This is our last week with Job (bum, bum bum, Hallelujah!) Maybe that’s how you feel, maybe not.
We’ve been waiting for God to respond ever since God and Satan went to Vegas and God doubled down on Job’s religious integrity. Job proves that he’s not living the spiritual life simply because he wants to protect what’s his and get even more, he displays genuine gratitude for God’s gifts even in the face of loss. And Job’s been waiting for God to respond ever since he got into the debate with his friends. Job loses everything, curses the day of his birth and then he gets into a fight with his friends about how God is and how God’s world works.
Job’s friends say that God’s retribution governs the world. You do something wrong, you get punished. You do something right, and good things happen. Job says, “ but I’m innocent and all this bad stuff has still happened to me.” Job’s friends say, “you’re not listening. This is always true. This is how the world is. God couldn’t be perfectly just unless this was true.” Job calls his friends a bunch of windbags, and turns and talks directly to God saying, “I know if I could just make my case before you, you would prove me innocent.” And Job goes back and forth wrestling with this. You see he had believed in the view of his friends before now. But Job has to believe there’s another way of holding it together. Retribution can’t be the governing power of the universe, something else must be, but Job can’t put his finger on it.
Then in chapter 38 God speaks, out of the whirlwind. God always comes in style. This is what we’ve been waiting for, some answers. This is what Job’s been waiting for, some explanation of his suffering. Some vindication if the face of his friends, some explanation to why did this happen and why is it so painful and why didn’t you stop it God. Finally there will be some answers to why…
And God speaks out of the whirlwind, and starts talking about creation. We wanted answers about Job’s specific problems, and our specific problems and God’s showing us the highlight reel of the universe? We spent five weeks with Job for this? But there are some answers here. They might not be as neat and tidy as we would like them to be, but if the answers were too clean cut, they wouldn’t have much of a chance of being true.
God gives two different speeches, we read snippets of each this morning. You can read God’s tone in many ways. God seems angry perhaps, defensive, hurt, ready to challenge. Almost John Waynelike, “gird up your loins like a man, pilgrim.” “Ok Job if you’re so smart, figure this out.” If you were to create the universe, what would it’s measurements be? Where would you put the cornerstone, or how would you set the footings? How would you hold the sea in it’s place saying, “go there but nowhere else.” How would you weave together the clouds? Make sure their soft. How much snow would you store up for the winter? What about the hail, where would you keep it? And the rain. Do you think rain has a Dad? Do you think you’d be able to find the mother who gives birth to each little drop of dew? Can you hold the stars together, can you loosen Orion’s belt?
Somewhere in this speech though, God’s tone seems to change. It’s less defensive and more playful, more proud. And at the same time God starts showing Job, Job’s proper place. God turns to the animals, “Do you know when the mountain goats give birth? Have you watched the calving of the deer? Isn’t it incredible? Have you watched them grow and go off on their own, isn’t it amazing? And the wild ox, was that created for you? No, it was created because I just wanted it to be. It doesn’t need you. If you tame it, you will depend on it for your grain and to help with your labor, it will not depend on you. What about the hawks and the eagles? They don’t depend on you, they’re not for you. They fly free because I want them to. And the ostrich, have you ever seen anything so silly. It’s to big to fly but it flaps it’s wings around and it sticks its head in the sand and it stomps on it’s eggs, it’s so stupid, but I love it. I created it, and it’s good and its free.
And Job answers God, “eep, I’m so small.”
We may feel like God’s speech doesn’t address Job’s particular situation, but God gives Job an answer he was looking for. Job’s been fighting with his friends over this issue of retribution. They have a view where this eye for an eye, reap what you sow business is what makes the world go around. But the speech says that grace, that gift is the heart of the world. At the center is the power of God that is just wildly throwing blessing and gift and creativity wildly out into the universe to be free and do what it will.
God’s answer to Job and Job’s friends will also reorient them and us. Job’s friends have a world where human beings are at the center. Everything is in service of human beings, including and especially God. In the world of Job’s friends, God is tied to making sure that every instance of right and wrong gets punished or rewarded. The speech says that God isn’t constrained by our human notions of justice, that God is free to do what God wants. And what God wants to do is create out of love. God loves to create and loves all that has been created. All of creation is given the freedom to be what it is intended to be because God loves it. Job and his friends were thinking that everything was created so that the world could make sense for them and serve them. But God is saying everything is created to be what God wants it to be, which means that human beings aren’t the point of creation, they’re one important part of creation. When God pauses, Job feels his smallness.
This smallness is tricky. Many people are deeply unsettled by this view. For some, if humans aren’t at the center of God’s world and creation isn’t solely for human use and consumption, then the universe seems pointless and cold. I don’t think that is where this view needs to lead us though. Are parent’s only able to love one child? Do they see one as less important than another? Couldn’t God love the family of creation as a whole, love each child and part for who and what they are, wanting them to grow to their fullest potential, and delighting in how everything is interconnected in a beautiful organic whole?
I find myself drawn to places where I feel small, oceans, mountains, open spaces. I think the smaller I feel, the more I’m overwhelmed by a sense of God’s creativity, generosity, and beauty. The smaller I feel, the larger and more powerfully present God becomes.
And as counterintuitive as it seems, I believe this view has healing and comforting power even in the midst of suffering. I’ve been reading a book titled, Last Child in the Woods, by Richard Louv. The book is about how our children’s connection to nature is fading fast. But in one chapter about the healing power of nature the author shares a story of a twenty year old college student who described the importance of nature to her emotional health, “Growing up, I lived in a house that had a fairly big back yard and a creek across the street. Nature was the one place where, when everything in my life was going bad, I could go and not have to deal with anyone else. My dad died of brain cancer when I was nine. It was one of the most difficult times for my family and myself. Going out into nature was one outlet that I had…I believe there is something about nature – that when you are in it, you realize there are far larger things at work than yourself. It helps put problems in perspective.”
Now I wouldn’t say that nature put things in perspective for this nine-year old child. Losing a father is a big problem no matter what our place in the world is. I wonder though, if that child experienced the overwhelming creative power of God when she was in nature. Maybe she sensed that at the heart of everything was a power that created because it chose to do something beautiful, it wanted to give. Maybe she could sense deep within her that at the heart of this immense generosity must be an equally powerful and overwhelming love. Her smallness made the overwhelming love and generosity of God even bigger, big enough to be of some comfort even when she was losing a love that was central to her life.
After Job expresses his smallness, God brings Job face to face with Behemoth and Leviathan. Behemoth seems to be a sort of Hippopotamus plus, a land animal that cannot possibly be tamed. And Leviathan is a mythic sea monster that occurs from time to time in the Bible. Both represent chaos and limit for human beings. These are simply places where humans can’t go. To the second speech, Job’s response is, “I know no purpose of yours can be thwarted. I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes. Some scholars suggest a better translation of Job’s response, which is I recant, and I repent. In other words, “I take it back, I change my mind. I don’t see the world the way I did, the way my friends do.” I see things differently now.
In the second speech, God is very honest with Job. There are limits on human beings. You don’t live forever. You depend on the rest of creation and on me for survival, God says. You can’t defy the laws of nature. In other words, the same creation that is beautiful is also chaotic, the same creation we depend on can do us harm. But set in the context of what God has revealed about God’s nature, that the universe at its heart is about a power that is self-giving, that at the heart of this generosity is love, we have assurance that though there is chaos in the world, the world is not chaotic. Though there is evil in the world, the world is not evil.
Job gives us a vision of God who is creative and generous, a God who has such great admiration and respect for creation that it requires the giving away of control and power. God loves the ostritch and it’s free. God loves the eagle and it’s free. God loves you and me and we’re free. We’re free to do good, and we’re free to do harm. Just as everything in creation is given power, we too are given great power. Out of respect and love for creation, God gives up control, just as parents must give up control if they love their children. And when you give up control over what has been created, you can’t protect creation from all harm.
