Sermon for the Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost
(Proper 22)
Text: Job 2:10 Job said, “When God sends us something good, we welcome it. How can we complain when he sends us trouble?” Even in all this suffering Job said nothing against God. |
Disappointment with God
Job was
an exceptional man. He was
extremely loyal to God. We are told
that “he was a truly good person,
who respected God and refused to do evil.”
(1:1).
His
children liked to party and every morning after one of their parties, he got up
early and offered a sacrifice in case “they
had sinned or silently cursed God.”
(1:5).
God himself has nothing
but accolades to shower on Job. He
says, “No one on earth is
like him—he is a truly good person, who respects me and refuses to do evil”
(1:8).
Job was a wealthy man.
He was “the richest man in the East” (1:3) with thousands upon
thousands of sheep, camels, cattle and donkeys as well as a large number of
servants. Job possessed the wealth
of a chieftain or sheikh. God had
indeed richly blessed Job.
We also know that Job was blessed with
seven sons and three daughters, these numbers indicate that this was the perfect
family, a sign of God’s pleasure.
He was a good father and had taught his children about God.
He wasn’t wasteful and was very generous and hospitable to those who
visited him.
Job enjoyed a good life.
God’s protection rested on his family and everything he owned.
Everything he did prospered with God’s help.
Job’s wealth continued to grow and grow.
He was enjoying life, everything was just right, life couldn’t be
sweeter, when bam, out of the blue, his life is turned upside down.
Raiders
from the south stole all his stock and killed his servants.
A storm destroyed the house where his children were having one of their parties
and all ten were killed.
The normally healthy Job broke out in terrible painful running sores.
He now sits on a heap of ashes, the only place where he could express his grief
after losing so much. Job is
sitting alone – this gives us a clue that he has been excluded from the
community, after all, he must be a terribly wicked man for all this to happen.
In one
day, Job has gone from riches to rags.
From the story, we know that it was Satan that had inflicted all of this
on Job, the most God-fearing and loyal man that one could find, while it seems
that God has allowed this to happen.
We might
well ask, “What had Job done to deserve all this?”
“Why have so many disasters happened to a man who was so good?”
These are
good questions that people are still asking today.
We hear of the untimely death of a child and we ask, “What had that child
done to deserve that?” Why should
that happen to someone so young when there are so many other evil people who get
away scot free?”
Jesus was confronted with the same problem
(Luke 13:1-5). Some of those
following Jesus referred to disasters that were headlines in the news.
One tragedy happened at the temple.
There were some pious and honourable folk offering sacrifices at the
temple and yet they came to a cruel end.
Pontius Pilate had them killed right there in the temple as they
worshipped.
And then there was the collapse of the tower at Siloam.
Eighteen people were in the wrong place at the wrong time and were
killed. We are no strangers to that
kind of freaky thing. Like a
surfer who has surfed on the same beach a thousand times, one day finds himself
in the same spot as a hungry shark.
It’s reasonable to ask, “Why do these bad things happen for no obvious reason?”
If we could say that they happened because bad people were getting what
they deserved, then the problem would be solved and that would be end of it.
But we can’t. We know that
good people, people like Job, suffered.
We are horrified and can find no logical explanation why a defenceless
child should die at the hands of a parent.
Neither bad health nor the present drought have come as a result of some
terrible sin. Neither can we say
that because we are church-going and committed Christians, we will never
experience any hardship.
The question that arises in our
minds now is this – we can’t explain why bad things happen to us so then how do
we cope with tragedies when they do occur?
How did Job cope with the disasters that happened in his life?
We read,
“When Job heard this, he tore his clothes
and shaved his head because of his great sorrow. He knelt on the ground, then
worshiped God and said:
"We bring nothing at birth; we take nothing with us at death.
The Lord alone gives and takes. Praise the name of the Lord!"
In spite of everything, Job did not sin or accuse God of doing wrong”
(Job 1:20-21).
Job has two responses to all
this bad news.
