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JOB 1: Cause of the Suffering
JOB 2: Reactions to Suffering
JOB 19: Response to Bad Theology
JOB 38: Response from the Storm
JOB 42: Job Repents and Forgives
Job 19:25-27 - I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth. 26 And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; 27 I myself will see him with my own eyes — I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!
JOB 1: Cause of the Suffering
JOB 2: Reactions to Suffering
JOB 19: Response to Bad Theology
JOB 38: Response from the Storm
JOB 42: Job Repents and Forgives
I Know that My Redeemer Liveth, from The Messiah: The Soulful Celebration, Tevin Campbell sings for the Winan Christmas Family Special
Rabbi Harold Kushner is the author of a best-selling book on the problem of evil, When Bad Things Happen to Good People.
He wrote it as a part of his grieving journey when his son, Aaron, died from the premature aging disease progeria. His thesis deals with questions about human suffering, God’s goodness, God’s omnipotence and theodicy. Aaron was born in 1963, the same year that I was. He died in 1977, the same year I was confirmed. The book was published in 1981, the year I graduated from High School. And I read it for the first time in 1985, the year I graduated from college.
In those days I had no idea what it might mean for a father to grieve for a child. I have not had to grieve the death of either of my children. I dearly hope that loss is something I never have to face. But that wish also means that I would prefer to consign my children to grieving my death instead. An interesting wish from a presumably loving father.
In my business, being a pastor, I am called upon to deal with death. A lot. I have presided over a couple hundred funerals. I lost count at 101. But until 101, I kept a list. And I truly thought it was to help me continue to pray for the families long after everyone else had forgotten about their loss and moved on.
But that’s not why I kept the list. Scrawled onto notecards. Tucked into my special pastor’s book with the funeral liturgy in it.
Cancer. Suicide. Accidents. Violence. Genetic disabilities. Heart ailments. Liver failure. Oh so young, having never really tasted life. So very old and longing to die.
Every time I presided over a funeral I still didn’t know how to process the question, Why do Bad Things Happen to Good People. And, despite my earnest faith in God. Despite my ability to proclaim authentically at a funeral the Good News that God promises, even in death.
For me. Death was still an enemy. Death was a bad thing. Death was to be avoided. Escaped.
Only, each time I wrote another name down on the card … crammed in tiny print anywhere I could make it fit … first name only so nobody who saw it would be able to know what the card meant. Each time I wrote another name down on the card, it became clearer and clearer to me. Death would never be avoidable. I would never escape death. Nor would anyone I loved and cared about.
And if death remained an enemy in my life. A bad thing. I would never be prepared. When my time came. When their time comes. I would be unprepared. Because I had tried to ignore what cannot be ignored. Death is a reality for us all.
But then, death was never the problem.
The problem was always this: In the Bible, death so often seems like a punishment for bad people. Genesis. Exodus. Leviticus. Judges. And, in our world as well, death often is used as a punishment for bad people. Or at least people who have been convicted of doing bad things.
But then a storm hits. Or an earthquake devastates a city. Or a disease plagues an entire community. Or the world.
And people say this. God is punishing …
And then they fill in the blank.
God help me, fellow human beings have the audacity to fill in the blank as if they know the mind and heart of God.
God is punishing …
And they fill in the blank with the name of a person or group that they do not like. People they disrespect. They demean. They despise.
And they do not understand the pain and trauma they cause for families and individuals grieving the death of a loved one. Because their bad theology is so often repeated. And believed. Believed, at least in part. Because we hear bad theology so often.
Not really wanting to empathize with those who are suffering theology. Self-serving theology. Sticking god in our own pocket and proclaiming that god serves our purposes, kind of theology. Our theology. Not God’s. Trying to make God our god theology.
Which leads us to believe. I think. To wonder. To worry. That death, especially sudden death, is a punishment for bad people. That death is the natural and logical consequence ONLY for the evil. And not for the good.
Death is only for the Egyptians as the Red Sea came crashing down upon them. Who worshipped the wrong gods. And not for the Israelites. Who were the chosen people, the protected people of God Almighty.
And this is the dilemma for Job. Why do Bad Things Happen to Good People?
Job is a good person.
Or rather, אִיּוֹב, is a good person.
That's his name in Hebrew. We assume Job is one of God’s chosen people. Although the book of Job may be a very old story that actually predates the nation of Israel.
Job, the Bible tells us, is a good person who is in torment. He is grieving unimaginable losses. His health is gone. His wealthy estate is gone.