But the world is not left on its own, there is still this holy power of love at the heart of everything. This love will call us to be open to it. This love will encourage us to love what God loves. The love won’t force anything, but this love is powerful and it will seek to bend our behavior. It will show us that our power is not to be used over others, it is to be used to serve others. It will call for a specific kind of justice from us. Though God’s respect for all of creation will not force justice, God’s love for all of creation still requires it. Love will call us to value humanity that is undervalued. Love will call us to expand our reverence and respect to non-human creation. Love will call us to pour out our hearts for those among us who are hurting and broken, to join our hearts with those who are suffering. And when that happens, when love lives on despite suffering, when hearts are joined together with the great love at the center of everything, God finds ways to do something good and new and beautiful out of love once again. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Thursday, February 19, 2009
What Wisdom Looks Like
I’m going to come out and say this. It’s confession time. I like the book of Job. By like I don’t mean, I’m taking it to the beach with me for my relaxing vacation reading. I like the book of Job because I think it’s honest. I like it because when I read it I say, “thank goodness someone else has these questions.” There’s no denial in the book of Job. There’s no settling for easy answers. It’s real. Part of me doesn’t even care if the author of Job never resolves any of this, I’m just glad this part of life is expressed somewhere and held by our tradition as sacred. But Job does resolve some things. Job doesn’t give us simple answers to complex problems, but the book does give us some direction.
Job isn’t just some slog through the depths of suffering, the book is trying to debunk bad theology. Some ways of thinking about God are better than others, and Job wants to make sure we can see the flaws in one particular view of God. Once we discard that view, we’re on a quest, along with Job, for something better. This week the book will give us a path to follow, next week some ideas.
Job has it all and through no fault of his own, he loses it all. He’s on the ash heap for 7 days mourning in silence. Then he curses the day of his birth. He’s innocent, and he’s suffering. It doesn’t make any sense.
Job’s friends are offended by Job’s curses, and they speak. “Job, if you’re suffering, then you’re not innocent. It’s as simple as that.” They kick our man Job while he’s down. They couldn’t be more irritating or obnoxious in the way they go after him, but their motives are pure. All they want to do is defend God. They believe that God adheres perfectly to our human notions of justice. If someone has done something wrong, something that is against God’s will, they get punished. You can’t have bad deeds going unpunished, it’s just not fair. And if God is in control of everything, and God is all knowing, and something bad happens to you, well, it must mean that you did something wrong. The police don’t come to get ya, unless you’ve done something wrong. And if things are going well for you, you must be doing things right. You earn your punishment. You earn your success. That’s fair, that’s justice.
And if someone has the guts to say, like Job did, that they are suffering, but they are innocent, then it’s your duty as a defender of God, to tell them how wrong they are. That person is saying there’s something wrong with God’s justice, that there’s something wrong with God. Job’s friends just can’t let him get away with that. This is all Job’s friends are trying to do.
We all know there’s logic in the view of Job’s friends. There is truth in it. Making good choices is a part of the good life. And yet, the author of Job is afraid that we take this view too far. We find this such an easy and comfortable way of seeing the world that we start seeing everything and everyone through this view that “you reap what you sow.” We become quick to judge others. When something goes wrong for someone else but doesn’t for us, it’s hard not to think, “well, you’re suffering because you made bad choices, if only you had made choices carefully like me, you’d be just fine.” This view is also seductive because we can fool ourselves into thinking that we can control everything with our good actions. If we do everything just right, everything will be perfect, and nothing bad will happen. That’s a recipe for allowing worry and a work ethic on steroids to take over our lives and squeeze out all the joy. If our world falls apart then, we’re crushed because we couldn’t hold it all together. The author of Job wants to suggest that maybe we aren’t in control of everything, and we need a view of God that can take that into account.
So Job’s on the ash heap, he’s lost everything through no fault of his own, and he says to his friends and to us, “Trust me, from where I’m standing, you need a completely different way of looking at things. I’m not saying there’s something wrong with God, I’m saying there’s something wrong your understanding of God.” The way you are thinking about things makes no sense. I’m not perfect, but I haven’t done anything to deserve this. I can’t be this bad to be in this sort of suffering, and God knows you aren’t that good to have avoided this situation. There has to be another way to think about God.
In saying this, Job hurls angry and pained words at God because of his suffering and the suffering others experience, but Job never loses faith in God. He loses faith in the God of his friends, but that’s not the same thing as losing faith in God. I wish we could say that to people who have left the church, “ maybe you haven’t lost faith in God, you’ve just lost faith in the God some church or some Christian has given you. We don’t believe in that God either. Come, join us. We’re on a journey. We’re sorting out what we can.” Through all of this, Job is determined that God is still present, that God will say he’s innocent, and that there’s a more helpful way to hold it all together.
Job’s determined, but he’s searching. The view of his friends is so powerful, so common, that it’s difficult for him to imagine something else. It’s at this point in Job’s search, we have chapter 28, “But where shall wisdom be found? And where is the place of understanding? The deep says, ‘It is not in me,’ and the sea says, ‘It is not with me.’ It cannot be gotten for gold, and silver cannot be weighed out as its price. [But] God understands the way to it, and knows it’s place. When God gave to the wind its weight and apportioned out the waters by measure, when God made a decree for the rain, and a way for the thunderbolt; then God saw it and declared it; And God said to humankind, truly the fear of the Lord is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding.”
“Fearing the Lord is wisdom and departing from evil is understanding.” The book says this is part of the puzzle as we’re searching. But what’s this about? Fearing God sure doesn’t sound good. That’s sounds like we’re right back in the “if you do something wrong, God’s gonna smite ya’” sort of place. But when the Hebrew word for fear here, “yirah,” refers to God, it means respect for, reverence for, it’s a general word for piety, or all of our religious practices that remind us that God is present, that God is near. This poem tells us that wisdom can’t be purchased, it doesn’t have a particular location, but we meet it, we live it as we practice our faith.
Job and his friends want wisdom that once and for all settles their argument, that will explain everything. But this poem in the middle of the book, tells us this religious way of life is wisdom. This is so different. We think of wisdom as knowing everything, being able to fit everything into its logical place. But here, wisdom is a practice. Wisdom is the practice of paying attention to God. Knowing everything isn’t going to solve all over our problems. But paying attention to God, keeping our attention to what is holy and loving and good, that’s how to hold it together. That focus on the Holy center can allow us to hold the ambiguity and live with the unanswered questions.
And, of course, the practice of paying attention to God, is why we come to church. We come to church because it’s important that we gather in community, with other people who are different than us. We need to practice seeing the Christ in the other, in people who are our friends, in people who are not our friends. We come to church because we need to pray, we need to express gratitude and sorrow, and we need to find that center again. We come to church because we need to hear our great story from the scriptures. We need to hear of grace that is unearned, of hope that restores, of love that serves and resurrects. Practicing this over time, is wisdom.
And as we practice placing the God of our scriptures in the center of our lives, we will be given a particular way of living in the world. Departing from evil is understanding, and the book of Job’s view of what evil is connects with the Bible’s broadest and deepest themes.
Job offers one final defense against his friends and makes his case before God one more time in chapters 29-31, saying, “O that I were as in the months of old, as in the days when God watched over me; when his lamp shone over my head, and by his light I walked through darkness; …When I went out to the gate of the city..the voices of the princes were hushed, and their tongues stuck to the roof of their mouths…because I delivered the poor who cried, and the orphan who had no helper. The blessing of the wretched came upon me, and I caused the widow’s heart to sing for joy. I put on righteousness and it clothed me; my justice was like a robe and a turban. I was eyes to the blind and feet to the lame. I was a father to the needy and I championed the cause of the stranger. I broke the fangs of the unrighteous, and made them drop their prey from their teeth.”
