Job 1:1; 2: 1 – 10

We’ve all heard a lot of talk about the change in our culture in recent years, from the Modern era to Postmodern, and how important it is to try and communicate the timeless message of our faith to people who now process information in some different ways. While that is true, I still believe that there are some timeless questions that all people need to respond to – modern, Postmodern, rich or poor, male, female - whatever.  There are human issues that are still terribly important whatever our thought processes might be. We have a built in need to know: what does God have to say about these things? 

Questions like, “What happens when I die?” “Where did we come from?”  “Why am I here?” And probably, number one on that list of foundational questions are issues around suffering. 

In the wake of tragedies of all types, questions about where God is in all this naturally arise. Columnist Eric Zorn from the Chicago Tribune wrote a column offering his questions, and his answer, after the December 26, 2004, tsunami in Southeast Asia.  Let me share some excerpts from that: 

Did the tsunami reflect the will of God? Or was God powerless to stop it?

If it was God's will, what moral lesson can we possibly accept from an entity for whom individual human life is evidently so expendable?

Why isn't constant fear the only sensible attitude toward such a being?

Either way, what does it mean to trust God or have faith in God when in seconds on a sunny day a crushing wave from the deep can snatch a loved one literally from your grasp and drown him?

Trust that it's all part of some bigger plan that mere mortals cannot begin to access or comprehend?

...The grand mystery notion fits well enough for me...

I call my outlook indifferent agnosticism: I don't know if God exists and I don't care. God's will and design for this temporal and spatial vastness, if any, is so patently, deliberately impenetrable that I doubt any mortal has a grasp on it.

The very inexplicability of sad events like the tsunami, like the AIDS crisis or even like the cancer death of the father of one of my daughter's 2nd-grade classmates last week are, to me, reminders to focus on our obligations to one another, not to the infinite; to honor the creator, if any, by honoring creation itself and hoping that's good enough.[1]

The issue of suffering has been on the minds of people since as a species we have had the ability to reflect on ourselves in relation to a Creator whose basic nature is said to be good.  There’s a problem! And none of our answers have been complete in their scope or satisfaction.

One of earliest considerations of the issues of human suffering and the existence of God is a book in our Bible called Job. Job has been around a long time!  It was most likely written in a form that was meant to be performed or publicly read by a number of participants as a Dramatic reading.  This is a special type of ancient literature that gives a very early perspective on a universal issue. And its message went completely counter to the popular thought – just as it does to this day.

I’ve heard many people discuss the book of Job assuming that its purpose is to answer the question of the origin of suffering.  I.e., assuming that the point of the book is to explain where suffering comes from.  Simply looking from the number of chapters in the book, and their focus, that doesn’t seem to hold up!

The first two chapters of Job are set in heaven where Satan appears in a ‘council of Angels’ (something that we don’t see anywhere else in Scripture).  There’s some ‘bargaining’ and God allows Satan to attack all of Job’s possessions.  So, he loses everything he has – his livestock, his farmhands, and even his children. 

In chapter two, God points out to Satan (there again!) that in spite of that, Job has maintained his integrity.  Satan says, ‘That’s because you spared him from physical suffering.’  God says “Go ahead, then, but don’t kill him.”  And thus, our passage of the morning.  Job, having already suffered the devastating loss of practically everything surrounding him, now finds himself in a terrible physical agony; covered with painful sores from head to toe. 

His wife, observing him, says, “Curse God and die.”  And job responds: “You talk like a godless woman. Should we accept only good things from the hand of God and never anything bad?” So in all this, Job said nothing wrong.”

That’s the first two chapters.  Chapters 3 – 37 record conversations between Job and some of his friends who come to ‘console’ him.  These friends, when they first see him, are so deeply touched by his suffering that for an entire week they simply sit with him, and say nothing at all. It says, “They saw that his suffering was too great for words.”

Unfortunately for Job, they decided that they had to say something, and as I said, for 34 chapters we read of their interaction with Job.  What do we learn about the origin of suffering from the Book of Job?  If we are to take the first two chapters literally (which I’m not sure is their intention) we come to the conclusion that suffering does not come from God directly, but nevertheless happens by God’s permission. 

