what someone else said on Sunday July 31st

 Hey Everyone

We had a special guest speaker today who gave our sermon. My friend Anton has taught classes on the Book of Job as part of courses on World History at different colleges in New York. As a historian, scholar and person of faith, he shared some reflections on the book of Job, its place in history and humanity's  difficulty in understanding and facing this sacred text. 

The readings

Job 38:25-27
"Who has cut a channel for the torrents of rain, and a way for the thunderbolt,  to bring rain on a land where no one lives, on the desert, which is empty of human life, to satisfy the waste and desolate land, and to make the ground put forth grass?

41:1-8;
"Can you draw out Leviathan with a fishhook, or press down its tongue with a cord?  Can you put a rope in its nose, or pierce its jaw with a hook?  Will it make many supplications to you? Will it speak soft words to you?  Will it make a covenant with you to be taken as your servant forever?  Will you play with it as with a bird, or will you put it on leash for your girls?  Will traders bargain over it? Will they divide it up among the merchants? Can you fill its skin with harpoons, or its head with fishing spears?  Lay hands on it; think of the battle; you will not do it again!
 

42:1-6
Then Job answered the Lord: "I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.  "Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?' Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.  "Hear, and I will speak; I will question you, and you declare to me.'  I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you;  therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes."

The message

Thank you very much for inviting me to speak. I am not a theologian. All I can offer are a few personal reflections on the Book of Job.

My first encounter with the Book of Job came about, oddly enough, thanks to Soviet television. The gradual opening of the Soviet world to previously forbidden information in the late 1980s meant that biblical stories began to pop up almost randomly on the pages of magazines and on TV shows. Like any other previously forbidden information it was eagerly consumed, no matter the source, and so my whole family gathered weekly to watch Japanese biblical anime cartoons on Soviet public TV. In every episode a robot would take two children back to the Biblical past where the kids would witness all the major events, including Job’s suffering. My mother’s verdict upon viewing that episode was swift and firm – that was not the God that she believed in.

My mom is not alone. In my World History classes at City College, I decided to teach the Book of Job instead of the more common Epic of Gilgamesh. Why not have the students analyze a story from the Bible that almost everyone has heard of but few have carefully read? Why not? Because it's so hard and depressing. Like New York City itself, City College is incredibly diverse - I've had students who were Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, Agnostic, Jewish, as well as members of multiple Christian denominations. Almost all students took the discussion of the Book of Job in stride and just about everyone felt disheartened by its bleakness.

I tried to teach my students how to analyze the text as social scientists, to try to see what it can tell us about the society that created it. It is in many ways a society very different from our own – after all, Job’s children are killed off and not returned but replaced by others. They are merely an economic resource like his cattle and slaves. Despite the differences the story of seemingly meaningless suffering strikes a universal chord.

Unlike the rest of the Bible that makes modern readers uncomfortable by the inclusion of miracles, I would suggest that the Book of Job makes us uncomfortable because it is so realistic. It is the closest to our darkest experiences of the world - we and others suffer without knowing why. The disclaimer that your Pastor has used to introduce his sermons in the last few weeks, eloquently reminds us that “everything we know about God does not come from the book of Job” and that “the history of God’s communication with the world is a story of love, care, forgiveness and grace.” Indeed, so many of the rest of the stories of the Bible, the stories of God’s presence in the world, seem to work to undo the damage that the Book of Job does to our hearts.

Yet the passages we’ve read today also point us to an important truth – the God of the Book of Job whom my mom has such difficulty accepting tells us, in incredibly beautiful poetry that we cannot fully know the mind of God. God challenges Job's and his friends' insistence that his actions must be understandable – God reminds Job of every way in which Job cannot even fathom God's power and realm of responsibility.

