20th Sunday after Pentecost Sermon

SUFFERING: Who is to blame, and how do we live with it?

If you don’t know, today is the one-year anniversary of my ordination to the Holy Order of Deacons, and my joyful assignment by Bishop Melissa to St. John’s Gig Harbor.  What a gift it has been to spend these three years with you!

Eric+ and the worship team asked me to preach that Sunday, after Saturday’s ordination, and though feeling a little star-struck it was a gift to me to preach, and one I wanted to repeat, so I asked if I might preach today, one year later. So here I am! And here is Job!

In Eric’s charge to me and his description of what a deacon does, what stood out to me most was that a ‘deacon holds and brings forth to us, the church, the pain of the world and in our community.’

Over the past three years I have shared some of the layers of experience I bring to this task and why it colors my vocation so richly. Not only my own trauma from childhood but also my work as chaplain on the street with people in our community, as well as with combat veterans returning home with post-traumatic stress, traumatic brain injury, and moral injury.

In my work with you, here at St. John’s, I hope the richness of these experiences bring tenderness and compassion to you in our shared moments of pastoral care, with the realities of struggle and suffering we experience.

So, shall we talk about suffering for a while this morning?

Here’s Job:

Even if you don’t spend much time in the Bible, I would venture that we all, in brief, know something about the story of Job. The suffering of Job. And we’ve likely heard a phrase something like: “she has the patience of Job.” Well, to my way of thinking, Job wasn’t all that patient. However, the first verse of the Book tells us even if Job wasn’t patient, he was blameless. And upright. He reverenced God. And more than that he turned away from evil. And then we have part of the story we read this morning.

Next: we have the Psalm: “Vindicate me, Lord, for I have walked in integrity. I have trusted without wavering.” (I deserve your protection and your vindication.)

Then: we have the writer of Hebrews asking:

What are human beings, that you, God, pay any attention to them at all?!?

And how is it that we, like Jesus, are made perfect through suffering?

(Do you remember from the Gospel last week after chopping off hands and feet: “everyone will be salted with fire?” What a strange saying. That fiery salt is the seasoning that charges us to be a peace with one another.)

And finally: Mark, in our gospel, shares this vignette:

the religious leaders once again asking controversial questions about divorce, ignoring the struggle and pain of those living the reality. And Jesus responds simply highlighting the intent of the question:

“it is the hardness of your hearts” that is at issue.

      And then he returns to what it is to live in relationship with another..

And it is often the hardness of our hearts that brings, and reacts, and perpetuates much of the suffering in our world.

So, as we’ve marched through these texts of suffering and evil, and harm, and pain, what is the point? Going back to Job specifically as we will join him throughout the month of October in our lectionary readings, what is actually going on?

It is a story of how we approach and deal with the ultimate in pain, and agony. There are four very different responses, which I’ll put in terms we might understand today.  This is how I see it:

We listened to Job’s wife today: “Do you still persist in your integrity?? Curse God and die!”

            If I look at her pain, standing beside her as a woman in those days completely dependent in a patriarchal society on the health and well-being of her husband, I think:

she’s scared to death! Her, their, security is at stake. Not only that, we missed the first chapter in which all their children have died at a party at one of their son’s house. She’s at risk of losing everything.

Later in the book we hang out with Job’s friends all trying to dissect his character in order to explain to Job that he just needs to stop whining, stop sinning, confess, and have more faith.

Coming alongside them, I’m thinking, as irritating as these guys are, they’re not bad people. They’re trying to help. They’re trying to get ahead of the confusion and despair. In fact, they can’t tolerate Job’s crushing despair and hopelessness, because if Job’s can’t be explained, neither will theirs be down the road. Their advice? “If you just listen to us, you can fix this! Get your act together!”

And then we’ve got the young upstart, Elihu, who I like to imagine is a seminarian. He’s not blaming Job for being bad. He just thinks Job is theologically ignorant, and so he’s going to explain God to Job in hopes that Job will realize he doesn’t have a leg to stand on.

But Job? All Job wants to know is: What the heck?? Haven’t I been a good man? He not only tries desperately to make his case on this to all three: his wife, his friends, this theologically self-assured kid, he now turns to God, godself.

“Where are you? What happened? Don’t you care? Don’t you love me? Are you real?

 It’s not patience and it’s not doubt my friends; it’s desperation.  

Further on in chapter ten Job says: “I loathe my life! I will give free utterance to my complaint. I will speak in the bitterness of my soul. I will say to God, do not condemn me; let me know why you contend with me!”

So now I will race ahead to the end, with a spoiler alert.  Just a summary, and I admit it’s my take on the matter. But I’m not alone in it. David Clines, in his introduction to the book of Job carries us beyond the issues that are raised by those around him, in a sense forcing Job in his defense to turn on God and demand an answer for this injustice!

God answers.

But it has nothing to do with justice. And it has everything to do with mercy. With beauty. With the glory of the creative and artistic impulse that brought about the universe.

He’s not really brow beating Job with “you don’t know what you’re talking about,” when in fact it’s true, he didn’t. We know this because the story ends with great reward for Job and his family. God understands, we know from the Psalms, how often are the times when the hits just keep on coming, and we’re so utterly confused, and utterly exhausted, and lost.

God merely says: you’re missing the point…

This world, this life, is not a contest. It’s not race towards who’s right and who’s wrong, who gets the final say. It is a world of beauty, made for love. It is a world filled with grace and renewal, life after life, joy after joy. And God speaks this most of all to his faithful ones.

There is no escaping the pain of illness, and disillusionment, and harm, and even death, but we do no favor to ourselves or anyone else when our focus is solely on the demand for justice, declaring through our rage the righteousness of our own perspective.

Consider again Jesus’ response to the trick question of the religious faithful:

“It is the hardness of your heart that causes so much pain…

                                      Simply come to me, as little children do.”

So when things are hard, and really, impossible, I want to encourage you to not try so hard to be right. Take a break, and do something restful, relaxing, even distracting. These are hard times in soo, so many ways. Find some beauty to absorb. And be at peace for a little while.

And remember, from our collect this morning, how God is always more ready to hear than we are to pray, and to give more than we desire or deserve…

On earth. As it is in heaven.