October 10th

When Bad Things Happen to Good People

Job 1:1; 2:1-10


In the past 10 days, a schoolgirl has been killed in Colorado, a principal has been killed in Wisconsin, and five Amish schoolgirls have been killed execution style in Pennsylvania. And on top of that, Fred Phelps and his bunch of so-called Christian followers were planning on protesting at the Amish funerals! The only reason they didn’t was some ultra conservative radio host offered Phelps an hour of airtime if they would call off the protest! Can you believe that?

But do you know what I think is really insane? There will be far more air time and media attention given to the Mark Foley scandal and how it may or may not affect the Republicans in the November elections than these senseless tragedies. Is anybody else here asking the question: “God, what is going on here?”

If you have been coming to church here for any length of time, you know that normally I try to ease into the topic of the day. I love using humor and making fun of myself and family members, as well as poking fun at situations to which most of us can relate. But there are just some passages of scripture and some topics that just do not lend themselves to humor—like our passage from the book of Job today, and all the senseless violence and just flat out stupidity of Fred Phelps and his followers that I mentioned in my opening words.

Human suffering is part of life, and do you know what? It stinks! The subject of human suffering takes up the vast majority of the book of Job, and for that reason, the book is disturbing to a lot of people—myself included. But why does the book of Job bother so many people? Why do a lot of preachers shy away from preaching on passages from the book of Job? Maybe this book disturbs a lot of folks because humanity tends to be cause and effect oriented. That is, you do “A”; “B” is the logical result.

Well, the book of Job throws all that nonsense out of the window. In biblical times, people explained everything as a result of God’s pleasure or displeasure with humanity. If it rained and your crops grew, you had God’s favor. Droughts meant that God was unhappy with you. What we would consider normal skin allergies would be considered punishment from God by some of our biblical ancestors.

But wait a minute! Job is described as “upright” and “blameless.” Some of the Hebrew words describing Job indicate he was “whole,” or “complete.” In other words, while Job wasn’t perfect, he was pretty darned close to it. So the authors of the book of Job—being the cause and effect people they were—seem to describe the reason for Job’s suffering as the result of some contest between Hasatan—also known as “Satan” or “The Accuser” and God.

But notice something here: The Accuser does not have a problem with Job as much as he has a problem with God. Satan is challenging the whole premise of why people have faith in God. “Well of course Job loves you! Look at the way you bless him! Of course he reveres and worships you! But take all that away, and Job will curse you to your face.” What Satan is basically saying is that people will love God only during the good times; but let the storms of life come our way, and we will jump ship in a heartbeat.

I hate to admit it; but Satan has a point. It is really easy for us to love, trust, and worship God during the good times, isn’t it? When we have health, a job, maybe a partner, and a roof over our heads, it is pretty easy to be thankful—especially when we look around and see others who don’t appear to be as fortunate as we are.

But then it happens. The partner leaves, we are downsized at our job, we get a very bad report from our doctor—you name it, it happens to us. Sometimes these things seem to happen all at the same time, too! To be honest, sometimes we are our own worst enemies. By that comment, I mean there are times when we have a hand in our own misfortune. We don’t take care of our bodies, we miss too much work, we drink and drive, we cheat on our partners, and we suffer the consequences of our choices. Can’t really pin those things on God, now can we?

But there are those times when it seems the world has just gone to hell in a hand basket, and we have absolutely no clue why. For example, we don’t know why Charles Carl Roberts IV killed those innocent Amish girls. Syndicated religion columnist Terry Mattingly tells us that witnesses said the killer was angry with God, angry with himself, haunted by guilt, fed up with life and driven by a hellish grudge.

We don’t know why some children are horribly abused, why so many people are homeless, emotionally disturbed, or physically challenged. We don’t know why sometimes our own lives just seem like one never-ending soap opera. When these things happen, we begin to ask God, “Why?” Why does God allow these things to happen? Why do bad things happen to good people? Do you really want to know?

So do I, folks. So do I.

The not-so-simple truth of the matter is that not all human suffering is deserved—period. Jesus knew this fact when he said that “God sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” You see, folks, not even God in the person of Jesus Christ gave us the reason for unjust human suffering.

So what do we do in the face of unjust human suffering? Some people point to the example of Job and suggest we just have to learn to be patient in the face of unjust adversity. Let me clue you in on something, folks. That whole “patience of Job” business? Not true. Nope, Job was not---repeat not—patient. In fact, the word for “patient” or “patience” is not even found in the book of Job!

The whole third chapter of Job is a lament—and it starts with Job cursing the day of his birth! From chapter 10, verse 1: “I loathe my life; I will give free utterance to my complaint; I will speak of the bitterness of my soul.” From chapter 17, verse 1, Job screams, “My spirit is broken, my days are extinct, the grave is ready for me!” In chapter 23, verses 16 and 17, Job moans, “God has made my heart faint; the Almighty has terrified me; if only I could vanish in darkness, and thick darkness would cover my face!” Job was ticked off, folks! And do you know what? He had every reason to be upset!

OK. So if patience is not the lesson from Job, what is the lesson? I think there are at least a few things we can learn from Job. First, life is a mixture of both the good and the bad. All our confessions, all our prayers, and all our good works do not exempt us from experiencing life’s sorrows. Job drives this point home nicely when he asks, “Shall we receive the good at the hand of God and not receive the bad?” It was this understanding of life that put Job far ahead of his friends who tried to come up with nice and tidy explanations for Job’s troubles. Sometimes these explanations simply do not exist.

A second lesson we can learn from Job is that it is perfectly OK—in fact, I think it is even healthy sometimes—to faithfully and honestly question God. Job never turned his back on God; but Job was honest in offering his passionate complaints. So, when we are going through times of unjust suffering, I believe it is completely appropriate to question God! Check out some of the Psalms and the book of Lamentations. Being upset with God is nothing new, folks.

Yet another lesson we can learn from Job is to be persistent in seeking an answer from God. Job kept talking to God until he got an answer. It wasn’t necessarily the answer Job wanted; but he did eventually hear from God. You see, Job did not get a nice neat explanation from God about the nature of human suffering. Job did not get a catchy little saying he could write down and put somewhere to remind him the next time life began to stink.

But what Job did get was a sense of peace in his relationship with God. Job said, “I know you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.” See, Job didn’t know why, but Job knew who. Job knew who was ultimately in control, and it was that knowledge that gave him peace.

So I think maybe rather than focusing on the patience of Job—something that didn’t exist anyway—maybe we should focus on the faith of Job. It was a faith that was severely tried, but a faith that chose to trust God anyway. Even though he couldn’t explain the loss of his wealth, his children, and his health, Job chose to trust that when all is said and done, God will make all things clear.

The good news today is that same peace is available to all of us. Like Job, our challenge is not to make sense of all the bad and good things that happen in life. But at the same time, like Job, to honestly question those things we don’t understand. We won’t get all the answers, of course—at least not in this life. But the most important point is that we are to remain in close contact with God throughout it all; because it is that intimate relationship with God that will ultimately save us, and put us in a position to discover true serenity and peace.

May it be so for you, for me, and for our world.

God bless you and amen.