This insight too, appears to be human wisdom shared by many religious traditions. I selected the Book of Job to use in my classes since another text required by the school, the Hindu Bhagavad Gita tells of a similar story of human interaction with the Divine. An equally blameless Prince Arjuna asks Krishna, his chariot driver, for advice in a difficult moment of his life. When Krishna reveals himself to be a god, Arjuna unwisely asks him to show himself in his true form. Though God protects Job from his overwhelming presence by a whirlwind, Krishna actually shows himself to Arjuna who says

“At the sight of this, your Shape stupendous,

 Full of mouths and eyes, feet, thighs and bellies,

Terrible with fangs, O master,

All the worlds are fear-struck, even just as I am.

When I see you, Vishnu, omnipresent,

Shouldering the sky, in hues of rainbow,

With your mouths agape and flame-eyes staring—

All my peace is gone; my heart is troubled.” 

Confronted by the unfathomable divine presence, both Job and Arjuna fall down and ask to be spared. 

Job admits to God that he indeed cannot understand or know God. Yet Elie Wiesel suggested that Job’s quick agreement to wrongdoing indicates that Job actually rebels  - he stops God but reserves the right to think for himself now that he knows what to expect from God.

Poet Alicia Ostriker went further when she wrote that Job’s complaints are a challenge to God to be just, that his is a voice of the “loyal opposition.”  Ostriker explains that once God delivers the message of his power to Job he then admits that he, God, was wrong by bringing restitution. For Ostriker, the moral of the story is that humans should challenge injustice, even when it means challenging God. This does fit with the many instances in the Old Testament where prophets bargain, argue, and even wrestle with God.

But there is a kind of mercy even in the plainest reading of the Book of Job - God does hear him and comes to speak to him directly - a privilege that perhaps no modern human being can claim. And yet in the New Testament – Jesus, God in his human presence on earth, tells us over and over again that we are not alone in our suffering after all. On the eve of his ascension, Jesus makes sure to tell the apostles that he shall send a divine presence, a comforter, the Holy Spirit to be with us.

We are reminded that God knows that we crave his presence with us, his response to our entreaties - and God's message of the New Testament is much clearer about this than the Book of Job. The good news then is that God is with us even when might not know it and even when we can't believe it.

Sermon for July 24

The readings  

Job 31:35-37

 ‘O that I had one to hear me! (Here is my signature! Let the Almighty answer me!) O, that I had the indictment written by my adversary!  Surely I would carry it on my shoulder; I would bind it on me like a crown;  I would give him an account of all my steps; like a prince I would approach him.

38:1-11

Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind:  "Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?  Gird up your loins like a man, I will question you, and you shall declare to me.  "Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding.  Who determined its measurements—surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it?  On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone when the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy?  "Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb?—  when I made the clouds its garment, and thick darkness its swaddling band,  and prescribed bounds for it, and set bars and doors, and said, "Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stopped'?

The message

This is our fourth week with the book of Job.  I am going to start with the same introduction as the last 3 weeks. Everything we know about God does not come from the book of Job.  The history of God’s communication with the world is ultimately a story of love, care, forgiveness and grace, one fully told through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. When we hear God’s actions in Job that are uncomfortable or appear to be extremely unfair or cruel, we have to look again, understand the context, purpose and history of the story or even put those things aside and remember our God is the one who loves us, forgives us, invites us to live better lives and promises us eternal life. 

In our first reading today, Job asks God for something we all would want if we were in a situation like his, something we see as a basic human right. Job wants the opportunity to defend himself, to hear God’s case against him, to question the cause of his sufferings and argue if it was fair or deserved.  Job announces  “Here is my signature”. This is a reference to a specific action which needs some explanation. In this case the signature is the last letter of the ancient Hebrew alphabet (which resembles an X). This was used as a symbol for exemption from judgment, which Job feels that he deserves. We see a mention of this signature or mark in Ezekiel chapter 9 verses 4-6, a rather brutal reading where God’s punishment is unleashed on the people of Jerusalem in response to their sins.  

