Suffering comes in as many guises as there are people. And Job’s pain is very deep, and very real, and equally beyond his friends’ ability to comfort him.
But Job has one thing in his favor. Job won’t shut up. He won’t give up. Job won’t back off. Job keeps crying out to God to come out and face him like a man. No matter what God has done, somewhere deep down Job knows that what he wants more than anything is to face-to-face encounter with God. Let’s look again at today’s passage. "If only I knew where to find him; if only I could go to his dwelling! I would state my case before him and fill my mouth with arguments. I would find out what he would answer me, and consider what he would say. Would he oppose me with great power? No, he would not press charges against me. There an upright man could present his case before him, and I would be delivered forever from my judge. But if I go to the east, he is not there; if I go to the west, I do not find him. When he is at work in the north, I do not see him; when he turns to the south, I catch no glimpse of him."
Job still has a problem with his theology... he’s sure that there has been a miscarriage of justice, and that all it will take for God to repent is to review the evidence. Job doesn’t understand about the universality of sin, and the reality of living as a fallen human in a broken world. But that isn’t really the issue. Job’s biggest problem is that God is not there. Job knows enough about God to be convinced of his ultimate goodness. He may have some of the details garbled, but Job knows enough about God to know that God alone can fix what is wrong. And that is where we must all begin.
Theology is good. I like theology. Theology helps us to understand the world and how to live in it. Theology explains to us how relationships work and what is important and how to make decisions about life. But theology doesn’t heal. What heals is a face to face encounter with the living God. At the end of the book of Job YHWH, the God of Israel, speaks at last. And God does not answer one of the questions Job has asked. Instead, YHWH questions Job, in some of the most powerful and beautiful language in the entire Bible. "Where were you," God asks, "When I laid the earth’s foundation? ... when the morning stars sang together, and all the angels shouted for joy?" God does not answer Job’s questions about fairness, about justice. On the contrary. God challenges Job, "Would you discredit my justice? Would you condemn me to justify yourself? ... Who has a claim against me that I must pay? Everything under heaven belongs to me."
We are still left with the mystery, and yet Job is satisfied. Why?
Job himself answers our question. "My ears had heard of you," he says, "But now my eyes have seen you."
It is the face to face encounter with the living God that heals the soul. And that face to face encounter with the living God also brings repentance, even when we are pretty good people by the world’s standards, even when we have not done anything which in the world’s eyes requires repentance. Job is righteous. Job is a good man. And yet he goes on to say, "Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes."
All of us - no matter how devout - need to repent on a daily basis of our self-sufficiency. None of us is complete without the presence of God. And yet most of us only seek God sporadically, on Sundays or when we need something. And all of us also need to repent of the idea that our own righteousness, rather than God’s, is the cause of whatever we have been given, whether it is our daily bread or our soul’s salvation. The face to face encounter with the living God leads to repentance, and to healing. Sometimes it leads to healing first, and only then to repentance.What Janet needed was not a reason why her baby had died and her husband had left her. What Janet needed was a friend to love her, to walk beside her and carry the load. Janet’s sin was in giving up and walking away from God instead of insisting, like Job, on satisfaction from God.
My friend Linda was not to blame for what her father had done to her. Her mistake is in looking to people for healing rather than to the God who made her. And Linda does not need to know why her own father hurt her so. She needs a Father who will not.
It is when we cry out to God that God answers us.
At the beginning of the book, remember Job’s stoic faith, as he responded when disaster struck with classic piety, "The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away; blessed be the name of the Lord." This is good. It is good to be confident enough of the goodness of God to be able to respond automatically with an expression of faith. But it is not good to refrain from crying out to God when you hurt.
An Old Testament scholar named Walter Brueggeman has recently written a book about prophetic speech that focuses on the dialogue between people and God in the Psalms, where David and others cry their anguish aloud to a God who is sometimes intimately present and sometimes as distant as death. Brueggeman says "we have been intimidated to speak only what is approved, what is expected, what is safe..." and of course the kind of encounter with God that Job demands is far from safe. But the alternative to risking that terrifying encounter with the Holy One is a flat and silent loneliness that leaves us unable to face life with courage and hope. It is only when we lift up our voices in pain, protest and need that we meet the One whose very presence is the source of life.
Jesus said, "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted," and "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled."
It is out of mourning that comfort comes, it is out of hunger that filling comes. It is when we cry out to the living God that we are met at our point of deepest need. From Job we learn that God requires speech from us, not silence. From Job we learn to seek God rather than to rely on human comfort in time of need. From Job we learn that it is only Immanuel, God With Us, who answers the inmost cries of our hearts.