Now that is a deep and profound thought, a mystery to be sure; to try and unravel that we could talk about it for a long, long time (and fail!).  But I would suggest to you that it doesn’t really add much – if anything – to what we already know about suffering. That is the only possible conclusion we can come to if God is truly ‘good’ and omnipotent (other than denying that suffering is really ‘bad’, which means we can’t trust our own senses, and that’s pretty shaky ground!) But it still doesn’t answer the ‘why’ question – why would God give permission for one person to suffer and not another? 

In fact, I think that one point that is made in the next 34 chapters of Job is that we cannot know the mind of God in allowing or disallowing suffering.  It seems that this is God’s basic point in his final words in the last chapters of Job! Some things we cannot understand.

So the point of this book is not to explain suffering – quite the opposite! The friends of Job all, in one form or another, suggest to Job that he is suffering because of something that he has done to offend God.  Job’s consistent response to them is “No!  I have not done anything wrong.”   And his refusal to accept their advice, their rambling sermons, is considered by God to be Job maintaining his integrity.

Now, Job’s friends were expressing to him the common wisdom of that age:  “If you are good, then you are blessed. If you are evil – then you will suffer.” Everybody knew that!  It was common knowledge – and then here comes Job saying, “No!  I’m suffering, but I have not done anything wrong!”  And he steadfastly refuses to curse God for God’s plan – even though he is suffering terribly as a result of it, even though he doesn’t ‘deserve’ it, even though he doesn’t understand any of it.

So, you see, what Job is teaching us is that in suffering the real issue is not to answer the question why, the real issue is to respond to suffering as a measure of our faith, and to continue to be steadfast, to maintain our spiritual integrity – even when life is bad.  (I’m not suggesting that this is easy, just that this is what the book is about!)

This is a theme that is picked up in other places in the Scripture.  For example – at the end of the book of Habbakuk (chapter 3) we read: “Even though the fig trees have no blossoms, and there are no grapes on the vine; even though the olive crop fails, and the fields lie empty and barren; even though the flocks die in the fields, and the cattle barns are empty, yet I will rejoice in the Lord! I will be joyful in the God of my salvation. The Sovereign Lord is my strength!”

Likewise, Jesus himself addressed the issue with the man born blind in John chapter 9:

As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man who had been blind from birth. “Teacher,” his disciples asked him, “why was this man born blind? Was it a result of his own sins or those of his parents?”

    “It was not because of his sins or his parents' sins,” Jesus answered. “He was born blind so the power of God could be seen in him.”

This is the message of Job – not teaching us how to explain suffering, but teaching us how a person of faith responds to suffering.  Job removes personal gain from the equation of faith, and tells the world by his example, and words, that God is worthy of our trust, worthy of our praise, because he is God; regardless of what is happening in our lives.  It is deep, and difficult, and difficult too.

Now, I think that this message is extremely relevant to us in 2006. 

Do people still bargain with God?  Yes, we do! “God, if you do _________ for me, then I will do ____________ for you.”   If you heal me, get me this job, answer this prayer, then I’ll go to church, I’ll tithe, I’ll witness to my neighbor, I’ll love you, [I’ll teach Sunday School!] on and on.  It is easy to fall into this way of thinking because of the many promises of answered prayer that we find in the New Testament, and because of God’s amazing desire to bless his children.  But somewhere in there is a line that we need to try not cross – where we begin to assume that there is something we are doing that obligates God’s blessing.

There are a number of churches in the US and around the world today – many of them quite large, because people like to hear this – that teach the theology of Job’s friends.  Faith (or, goodness) = material/ temporal blessings. (And, conversely, lack of faith = suffering). As a result, there are many people today who discover that personal suffering causes a crisis of faith.  What have I done to deserve this?