The Lord called to the man clothed in linen, who had the writing case at his side; and said to him, “Go through the city, through Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of those who sigh and groan over all the abominations that are committed in it.” To the others he said in my hearing, “Pass through the city after him, and kill; your eye shall not spare, and you shall show no pity.  Cut down old men, young men and young women, little children and women, but touch no one who has the mark. And begin at my sanctuary.”

In our first reading, Job continues to maintain his innocence, insist on a clear description of what he supposedly has done, the chance to answer those charges and also ask for mercy, exemption from judgment.  Over the next few chapters, Job continues to argue with this friends and petition God for answers. In Chapter 38, for the first time, God speaks to Job. As the audience, we are left thinking “it’s about time”, we are curious about what God will say and we are hopeful that God’s words will offer solace, comfort and explanation. After all, when God finally responds to Job’s questions, challenges and prayers, that should be a good thing.  Of course, God does not necessarily make us feel all that much better, we are not given the answers, closure or comfort we hope for.  God’s responses to Job, here and in the next 10 chapters or so, are complicated. God’s words are difficult to understand, do not really address the cause of Job’s suffering and do not tell us why bad things happen to good people.  Throughout history, many people who looked at God’s speeches in Job understand them in two different ways.  1: they expose the ridiculous notion that we somehow have a right to question God or 2: they confront Job’s (and everyone elses’) very limited idea of the world as a place where all suffering is a matter of law and guilt or innocence.

What exactly God is saying in these speeches is one of the most aggressively debated parts of the entire book. Perhaps the most important lessons we can take from these speeches are shared in both cases. Our knowledge is limited and our ability to observe is limited. We are invited to trust something apart from us, to recognize that there are things in the world beyond our wealth, power, minds, ideas and observations.   Ultimately God’s speeches remind us that God is God and we are not.   

Our reading from Job chapter 38 where we have God’s first words is the only use of yhwh for the Lord’s name in main sections of Job (it does occur in the prose of the opening and closing chapters).   In ancient Jewish beliefs, the name of God was too holy, mysterious, and powerful to be captured by words or spoken aloud.  In texts and scripture ,God’s name was indicated by 4 hebrew consonants, y,h,w, h.  There were no vowels in the name of God and that meant it could not be said. (even in English today, you cannot properly say a word without any vowels).  In reading the sacred texts, people faced with the yhwh often said “hashem” meaning the name or “adoni” meaning lord. As God starts speaking in Job, God’s otherness and mystery is stressed.   The alternative is that what we can know about God is what is revealed by God, That Scripture points to God, church points to God, Christ points to God, our experience of joy and grace points to God.  That is where we answer the mystery, well that is where the mystery is answered for us (we don’t figure it out, its revealed to us).   

We have a hard time sitting with mystery.  Just like Job, we do want to know it all and have things operate in a neat and orderly way.  Over 3000 years after the use of “yhwh” for the name of God, biblical scholars and researchers in the 18^th century decided that they would take the vowels from Adoni, the Hebrew word for Lord and add them to “yhwh” because we could and we do not need that much mystery in our faith. That is where we get the name Yahweh, which becomes Jehovah in English.  We did not want to sit with that mystery anymore.

Throughout history people have sought to understand the world. The thought was that we could observe the world and figure God out.  The truth is that there are limits to our knowledge, to the things we can understand. Job meets those limits in these conversations with God. Today, we reach those limits in our research, in theories like the Hisenberg uncertainty principle that tell us particular things cannot be known (in this case the position and speed or momentum of a subatomic particle).  We reach those limits in astromony,  In an interview with Christianity Today, Jastrow, a leader in astronomy research (and not particularily religious) says "Astronomers now find they have painted themselves into a corner because they have proven, by their own methods, that the world began abruptly in an act of creation to which you can trace the seeds of every star, every planet, every living thing in this cosmos and on the earth. And they have found that all this happened as a product of forces they cannot hope to discover. That there are what I or anyone would call supernatural forces at work is now, I think, a scientifically proven fact. "For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountain of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries."

