Hilton Head Island, SC – July 18, 2021
The Chapel Without Walls
Job 2:11-3:4; Job 3:11,16,20-26
A Sermon by John M. Miller
Text – After this, Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth. – Job 3:1 (RSV)
Job is a classic literary illustration of Murphy’s Law: If anything can go wrong, it will. Job was a very wealthy man, but in a matter of days he lost everything --- every vestige of his extraordinary wealth was stolen, all his servants were massacred by enemy tribesmen, and finally all of his ten adult children were killed when the building collapsed in which they were staying during a terrible windstorm, and finally Job himself was afflicted by painful sores, presumably carbuncle boils. But through it all Job was still able to declare, “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord.”
All of those catastrophes couldn’t happen in just a couple of days in real life. The book of Job is meant to be perceived as a work of fiction, not of fact. It was written to attempt to address the unavoidable issue that arises when bad things happen to good people, and why people suffer. It is an epic poem from Middle Eastern mythology in the same way that The Illiad and The Odyssey are epic poems of Greek mythology.
Three of Job’s friends came to console him after his collection of calamities. But wisely, for a full week they didn’t say a word to him, nor did he say anything to them. Instead, the friends were just present with him, mute in the face of the disasters which had engulfed him. The opening prologue says that for seven days and seven nights no one spoke, “for they saw that his suffering was very great” (2:13). Sometimes, when the things that happen are so indescribably horrible, it is best not to try to comment, but rather simply to be present in silence with the one who has been devastated. Talking about it may only make it worse for the sufferer. But don’t ignore somebody in need because you worry about what to say. BE there.
Nonetheless, trying to be helpful, in such circumstances people will say painfully ridiculous things. When someone is greatly afflicted, they might say, “God never lays more burdens on us than we can bear.” What swell advice that is! First, it implies that it was God who gave Job all his troubles, but it won’t be more than he can endure. Isn’t that nice? Second, the poor soul already feels it is more than he can bear, so why imply it isn’t more than he can stand? He wants to say, “Who are you, buster, that you are in a position to tell me how much I can or can’t bear?” Or a young child will die, and friends or relatives will say, “I guess it can only mean that God loved her more than you did.” That is a dagger in the heart of the grieving parents! They loved their daughter with boundless love! Or someone will say, “It’s all for the best.” What can there possibly be in the death of a child or in first two chapters of Job that is “all for the best”? Those words are as helpful as a case of shingles or a bone-on-bone knee that needs to be replaced. People mean to be kind, but sometimes they just don’t think.
After Job had sufficient time of sitting in silence with his friends, he also had plenty of time to think it over, and his attitude changed. Instead of accepting his myriad misfortunes in silence, he cursed the day of his birth. “Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night which said, ‘A man-child is conceived.’ Let that day be darkness! May God above not seek it, nor light shine upon it” (3:2-4). Job was so miserable that he wished he had never been born. Having been born, however, he now wanted to die. Who could blame him? As it turned out, his best buddies; that’s who.
They are identified as Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zohar the Naamathite. And here is where a biblical quip coincidentally appears to ease the weight of the losses pressing down upon poor Job. Who is the shortest man in the Bible? Bildad the Shuhite. Get it? Bildad the Shoe-hite. Yuk, yuk. There are more where that came from, but we’ll pass on them.
Job complained to his friends, “Why is light given to him who is in misery…whose way is hid, whom God has hedged in?” (3:20,23) This is a poetic way of asking “Why me?”, which is a very common question to those who are severely afflicted with illness, pain, or loss. At first Job accepted what had happened without complaint, but now that he has had some time to ponder it, dark thoughts enter his mind, and he wonders why God has thrown so many calamities upon him, never supposing that it was not God who did this at all, instead it was life. Sometimes life dumps heavy burdens on us. To accept adversity without complaint is not natural. Quite the opposite: Most of us wonder “Why me?” when disaster strikes.
So what happens when things happen? People start to give advice. His three best friends try to get Job to acquire what they consider is the proper perspective on his trials and tribulations. “Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered: ‘If one ventures a word with you, will you be offended? Yet who can keep from speaking?’” Eliphaz has heard enough from Job, and now he wants to set him straight. “Behold, you have instructed many, and you have strengthened weak hands. Your words have upheld him who was stumbling, and you have made firm the feeble knees. But now it has come to you, and you are impatient; it touches you, and you are dismayed. Is not our fear of God your confidence, and the integrity of your ways your hope?” (4:1-6) Just believe the right stuff, Job, and it will all turn out fine!
Platitudes won’t work for people of deep trust in God when they have been knocked flat on their backs and they’re afraid they might be down for the count. Reminding them of how faithful they have been is like pouring salt on their gaping physical or psychological wounds when their faith is being tested beyond what they may think is its limits. It is vexing enough to be confronted by tragedy, but it may be appallingly vexing to be told that all you need to do is to strap on the armor of conviction to overcome the feelings of anger and helplessness you are feeling when your life has turned into a hellhole of grief and anguish. Job’s friends’ intentions are the best, but for him the end result of those intentions are the worst. A plague on their platitudes!
