Job 1 & 2
Hmm, I went pretty far off manuscript in my preaching today, and I'm finding my sermon hard to reconstruct in retrospect. The end, especially, is really shaky -- I think -- I hope -- I said something a bit more, hrm, inspired. But some folks who were vacationing this weekend wanted a copy, so, well, this is the best reconstruction I've been able to do:
No Insurance Policy -- reflections on Job 1-2
There is an understanding in much of the Old Testament that when people follow God's law and walk in God's ways, they will be blessed. Likewise, it follows, when people are disobedient, when they refuse God's ways, they are, justly, punished. There's a sort of moral calculus which holds throughout the wisdom literature and the early prophets and some of the narratives linking God's behaviour, whether positive or negative, to human actions, such that God either rewards human righteousness or punishes human wickedness. So the essence of the equation is this: good things happen to good people, and bad things happen to bad people.
We don't have to go terribly far in the Biblical narrative to find a story which supports this sort of theology: in Genesis 6, only a few generations after the expulsion from the garden, we are told that the earth was corrupt in God's sight, and the earth was filled with violence and so God sent a flood to destroy humanity; we are also told that Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation; Noah walked with God; Noah's goodness was sufficient to save his entire family. Good things happen to good people (and their families,) and bad things happen to bad people.
But is that your experience of how life works? (It's not mine, and it wasn't Job's or Isaiah of Babylon's or Jeremiah's, and it wasn't Jesus'.) There's a huge problem with the equation: for every instance in which the Noah scenario holds true , and the good prosper and the wicked are stopped in their tracks, it seems like there's an occasion in which something awful happens in an Amish schoolhouse, and little girls and their families suffer for no reason at all. On this earth, at least, there doesn't seem to be much linkage between the state of one's soul and any sort of safety or material reward, as far as I can see: heartache and pain come to us despite our morality, not because of it. Likewise, good things are not doled out specially just to good people: sunshine and crisp air and multicoloured autumn leaves and music and beauty and God's good grace are all freely available to everyone, no strings attached, no moral hierarchies considered.
Job was a good man, a man of perfect integrity, who feared God and avoided evil. He was prosperous and respected and happy, and he loved his family. He did absolutely everything he was supposed to do: he was eyes to the blind and feet to the lame, he fed the hungry and comforted mourners and offered justice for the oppressed. He was so righteous that not only did he follow God's laws, but he went beyond the pale: every year, when his children held a great week-long banquet, Job would have them come to be purified, not because they had sinned, but just in case they had perhaps inadvertently sinned. The text is quite clear on this point: Job was a really good man.
Nevertheless, in one terrible day Job's life is turned entirely upside-down. [Too many of us know what this feels like: everything seems fine: you're healthy and everyone you love is healthy and your career is fulfilling and your life is good, and in the blink of an eye one single thread is pulled and the entire tapestry just falls apart.] This is what happens to Job: a messenger comes to Job and tells him that he has just lost all of his property, and that messenger is barely out the door before another bursts in to inform him that all ten of his children have died in the same storm. That's it -- everything gone in the blink of an eye.
Righteousness is no insurance policy against suffering. If you worship God because you're hoping to be rewarded with prosperity or success or a good Red Sox season, let me come clean and admit: it just doesn't work that way. Whatever we're about here in this worship service, it's not about goods for services rendered. Job was righteous, and he suffered; Jesus --God's own son and our model for what it means to be truly and fully human -- even Jesus suffered. The Bible never explains suffering in any sort of way that makes sense to most of us, but it's pretty clear that it's part and parcel of what it means to be human.
But, believe it or not, there's really rather a lot of good news in this. Because God offers us good earth and good life and bountiful joy and abundant grace in amidst the pain and the heartache and the other stuff of life. And God is with us in all of it, in the beautiful, overwhelming power of his response to Job (in chapters 38-42); in the life and ministry of Jesus who walked and ate and celebrated and loved and suffered with us; in the Spirit who sustains us and intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words.
Job didn't have Jesus' example before him: he didn't know God in Christ. The only aspect of God he had access to was Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise: God from whom we have our life and breath, creator God, transcendent God, but not yet God who walks among us. Yet in the midst of his despair, Job calls out for someone to stand with him:
I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth;
and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God,
whom I shall see on my side, and my eyes shall behold, and not another.
My heart faints within me!
This is God's promise to us: no matter what life brings, in life's joys and sorrows, God will stand by our side, not only as judge, but as redeemer.
Job also didn't have Paul's promises to us, but he anticipates them. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now [we] know only in part; then [we] will know fully, even as [we] have been fully known. We will see God, whom we shall see at our side; we will know fully, even as we are fully known. There's a pretty strong promise which is extended to us.
There's one other thing I take from this opening to the book of Job: We are left with a better understanding of how to deal with suffering when we are faced with it. In his darkest hour, when Jesus was facing his death, he retreated to the garden of Gesthemane to pray. But he didn't go alone: he brought Peter, and James, and John to sit with him and pray with him. (Yes, they were only too human, and fell asleep, but they were there.) When Job was facing his worst hour, having just lost his children and his health, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar sat with him for seven days and seven nights, just to be there for him. As God promises always to be there for us in our joys and in our sorrows, so are we to love each other as God loves us -- to be present for each other in all that life brings.