But worst of all. ALL of Job’s family is gone. Lost. Dead. Well. Almost all.
Satan strikes a bargain with God. In Job 1:11 he requests of God, “But now stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face.”
And as Job grieves, three friends come by to “support” him. Armed with Bad Theology.
In essence, they give the same platitudes we still do today, without really empathizing with the person who is grieving.
1) Somehow, it’s YOUR FAULT. God is good. And bad things happened to you. So you must be bad. Confess that you are evil and maybe God will have mercy upon you.
Job 20:29 – “Such is the fate God allots the wicked, the heritage appointed for them by God.”
2) Somehow, it’s GOD’S FAULT. If you persist in believing that you are good, and bad things have happened to you, then you are blaming God. That is a sin. Refer back to #1.
Job 2: 9 – His wife said to him, “Are you still maintaining your integrity? Curse God and die!”
Job persistently resists these theological traps. He remains adamant:
1) I will continue to be faithful to God. And, regardless of all appearances, God is NOT punishing me.
Job 9:20 – I am innocent and faithful, but my words sound guilty, and everything I say seems to condemn me.
2) I will continue to praise God, despite all of the suffering and losses I am facing. I will praise God.
Job 1:21 – “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.”
Job seems to hold in tension what is so hard for us to hold in tension. God sees and knows and understands far more than we ever can or ever will. And death is wrapped into God’s plan in ways that are beyond our comprehension. But wisdom is rooted in this awareness:
God is always faithful.
While, in our grief, it may be difficult, even impossible to see that today. Tomorrow. Or some tomorrow in the future. It will become a bit clearer. And God will help us see how hope can be found, even in this situation where, for quite a time, we only saw loss.
Now Job does have some questions for God. And God scolds Job for his audacity in questioning the God of all Time and all Creation.
When grieving, we all have this audacity. We all struggle with the question, Why do Bad Things Happen to Good People.
Or more succinctly,
Why did THIS happen to ME?
Or to somebody I love more than life itself?
But WHY is a trap.
WHY is a tempting question.
It should lead, we think, to helpful answers.
But it does not.
Meanwhile, this question is much harder for us to ask. And we often have to grieve and protest and question for quite a while before getting here:
HOW can God help ME deal with THIS?
When we are ready, this question helps move us from pain and protest … toward learning, growth, and hope.
WHY will never hold satisfying answers for us.
WHY presses upon the deep agony and anxiety we are feeling.
But never provides relief.
At first, asking, HOW can God help me deal with this?, rips and tears at our soul. Something and somebody we value has suffered, or is still suffering. Something and somebody has been lost, crushed, hurt, maimed, abused, or eviscerated. So the prospect of moving forward, moving on, after this devastation is intensely painful. Even unimaginable.
But HOW is where we discover the grace of God. HOW is where we discover the power of God to heal. HOW is where we discover how new life can spring up even from death. And HOW is where we can find forgiveness for those who may have had a hand in our suffering.
God. And others.
Who had the power to help. But at that moment did not. Or seemed not to. For reasons we struggle to understand.
God. And others. Who had the responsibility to help. But at that moment did not. Or seemed not to. For reasons we struggle to forgive.
HOW can God help me deal with this?
Maybe by helping us see what we have in common, even with our enemies.
Maybe by helping us see that those we have become used to seeing as enemies aren’t as evil as we might once have seen them.
Maybe by helping us see that evil loses its power as we again learn to trust God’s power. And God’s goodness.
Maybe by helping me see that I am clinging too hard to beliefs that stifle and confine me, and prevent me from really seeking God’s guidance and God’s will.
Maybe by helping me see that there is new life and new opportunity in the future, for me and for others, that never would have or could have happened … without that loss. That death.
Maybe by helping me see that for the God of eternity, death is never an end. As a finite being, I will always think of things having a start and a finish. But for God, all of life and death is a part of an ongoing journey, an ongoing relationship. That now, I can only see in a mirror dimly. But one day … face to face with my Redeemer …
Face to face with my Redeemer. That's why Job says,
I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth. 26 And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; 27 I myself will see him with my own eyes — I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!
Job found a way to hold all of this in tension as he proclaimed God’s relationship with him as:
GOOD
And as he praised and proclaimed God’s omnipotence, omniscience AND goodness as:
GOOD
And asked,
Now, HOW can God help me deal with THIS.
May we find the same grace, the same wisdom to pray a similar prayer.
In the tension.
We Face.
As well.
Amen.