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| William Blake, Job and His Family |
We’ve explored a few passages from the second half of the book of Job. What we’ve heard so far is a bit unsettling. We’ve met a God who is willing to make people suffer just to prove a point. Although God uses a hired hand to do this, God is said to be responsible for this “evil that the Lord had brought upon him” (Job 42:11). As we’ve seen, this doesn’t sit well with Job. He wants to know why he has suffered at the hand of God. After all, he is innocent and righteous before God. So why are bad things happening to a good person like Job?
Although the Bible is a sacred text, it’s also a very complex and human book. At times it even argues with itself. So, many of us read Job as a response to the conventional wisdom found in the Book of Proverbs. The message of Proverbs is quite simple. If you do the right thing, good things should happen. If you do bad things, then you’ll reap what you sow. That message makes sense on the surface. That’s the way the world should work but doesn’t.
In the Book of Job, everything is turned upside down. Job’s friends embrace the message of Proverbs and blame Job for his situation in life. Even God seems to be against him, which is why Job protests and calls our attention to the way things really are.
The story of Job ends like most stories. He gets to live happily ever after. In fact, life seems even better the second time around. For many of us, this ending undermines the larger message of Job because life rarely works out the way this story ends. We’re left with a lot of questions and few answers.
Nevertheless, this ending does give us an opportunity to reflect on life in the real world, even if Job’s situation seems far from our own reality. So, as I pondered this ending, I thought about the way things have gone over the past eighteen months or so. We talk about getting back to normal, but what will normal look like after COVID? I don’t think things will return to what they were like at the end of 2019. Too many things have changed. So whatever normal looks like, it will be a new normal. Might we say the same thing for Job? Yes, he gets a new family, but I don’t think Job would ever see God the same as before he lost everything just so God could see if Job would remain faithful when suffering came his way.
Throughout the book, Job asks a lot of questions of God, including why do good people suffer? When we get to the end of the story, we discover that Job doesn’t get any answers to his questions. But isn’t that the way life works? We have questions. We search for answers. But more often than not we’re left with more questions than answers, especially when it comes to suffering.
Theologian Deanna Thompson has lived for more than a decade with metastatic breast cancer. Reflecting on her own situation in life, she writes:
And perhaps most important, the book of Job models a relationship with the Divine that allows for anger, grief, complaint, and protest, a relationship that may not yield clear answers regarding the reason for suffering but one that can move between tragedy and joy, and one that dares to include laughter even when the risks of living are intimately understood. [Glimpsing Resurrection, p. 99].
The ending to the Book of Job leaves many readers unsatisfied. The blessings that come Job’s way can’t take away the stain of his suffering at the hands of God. While his daughters may be the most beautiful women in all the land, there’s still the matter of the children who died at the beginning of the story because God made a wager with Satan. So, what word does Job have for us?
Job claims that God “can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted?” (Job 42:3). God has ultimate control of everything, whether good or evil. If this is true, then what does this say about God? Could there be another way of looking at the question of who God is amid the suffering and evil in the world?
I believe there is, though we don’t have time this morning to fully unpack this question. However, there are other pictures of God present in Scripture. One of these pictures reveals that God’s steadfast love endures forever. If this is true, then is God the cause of evil and suffering in the world? Maybe God doesn’t control everything that goes on in the world, but God does walk with us in both good times and bad, empowering us to continue the journey into the future.
Job asks more questions than gets answered, but I’d like to suggest that what Job does is invite us into a deeper relationship with God. There is an interesting statement tucked into verse five where Job says to God: “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you.” Before all of this “bad stuff” happened, Job’s understanding of God depended on what he’d heard from others. Maybe it was a Sunday School teacher or a preacher, but now he’s seen God with his own eyes. He’s experienced God’s presence first hand. So, even if he still has lots of unanswered questions, he can now go deeper with God.
The way forward is found in verse ten, where we read that Job prays for his friends. Of course, God told Job’s friends that if they apologized for misrepresenting God’s message then Job would pray for them (Job 42:7-9). So, could it be that it was through this prayer that Job put himself in a position to participate with God in creating a new future that would bring blessings not just to himself but to all others? Could this be our calling, even if we don’t always live happily ever after?
Ruth Fletcher wrote a book about transforming congregations that begins with a call to prayer. Ruth writes that when we try to deal with anxiety, we’re tempted to either escape or control things. But, neither of these tactics provides for long-term church health. Therefore:
Prayer calls transforming congregations to solitude rather than escape, to letting-go rather than control. Through prayer, they find serenity, even amid the noise and chaos of change. Prayer connects them to the power and presence of the Spirit that resides within and among them. [Thrive, p. 17].
So, as we pray, as Job did, both personally and corporately, we can let go of our anxiety and make ourselves available to God’s Spirit.
The future remains unwritten and unknown. But, if we put ourselves at God’s disposal through prayer, then we can join God in building upon the foundations to the realm of God that Jesus has already laid down. As we pray, we can ask what God desires for this congregation and the community that lies beyond the walls of the church. While it’s possible that God will speak to us in a whirlwind, more likely God will speak to us in the still small voice that spoke to Elijah. When Elijah wanted to talk with God face to face about the state of things in Israel, God told him to:
“Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. (1 Kings 19:11-12).
That’s how God spoke to Elijah and probably to us. So then, as Ruth Fletcher puts it:
Prayer allows transforming congregations to let go of the anxiety that causes them to choose the safe, the expedient, and comfortable. It helps them to make bold decisions in order to become the people they believe God is calling them to be. It allows them to say yes to God’s future, even before they know what the future will bring. [Thrive, p. 22].
We may find a sense of comfort in believing that God controls everything, but it might be better if we recognize that things are more fluid than that. As we open ourselves to that possibility, perhaps we will discover more fully who God really is. That opens us up to new possibilities for ministry in this world in partnership with God.
Preached by:
Dr. Robert D. Cornwall, Acting Supply Pastor
First Presbyterian Church (PCUSA)
Troy, Michigan
Reformation Sunday
October 31, 2021
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