Job was sitting there, at the moment reason stops, long before the astronomers of today. We need to turn to God’s simple advice to Job at the beginning of the conversation.  God tells Job to “gird your loins like a man”.  This was a reference to adjusting your clothing by tucking up and tying the bottom of your robe to allow for more and quicker movement in combat. God knows that Job will not be comforted by a pat on the back and a good job, instead Job will be confronted by questions he cannot answer, mysteries he cannot solve and an incomplete, unsatisfying ending.  

sermon for July 17, 2016

The Readings:

Job 14:7-15; 19:23-27

 "For there is hope for a tree, if it is cut down, that it will sprout again, and that its shoots will not cease.  Though its root grows old in the earth, and its stump dies in the ground, yet at the scent of water it will bud and put forth branches like a young plant. But mortals die, and are laid low; humans expire, and where are they?  As waters fail from a lake, and a river wastes away and dries up,  so mortals lie down and do not rise again; until the heavens are no more, they will not awake or be roused out of their sleep. O that you would hide me in Sheol, that you would conceal me until your wrath is past, that you would appoint me a set time, and remember me!  If mortals die, will they live again? All the days of my service I would wait until my release should come.  You would call, and I would answer you; you would long for the work of your hands.

Job 19:23-27

"O that my words were written down! O that they were inscribed in a book!  O that with an iron pen and with lead they were engraved on a rock forever!  For I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth;  and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God,  whom I shall see on my side, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me

The Message:

This is our third week with the book of Job.  I am going to start with the same introduction as the last 2 weeks. Everything we know about God does not come from the book of Job.  The history of God’s communication with the world is ultimately a story of love, care, forgiveness and grace, one fully told through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. When we hear God’s actions in Job that are uncomfortable or appear to be extremely unfair or cruel, we have to look again, understand the context, purpose and history of the story or even put those things aside and remember our God is the one who loves us, forgives us, invites us to live better lives and promises us eternal life.    

Today, we see Job’s expectation that the loving but mysterious God we know will appear. We see Job challenge certain traditions and once again insist that he has not sinned.  Most importantly, we see how Job communicates with God, what he assumes and what he believes. Job gets extremely close to but never crosses that unknown line that separates complaining, protesting and questioning God from cursing God and losing faith.  Even with having no idea why these great, unjust sufferings fell on him, Job trusts that God hears, God sees, God answers, God is ultimately in control and God will appear.  

In chapter 14, Job challenges the tradition that like trees and nature, people can regrow from ruin.  He takes issue with the famous analogy between the regeneration of trees and plants and human life.  This does not bring Job any comfort.  He does not want to hear any suggestion that suffering is gift to make you stronger, a necessity to prepare you for something else or of “pie in the sky when you die” (the story that people in power have often told slaves, poor folks, and others to encourage them to remain in those oppressed, abused, unequal and God condemned roles under the promise of great things in the next life).

Job will not suffer quietly in this life while waiting for reward in the next.  Job expresses uncertainty at what happens to people after death, where humans go after they die and how long they stay there. In the Old Testament there were at least 5 or 6 different views or understandings about what actually happens after death.   The range of expressed beliefs went from nothing to heaven and hell, from the true end of eternal sleep to the division of the righteous to eternal life and bad to eternal suffering.  Only after the life, death and resurrection of Jesus is the promise of resurrection and eternal life made clear to God’s people.  Jesus assures us that because he rose, we too will arise, that God’s love for us does not stop at death.  In his life and teaching, death and resurrection, Jesus answers the confusion and uncertainty of what happens after death.  Job did not have the benefit of knowing this would come to be and he demanded his explanation and restoration here and now anyway.   

After this part of the conversation, Job’s “friends” become less diplomatic and more aggressive in their beliefs.  Sure and certain in their incorrect belief that evil is always punished and good quickly rewarded, Job’s resistance to admitting he had sinned needed to be overcome if he had any hope to survive.  In chapter 18 Bidal warns Job that the continued insistence that he has done no wrong will result destroy the memory of Job.  If Job does not admit his wrongs and repent, he will be forgotten by history.  In response Job states I know that my Redeemer lives. There is uncertainty about what Job means here.  We are familiar with this statement through the great hymn of the same name, and in our proclamation of the risen Christ as our redeemer. In Job, the context indicates that he is talking about some next of kin, some unknown relationship of his who will clear his name after he is gone.  

