October 5, 2003
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Do
you know anyone whose life seems perfectly blessed?
Are you happy for them, or is it the case that whoever the blessed person
is, a co-worker, another student, a neighbor, a family member. Whoever it is,
they have so much going for them that deep in your heart, maybe in the secret,
unredeemed part of your being, you wish for something to happen to them just so
they will know what we mere mortals feel? Do you know in your own life what it
means to be blessed and to know that there is a Tempter, an Accuser, an
Adversary, we will call that ill-spirit Satan out there waiting for a chance to
do you harm. If
you answered yes to any of those questions, then you know Job. Job has a great
life. He has a nice house, a wife, several children, live stock. God has blessed
him, and he loves God. In fact, “God is intensely personal to Job. Much of his
life is spent in responding with gratitude to God. The
events in Job’s life are seen in the two meanings of his name. Job works hard
to be a righteous man of principle because God has been good to him. Job can
mean, “where is the divine father? Where is God?” The name speaks to Job’s
dependence on God. And his name also means, “the hated, persecuted one.” As
we will see as we look at the life of Job, both the meanings of his name will
become true for him (Interpretation series. Job.
J. Gerald Janzen. Atlanta:John Knox Press, 1985, p.34).
Job
teaches us to keep the faith even when God seems cruel. We
are introduced to Job today, after God and Satan, at this point, part of the
heavenly council, entered into an agreement to test Job’s faith. Satan
believes Job has integrity because God has blessed him. God knows that Job is a
man because he has integrity and faith, and that his faith will not fail him,
even when put to the most severe tests. “If he loses everything, he will curse
you to you face” Satan says to God. “No he won’t, but if you insist on
trying me and him, go ahead, but do not touch him”. In
what feels like no time at all, Job has lost everything, including his wife and
children, his livestock and his other property. Now
the question at the heart of the matter is why does God permit humans to suffer?
When I have asked you to suggest sermon topics, many of you want an explanation
of why bad things happen to good people. Why are there any Jobs at all? The answer is that good and bad things happen to good and bad people. There are Jobs in the world because there are human beings in the world and part of what it means to be human is to know that eventually, each of us will have our share of sorrow and joy. But my contention is that if we put our hearts and minds to it, we will sense the hand of God helping us up and holding us up. And as we find ourselves in Job’s story, we will learn something about how to take life as it comes, and to deal with it with integrity and faith, stay true to ourselves, and trust that God with us. How
does Job show his trust in God? He does what we do. Job grieves. We cry, we
rage, worry, eat and we lose our appetites, we sleep and we stay awake all
night, we remember, and sometimes we try to forget. Job got up from where he
was, he ripped his clothes and shaved his head, and he fell on the ground, all
signs of mourning. Then he did one more thing. Job worshiped God. Somehow he
knows that the way through his grief lies in the direction of God so Job speaks
of his utter dependence on God. “I came into this world with only the skin on
my body. I will leave this world the same way.” If
you saw “The West Wing” last Wednesday night, you heard Job’s next words
in the King James Version. “The Lord giveth and the Lord
taketh away”. That is the lament; now hear the rest of the worship.
Even with all he has experienced, Job still says, “Blessed
be the name of the Lord” (Job 1.20-21). Losing
everything would be more than many of us would be able to bear.
Those of you who have known great loses in your life, know how heavy the
burden is, and how you would have been ground into the dust if not for your
faith in the presence of God. But Job has held on and Satan simply cannot deal
with faith in the face of tragedy. He is resentful that Job is able to handle
all that has come at him with hope and trust. So here he is again, at the
heavenly table talking with God about Job. Again
God says “Satan, where have you been?” And again, the answer is, “Going to
and fro from on the earth, and walking up and down on it” (2.3). These days it
does not take much to see where Satan has been. There are families ravished by
drugs, neighbors overwhelmed by violence, political leaders that cannot figure
out how to help all of our citizens receive a decent education, safe housing, or
adequate health care. War and terror make us afraid. Anger at events out of
control gets internalized and becomes depression. “Where have you been?”
