Suffering
Commentary
No issue has been so difficult for Judaism and Christianity than suffering. The Hebrew people and their Jewish descendants sought to make sense of suffering, and the Old Testament espouses a number of different understandings of it. None of them was successful in answering questions such as why God allows suffering and what purpose there is in suffering. However, the first Testament does narrow the focus of the question to the justice of God (theodicy). The New Testament advances a concept of vicarious suffering and claims that suffering can yield positive results, such as endurance.
Still, we continue to wrestle with the issue and shall probably never resolve it. The Holocaust simply deepens the agony of the question. Unfortunately, today there are many popular ideas about suffering that are unhealthy and theologically faulty. Because this is a question that haunts many of us, we might take this Sunday as an opportunity to address it -- but without any claims that we can finally answer all the questions it stirs. The first two lessons speak directly to the problem of suffering, and the Gospel Lesson hints at something essential to our Christian perspective on the issue.
Job 1:1; 2:1-10
Job's story has been the classical source of many of the issues revolving around human suffering. Many of us resonate with this story of the suffering of an innocent and righteous person. The question of why bad things should happen to good people plagues us endlessly, and Job seems at least to give voice to that troublesome mystery. The lessons for this Sunday and the next three are all taken from Job, so we need to clarify some issues about this book.
The date of the writing of Job is unknown and unknowable, but most agree that it was written in the sixth or fifth centuries B.C.E. There is reason to think that Job was a legendary figure of righteousness and for that reason was chosen as the subject of this story. One way of understanding Job, although not the only one, is to read it in terms of the way it critiques the retribution (or Deuteronomic) ethic that is so pervasive throughout the Old Testament (and to some degree the New Testament as well). In the central part of Job (3:1--42:6), the question seems to be whether Job committed sins which make his suffering an appropriate consequence of those wrongs. The beginning and conclusion of the book (1:1--2:13 and 42:7-17), however, undercut any challenge to the retribution ethic, and for that reason many think that they are additions to the original book, namely, the central part.
Our reading for this Sunday introduces Job and the advent of his suffering. The first verse of chapter 1 does little more than establish that Job "was blameless and upright." However, that point is crucial to the whole story, since, if this is not a true description of him, the whole story becomes rather pointless. A series of tests of Job's faithfulness launches the narrative. In the first test, his property and children are taken from him, but he maintains his "integrity" (1:6-22). The second test is told in the second part of our reading (2:1-10).
Chapter 2, verses 1-10 depict the reason Job is made to suffer. The setting is the celestial court with "heavenly beings" (literally "sons of God") gathered around the divine throne. Then "the satan" enters stage left! The Hebrew word translated satan means "accuser." The figure of the satan goes through several stages of development within the Old Testament. He begins as he is represented here, not as God's opponent but as a kind of prosecuting attorney for the Lord, and satan is not actually a proper name but a description of his function. Hence, it is more accurate to speak of "the satan" than of Satan, as if in this case that were a proper name. This view of the satan was compatible with strict monotheism, but gradually the figure evolved into the representative of the evil side of a dualism. (See e.g., 1 Chronicles 21:1.) In our passage, he is a heavenly being who convicts humans of wrongdoing, but always under God's control.
The scene in 2:1-10 is nearly identical to the one in 1:6-12, which tells the story of the satan's attack on Job and his loss of all his property and his children. Now the scene is repeated in preparation for still further affliction of Job. The satan has been scanning the world in search for those whom he might accuse of sin, and God asks if Job has been considered (see 1:1). Job is God's prize and joy! He has not wavered from his faith, in spite of all that the satan has done to cause him to doubt. The satan's reply, "Skin for skin," is difficult to translate. It seems to represent some kind of bargaining. The satan is certain that Job will do anything he has to do in order to save his life, including cursing God, so he now wagers that Job will crumble if he is stricken in "bone and flesh." God consents to the wager but orders that Job's life not be taken.
The consequence of the satan's new bargain with God is that poor Job is afflicted with "loathsome sores" all over his body (vv. 7-8). His wife's reaction to all of the suffering seems more realistic than her husband's, and she urges him to "curse God and die." That would be better than enduring all of this tragedy. She is really asking her husband to abandon his "integrity" (v. 3), for she fears that, if he persists in his faith, he will become phoney. Job's reply is that faith means receiving both good and bad from God, reflecting the ancient Hebraic idea that all conditions come as a result of God's action, both the good and the evil. The scene closes with the narrator's telling us that "Job did not sin with his lips" -- but what about his heart?