Job’s friends are certain that God is most concerned with the part of justice which has to do with retribution. If you make a mistake, you get punished. But the author of Job asserts that God is concerned with economic justice. God loves the whole of creation and doesn’t want the powerful trampling on the poor. Everyone should be treated fairly and should have what they need. We see this concern clearly as God hears the cries of the slaves in Egypt, and through the call of the prophets to care for the poor, the orphan, the widow, the stranger. And in our story from the gospel of Mark for today, we see Jesus acting out the justice of the Realm of God, how the world would be if God were in charge of it, by healing the man with leprosy. Jesus has compassion for the despised one, and touches him, healing him. Jesus doesn’t go to those who are doing ok, Jesus goes straight to those who are most vulnerable. Jesus is not concerned about retribution, about what sins may have been involved, Jesus wants this person to be whole again, and part of the community again, and to have enough again.
This doesn’t iron everything out for us, but it’s a way we can walk. Where’s the wisdom we need to figure out the deepest questions of life? Well, maybe wisdom isn’t knowledge, but a practice of paying attention to God, to what is holy and sacred and loving. How do we get understanding? Just open your hearts to the vulnerable, to the poor, to the broken. To do this will be a turn from evil, and maybe we’ll figure some other things out along the way. Keeping the God of the scriptures at the center of our lives, we’ll be sent over and over again, to serve. Not to judge, but to serve. Keeping our hearts open and our hands outstretched, we may just find the understanding we’re looking for. Amen.
Job isn’t just some slog through the depths of suffering, the book is trying to debunk bad theology. Some ways of thinking about God are better than others, and Job wants to make sure we can see the flaws in one particular view of God. Once we discard that view, we’re on a quest, along with Job, for something better. This week the book will give us a path to follow, next week some ideas.
Job has it all and through no fault of his own, he loses it all. He’s on the ash heap for 7 days mourning in silence. Then he curses the day of his birth. He’s innocent, and he’s suffering. It doesn’t make any sense.
Job’s friends are offended by Job’s curses, and they speak. “Job, if you’re suffering, then you’re not innocent. It’s as simple as that.” They kick our man Job while he’s down. They couldn’t be more irritating or obnoxious in the way they go after him, but their motives are pure. All they want to do is defend God. They believe that God adheres perfectly to our human notions of justice. If someone has done something wrong, something that is against God’s will, they get punished. You can’t have bad deeds going unpunished, it’s just not fair. And if God is in control of everything, and God is all knowing, and something bad happens to you, well, it must mean that you did something wrong. The police don’t come to get ya, unless you’ve done something wrong. And if things are going well for you, you must be doing things right. You earn your punishment. You earn your success. That’s fair, that’s justice.
And if someone has the guts to say, like Job did, that they are suffering, but they are innocent, then it’s your duty as a defender of God, to tell them how wrong they are. That person is saying there’s something wrong with God’s justice, that there’s something wrong with God. Job’s friends just can’t let him get away with that. This is all Job’s friends are trying to do.
We all know there’s logic in the view of Job’s friends. There is truth in it. Making good choices is a part of the good life. And yet, the author of Job is afraid that we take this view too far. We find this such an easy and comfortable way of seeing the world that we start seeing everything and everyone through this view that “you reap what you sow.” We become quick to judge others. When something goes wrong for someone else but doesn’t for us, it’s hard not to think, “well, you’re suffering because you made bad choices, if only you had made choices carefully like me, you’d be just fine.” This view is also seductive because we can fool ourselves into thinking that we can control everything with our good actions. If we do everything just right, everything will be perfect, and nothing bad will happen. That’s a recipe for allowing worry and a work ethic on steroids to take over our lives and squeeze out all the joy. If our world falls apart then, we’re crushed because we couldn’t hold it all together. The author of Job wants to suggest that maybe we aren’t in control of everything, and we need a view of God that can take that into account.
So Job’s on the ash heap, he’s lost everything through no fault of his own, and he says to his friends and to us, “Trust me, from where I’m standing, you need a completely different way of looking at things. I’m not saying there’s something wrong with God, I’m saying there’s something wrong your understanding of God.” The way you are thinking about things makes no sense. I’m not perfect, but I haven’t done anything to deserve this. I can’t be this bad to be in this sort of suffering, and God knows you aren’t that good to have avoided this situation. There has to be another way to think about God.
In saying this, Job hurls angry and pained words at God because of his suffering and the suffering others experience, but Job never loses faith in God. He loses faith in the God of his friends, but that’s not the same thing as losing faith in God. I wish we could say that to people who have left the church, “ maybe you haven’t lost faith in God, you’ve just lost faith in the God some church or some Christian has given you. We don’t believe in that God either. Come, join us. We’re on a journey. We’re sorting out what we can.” Through all of this, Job is determined that God is still present, that God will say he’s innocent, and that there’s a more helpful way to hold it all together.
Job’s determined, but he’s searching. The view of his friends is so powerful, so common, that it’s difficult for him to imagine something else. It’s at this point in Job’s search, we have chapter 28, “But where shall wisdom be found? And where is the place of understanding? The deep says, ‘It is not in me,’ and the sea says, ‘It is not with me.’ It cannot be gotten for gold, and silver cannot be weighed out as its price. [But] God understands the way to it, and knows it’s place. When God gave to the wind its weight and apportioned out the waters by measure, when God made a decree for the rain, and a way for the thunderbolt; then God saw it and declared it; And God said to humankind, truly the fear of the Lord is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding.”
“Fearing the Lord is wisdom and departing from evil is understanding.” The book says this is part of the puzzle as we’re searching. But what’s this about? Fearing God sure doesn’t sound good. That’s sounds like we’re right back in the “if you do something wrong, God’s gonna smite ya’” sort of place. But when the Hebrew word for fear here, “yirah,” refers to God, it means respect for, reverence for, it’s a general word for piety, or all of our religious practices that remind us that God is present, that God is near. This poem tells us that wisdom can’t be purchased, it doesn’t have a particular location, but we meet it, we live it as we practice our faith.
Job and his friends want wisdom that once and for all settles their argument, that will explain everything. But this poem in the middle of the book, tells us this religious way of life is wisdom. This is so different. We think of wisdom as knowing everything, being able to fit everything into its logical place. But here, wisdom is a practice. Wisdom is the practice of paying attention to God. Knowing everything isn’t going to solve all over our problems. But paying attention to God, keeping our attention to what is holy and loving and good, that’s how to hold it together. That focus on the Holy center can allow us to hold the ambiguity and live with the unanswered questions.
And, of course, the practice of paying attention to God, is why we come to church. We come to church because it’s important that we gather in community, with other people who are different than us. We need to practice seeing the Christ in the other, in people who are our friends, in people who are not our friends. We come to church because we need to pray, we need to express gratitude and sorrow, and we need to find that center again. We come to church because we need to hear our great story from the scriptures. We need to hear of grace that is unearned, of hope that restores, of love that serves and resurrects. Practicing this over time, is wisdom.
And as we practice placing the God of our scriptures in the center of our lives, we will be given a particular way of living in the world. Departing from evil is understanding, and the book of Job’s view of what evil is connects with the Bible’s broadest and deepest themes.
Job offers one final defense against his friends and makes his case before God one more time in chapters 29-31, saying, “O that I were as in the months of old, as in the days when God watched over me; when his lamp shone over my head, and by his light I walked through darkness; …When I went out to the gate of the city..the voices of the princes were hushed, and their tongues stuck to the roof of their mouths…because I delivered the poor who cried, and the orphan who had no helper. The blessing of the wretched came upon me, and I caused the widow’s heart to sing for joy. I put on righteousness and it clothed me; my justice was like a robe and a turban. I was eyes to the blind and feet to the lame. I was a father to the needy and I championed the cause of the stranger. I broke the fangs of the unrighteous, and made them drop their prey from their teeth.”