When the three friends said nothing, they were the most helpful. When they started to speak to Job, their words were like barbed arrows shot into his broken heart.
When painful things happen, other things may insert themselves into the situation to make it even more painful. A doctor tells a patient he has only a few months to live. That thought may have been dogging the patient for previous months, so the last thing he wants is to have his fears confirmed by the doctor. But what, if anything, can be said to assist the sufferer when the suffering is so severe he wishes himself dead, but be doesn’t want anyone else to talk about it?
All people do not react to adversity in the same way. Therefore there is no “one-size-fits-all” advice for trying to assist others in dealing with their troubles. We do the best we can, but we must stay carefully tuned to what seems to help or hinder someone who is under severe stress.
In the first church I served as pastor in northern Wisconsin over fifty-five years ago, I became particularly close to a family of two parents and six children, and another daughter was born after we had moved away. The father was a teacher at the local high school, and he and I were about the same age. We became close hunting buddies as well. The Olson family was one of many blessings I felt from living in that community.
A week ago yesterday I received an email from the oldest daughter in the family. Kathy wrote, “I’m sorry to give you sad news but Dad is not long for this world. He had a fall off his tractor and after a brief recovery and rehab some other complications emerged. He is on life support and we are going to bring that to closure, probably tonight.” As it turned out, he rallied for a few days, but then he took a turn for the worse, and all the life support equipment was removed.
I called Kathy a few days ago. She told me more of the story than she had emailed. Ed may have fallen from his garden tractor because of a seizure, although he had never had one before. In the hospital a nurse later gave him medication that was intended for another patient, and tragically, it was that which sent him into his final decline. But remember, things happen, and we have no control over most of what happens. I was so proud of Kathy when she told me that she and her siblings are not going to initiate any legal action against the nurse or hospital. They all realize that it was mistake, even if perhaps a fatal one. In the last seventeen months that family has now lost both parents and a sister. The oldest three of the oldest Olsons are in their sixties, and a third of the original family have now died in less than a year and a half. Things happen. But what happens when things happen?
My mother had aphorisms for almost every imaginable occasion. When things went wrong, she would say that we might feel “like you have been dragged through a knothole backwards” or are inclined to “curse the fates.” But, she said, while cursing the fates might make us feel better, it wouldn’t change anything. And as William Butler Yeats said, “Things fall apart; the center cannot hold,” and then what? Others may bring us comfort or even greater consternation, intending only to be supportive. We ourselves may either revel in our misery or try to emerge from it in a better frame of mind from when we first experienced our woes.
Sooner or later, though, most of us are inclined to ask, “Why me?” Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar each tried in his own infuriating manner to convince Job that if all these catastrophes had befallen him, he must have done something wrong to deserve it. To their way of thinking, there has to be a cause for the effect of calamity to descend upon anyone, and that cause has to be bad behavior or defective thinking or, as my mother would say, “pure cussedness.” However, I’m sure she would not think that Job had engaged in any manner of cussedness, pure or otherwise. We can ask “Why me?” until the cows come home, but almost certainly we will never find a satisfactory answer. Things happen because things happen: end of story.
Except that it isn’t the end of the story. When painful things happen, we are still left with the inevitable decision of how we are going to live with that sober and often frightful reality. Do we allow adversity ever after to hold us in its remorseless grip, or do we try to get beyond the events which threw us into a maelstrom of despair in the first place?
When excruciating events occur to wise people, they tell themselves that there may never be an answer as to why they happen. They also will accept the fact that most of the people who are closest to them will try to say what they think are the most helpful things that can be said in such circumstances. Sometimes they will be comforting in what they say and sometimes they will be painfully insensitive. Most people want to help alleviate suffering if they can, but some are far more adept at doing it than others. We must not hold it against those who are aggravating alleviators. The three Cheerful Charlies who were Job’s closest chums never took Psychology 101, let along 203 or 312.
Furthermore, some tragedies are more tragic than others. To one person, losing a thumb to an electric saw in a moment of carelessness is the worst imaginable trauma. To another, losing one’s entire family to a building that collapsed in South Florida is the greatest tragedy she can imagine. To some of us, minor setbacks are major calamities, and to others, huge catastrophes are occurrences that inevitably punctuate life’s journey, but a healthy attitude requires they must be dwelt with as best as possible if and when they come.
Job encountered a perfect storm of sorrow, and for 31 chapters he had a terrible time trying to cope. But when young Elihu came into the picture (and we will meet him next week), Job started to perceive the disasters that had happened to him in a different light. Bad as it was, and as much as he had wanted to die because of it, he now realized there was a way of weathering the storm.
We are not alone, Christian people! God goes with us every step of the way on our pilgrimage. Elihu convinced Job of that. Troubles may cause us to suppose that God has abandoned us, but when time passes and we regain our footing, we know that is not the case.
So where is God when things happen? That is the question to be addressed next Sunday.