At this point in the story, Job's suffering is the result of a game the accuser and God are playing. He is afflicted for the purpose of seeing just how much he can take before he breaks. The issue is his integrity amid all of this nonsensical affliction, and the beginning of the story seems almost a parody of suffering. It makes no more sense than the idea that suffering comes as a result of heavenly beings playing chess with him! In other words, the introduction to the book only deepens a sense of the meaninglessness of suffering and calls into question God's character.
Hebrews 1:1-4; 2:5-12
The author of Hebrews, however, offers a more sophisticated concept of suffering. Coupled with readings from Job, the next three Propers will all include lessons from Hebrews, and the concentration on Hebrews will continue through the last Proper of the year (29). The first readers of Hebrews were likely second generation Christians, some of whom have become disillusioned about their faith and are leaving the church (e.g., 10:25). Moreover, the book gives a good deal of attention to suffering, although the most recent studies of Hebrews advocate the view that the suffering was more social and emotional than physical. Christians were a minority in the culture and felt like homeless pilgrims. The author of Hebrews is unknown, so we cannot refer to him or her by name.
The introduction to Hebrews (1:1-4) makes a high claim for Christ's identity. (See Emphasis, November-December, 1999, pp. 67-69 and 71.) Not only is Christ the one through whom God has spoken, but he is the agent and sustainer of creation. The description, "reflection of God's glory and the exact imprint of God's very being," attempts to capture the way in which God was revealed through Christ. The affirmation of Christ's nature is followed by a reference to his work on the cross, which this author understands in terms of Jewish sacrificial worship in which the sacrifice sets sin aside ("purification for sins"). Christ is now at God's side and far above the angels. This creedal confession stands at the beginning of the book so that the author can clarify exactly who Christ is.
The second part of the reading (2:5-12) follows the argument that Christ is superior to the angels (1:5-14) and an admonition to remain faithful and not "drift away." Exactly why this author seeks to prove Christ is superior to angels, Moses, and the high priest is not certain, although the argument gives occasion to speak of Christ and his work in a pastoral way. Hebrews 2:4-18 emphasizes Christ's solidarity with humans (e.g., 2:18).
This author often argues a case by means of citations of Hebrew Scripture, and that practice is evident in our passage. The point is that creation and the world yet to come are for the sake of humans, and the author supports the point with a quotation from Psalm 8:4-6. (But compare humans are "for a little while lower" and "a little lower.") The author's comments on the Psalm (vv. 8b-9) stress that "all things" are or will be under human control. This subjection of all things to humans is as yet incomplete, but Jesus' exaltation is indication of the fulfillment of the promise to humans. The brief little story of Jesus in verse 9 includes his earthly life, when he was temporarily "lower than the angels," and then his enthronement with God. That exaltation was due, the author says, to Jesus' willingness to suffer death (see Philippians 2:8-9), a death which was "for everyone" (hyper pantos) or "benefited all people." Christ suffered death because he was so completely identified with humanity for whom death is inevitable.
Verses 10-12 shift attention slightly to how Christ is the means of human salvation and why he had to suffer and die in order to accomplish his mission. A part of God's purpose in creation was that suffering should be the means by which the Creator establishes relationship with humans, since suffering is an important part of the human experience. These references to creation in the first part of verse 10 accomplish two things. First, they relate God's saving activity with God's creative work, and, second, by stressing that God is Creator and Sustainer, the author contrasts God's transcendent otherness with the divine identification with human suffering. So, God makes "the pioneer of their salvation perfect through suffering." By calling Christ "the pioneer" (archagos -- leader, originator, founder), the author credits Christ with establishing salvation and leading the way through death to life. Jesus suffered in order that he might become "perfect" (teleiosai -- the verb is teleioo). In this case, perfection has to do with Jewish sacrificial worship again, in that the offering had to be without blemish. But how does suffering make Christ perfect? The process is that of the accomplishment of Christ's purpose and not a moral maturation (see John 19:30). Christ completes his mission in suffering, because in suffering he fully shares the human experience, and in dying shares human destiny. Both are necessary for Christ to overcome suffering and death for us.
Verse 11 makes another point of Christ's solidarity with humans. Like all humans, he too calls God "Father." Consequently, he becomes our brother, and we his sisters and brothers, and the quotation of Psalm 22:22 intends to document Christ's kinship with the whole Christian family. The next quotation makes the same point, and verses 14-18 develop still further the theme of Christ's solidarity with humanity.