Job’s friends are certain that God is most concerned with the part of justice which has to do with retribution. If you make a mistake, you get punished. But the author of Job asserts that God is concerned with economic justice. God loves the whole of creation and doesn’t want the powerful trampling on the poor. Everyone should be treated fairly and should have what they need. We see this concern clearly as God hears the cries of the slaves in Egypt, and through the call of the prophets to care for the poor, the orphan, the widow, the stranger. And in our story from the gospel of Mark for today, we see Jesus acting out the justice of the Realm of God, how the world would be if God were in charge of it, by healing the man with leprosy. Jesus has compassion for the despised one, and touches him, healing him. Jesus doesn’t go to those who are doing ok, Jesus goes straight to those who are most vulnerable. Jesus is not concerned about retribution, about what sins may have been involved, Jesus wants this person to be whole again, and part of the community again, and to have enough again.
This doesn’t iron everything out for us, but it’s a way we can walk. Where’s the wisdom we need to figure out the deepest questions of life? Well, maybe wisdom isn’t knowledge, but a practice of paying attention to God, to what is holy and sacred and loving. How do we get understanding? Just open your hearts to the vulnerable, to the poor, to the broken. To do this will be a turn from evil, and maybe we’ll figure some other things out along the way. Keeping the God of the scriptures at the center of our lives, we’ll be sent over and over again, to serve. Not to judge, but to serve. Keeping our hearts open and our hands outstretched, we may just find the understanding we’re looking for. Amen.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
The Suffering of the Innocent
Joining the Suffering of the Innocent
Job 21: 1-13, 22:1-11, 21-30, 23:1-7, 24:1-8
February 8, 2009
Todd Smith Lippert
As we’ve been learning the last few weeks, Job is an upright, blameless guy, who’s got it all: big family, big wealth, big power. Then he loses it all: his possessions, his children, his health. Through the loss, he shows his integrity and the depths of his faith, he mourns and give thanks at the same time.
In chapter 3, Job curses the day of his birth. Life is so bad he wishes he had never been born. The bad overshadows the good. Job expresses his deepest anguish and pain, and his friends are offended. Job reasons from his own experience, saying, “I’m innocent, but I’m suffering. Something has gone terribly wrong with the world. God held back chaos from the beginning, but God must have lost control. Now there’s no rhyme or reason to anything.”
Job’s offended friends, don’t start their reasoning from what they know of Job’s story, they start with a doctrine they’ve been taught. Everything in the world must fit into this doctrine or it just can’t be true. And the Biblical doctrine they’ve been taught is, “God repays all according to their work (psalm 62).” Job’s friends say to him, “If you’re suffering, then you aren’t innocent. You’ve sinned and you’re being punished. The world isn’t chaotic, it’s very orderly. When you do good things, you get good things. If only you had lived more like us, you’d be fine.” (We might want to make a mental note here, telling our friends who are suffering that life would be better if only they had lived more like us, is not usually well received – a helpful tip.)
The author isn’t subtle about the hypocrisy of Job’s friends. It’s sure easy for them to tell Job that it must be his fault, when they haven’t lost a thing, haven’t had to walk in his shoes, and clearly aren’t trying to understand. In chapter 16, Job calls them a bunch of windbags and then says, “I also could talk as you do, if you were in my place; I could join words together against you, and shake my head at you.”
This debate between Job and his friends still goes on today. Any place where the doctrines of those who have plenty are being proclaimed over the top of the stories of those who are suffering, this failure to communicate resurfaces. Today’s debate can sound like this, “You’re poor because you’re lazy. The only way to get ahead in this world is to work hard, and buckle down. What’s that you say? ‘You can’t find a job right now?’ Ahh, there’s always work out there for people who are willing to work.”
Or it might sound like this, “You say you lost your house? Well, you know why that is don’t you? You bought more than you could afford. That’s why we’re in this mess is people buying more than they could afford. What’s that? You wanted to get into a better neighborhood with better schools? You could afford it before your hours were cut? Well you should have planned for that possibility. I have unexpected things come up too, you know. If only you did things like me, you wouldn’t be in this mess.”
Job’s friends are pummeling him with the doctrine that God repays all according to their work, that you reap what you sow. There’s some truth here but there’s plenty of danger too. Theologian Gustavo Gutierrez writes, “This is a convenient and soothing doctrine for those who have great worldly possessions, and it promotes resignation and a sense of guilt in those who lack such possessions. [The church sometimes supports] the doctrine that regards wealth as God’s reward to the honest and the hard-working, and poverty as God’s punishment to the lazy.” For 17 chapters, Job denies this view, but then in chapter 21, his focus shifts.
Until now Job has been focused on himself. He’s been focused on his suffering, on how innocent he is, and how unjust his situation is. But suddenly in chapter 21, his scope of concern widens. He starts to identify with the poor. He realizes he’s not the only one in this situation, there are others here too. And he can see clearly now, because he’s poor himself, that the poor are often innocent in their suffering, just like he is.
He starts by wondering about the wicked. In chapter 21 he says to his friends, “Bear with me and I will speak, then after I have spoken, mock on. [But] Why do the wicked live on, reach old age, and grow mighty in power? Their bull breeds and never fails, they send out their little ones like a flock and they dance all around.” Why do the wicked get all the breaks?
Job’s stumbled on to something. Now he’s wondering if there’s a different truth or another truth. Could it be that the sins of the powerful bring a disproportional amount of suffering on the most vulnerable? The more power you have the more damage you can do. When you have so much power, so much control, sinful actions have devastating and far reaching consequences.
Job’s friend Eliphaz knows where Job is going with this and he tries to cut him off at the pass. “Now Job, you will remember that you were the wealthiest, most powerful man around. What kind of steward were you with your resources? ‘Is not your wickedness great? You’ve stripped the naked of their clothing, you’ve withheld bread from the hungry and water from the weary. You’ve sent widows away empty-handed and the arms of the orphan you have crushed.” This is why you are being punished.
This time Job isn’t listening to Eliphaz. He’ll defend himself later (we’ll read Job’s defense to this charge next week,) but he’s on to something and he wants to see where it’s going to take him. He says, “The wicked seize flocks and pasture them. They drive away the donkey of the orphan; they take the widow’s ox,(in other words they take the only money the poor have) they thrust the needy off the road, the poor of the earth all hide themselves. The poor reap in a field not their own and they glean in the vineyard of the wicked (day laborers). They lie all night naked, without clothing and have no covering in the cold.” Not only do the wicked, the powerful, take the little money the poor have, they also don’t pay them wages that provide what they need. Since Job is poor himself, he is now able to see clearly the pain and power of economic injustice.
This is a very important shift in the book of Job. Job no longer suffers in a bubble. He connects his suffering to the suffering of others. He identifies with the poor and suffering, understands their situation, their innocence, and then he feels the need to resist. Job starts speaking the truth. This is a very hopeful action.
In the book, Job is getting angrier and angrier at God, for now it’s like chaos has completely broken loose on the world. Nothing makes sense and Job wants God to speak and answer these questions. And God will in two weeks. We just have to wait two weeks. But now, I think it’s important for us to think about what Job has discovered, and for us to see how hopeful his response is.
One thing we’ve experienced in the last few months of the financial crisis is that the sins of powerful corporations and powerful individuals have devastating and far reaching consequences. With a lot of power comes the potential for a lot of damage. Certainly there are sinful individuals in the mix of this crisis, and we all have our favorite stories of wickedness. Maybe yours is Bernie Madoff and his 50 billion dollar scam, the Citigroup executives who wanted a new $50 million dollar jet after they had received federal bailout money. My favorite is John Thain the CEO of Merrill Lynch who gave his office a 1 million dollar renovation while the company was cutting salaries and jobs. His new wastebasket was $1200. I have a feeling that some of the things we throw in the trash at our house, wouldn’t be allowed in his spendy wastebasket. But it’s not just these individuals that have done us harm.