No, I’m not suggesting we tear our clothes and shave our heads but he does have
two other responses.
Firstly, as can be expected Job is grief stricken.
He has lost so much so quickly.
In record time, the once rich man has become a pauper.
He has lost his most precious possessions of all – his children, all ten
of them at once. No wonder his
grief is so intense.
Job’s second response is one of
faith. While his wife and his
friends tell him to give up on God, he doesn’t focus on his grief but states
clearly that God is Lord of all things.
He gives freely and generously and he is able to take it all away again.
We are told, “In all that
happened, Job never once said anything against God”
(2:10).
Job grieves but he doesn’t lose confidence in God’s justice and love.
I don’t know about you but there have been times when my response to events in
my life haven’t been Job-like at all.
The events and the grief are overwhelming and we can’t help it and blurt
out, “It’s not fair! I don’t
deserve any of this! Why won’t God
do something and change things?” We
question God’s idea of what is fair and just.
Philip Yancey tells the story in his book,
Disappointment with God, about a
friend and faithful Christian named Douglas who went through a series of
terrible events. First, his wife developed breast cancer.
Then one night, he and his family were involved in a head-on crash with a
drunk driver. His wife and daughter
were injured in the smash. Douglas
received a severe head injury that caused sudden and debilitating headaches that
kept him from working a full day and enjoying his passion for reading.
More than anything, it affected his ability to care for his wife.
None of this made any human sense. If
anyone had a right to be angry at God, Douglas did.
Yancey thought Douglas would be the perfect person to interview about being
disappointed with God. So he began,
“Could you tell me about your own disappointment?”
To Yancey’s great surprise, Douglas said, “To tell you the truth, Philip, I
didn’t feel any disappointment with God…. The reason is this. I learned, first
through my wife’s illness and then especially through the accident, not to
confuse God with life.”
He continued, “I’m no stoic. I am
as upset about what happened to me as anyone could be.
I feel free to curse the unfairness of life and to vent all my grief and
anger. But I believe God feels the
same way about that accident – grieved and angry.
I don’t blame him for what happened.”
He goes on to point out that we believe that God is fair and so assume that life
also ought to be fair. The fairness
of life was disrupted when sin came into the world.
Sin invaded the peace and harmony of our world and our bodies.
All kinds of things come out of the blue that seem completely unfair but
they have nothing to say about God loving us any less or that he doesn’t feel
the pain as any parent feels the pain of their child.
It's not
God who is unfair – he is as loving and as just as he has always been.
It’s life that is unfair – our world and our lives have been affected by
the disastrous consequences of evil.
The
question that faces us is this: can we continue to love and trust God – in pain,
in sickness, in grief and in any bad times?
Can we love God in spite of what life brings?
What will our reaction be when something hits us that really rocks us?
It strikes us so deeply that our love and trust in God is shaken.
We don't have the human resources to hang on to God and to keep on
trusting. We don’t have the trust
that Job had that firmly believes that God’s loves us more than ever.
When tragedy strikes, when we
don’t understand, when we think it is unfair and we do end up blaming God, thank
goodness God keeps hanging on to us.
Even when our trust is low and our doubts are overwhelming us, God keeps
on loving and keeps on holding on to us and supporting us and helping us through
that crisis.
The reason why God doesn’t give us specific answers to all our questions is
something we, I, have to grapple with even though we would dearly love to know
the answers to the questions that we have about the tragedies and crises in our
lives. Maybe the answers are too
complex for us to understand.
The answer we do understand though is the one he gives us in his Son.
He gave his body and spilled his blood for us on the cross.
He is God’s love for us. He
is present for us in his body and blood in the sacrament of Holy Communion.
He will always be with us through times of hardship and tragedy.
This is the way he responds to our questions – not with answers that make
the world simpler, not with slick, neat answers to the question “why”, but he
answers with his love, with his life given for us.
© Pastor Vince Gerhardy
4th October 2015
E-mail:
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