Now, Job does not in any way teach some sort of Stoic fatalism.  His response to his suffering is far from “O well, this is God’s will. So it’s OK.”  We already saw that his friends’ reaction to him was so intense that they did nothing but sit with him for a week.  He was not hiding anything. Listen to Job’s own words from Job 3:

“Cursed be the day of my birth, and cursed be the night when I was conceived. Let that day be turned to darkness. Let it be lost even to God on high, and let it be shrouded in darkness. Yes, let the darkness and utter gloom claim it for its own. Let a black cloud overshadow it, and let the darkness terrify it... Let those who are experts at cursing--those who are ready to rouse the sea monster--curse that day. …Curse it for its failure to shut my mother's womb, for letting me be born to all this trouble.

   “Why didn't I die at birth as I came from the womb? Why did my mother let me live?”

Job’s example in suffering is not to pretend that it doesn’t hurt, that it really isn’t happening.  But he takes a longer view; he recognizes that God’s nature and glory is to be acknowledged, can be acknowledged, even if we receive trouble in this life.   

He is able to do that, because he also recognizes that this life is not all there is. Job understands that God’s promises of justice and goodness extend beyond the grave. God is eternal. Listen to this speech from Job chapter 19:

Then Job spoke again: [to a friend]

   ”How long will you torture me? How long will you try to break me with your words? Ten times now you have meant to insult me. You should be ashamed of dealing with me so harshly. And even if I have sinned, that is my concern, not yours. You are trying to overcome me, using my humiliation as evidence of my sin, but it is God who has wronged me. I cannot defend myself, for I am like a city under siege.

    “I cry out for help, but no one hears me. I protest, but there is no justice. God has blocked my way and plunged my path into darkness. He has stripped me of my honor and removed the crown from my head. He has demolished me on every side, and I am finished. He has destroyed my hope. His fury burns against me; he counts me as an enemy. His troops advance. They build up roads to attack me. They camp all around my tent.

    “My relatives stay far away, and my friends have turned against me. My neighbors and my close friends are all gone. The members of my household have forgotten me. The servant girls consider me a stranger. I am like a foreigner to them. I call my servant, but he doesn’t come; I even plead with him! My breath is repulsive to my wife. I am loathsome to my own family. Even young children despise me. When I stand to speak, they turn their backs on me …

      … “But as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and that he will stand upon the earth at last. And after my body has decayed, yet in my body I will see God! I will see him for myself. Yes, I will see him with my own eyes. I am overwhelmed at the thought!

In some ways, I find myself agreeing with the words of that Chicago columnist that I quoted as we began this message.  That it is difficult, if not impossible to discern the ‘why’ in looking at tragedies – whether large scale, or more personalized, individual suffering.

These things are beyond us. I also agree that in our lack of knowledge the best response is to do what we can to alleviate the hurt, and to bring comfort to those who are suffering as best we can – that is certainly what Jesus teaches us, and what we try to practice in this church.

Yet, I can’t give in to his hopelessness. If all we had to go by were our own thoughts, our own minds, it would seem to make sense at times to conclude that there is no Reason behind the events of life, that God either does not exist, or is unknowable by design as that writer suggests.  But as a Christian, I do have more than my own mind. We have the Word of God; we have a message of hope and grace that has been given to us and to the world, and personified by the Incarnation of God in Jesus Christ.  We have God’s promise of ultimate justice – God’s own assurance that wrongs will be made right, that suffering will end, that the righteous will be vindicated – and that promise was underlined and highlighted by the Resurrection, as Jesus overcame the forces of the Enemy and death itself! 

And a day is coming when everyone will acknowledge his Lordship.

Until that day comes, we may struggle.  We may hurt.  No, we will struggle, we will hurt.

As Paul wrote (1 Corinthians 13, MSG), We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!

*****

There were many signs and billboards in the path of Hurricane Charley in Florida, back in August of 2004, that were no match for the violent storm.

However, one billboard resisted the hurricane's 100-mile per hour winds. While the billboard remained standing, the advertisement that was there when Hurricane Charley hit was pealed back to reveal an earlier message that may well express our best response to suffering.

When the sun rose the next morning on Sand Lake Road in Orlando, the words on the billboard clearly read: “We need to talk. God

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