We are suffering from the sins of these powerful corporations as a whole, and from a corporate culture that pursues profit at all costs and despite any risk. And the damage from this isn’t self-contained. This whole time Job’s friends have been telling him that his suffering is his fault, as if God’s punishment is like a precision strike from a laser beam. They don’t understand that we are interconnected, that our sinful actions have consequences on others. Sometimes we simply suffer because of the sins of others. The arguments of Job’s friends don’t make sense of our current situation. The problems people are facing right now can’t be explained by simply accusing the victims of poor judgment and poor planning. We’re subject to the forces of an entire system that swirls around us. We don’t live in bubbles, we’re interconnected and the sins of these corporations and leaders have spread through the entire economy, affecting all of us. We’ve lost our collective feeling of economic security, anyone with money in the stock market has lost 40%, and many people, millions of people are losing their jobs, their houses and their ability to put food on the table.
We’re all kind of like Job right now, some more than others, clearly. But in the midst of this crisis, God calls us to find the courage to respond like Job. If this experience can expand our scope of concern, like it did for Job, we will find God doing something very powerful in the midst of this suffering. This may sound like a tall order, but Job’s response isn’t unique, it happens.
We see it most clearly in the wake of personal tragedy. A mother who loses a child to a drunk driving accident finds that she is not alone in her loss, and will join Mothers Against Drunk Driving to try to prevent that loss from happening to someone else. That’s God’s love transforming suffering. A cancer survivor or the family of a cancer victim will join one of the efforts to fund cancer research so that fewer and fewer people will have to go through that tragic loss. That’s God’s love transforming suffering. Families that have lived through the suicide of a loved one, will find themselves learning about depression and trying to educate others about depression, so that others might be served. That’s God’s love transforming suffering.
But Job opens his heart to more than those who have tragically lost a loved one, he opens his heart and his world to those who have lost their possessions, or who never had them in the first place. The way forward for us is not the way of Job’s friends. It is not to pull in on ourselves and point fingers at each other. The way forward is to recognize the ways we are all in the same boat, and to band together. Maybe this means we increase our gifts to the food pantry. Maybe this means our contributions to justice work, through the church or through other organizations, continues despite the fear out there, because we haven’t really lost anything yet. Maybe it means that we watch someone we know who’s on the edge a little more closely, and ditch the politeness and ask the questions that need to be asked, “Are you ok? Do you need help?” Maybe it means that as churches we find there’s mission that needs to be done that we haven’t done before.
A world of tragic loss and injustice doesn’t make sense, but Job’s response to his suffering does. Job simply shows compassion for others. It’s hopeful. It’s love at work. It defies the power of chaos and greed. With God in the midst of it, compassion even begins to transform suffering. We ask for ears to hear and eyes to see, and hearts that are willing to join in the hopeful work. Thanks be to God, Amen.
Job 21: 1-13, 22:1-11, 21-30, 23:1-7, 24:1-8
February 8, 2009
Todd Smith Lippert
As we’ve been learning the last few weeks, Job is an upright, blameless guy, who’s got it all: big family, big wealth, big power. Then he loses it all: his possessions, his children, his health. Through the loss, he shows his integrity and the depths of his faith, he mourns and give thanks at the same time.
In chapter 3, Job curses the day of his birth. Life is so bad he wishes he had never been born. The bad overshadows the good. Job expresses his deepest anguish and pain, and his friends are offended. Job reasons from his own experience, saying, “I’m innocent, but I’m suffering. Something has gone terribly wrong with the world. God held back chaos from the beginning, but God must have lost control. Now there’s no rhyme or reason to anything.”
Job’s offended friends, don’t start their reasoning from what they know of Job’s story, they start with a doctrine they’ve been taught. Everything in the world must fit into this doctrine or it just can’t be true. And the Biblical doctrine they’ve been taught is, “God repays all according to their work (psalm 62).” Job’s friends say to him, “If you’re suffering, then you aren’t innocent. You’ve sinned and you’re being punished. The world isn’t chaotic, it’s very orderly. When you do good things, you get good things. If only you had lived more like us, you’d be fine.” (We might want to make a mental note here, telling our friends who are suffering that life would be better if only they had lived more like us, is not usually well received – a helpful tip.)
The author isn’t subtle about the hypocrisy of Job’s friends. It’s sure easy for them to tell Job that it must be his fault, when they haven’t lost a thing, haven’t had to walk in his shoes, and clearly aren’t trying to understand. In chapter 16, Job calls them a bunch of windbags and then says, “I also could talk as you do, if you were in my place; I could join words together against you, and shake my head at you.”
This debate between Job and his friends still goes on today. Any place where the doctrines of those who have plenty are being proclaimed over the top of the stories of those who are suffering, this failure to communicate resurfaces. Today’s debate can sound like this, “You’re poor because you’re lazy. The only way to get ahead in this world is to work hard, and buckle down. What’s that you say? ‘You can’t find a job right now?’ Ahh, there’s always work out there for people who are willing to work.”
Or it might sound like this, “You say you lost your house? Well, you know why that is don’t you? You bought more than you could afford. That’s why we’re in this mess is people buying more than they could afford. What’s that? You wanted to get into a better neighborhood with better schools? You could afford it before your hours were cut? Well you should have planned for that possibility. I have unexpected things come up too, you know. If only you did things like me, you wouldn’t be in this mess.”
Job’s friends are pummeling him with the doctrine that God repays all according to their work, that you reap what you sow. There’s some truth here but there’s plenty of danger too. Theologian Gustavo Gutierrez writes, “This is a convenient and soothing doctrine for those who have great worldly possessions, and it promotes resignation and a sense of guilt in those who lack such possessions. [The church sometimes supports] the doctrine that regards wealth as God’s reward to the honest and the hard-working, and poverty as God’s punishment to the lazy.” For 17 chapters, Job denies this view, but then in chapter 21, his focus shifts.
Until now Job has been focused on himself. He’s been focused on his suffering, on how innocent he is, and how unjust his situation is. But suddenly in chapter 21, his scope of concern widens. He starts to identify with the poor. He realizes he’s not the only one in this situation, there are others here too. And he can see clearly now, because he’s poor himself, that the poor are often innocent in their suffering, just like he is.
He starts by wondering about the wicked. In chapter 21 he says to his friends, “Bear with me and I will speak, then after I have spoken, mock on. [But] Why do the wicked live on, reach old age, and grow mighty in power? Their bull breeds and never fails, they send out their little ones like a flock and they dance all around.” Why do the wicked get all the breaks?
Job’s stumbled on to something. Now he’s wondering if there’s a different truth or another truth. Could it be that the sins of the powerful bring a disproportional amount of suffering on the most vulnerable? The more power you have the more damage you can do. When you have so much power, so much control, sinful actions have devastating and far reaching consequences.
Job’s friend Eliphaz knows where Job is going with this and he tries to cut him off at the pass. “Now Job, you will remember that you were the wealthiest, most powerful man around. What kind of steward were you with your resources? ‘Is not your wickedness great? You’ve stripped the naked of their clothing, you’ve withheld bread from the hungry and water from the weary. You’ve sent widows away empty-handed and the arms of the orphan you have crushed.” This is why you are being punished.
This time Job isn’t listening to Eliphaz. He’ll defend himself later (we’ll read Job’s defense to this charge next week,) but he’s on to something and he wants to see where it’s going to take him. He says, “The wicked seize flocks and pasture them. They drive away the donkey of the orphan; they take the widow’s ox,(in other words they take the only money the poor have) they thrust the needy off the road, the poor of the earth all hide themselves. The poor reap in a field not their own and they glean in the vineyard of the wicked (day laborers). They lie all night naked, without clothing and have no covering in the cold.” Not only do the wicked, the powerful, take the little money the poor have, they also don’t pay them wages that provide what they need. Since Job is poor himself, he is now able to see clearly the pain and power of economic injustice.