The Christology of Hebrews is rich but complicated. Moreover, this author dared to try to make sense of the mystery of the cross -- an ambitious undertaking. What is important to us is the author's insistence that suffering is integral to human existence. There is no human life without suffering. Equally important is that Christ's suffering was necessary for him to experience human existence fully and in its most terrible moment. God's plan to win humanity back into a relationship requires that the divine experience the human. Why? Because it demonstrates the depth of God's love of humans and because God can conquer suffering and death only by entering and experiencing it in Christ. Suffering takes on a new face, without annihilating its gruesome features.
Mark 10:2-16
The dimension of suffering that surfaces in this lesson is very different and somewhat disguised. The reading once again patches two separate pericopes together to create a single unit. Both pieces are part of the teaching section in Mark that is sandwiched between the second (9:33) and third (10:32) passion predictions. The two parts of the reading are Jesus' teachings regarding divorce and remarriage and regarding children. Since we want to focus on the first of these units, we will deal with it at some greater length after touching on the episode about the children.
Verses 13-16 are comprised of two related parts. First, "little children" are brought to Jesus, and he blesses them. In their fog of misunderstanding, the disciples rebuked (epetimasan, again) them, and Jesus has to straighten them out. Children had little social status in Palestinian society, and the disciples thought Jesus shouldn't be wasting his time with them. Jesus' angry response claims that the kingdom of God belongs to children. This claim is not based on any idea of childish innocence or gullibility. Children belong to the kingdom, because, unlike adults, children have nothing to claim as their own. They are without significance, cannot defend themselves, and have no accomplishments to which they can point to establish their worth. They are, as one commentator has said, beggars. The section concludes with Jesus' claim that the helplessness of a child is the model for what anyone must become in order to fit into this new commonwealth God is forming. We do not enter into God's dominion because we are good people or free of sin. We enter because we are like children without any claim to worth. As the episode began with Jesus' blessing the children, so it ends.
The reading commences with the conflict story on the topic of divorce (vv. 2-12) and has two parts -- one in which Jesus encounters and responds to the Pharisees (vv. 2-9) and the other in which he is alone with the disciples and furthers the discussion. The Pharisees ask if divorce is "lawful." A strange question since the Torah prescribes how a man legally divorces his wife, so Jesus asks them what Moses has to say about this matter. They summarize Deuteronomy 24:1-4, but Jesus will not accept it as binding. His words in verse 5 mean that humans are sinful and are bound to break marriages, so Moses simply gave them the best way of doing an evil thing. (Compare Matthew's 19:1-9.)
By citing Genesis 1:27 and 5:2, Jesus follows his dismissal of the Deuteronomic endorsement of divorce with a view of marriage as God intended it, suggesting that the creation of persons of two genders undergirds the idea of marriage. Verses 7 and 8 continue the quotation of Genesis 1, climaxing with the union of man and woman in marriage. Jesus takes this union seriously -- as intended by God and sacred -- and warns that humans dare not try to divide what God has united.
Apart in private with his disciples, Jesus adds several things to his retort to the Pharisees. First, he claims that divorce and remarriage constitute adultery. Second, he claims that what is good for the goose is good for the gander -- it holds true for women divorcing their husbands and remarrying. That's strange, since in Judaism of the time divorce was strictly a male prerogative, even though there is some evidence of women divorcing their husbands in the Gentile world.
This is not the place for a full discussion of divorce and remarriage. Suffice it to say that Jesus regards it as sinful in the sense that it violates God's original intention for marriage. However, there is nothing about divorce or remarriage that makes it the "unforgivable sin," as some have claimed. There is forgiveness for divorce, and in remarriage God may grant a second chance.
What interests us here is the manner in which Jesus sets aside the Deuteronomic legislation. He does so, we think, in part because of the suffering it inflicted on women. To be sure, without the certificate of divorce, a woman thrown out of her home by her husband would be even worse off. Still, the whole patriarchal system gave the husband complete control over divorce, and there is a rabbinical saying which claims that a man could divorce his wife if he found his soup too hot to eat! Jesus is defending the importance of marriage in this story, but he is also defending women who were thought of merely as a man's property. He implicitly addresses the suffering inherent in such a system.