We identify more or less easily with Job depending on where we are in our lives. But I challenge you also to identify with the three friends. With whom might you sit in silent support, as Eliphaz and Bildad and Zophar did for Job? And measure yourself against the disciples that night in the garden-- can you stay awake when others need you most? Let us strive to be present for each other, as God in Christ Jesus is always present for us. Amen.
No Insurance Policy -- reflections on Job 1-2
There is an understanding in much of the Old Testament that when people follow God's law and walk in God's ways, they will be blessed. Likewise, it follows, when people are disobedient, when they refuse God's ways, they are, justly, punished. There's a sort of moral calculus which holds throughout the wisdom literature and the early prophets and some of the narratives linking God's behaviour, whether positive or negative, to human actions, such that God either rewards human righteousness or punishes human wickedness. So the essence of the equation is this: good things happen to good people, and bad things happen to bad people.
We don't have to go terribly far in the Biblical narrative to find a story which supports this sort of theology: in Genesis 6, only a few generations after the expulsion from the garden, we are told that the earth was corrupt in God's sight, and the earth was filled with violence and so God sent a flood to destroy humanity; we are also told that Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation; Noah walked with God; Noah's goodness was sufficient to save his entire family. Good things happen to good people (and their families,) and bad things happen to bad people.
But is that your experience of how life works? (It's not mine, and it wasn't Job's or Isaiah of Babylon's or Jeremiah's, and it wasn't Jesus'.) There's a huge problem with the equation: for every instance in which the Noah scenario holds true , and the good prosper and the wicked are stopped in their tracks, it seems like there's an occasion in which something awful happens in an Amish schoolhouse, and little girls and their families suffer for no reason at all. On this earth, at least, there doesn't seem to be much linkage between the state of one's soul and any sort of safety or material reward, as far as I can see: heartache and pain come to us despite our morality, not because of it. Likewise, good things are not doled out specially just to good people: sunshine and crisp air and multicoloured autumn leaves and music and beauty and God's good grace are all freely available to everyone, no strings attached, no moral hierarchies considered.
Job was a good man, a man of perfect integrity, who feared God and avoided evil. He was prosperous and respected and happy, and he loved his family. He did absolutely everything he was supposed to do: he was eyes to the blind and feet to the lame, he fed the hungry and comforted mourners and offered justice for the oppressed. He was so righteous that not only did he follow God's laws, but he went beyond the pale: every year, when his children held a great week-long banquet, Job would have them come to be purified, not because they had sinned, but just in case they had perhaps inadvertently sinned. The text is quite clear on this point: Job was a really good man.
Nevertheless, in one terrible day Job's life is turned entirely upside-down. [Too many of us know what this feels like: everything seems fine: you're healthy and everyone you love is healthy and your career is fulfilling and your life is good, and in the blink of an eye one single thread is pulled and the entire tapestry just falls apart.] This is what happens to Job: a messenger comes to Job and tells him that he has just lost all of his property, and that messenger is barely out the door before another bursts in to inform him that all ten of his children have died in the same storm. That's it -- everything gone in the blink of an eye.
Righteousness is no insurance policy against suffering. If you worship God because you're hoping to be rewarded with prosperity or success or a good Red Sox season, let me come clean and admit: it just doesn't work that way. Whatever we're about here in this worship service, it's not about goods for services rendered. Job was righteous, and he suffered; Jesus --God's own son and our model for what it means to be truly and fully human -- even Jesus suffered. The Bible never explains suffering in any sort of way that makes sense to most of us, but it's pretty clear that it's part and parcel of what it means to be human.
But, believe it or not, there's really rather a lot of good news in this. Because God offers us good earth and good life and bountiful joy and abundant grace in amidst the pain and the heartache and the other stuff of life. And God is with us in all of it, in the beautiful, overwhelming power of his response to Job (in chapters 38-42); in the life and ministry of Jesus who walked and ate and celebrated and loved and suffered with us; in the Spirit who sustains us and intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words.
Job didn't have Jesus' example before him: he didn't know God in Christ. The only aspect of God he had access to was Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise: God from whom we have our life and breath, creator God, transcendent God, but not yet God who walks among us. Yet in the midst of his despair, Job calls out for someone to stand with him:
I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth;
and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God,
whom I shall see on my side, and my eyes shall behold, and not another.
My heart faints within me!
This is God's promise to us: no matter what life brings, in life's joys and sorrows, God will stand by our side, not only as judge, but as redeemer.
Job also didn't have Paul's promises to us, but he anticipates them. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now [we] know only in part; then [we] will know fully, even as [we] have been fully known. We will see God, whom we shall see at our side; we will know fully, even as we are fully known. There's a pretty strong promise which is extended to us.
There's one other thing I take from this opening to the book of Job: We are left with a better understanding of how to deal with suffering when we are faced with it. In his darkest hour, when Jesus was facing his death, he retreated to the garden of Gesthemane to pray. But he didn't go alone: he brought Peter, and James, and John to sit with him and pray with him. (Yes, they were only too human, and fell asleep, but they were there.) When Job was facing his worst hour, having just lost his children and his health, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar sat with him for seven days and seven nights, just to be there for him. As God promises always to be there for us in our joys and in our sorrows, so are we to love each other as God loves us -- to be present for each other in all that life brings.
We identify more or less easily with Job depending on where we are in our lives. But I challenge you also to identify with the three friends. With whom might you sit in silent support, as Eliphaz and Bildad and Zophar did for Job? And measure yourself against the disciples that night in the garden-- can you stay awake when others need you most? Let us strive to be present for each other, as God in Christ Jesus is always present for us. Amen.