This is a very important shift in the book of Job. Job no longer suffers in a bubble. He connects his suffering to the suffering of others. He identifies with the poor and suffering, understands their situation, their innocence, and then he feels the need to resist. Job starts speaking the truth. This is a very hopeful action.
In the book, Job is getting angrier and angrier at God, for now it’s like chaos has completely broken loose on the world. Nothing makes sense and Job wants God to speak and answer these questions. And God will in two weeks. We just have to wait two weeks. But now, I think it’s important for us to think about what Job has discovered, and for us to see how hopeful his response is.
One thing we’ve experienced in the last few months of the financial crisis is that the sins of powerful corporations and powerful individuals have devastating and far reaching consequences. With a lot of power comes the potential for a lot of damage. Certainly there are sinful individuals in the mix of this crisis, and we all have our favorite stories of wickedness. Maybe yours is Bernie Madoff and his 50 billion dollar scam, the Citigroup executives who wanted a new $50 million dollar jet after they had received federal bailout money. My favorite is John Thain the CEO of Merrill Lynch who gave his office a 1 million dollar renovation while the company was cutting salaries and jobs. His new wastebasket was $1200. I have a feeling that some of the things we throw in the trash at our house, wouldn’t be allowed in his spendy wastebasket. But it’s not just these individuals that have done us harm.
We are suffering from the sins of these powerful corporations as a whole, and from a corporate culture that pursues profit at all costs and despite any risk. And the damage from this isn’t self-contained. This whole time Job’s friends have been telling him that his suffering is his fault, as if God’s punishment is like a precision strike from a laser beam. They don’t understand that we are interconnected, that our sinful actions have consequences on others. Sometimes we simply suffer because of the sins of others. The arguments of Job’s friends don’t make sense of our current situation. The problems people are facing right now can’t be explained by simply accusing the victims of poor judgment and poor planning. We’re subject to the forces of an entire system that swirls around us. We don’t live in bubbles, we’re interconnected and the sins of these corporations and leaders have spread through the entire economy, affecting all of us. We’ve lost our collective feeling of economic security, anyone with money in the stock market has lost 40%, and many people, millions of people are losing their jobs, their houses and their ability to put food on the table.
We’re all kind of like Job right now, some more than others, clearly. But in the midst of this crisis, God calls us to find the courage to respond like Job. If this experience can expand our scope of concern, like it did for Job, we will find God doing something very powerful in the midst of this suffering. This may sound like a tall order, but Job’s response isn’t unique, it happens.
We see it most clearly in the wake of personal tragedy. A mother who loses a child to a drunk driving accident finds that she is not alone in her loss, and will join Mothers Against Drunk Driving to try to prevent that loss from happening to someone else. That’s God’s love transforming suffering. A cancer survivor or the family of a cancer victim will join one of the efforts to fund cancer research so that fewer and fewer people will have to go through that tragic loss. That’s God’s love transforming suffering. Families that have lived through the suicide of a loved one, will find themselves learning about depression and trying to educate others about depression, so that others might be served. That’s God’s love transforming suffering.
But Job opens his heart to more than those who have tragically lost a loved one, he opens his heart and his world to those who have lost their possessions, or who never had them in the first place. The way forward for us is not the way of Job’s friends. It is not to pull in on ourselves and point fingers at each other. The way forward is to recognize the ways we are all in the same boat, and to band together. Maybe this means we increase our gifts to the food pantry. Maybe this means our contributions to justice work, through the church or through other organizations, continues despite the fear out there, because we haven’t really lost anything yet. Maybe it means that we watch someone we know who’s on the edge a little more closely, and ditch the politeness and ask the questions that need to be asked, “Are you ok? Do you need help?” Maybe it means that as churches we find there’s mission that needs to be done that we haven’t done before.
A world of tragic loss and injustice doesn’t make sense, but Job’s response to his suffering does. Job simply shows compassion for others. It’s hopeful. It’s love at work. It defies the power of chaos and greed. With God in the midst of it, compassion even begins to transform suffering. We ask for ears to hear and eyes to see, and hearts that are willing to join in the hopeful work. Thanks be to God, Amen.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Bad Things Happening to Good People
Bad Things Happening to Good People
Job 3:1-4:9
February 1, 2009
Todd Smith Lippert
Last week we were introduced to Job. He’s an unreal guy living an unreal life. He’s blameless, upright, a person of absolute integrity. He has it all, big family, big money. Then he loses it. Satan bets God that Job is just in it for the stuff, that Job only worships God so he can keep what he has while he hopes to get even more. Satan takes all of Job’s possessions and his children, and Job grieves. But at the same time, Job gives thanks for the gifts he had been given. This means Satan loses the first bet. Then Satan takes away Job’s health, and he loses his life of pain-free living. But Job proves Satan wrong one more time, saying,”shall we receive the good and not the bad?” Job’s faith is about more than just getting stuff or keeping stuff, it’s anchored by gratitude for gifts already given.
The message of the first two chapters of Job is very important to me. Gratitude is the source of my religious life. I’m a religious or spiritual person because I think existence, all of this, is just so darn amazing. And what I’ve been given, what I experience is so good that I need to express my gratitude to God. Job’s response in the midst of tragedy is remarkable, but it’s possible and it’s true. I’ve seen gratitude be a source of comfort and hope to persons living in the midst of horrible loss. Gratitude doesn’t put our world back together as it once was, but it refuses to forget what was very, very good. There is healing power in that.
In chapter 3 the book shifts. It’s no longer story, it’s now poetry. In the first two chapters, Job’s nemesis was Satan, and now he’s harassed by his three best friends. The central question of the book shifts too. The first two chapters is asking about the source of our religion, “are we religious to gain God’s favor so that God will protect us from anything bad happening, or are we religious because we need to express gratitude?” But starting at chapter 3, the question is about whether there’s such a thing as innocent suffering. Do bad things happen to good people? Or, are the bad things that happen a sign to us telling who is good and who is not. The question is really a question about God, “is there a direct relationship between our sins and the “punishment” we receive, or is the world more complicated than that? Job will insist that he’s innocent, that if he could just get a hearing before God, God would prove him right. Meanwhile Job’s friends keep telling him, “the world isn’t complicated, this is all very simple, it must be your fault.”
First though, something happens to get Job’s friends all riled up: Job speaks. For seven days Job and his friends sit in ashes in silence. But then Job speaks and curses the day of his birth. And you may have noticed that when Job curses something he doesn’t do it halfway, he really follows through. For a whole chapter, 26 verses, he curses the day of his birth. He offends his friends, and he probably offends us. At the very least, he makes us really uncomfortable. He made me uncomfortable, and I knew it was coming. You can’t study Job without spending time with chapter 3, it’s what gets the whole debate between Job and his friends rolling, but as I sat down to read it this week I thought, “what am I doing? Are we really going to read this, out loud? It’s the beginning of February. If people aren’t already struggling with seasonal affective disorder, they will be by the end of worship. Can this text possibly serve us?” I wondered. And I looked for other passages to use, ways to avoid the really painful things Job says.
After a while though, I realized that my effort to avoid Job’s expression of the depths of his struggle were part of the problem. Denying this part of human experience isn’t going to serve anyone either. At least, it won’t serve those who are the in the midst of anguish and despair.
One of the headlines this week was the story of a man in Los Angeles who killed his family and himself after he and his wife had both lost their jobs. This comes on the heels of other murder/suicide stories from Los Angeles. The financial crisis isn’t just about shrinking 401k’s and the tough decision on whether retirement should be delayed a year or two, it’s about millions of people losing jobs, and some feel absolutely overwhelmed and don’t know where to turn or what to do.