And that is the connection we make between the Gospel lesson and the other lessons. While suffering is an inevitable human condition, Jesus sought to relieve suffering even as he himself took it upon himself. The reign of God, which Jesus claimed was coming in and through his ministry, overcomes all suffering, as Jesus' healings and exorcisms so clearly demonstrate. While Christians must accept the reality of suffering as part of life and must deal with it in as creative a way as possible, we are also mandated to work vigorously against all forms of human suffering. Christians accept the fact that human life means suffering but believe that God's rule eliminates suffering. Therefore, as children of God's commonwealth, we are commissioned to struggle against suffering even while we know it cannot be eliminated until some final day in the future when God "will wipe every tear from their eyes" (Revelation 21:4).
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By Elizabeth Achtemeier
Job 1:1; 2:1-10
God trusts Job. That is the import of the conversation that the Lord has with his servant, the Adversary, in Job 2:1-6 and in 1:8-11. And we should make it clear that we are not dealing with the figure of Satan in these introductory sections to the book of Job. The Hebrew word satan in 1:6 and 2:6 has a definite article before it, and is much better rendered "the accuser" or "the adversary." He is a messenger of God, who roams "to and fro on the earth," acting as what we might call God's "attorney general," confronting human beings with the evidence and accusing them of their sin on behalf of God. But when the Adversary returns to the heavenly court of God, as is the case in 1:6 and 2:1, and enters into an account of his travels to the Lord, the Lord singles out Job in the conversation as an exemplary model of piety. Job, the Lord is sure, will never violate his trust and obedience of his God.
Job proves that is true when, in the first chapter of the book, the Adversary destroys all of Job's great wealth and fine family. Even then Job will not abandon his faith (1:21). But, counters the Adversary in our text in his second conversation with God in the heavenly court, will not Job abandon his trust in exchange for saving his own life (2:6)? Will he not give up the foundation of his existence ("skin") in exchange for his "skin"? What is trust when life is gone?
That is a question that has confronted countless Christian martyrs throughout the history of the church. And that is the test to which our Lord Christ, whom the book of Revelation names the exemplary "martyr" (= "witness"; Revelation 1:5) was subject when the cross loomed up before him. Nevertheless, in trust he prayed to his Father, ". not what I will, but what thou wilt" (Mark 14:36 and parallels). The question of our story is: Will Job do the same?
Job's life is in fact threatened in the story that follows. He is covered with loathsome sores, so that his whole identity, for others and for himself, is done away. And he is banished from his community to the garbage dump of the town, where he can do nothing but scrape at his putrid skin with broken pieces of pottery. He has nothing left in life -- not his material goods, not his sons and daughters, not his home or place in his community, not his good name (cf. chs. 29-30), not his health. It is clear that he will shortly die. Moreover, his wife, the one remaining possible comfort and help to him (cf. Genesis 2:18) turns against him and just wants to be rid of him. "Curse God," she harangues, "who has brought all of this upon you, and die" (2:9). To that wifely abandonment, Job gives a profound reply. "Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?" (2:10).
Frederick Buechner wrote a sermon once (I cannot recall where I read it) in which he meditated on John the Baptist's saying in John 1:29, "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world." Buechner concentrated on that phrase, "who takes away." God may take away many goods and blessings from us, as he allowed the Adversary to take them away from Job. And I wonder, can we thank God too for that which he takes away? Surely we can be thankful that he removes from our lives all of our sin and the things that cause us to sin. But do we trust God so much that we know that every action he does toward us is done in love? Do we trust him with our very skin, with our lives, our existence, our all? Our Lord Jesus took that trust with him to the cross and willingly let himself be crucified (John 10:18).
Job did not quite live up to the measure of Christ's trust. He argued with God, accused God, demanded a trial of God, as so many of us demand when suffering and loss overwhelm us. Yet, Job clung to one thing -- his relationship with his Lord. He knew that God had been his friend in days past, and he refused to give up that friendship (cf. Job 29:4). Like Jacob in Genesis 32, he clung to God until God blessed him (32:26). And the epilogue of Job (ch. 42) tells us that the blessing came.
Perhaps that is what we should remember when it seems as if God has brought evil upon us, too. Our Father holds us in his hand, and he never deserts us, though even Christ thought he was deserted on the cross (Mark 15:34). The Father's is a love in his crucified Son from which nothing in all creation can separate us (Romans 8:38).