Job’s words, challenges and actions have been seen in different ways since the book first appeared. In our bible study last week, we looked at interpretations and understandings of Job throughout history, from the Talmud and early Jewish commentary through Elie Wiesel and a post Holocaust understanding.  There was a good 1000 plus year stretch from Pope Gregory the Great in the 6^th century through Luther and the reformation in the 16th where Job simply foreshadowed Jesus.  Both endured the loss of everything. Job lost all he had.  Jesus had all the power in the world but it is lost by taking on flesh and human life and being obedient to God’s will.  Both meet underserved suffering. All Jesus does is confront sin, proclaim God’s love for all people and help those in need and all Job does is be faithful and a good steward of his wealth. 

Perhaps the most striking similarity between Job and Jesus is their prayer. Of course, Jesus teaches us to pray with the Lord’s prayer, which we will look at for 4 weeks in August, the beautiful, neat orderly petitions that in a few words summarize faith, trust, joy and scripture. Jesus does not say this prayer in his last hours before his betrayal though, at that time, Jesus prayer is more like Job,   Luke 22 : 39 -46  (and the other Gospels report similar prayer) Jesus withdrew from his disciples, knelt down and prayed, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground. When he rose from prayer and went back to the disciples, he found them asleep, exhausted from sorrow.

Like Jesus, Job is intense in his honesty, anger and anxiety before God. Both go to God for help and answers.  Both keep talking because they know God is listening and they need help to keep faithful. In comparison, Job’s three friends never seem to pray or really seek God’s guidance. Strengthened by the incorrect belief that they are wise and right, they simply have no need for thought, prayer or change.    

Many of us heard a woman pray like Job and Jesus recently. There was video taken by Diamond Renoylds, in the minutes after her boyfriend Philandro Castile’s was shot and killed by a police officer.  The video is a mess.  She is trying to figure out what happened, explain things and calm her 4 year old daughter, communicate with the police, show the world what was going on live, mourn and pray.  Throughout her prayer, there are instructions from the police, confusion, crying and the officer who shot Philadro cursing a lot as he also tries to figure out what just happened.

In words that could easily come from the book of Job, she says : No. Please don’t tell me my boyfriend is gone. Please don’t tell me he’s gone. Please Jesus no. Please no. Please no don’t let him be gone Lord. He don’t deserve this. Please. He’s a good man, he works for St. Paul Public school. He doesn’t have no records of anything. He’s never been in jail, anything. He’s not a gang member, anything. you cover him Lord. That you allow him to still be here with us Lord. Still with me Lord. Please Lord wrap your arms around him. Please Lord make sure that he’s OK, that he’s breathing Lord. Please Lord you know our rights Lord, you know we are innocent people Lord. We are innocent people. We are innocent people. We are innocent.

Today, Diamond continues to seek and share prayer for herself and others, to communicate with God even though Philandro is dead and we do not know why. That is why we cannot ignore the book of Job. We have as much trouble understanding why this happened during a quiet traffic stop on a Minnesota street or why all those police officers were killed in Dallas during a mostly peaceful protest as we do with Job.   If we wonder like Job, we also invited to pray like Job. We cannot be like Job’s friends and try to figure it out on our own then pretend it’s God’s word or get so caught up in being right, we forget to be prayerful, helpful, faithful, loving or honest. We must remember that God is with us in suffering and let that shape our words and actions.      