Another headline told us that 128 U.S. soldiers killed themselves this last year, and the final number will probably be even higher. That’s a sizable increase over last year. Military officials and the media always seem to be puzzled by this. But anyone with mental health training will tell you that being placed in a situation where you have to kill someone or risk being killed yourself, will damage your mental health. There’s no way around it. Then add the strain on relationships caused by extended tours of duty and difficulty integrating back into civilian life and you start to hear the voice of Job from chapter 3.
We can’t deny that the feelings expressed in the third chapter of Job are feelings that many people struggle with. It’s disturbing and frightening to hear this, but denying this anguish and trying to avoid it isn’t helpful. On the contrary, expressing these emotions, and hearing these emotions is helpful. What’s hopeful and helpful to me about the third chapter of Job is that we find it in our scriptures to begin with. Even the worst of life, even our most disturbing thoughts are held in a sacred place. Lament and complaint and painful statements about suffering making life unbearable are not off limits. People who struggle with anxiety and depression, people whose suffering feels completely overwhelming are not cut out of the fold, they are not denied their standing in the community. They are given a voice. Job 3 is their voice, as is chapter 20 in Jeremiah where the prophet curses the day he was born. Psalm 22 is their voice, as is Jesus from the cross when he asks God why he’s been forsaken. If these expressions of deep suffering and anguish are in our sacred and holy book, then they are appropriate words for worship. And if these words are spoken in worship, then feelings of anguish and desperation aren’t denied, but acknowledged as real. And when we know these feelings are real, then our compassion will deepen. And when compassion deepens here, then the church becomes a place where healing can happen, and hope can take root.
I’m glad Job speaks. I’m glad he expresses his painful words. We need to hear him, and listen for him in our world right now. If we don’t listen we’re going to be just like Job’s friends. And if we learn anything from Job, we learn that Job could use some new friends.
Job’s expression of anguish and despair offends his friend Eliphaz. Eliphaz can’t take it anymore, so he speaks. “Excuse me Job, I don’t want to hurt your feelings or anything, but I just have to say something. You’ve given advice to other people who were suffering and you always seemed to know what to say, but now that you’ve had a couple bad breaks, you seem impatient.”
Then Eliphaz actually says these laughable words, “think now, Job, who that was ever innocent ever perished?” The words drip with irony, Job is staring at him as he says this, sitting in the ashes and scratching his sores, probably even waving at his face, saying, “what about me?” But Eliphaz is walking around concentrating on his speech now. He doesn’t have any time to listen or to consider how someone else’s experience might change his point of view. He continues, “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.”
Eliphaz, bless his cold and stoney heart, is telling Job, “come on Job, just admit it, this is really all your fault. Everything happens for a reason, and the reason you’re dealing with all this suffering is you’re a big bad sinner. God is just Job, and God repays everyone in this life for what they have done.” In Eliphaz’s defense, what he is saying is thoroughly Biblical. I was reading Psalm 62 this week and at the end it says, “Once God has spoken and twice have I heard this: that power belongs to God , and steadfast love belongs to you, O Lord. For you repay all according to their work.” Job is a place where the Bible is debating with itself and we’re going to have to choose what we believe is true about God and the world.
Eliphaz’s point of view certainly has its appeal, especially if things are going well for us. For Eliphaz, the world is divided neatly into good people and bad people. The good people have done good things and they have good things. The bad people have done bad things and bad things have happened to them. Simple.
But Job just wants us to listen. All Job wants from his friends is that they listen. “Just listen to me and hear my story, and let my experience challenge what you believe about the world. Listening and understanding will provide more hope to me than you think. Being open to other possibilities because of what I say, even changing what you think will bring healing, just listen to me.”
As the book goes forward, Job will challenge Eliphaz’s simple worldview of good people and bad people, and it’s about time. Eliphaz still speaks today, listen for him. Job will defend his right and his need to express what suffering is really like. He’ll defend his need to have people listen, and its about time.
If we can be brave enough to hold the whole of human experience from “filled with joy” to “filled with despair” before God, then the church can be a place of hope and healing. The Bible holds it all, which suggests that God can too, and that as a community we are called to as well. May we find ways to listen and understand, and by doing so be a source of hope and even healing. Amen.
Job 3:1-4:9
February 1, 2009
Todd Smith Lippert
Last week we were introduced to Job. He’s an unreal guy living an unreal life. He’s blameless, upright, a person of absolute integrity. He has it all, big family, big money. Then he loses it. Satan bets God that Job is just in it for the stuff, that Job only worships God so he can keep what he has while he hopes to get even more. Satan takes all of Job’s possessions and his children, and Job grieves. But at the same time, Job gives thanks for the gifts he had been given. This means Satan loses the first bet. Then Satan takes away Job’s health, and he loses his life of pain-free living. But Job proves Satan wrong one more time, saying,”shall we receive the good and not the bad?” Job’s faith is about more than just getting stuff or keeping stuff, it’s anchored by gratitude for gifts already given.
The message of the first two chapters of Job is very important to me. Gratitude is the source of my religious life. I’m a religious or spiritual person because I think existence, all of this, is just so darn amazing. And what I’ve been given, what I experience is so good that I need to express my gratitude to God. Job’s response in the midst of tragedy is remarkable, but it’s possible and it’s true. I’ve seen gratitude be a source of comfort and hope to persons living in the midst of horrible loss. Gratitude doesn’t put our world back together as it once was, but it refuses to forget what was very, very good. There is healing power in that.
In chapter 3 the book shifts. It’s no longer story, it’s now poetry. In the first two chapters, Job’s nemesis was Satan, and now he’s harassed by his three best friends. The central question of the book shifts too. The first two chapters is asking about the source of our religion, “are we religious to gain God’s favor so that God will protect us from anything bad happening, or are we religious because we need to express gratitude?” But starting at chapter 3, the question is about whether there’s such a thing as innocent suffering. Do bad things happen to good people? Or, are the bad things that happen a sign to us telling who is good and who is not. The question is really a question about God, “is there a direct relationship between our sins and the “punishment” we receive, or is the world more complicated than that? Job will insist that he’s innocent, that if he could just get a hearing before God, God would prove him right. Meanwhile Job’s friends keep telling him, “the world isn’t complicated, this is all very simple, it must be your fault.”
First though, something happens to get Job’s friends all riled up: Job speaks. For seven days Job and his friends sit in ashes in silence. But then Job speaks and curses the day of his birth. And you may have noticed that when Job curses something he doesn’t do it halfway, he really follows through. For a whole chapter, 26 verses, he curses the day of his birth. He offends his friends, and he probably offends us. At the very least, he makes us really uncomfortable. He made me uncomfortable, and I knew it was coming. You can’t study Job without spending time with chapter 3, it’s what gets the whole debate between Job and his friends rolling, but as I sat down to read it this week I thought, “what am I doing? Are we really going to read this, out loud? It’s the beginning of February. If people aren’t already struggling with seasonal affective disorder, they will be by the end of worship. Can this text possibly serve us?” I wondered. And I looked for other passages to use, ways to avoid the really painful things Job says.
After a while though, I realized that my effort to avoid Job’s expression of the depths of his struggle were part of the problem. Denying this part of human experience isn’t going to serve anyone either. At least, it won’t serve those who are the in the midst of anguish and despair.
One of the headlines this week was the story of a man in Los Angeles who killed his family and himself after he and his wife had both lost their jobs. This comes on the heels of other murder/suicide stories from Los Angeles. The financial crisis isn’t just about shrinking 401k’s and the tough decision on whether retirement should be delayed a year or two, it’s about millions of people losing jobs, and some feel absolutely overwhelmed and don’t know where to turn or what to do.
