Oct. 3, 2021

Proper 22

Thanks a lot?

Years ago I was part of a bible study group – I can’t remember exactly what we were studying. It may have been the book of Job, I’m not sure – but someone brought in a question to share with the group that they had been asked, “In times of suffering does your faith offer you consolation?”

It is a reasonable question. After all isn’t your faith supposed to provide comfort in times of trial? Haven’t we all heard said of someone, perhaps at a cancer diagnosis or when a child is born with a severe handicap, “at least they have their faith” or “I don’t know how people without faith get through times like these.”

You might want to ask the question of yourself and you might have a very different answer. There is no right or wrong answer. It is a question worth pondering now and then.

In the group that morning we all got quiet for a few moments, thought about the question, and then one by one we each said the same thing, “No.”

I suspect that were we to ask the question of Job and his wife, characters we heard from in the 1st reading this morning, they, too, would answer, “No.”

The Book of Job is a story, a parable. Much of it reads like a play.  It was written down probably around the 6th century BCE, so it is very old.  It deals with some universal questions related to suffering and some easy answers people use to explain away suffering. The non-answers the story gives discomfort us still.

We begin with the scene being set. Then Job sits in misery and rage on his ash heap while other characters come and go having long discussions with him.  The story ends without real resolution of the tensions raised by the story. A lot of people don’t like the ending because of that. A lot of people don’t like the beginning, either.

We will hear other excerpts from the story on other Sundays in October but here it is in brief:

Once upon a time there was a man named Job who was good and kind in every way. One day, when the members of the heavenly court had gathered around the throne, God pointed out Job calling him “a blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil.”

One of the members of the court raised an interesting point. Our reading says it was Satan but in Hebrew it is ‘the satan’. This is a  being who is not the devil as we often think of him, but is a member of God’s court whose role is to check out how people  are doing down on earth, test them a bit, and then report back to God. He never operates on his own but only on instruction from God.

So, God says, ‘isn’t Job wonderful?’ and ‘the satan’ says, “Yeah, but why wouldn’t he be? He has everything: money, land, livestock, servants, reputation, good health, 10 children he really cares about. Take all that away from him and he’ll sing a different tune.’

God says, ‘Let’s find out.’ And in 2 steps Job and his wife lose everything, including their 10 children who die in the story. Job is left a broken man, covered with sores, sitting on an ash heap.

At this point there is a conversation between Job and his wife. It is like the conversation we have with ourselves when all seems too much. Do we admit defeat and give up? That is the option Job’s wife gives voice to. Or do we, as Viktor Frankl urges in his memoir on life in a Nazi death camp, keep fighting by continuing to look for what life is still expecting from us. That is the option voiced by Job.

That is as far as we got this morning.

Continuing on, Job is visited by 3 friends and “an angry young man” who seems to be hanging around listening to everything and has opinions of his own. Each one of them has something to tell Job about why Job is suffering as he is. Their arguments provide consolation for themselves but do nothing for Job other than make him angrier and angrier.

They say: God is good and just. God punishes the wicked and rewards the righteous. You, Job, must have done something wicked. You caused your suffering. Or maybe your kids did something wrong – you didn’t raise them right. God is merciful. Confess and all will be forgiven. It may take a while. God is kind of slow sometimes but eventually the righteous are rewarded, the wicked punished, and all turns out as it should.

This goes on for pages.

The thing is Job has done nothing wrong. We know it. He knows it, and he won’t back down.

He doesn’t like their reasoning either.

‘There is evidence of injustice all around us,’ he says. ‘The wicked prosper. The innocent suffer. Rain falls on the just and unjust alike. That is the way things are. It all comes from the hands of the Divine. It is not right. I have done nothing wrong and I demand an accounting from God.’

‘Ooo, Get on your knees and beg for mercy,’ they tell him as onto the scene walks God.

God tells the so called friends they don’t know what they are talking about. They need to stop.

Then God and Job start talking and there are many more pages of dialog.  Job knows his suffering is in God’s hands and he thinks God doesn’t care. The conversation gets really heated and then kind of strange.

After a while it sounds like a conversation with Jesus. You know, the kind where you or a Pharisee have a question. It is specific. Yes or no. Explain it to me.  Make it make sense.  Please give a simple, clear answer so I’ll know what to do to stay on the right side of God. And instead of staying within the box that has been constructed, the conversation goes zuuuup over here and we are talking about beauty, and relationship, and love, and joy. The conversation between Job and God, it goes like that. It turns out God does care, very much.

The story comes to the final scene. Job’s questions have not been answered, his suffering has not been explained or justified, but he’s content. He reconciles with his friends and others who had abandoned him in his suffering. His life is once again filled with beauty, relationships, love, and joy.

It is a good story but it is not a consoling story. It is, in fact, discomforting. The image offered of God is difficult. It leaves too many questions unanswered and yet, and yet…

In that bible study group none of us could say our faith served to  reduce our experiences of suffering. And there had been plenty of suffering by members of the group. Isn’t that true in any group? Divorce, illness, addiction, incarceration, betrayal, the list could go on and on.

What we had each found in our walks of faith, was not a lessening of suffering but an expansion of life. None of us could claim the righteousness of Job but we had, each in our way, experienced Presence with a capital ‘P”. Presence beyond reason, love with no explanation, no easy answers, and certainly no condemnation. A love that passed all understanding. And each of us agreed that for us it was more than we could possibly deserve and could only call grace.