Sermon for July 10th, 2016

The readings 

 

Job 3:1-10

 After this Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth. Job said:  "Let the day perish in which I was born, and the night that said, "A man-child is conceived.'  Let that day be darkness! May God above not seek it, or light shine on it.  Let gloom and deep darkness claim it. Let clouds settle upon it; let the blackness of the day terrify it.  That night—let thick darkness seize it! let it not rejoice among the days of the year; let it not come into the number of the months.  Yes, let that night be barren; let no joyful cry be heard in it.  Let those curse it who curse the Sea, those who are skilled to rouse up Leviathan.  Let the stars of its dawn be dark; let it hope for light, but have none; may it not see the eyelids of the morning—  because it did not shut the doors of my mother's womb, and hide trouble from my eyes.

4:1-9;

Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered: "If one ventures a word with you, will you be offended? But who can keep from speaking?  See, you have instructed many; you have strengthened the weak hands.  Your words have supported those who were stumbling, and you have made firm the feeble knees. But now it has come to you, and you are impatient; it touches you, and you are dismayed.  Is not your fear of God your confidence, and the integrity of your ways your hope?  "Think now, who that was innocent ever perished? Or where were the upright cut off?  As I have seen, those who plow iniquity and sow trouble reap the same.  By the breath of God they perish, and by the blast of his anger they are consumed.

7:11-21

"Therefore I will not restrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.  Am I the Sea, or the Dragon, that you set a guard over me?  When I say, "My bed will comfort me, my couch will ease my complaint,'  then you scare me with dreams and terrify me with visions,  so that I would choose strangling and death rather than this body. I loathe my life; I would not live forever. Let me alone, for my days are a breath.  What are human beings, that you make so much of them, that you set your mind on them, visit them every morning, test them every moment?  Will you not look away from me for a while, let me alone until I swallow my spittle?  If I sin, what do I do to you, you watcher of humanity? Why have you made me your target? Why have I become a burden to you?  Why do you not pardon my transgression and take away my iniquity? For now I shall lie in the earth; you will seek me, but I shall not be."

The message 

 

This is our second week with the book of Job.  I am going to start with the same introduction as last week. Everything we know about God does not come from the book of Job.  The history of God’s communication with the world is ultimately a story of love, care, forgiveness and grace, one fully told through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. When we hear God’s actions in Job that are uncomfortable or appear to be extremely unfair or cruel, we have to look again, understand the context, purpose and history of the story or even put those things aside and remember our God is the one who loves us, forgives us, invites us to live better lives and promises us eternal life.    

This week, we have three readings. In our first reading, from Job chapter 3, we hear Job give voice to his suffering and curse the day of his birth. This is Job response to having lost his family, riches and friends, a cry of deep despair, the asking what was I born for, why have lived at all just for this suffering.   Similar laments are found in the prophet Jeremiah (who has much less reason to complain than Job, but does so anyway).  After a time of imprisonment, suffering for his work and a general the world not listening to him, Jeremiah cries out

Cursed be the day I was born! May that day not be blessed when my mother gave birth to me.  Cursed be the man who made my father very glad when he brought him the news that a baby boy had been born to him!  May that man be like the cities that the Lord destroyed without showing any mercy.  All I experience is trouble and grief, and I spend my days in shame.

Our next reading comes from chapter 4 of Job. Here we hear from the first of  Job’s three friends who try to console, correct or help him.  Eliphaz the Temanite believes that the righteous do not perish or suffer. In his view, the world exists in a way where only the wicked suffer and it is in direct relation to how often and much they have sinned   This argument is, in part, rooted in what Eliphaz believes to have been a personal revelation he received through a dream.   Job’s other friends, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite, will speak later in the book.  All three of them never wavier from some version of the belief that God punishes and rewards based on sin (and  therefore Job must have done something awful)

Job responds to this first form of the “you must have sinned argument” by saying that even if Eliphaz was right, that God doles out reward and punishment based on our good deeds and sins, Job’s punishment was far beyond anything deserved or fair for whatever unknown sin he committed. 

