Chaplain Mel Baars
October 7, 2012
Job 1:1; 2:1-10
“Help Our Unbelief”
I was really
hoping that the lectionary would be more helpful for this Sunday when we
celebrate World Communion. Since it is also my last time to preach, I wanted to
end on a high. When I opened up the Bible to our gospel, my first thought was,
you have got to be kidding me. Divorce...really??!!
It’s not quite as gruesome as the beheading of John the Baptist, but for many
who have struggled through it, a beheading may have been preferable. I was
hoping for something warm and fuzzy, maybe something about hope or love or
God’s promises of goodness. Something that was easy, which didn’t remind us what we are continually trying to avoid, how challenging our lives can
get, the fact that we can never quite live up to who God is calling us to be,
no matter how hard we try.
Our Old
Testament reading wasn’t much help either. God and Satan are in the middle of a
major power play, what appears to be a cosmic game of chess. Unsuspecting and
upright Job seems to be caught in the middle, almost because he was such a good guy and not the opposite. Today’s
scripture selection makes me think of saying something which is not often uttered audibly
in a church. “You’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t.” Last
night, as I was praying for divine inspiration, my modus operandi for Saturday
nights throughout this deployment, it struck me how true this statement can be,
or at least how it may appear in certain seasons of our lives. Job is an extreme
case of suffering, but all of us, no matter where we come from or how well we
follow Jesus each day, inevitably, we face periods of wilderness. Someone joked
yesterday that he felt a lot like Job on this deployment, struck each day with
some new struggle, some new tragedy. Our lives here may not be as dramatic as
Job’s, but some days, when that Red Cross message comes in or we catch the
wrath of some superior officer, it sure feels like it.
Job is the
Bible’s classic case of enduring faith despite terrible suffering. This morning
in our reading, we skipped over some of the saddest parts of Job’s story, when
he loses everything, including all of his children in a sudden, deadly tornado.
In chapter two, he is ravaged with oozing sores from head to toe. His wife, who
along with Job has also lost everything, poses the question many of us may be
wondering in the wake of such devastation, “Do you still keep your integrity,
even now when you have nothing left, no offspring or wealth, no blessings or
hope at all. Do you still hold on to your faith? Just curse God and die.”
On one hand, I
think she sounds pretty levelheaded. Wouldn’t we all be asking the same
question, at least somewhere in the annals of our hearts? I mean, we have to
ask ourselves, what is the point of faith anyway? Why do we seek to love and
serve God in the first place? Is it an insurance policy for heaven? People say
this all the time to me, that they might as well believe, just in case it turns
out to be true. Is having faith a way to get something good? If the point of
faithfulness is to become more prosperous, to only know blessings, then
somewhere along the line, Job’s God has failed him. If God failed Job, perfect
and sinless, otherwise what none of us are, then it is not too farfetched to
think God may fail us, too.
Yet, do we
really expect that the relationship between faith and prosperity will always be
one-for-one, tit-for-tat. One prayer equals one day illness free. There are
some who think this. They believe if you have enough faith, or the right kind
of faith, nothing bad will ever happen to you. With a heavenly flick of a magic
wand, problems will be fixed, marriages will automatically mend, illnesses will
disappear. They think that faithfulness comes with an immediate reward, just
like that. But, what happens when problems don’t go away, when marriages fail,
when illnesses intensify, when jobs and homes and dreams are lost, or worse,
when a loved one dies without warning. What then? What happens to that kind of
faith when a storm rolls in and one is buffeted from every side?
Job responds to
his wife with these words, “Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and
not receive the bad?” It is the right
answer but I must admit that I am a little suspicious. This is only chapter
two. The book of Job is forty some odd chapters, and Job doesn’t get a break,
at least not until much later. If we stopped reading at chapter two, we might
think that Job isn’t really human, that he took one devastating blow after the
next and never got to the end of his rope, never got angry at God or faced
doubt or even a crisis of faith. All of those things come later. Today we only
get as far as chapter two. This is just the beginning of Job’s journey through
the wilderness, before he has hit rock bottom.
When Job
finally reaches his breaking point, he has what many of us would call, a “come
to Jesus moment.” He demands to know what he ever did to deserve this horror.
He is not going to be satisfied with some generic response from God, but he wants
to know details. When did he turn away a stranger or not share his wealth with
the poor? When did he harbor deceit in his heart or secretly rejoice when one
of his enemies suffered? When did he behave in a way that would garner
punishment? He knows the answer is never. According to the story, Job was
blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil. No sin
escaped his lips. Job did not reap what he sowed. He did not deserve
punishment. He needed no lessons to remind him to give thanks to God for his
blessings. He was the kind of guy who did that on his own. But, nonetheless, he
still faced the darkness, not because of his sin, but because there are times
when the darkness is inescapable.
I have found,
strangely, that the most difficult texts have often offered me the most
comfort. These texts give us the truest insight into our own lives and the
shadows that we live with every day—the suffering that we experience, the
illness that our child struggles with, the divorce that is still fresh, the
doubts and the fears which haunt us. There are days when we have many more
questions than answers, how a good God who loves us could let such difficult
things happen in our lives? At times, this has always been our human cry, a common
theme when we have found ourselves deep in the pit. Where are you God and why
is this happening? It was Job’s question, and it was even Jesus’ question from
the cross when he said, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me.”
Job and Jesus
and many other people of faith whom we encounter in the Bible remind us that
neither our lack of understanding nor our dismay negates our faith, neither
does anger nor grief. Not even our doubts turn God away from us, even when we
say them out loud. God’s arms reach wide enough to bring us back again and
again, even if we have wandered very far, even if we have been lost for a long
time.
God never stops
responding to us, reminding us in countless ways, through a burning bush, out
of a whirlwind, or in the presence of another pilgrim on the journey, that we
have already been given the most important answer of all. We belong to God and
God alone. Though we forget it sometimes, particularly in the midst of the
darkness in our worlds, we do know the rest of the story. We know how it all
ends. We celebrate it every week when we come to God’s table, and we remember
God’s saving love in Jesus.
Today is world
Communion Sunday which means that all over the world, in every time zone and on
every continent, in grand cathedrals and in makeshift church shacks, in every
language and in places where having faith is punishable with death, throughout
the ranks and denominations of the whole church, people of faith will find
their way to this table. They will break bread and share the cup. They will
take and eat and remember that Christ has died, Christ has risen, and Christ
will come again. They will cross their hands, forming the sign of the cross,
and they will share in this holy meal. Some will have just faced great loss
while others will be filled with joy. Some will have done this throughout their
entire lives while others will come to the table for the very first time. Young
and old, rich and poor, some filled with hope and others laden with doubt.
Together, with them, we will proclaim what God has promised, that we are joined
with Christ through death into everlasting life.
I
am the resurrection and the life, says the Lord. He who believes in me will
live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.
Do you believe this?
Lord
we believe; help our unbelief. Amen