Another headline told us that 128 U.S. soldiers killed themselves this last year, and the final number will probably be even higher. That’s a sizable increase over last year. Military officials and the media always seem to be puzzled by this. But anyone with mental health training will tell you that being placed in a situation where you have to kill someone or risk being killed yourself, will damage your mental health. There’s no way around it. Then add the strain on relationships caused by extended tours of duty and difficulty integrating back into civilian life and you start to hear the voice of Job from chapter 3.
We can’t deny that the feelings expressed in the third chapter of Job are feelings that many people struggle with. It’s disturbing and frightening to hear this, but denying this anguish and trying to avoid it isn’t helpful. On the contrary, expressing these emotions, and hearing these emotions is helpful. What’s hopeful and helpful to me about the third chapter of Job is that we find it in our scriptures to begin with. Even the worst of life, even our most disturbing thoughts are held in a sacred place. Lament and complaint and painful statements about suffering making life unbearable are not off limits. People who struggle with anxiety and depression, people whose suffering feels completely overwhelming are not cut out of the fold, they are not denied their standing in the community. They are given a voice. Job 3 is their voice, as is chapter 20 in Jeremiah where the prophet curses the day he was born. Psalm 22 is their voice, as is Jesus from the cross when he asks God why he’s been forsaken. If these expressions of deep suffering and anguish are in our sacred and holy book, then they are appropriate words for worship. And if these words are spoken in worship, then feelings of anguish and desperation aren’t denied, but acknowledged as real. And when we know these feelings are real, then our compassion will deepen. And when compassion deepens here, then the church becomes a place where healing can happen, and hope can take root.
I’m glad Job speaks. I’m glad he expresses his painful words. We need to hear him, and listen for him in our world right now. If we don’t listen we’re going to be just like Job’s friends. And if we learn anything from Job, we learn that Job could use some new friends.
Job’s expression of anguish and despair offends his friend Eliphaz. Eliphaz can’t take it anymore, so he speaks. “Excuse me Job, I don’t want to hurt your feelings or anything, but I just have to say something. You’ve given advice to other people who were suffering and you always seemed to know what to say, but now that you’ve had a couple bad breaks, you seem impatient.”
Then Eliphaz actually says these laughable words, “think now, Job, who that was ever innocent ever perished?” The words drip with irony, Job is staring at him as he says this, sitting in the ashes and scratching his sores, probably even waving at his face, saying, “what about me?” But Eliphaz is walking around concentrating on his speech now. He doesn’t have any time to listen or to consider how someone else’s experience might change his point of view. He continues, “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.”
Eliphaz, bless his cold and stoney heart, is telling Job, “come on Job, just admit it, this is really all your fault. Everything happens for a reason, and the reason you’re dealing with all this suffering is you’re a big bad sinner. God is just Job, and God repays everyone in this life for what they have done.” In Eliphaz’s defense, what he is saying is thoroughly Biblical. I was reading Psalm 62 this week and at the end it says, “Once God has spoken and twice have I heard this: that power belongs to God , and steadfast love belongs to you, O Lord. For you repay all according to their work.” Job is a place where the Bible is debating with itself and we’re going to have to choose what we believe is true about God and the world.
Eliphaz’s point of view certainly has its appeal, especially if things are going well for us. For Eliphaz, the world is divided neatly into good people and bad people. The good people have done good things and they have good things. The bad people have done bad things and bad things have happened to them. Simple.
But Job just wants us to listen. All Job wants from his friends is that they listen. “Just listen to me and hear my story, and let my experience challenge what you believe about the world. Listening and understanding will provide more hope to me than you think. Being open to other possibilities because of what I say, even changing what you think will bring healing, just listen to me.”
As the book goes forward, Job will challenge Eliphaz’s simple worldview of good people and bad people, and it’s about time. Eliphaz still speaks today, listen for him. Job will defend his right and his need to express what suffering is really like. He’ll defend his need to have people listen, and its about time.
If we can be brave enough to hold the whole of human experience from “filled with joy” to “filled with despair” before God, then the church can be a place of hope and healing. The Bible holds it all, which suggests that God can too, and that as a community we are called to as well. May we find ways to listen and understand, and by doing so be a source of hope and even healing. Amen.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Welcome to the Blog on Job
You're reading Job?! In January and February? That's right.
Job is an intimidating book. No book in the Bible deals with suffering and loss as directly and honestly as Job. No book challenges God as directly either. But the book isn't just a sad song, it raises many different theological questions.
In chapters 1-2, the question is, "what's the purpose of your worship?" Are you worshipping to gain God's favor and receive a reward? Or, are you worshipping because you've already received God's blessing and grace and you need to express your gratitude?
The writer of Job is clear that our faith shouldn't be about trying to "use" God to get what we want, instead it should be a journey of seeking what God wants.
This is a direct critique of the so called, "Gospel of Success" movement within Christianity. Joel Olsteen and Oral Roberts are famous voices of this perspective, proclaiming that what God wants for us is financial prosperity. Olsteen seems to suggest that if we were a good Christian like him, we could be as wealthy as he is too.
Job has no time for this. Life will include loss and struggle whether we are faithful or not. Yet even in the most overwhelming personal loss, Job affirms God's goodness. Job action of giving thanks tells us loud and clear that he has experienced God's grace. Part of the spiritual life is becoming increasingly aware of the grace we've already received. This awareness will be a source of solace, and even hope, as we live through good as well as the bad.
Pastor Todd
Job is an intimidating book. No book in the Bible deals with suffering and loss as directly and honestly as Job. No book challenges God as directly either. But the book isn't just a sad song, it raises many different theological questions.
In chapters 1-2, the question is, "what's the purpose of your worship?" Are you worshipping to gain God's favor and receive a reward? Or, are you worshipping because you've already received God's blessing and grace and you need to express your gratitude?
The writer of Job is clear that our faith shouldn't be about trying to "use" God to get what we want, instead it should be a journey of seeking what God wants.
This is a direct critique of the so called, "Gospel of Success" movement within Christianity. Joel Olsteen and Oral Roberts are famous voices of this perspective, proclaiming that what God wants for us is financial prosperity. Olsteen seems to suggest that if we were a good Christian like him, we could be as wealthy as he is too.
Job has no time for this. Life will include loss and struggle whether we are faithful or not. Yet even in the most overwhelming personal loss, Job affirms God's goodness. Job action of giving thanks tells us loud and clear that he has experienced God's grace. Part of the spiritual life is becoming increasingly aware of the grace we've already received. This awareness will be a source of solace, and even hope, as we live through good as well as the bad.
Pastor Todd
Friday, January 23, 2009
Welcome to the Book of Job!
Book of Job
From January 25- February 22 we will be focusing on the Book of Job in worship. I invite us all to read the book of Job and see for ourselves what's in there. We have set up this blog for both churches to engage in further discussion.
Here's the schedule:
January 25 - Job 1-2
February 1 - Job 3-5, The Debate 1
February 8 - Job 22-24, The Debate 2
February 15 - Job 28, 29, 32, Wisdom, and Job's conclusion
February 22 - Job 38-end, Creation speeches and conclusion
Please visit www.mpucc.com and www.plymouthucc.com for information about Congregational UCC of Mineral Point and Plymouth UCC of Dodgeville
From January 25- February 22 we will be focusing on the Book of Job in worship. I invite us all to read the book of Job and see for ourselves what's in there. We have set up this blog for both churches to engage in further discussion.
Here's the schedule:
January 25 - Job 1-2
February 1 - Job 3-5, The Debate 1
February 8 - Job 22-24, The Debate 2
February 15 - Job 28, 29, 32, Wisdom, and Job's conclusion
February 22 - Job 38-end, Creation speeches and conclusion
Please visit www.mpucc.com and www.plymouthucc.com for information about Congregational UCC of Mineral Point and Plymouth UCC of Dodgeville
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