“Walking to and fro, and walking back and forth.” The song says, “Satan is
busy, but God is real” (“Order My
Steps” by Glen Burleigh, 1991). Job
teaches us to keep the faith when pain is piled on to pain. The
reality of God in Job’s life is that even as he grieves his profound loses,
Job is able to keep his sense of who he is as a child of God. Despite being the
subject of a dare from Satan, despite God allowing several catastrophes in his
life, Job has yet held on. “Well
of course”, Satan says. “Let’s try skin for skin”. That phrase which
seems kind of obscure to our ears, but its meaning can be the equivalent of
“double or nothing’, or let’s do it again”. Job has lost his family, but
what if he suffers physically? Let’s see how deep his integrity is really (Janzen,
p. 45). “You
will see that he will still keep his faith. Go ahead, try him, test him, but
spare his life.” When
the affliction comes, it does not take his life, but it surely strikes at his
spirit. Job is left with a form of leprosy and sores so irritating that all he
can do is sit in an ash heap and scratch himself with a piece of broken pottery.
He is a man in pain and he is isolated. One
writer describes the impact of Job’s skin condition this way: “Perhaps
because so much of a person’s identity is invested in the skin and because at
least hands and face are involved in the public presentation of the self,
diseases of the skin often evoke social revulsion. In the ancient Near East,
where disease in general was often seen as a sign of divine displeasure, serious
and intractable skin disease was particularly likely to be so interpreted as a
sign of God’s wrath.” (New
Interpreter’s Bible, volume IV Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1996, p.355).
We
know that the most visible parts of us, race, age, whether or not we are
considered to be attractive, our health is sometimes seen in the way our skin
frames our bodies. We feel for Job in his suffering, surely he is wondering what
was in the mind of God as he sits there, hurting and alone.
Job
teaches us to keep the faith even when people tell us to let go. When
we are in distress, a comforting word from a beloved spouse, or a trusted friend
and counselor, will go a long way toward helping us feel good. I
imagine Job was pleased to see his wife coming up to the ash heap. So her words
must have torn at his soul. “Job, honey, what is the purpose of faith and
integrity if it lands you on the garbage heap? What good is your faith if
everything else is gone? Why don’t you curse God and die” (v. 9)? History
has not been kind to Mrs. Job. The theologian Augustine called her the helpmeet
of the devil. She is often spoken of as the embodiment of faithlessness. But
history judges her too harshly. The fact is she and Job are grieving. He has
reached the point of acceptance. He may not like it, but he has come to terms
with the reality of his losses. Remember,
Job’s loss is her loss. Her children have been lost, her quality of life is
gone, her husband is the one isolated and itching and grieving on the outskirts
of the city. The truth is that Mrs. Job is at different point in her grief, she
is still at the angry what’s the point phase. The
foolishness that Job sees in her is not about intellectual weakness, or a lack
of good sense, it is about being too blinded by grief to see the truth she needs
to see (Janzen, p. 55).
She does not know all that she needs to know. As is true with us when we are
stuck in anger and disappointment, she wants all the good things God has, and is
unwilling to share the fullness of life which includes both joy and sorrow. She
does not know that a balanced life is lived dealing with grief and blessing, and
knowing that God yet cares for us and supports us no matter what we feel. Over
the next few weeks Job will have an honest, often intense conversion with God.
They will argue a little bit, but through it all Job will know that God is with
him. He will know and we will know
that there is a place at the table of the Lord for us and because we do we can
do these four things. We
can know that God is with us as surely as God was with Job and his wife. We can
know it as we do what Job and his wife did – ask the hard questions, God can
take it. There is no question, in fact there is nothing we can say to God that
will cause God to says, “that’s it, that question is so hard, I have to
retire from being the creator of the universe.” We
can take things as they come. The fact is that we will know emotional pain.
There will be days when our minds and our bodies are under attack, when we are
led to believe that we are unloved,
undeserving of the love of God, and incapable of receiving God’s trust and
grace. There will be days when the people we think have our best interest at
heart will say things that make no sense to us. Some things in our lives are
simply out of our control, but God has us and will not let us go. We
can stay true to our best selves. We are people of growing faith, on a journey
that will have in its course twists and turns. We are people with integrity,
doing all we can to create the ministries that God has called us to be part of,
and if our lives are not perfect, they are nevertheless good. And
finally, we can put our trust in God. The One who sits at the table as host and
head knows who we are and holds us in high regard. We are held closely to God
not just because of who we are – but because of who God is. Our God is
gracious and welcoming. God is our advocate and our help. It is God who sent
Jesus Christ into the world for our redemption and its is God who has kept the
promise that no matter what – we will always have a place at the table and our
God will not let us go. I
don’t know if all of our questions about why people suffer will be answered in
the next few weeks, but I do know that we will see our story in Job’s story,
and we will be able to get some insight about our relationship with God and with
ourselves. As we do, I pray that we will be able to say with Job, over and over
again, “Blessed be the name of the Lord”. Dr.
LaTaunya M. Bynum |
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Broad
Street Christian Church
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