After this Eliphaz encourages Job to be patient, to endure his suffering and trust that things will get better.  Job responds with our reading from chapter 7. Job reflects on the brief, temporary and short lives we have.  There is not enough time to stay quiet, not complain and not seek explanation and answers. Job talks about being treated like the Sea and dragon.  Those were seen as symbols of cosmic chaos, the stuff that God destroys completely and totally in order to create the world.  That sort of attack on a good person must be explained.  This was not time for patience. It was easy enough for someone like Eliphaz, outside and merely observing the oddity of Job’s suffering to say be patient, but doing so after what Job endured, was something else.

As we go through Job, we become more and more frustrated with Job’s friends.  As they find countless ways to suggest Job must have sinned and brought this suffering on himself, we know that is not the case.  From the middle of the first chapter, we know something that  Job and his friends do not. We know why Job suffered. Job suffered all this loss and pain because of this conversation between Satan and God, the debate over “if people would remain faithful to God without receiving rewards” At the end of the book, God confirms that sin and suffering are not dealt out in such a neat and orderly way. God informs Job that Eliphaz (and the others) are completely wrong, that reward and punishment are not dealt out according to our sins. (Interestingly, God never reveals why these things happened to Job)    

I want to look at 2 points, first, is how we talk to people in suffering with faith and the other is the hope and joy we have in Christ (we never need to worry about God  holding us accountable for the full weight of our sins).  In one way, Job’s friends are trying to console him. After all, since they believe Job’s punishment and suffering were caused by his sin, admittance, confession and repentance would be the only possible way to allelivate it. The quicker Job admits that sin, the quicker things will improve. In a much stronger way, they have made his suffering into an “I am right and you are wrong contest”. They keep telling Job he must have sinned. It stops becoming an attempt to comfort and turns into an “I can argue better than you, I know more or I have seen more than you”.  They have also placed human stuff at the center of faith and this need to be right overcomes their desire to help their friend. 

I wish this was something we could say was another oddity of Job but it happens all the time. On Wednesday, we had the Elmhurst clergy meeting.  One of the pastors there was talking about having problems with the parks department and police during outdoor public ministries.  As he talked about the problems he faced, everyone else started to tell him “can’t be”, “we set up there before”, “the police never bothered us”, “you must have done something wrong” and even a joking “maybe they just don’t like you”.  What he probably really wanted to hear was a simple, “that’s tough, you’ll figure it out or maybe we can help”.  What he got was a “we know how it works and you clearly don’t”.   One of the other people in the group said “wow this is like Job and the conversations with his friends” and then I said,  I’m doing a 6 week series on Job, im going to mention this”. As we walk with people in suffering, mourning or anxiety, we are reminded to not be like Eliphaz and Job’s friends.  It’s not a debate, it’s someone’s life. We are asked to listen, show we care and share the good news of God’s presence in suffering. We are set free to do this because Christ died and rose again.

(after the events of this week in Dallas, Baton Rogue and Minnesota, I added a few sentences during my sermon which ill try to repeat as best I can here).  I wanted to share some thoughts about a much more serious example of when we fail to see things from other people’s perspectives, when we insist on being right or winning instead of being compassionate, understanding or helpful.  We had the killing of 2 more people of color by police at times when hindsight shows us it shoudn’t have happened and we have the killing of 5 officers in Dallas and wounding of 7 more there, who all trusted a peaceful protest would be peaceful.  As we live and act like Jobs friends, as we combine an inability to understand the other, recognize our own bias,  faults and responsibilities and to not hear others with lots of guns, these debates over racism, poverty and public safety become death and communities in crisis.  When we act like Job’s friends, when we want to be right, not faithful, when we will not change our minds, or see and learn from other different perspectives, we become the cause of suffering.         

Finally, after two weeks, I have found some good news in Job. The joy of our faith is that Eliphaz and his friends are wrong, God does not hold our sins against us, because Christ lived, died and rose again the wages of sin are not death. One of the true joys in God’s gift of forgiveness is that when people say “God is punishing them” or “they are suffering for their sins”, we can say no Christ died so you don’t have to.