Lutheran Option -- Genesis 2:18-24
This is the text in the scripture that forms the foundation for our Christian understanding of the marital relationship. And as we preach from this text, we should make it clear that it concerns not just the relationship between an original couple called Adam and Eve. Rather, this story from the Yahwist writer of the tenth century B.C. is intended by him to be an account of us all still today. The Hebrew word for "man" in this story, 'adam, is the word for "humankind." This is a story of God's intentions for us.
The text begins with one of the most merciful words of God to be found in the Bible: "It is not good that the man should be alone." You and I were not meant to be alone in the world, not meant to be self-enclosed, self-fulfilling, isolated egos. No. We were made for relationships with our fellow human beings. In this particular text, the relationship is that of marriage, but the text could be applied to every human connection with others.
God muses to himself that it is not good for the man to be alone. Therefore he decides, "I will make a helper fit for him." That is the RSV rendering of the text. The NRSV is better: "I will make a helper as his partner." But the Hebrew for those italicized words is kenegdo, and is even better read, corresponding to him. That is, God makes for the man one in whom he sees himself, one with whom he can share and care and commune, in a mutual helpfulness and partnership. Right there at the beginning of Genesis, we have the mutual relationship and equality of male and female stated as the intention of the Lord. There is no subjugation of the female here. Man and woman are equal partners.
In his creation of a corresponding partner for the man, God therefore makes the beasts and the birds and brings them to the man to be named. "But for the man there was not found a helper corresponding to him" (v. 20). In other words, our primary relationship is not intended by God to be with the world of nature around us, but with our fellow human beings.
Finally, to make that corresponding partner, God causes a deep sleep to fall on the man -- for we cannot watch the Lord God's creative activity -- and he takes one of the ribs of the man, and out of the rib makes a woman. Male and female were once one, you see, and after the woman's creation, they long to become one again -- the desire of the sexes for one another is the intention of God. Then God the Father brings the woman to the man, and the man cries out in that ecstatic cry, "This, this at last is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh!" Here is the one corresponding to me; here is the one with whom I can share my life, here is the person with whom I can commune and with whom I can enter into the deepest fellowship known on this earth! And so the woman and man are joined together in the joyful new community of marriage, as one flesh, sharing their lives and labors together.
In the strongest terms, our text is here acknowledging the goodness of the body, of sexual desire, of marital companionship (cf. Malachi 2:14), of the home and subsequent family. The Scriptures do not elevate celibacy to a higher spiritual level, nor do they ever denigrate God's good gifts of our bodies and marital love and home. Those are gifts of a loving Lord who created his world "very good" (cf. 1:31). And our text mirrors the intention of God for those goods. That we corrupt those good gifts with our sin, our lust, our perversions, our family disruptions, our marital breakups, and our battle of the sexes is set forth in the story of our fall into sin, which follows in Genesis 3. Nevertheless, our text makes the intention of God for our marriages and homes very clear. And in his teaching, our Lord Jesus repeats those intentions (Mark 10:2-9). Further, by his cross and resurrection, and the gift of his Spirit, Christ makes it possible for us to fulfill God's intentions in our marital lives. In our Lord, there is healing for our sick homes and relationships. The entire New Testament proclaims that glad message.
Still, we continue to wrestle with the issue and shall probably never resolve it. The Holocaust simply deepens the agony of the question. Unfortunately, today there are many popular ideas about suffering that are unhealthy and theologically faulty. Because this is a question that haunts many of us, we might take this Sunday as an opportunity to address it -- but without any claims that we can finally answer all the questions it stirs. The first two lessons speak directly to the problem of suffering, and the Gospel Lesson hints at something essential to our Christian perspective on the issue.
Job 1:1; 2:1-10
Job's story has been the classical source of many of the issues revolving around human suffering. Many of us resonate with this story of the suffering of an innocent and righteous person. The question of why bad things should happen to good people plagues us endlessly, and Job seems at least to give voice to that troublesome mystery. The lessons for this Sunday and the next three are all taken from Job, so we need to clarify some issues about this book.
The date of the writing of Job is unknown and unknowable, but most agree that it was written in the sixth or fifth centuries B.C.E. There is reason to think that Job was a legendary figure of righteousness and for that reason was chosen as the subject of this story. One way of understanding Job, although not the only one, is to read it in terms of the way it critiques the retribution (or Deuteronomic) ethic that is so pervasive throughout the Old Testament (and to some degree the New Testament as well). In the central part of Job (3:1--42:6), the question seems to be whether Job committed sins which make his suffering an appropriate consequence of those wrongs. The beginning and conclusion of the book (1:1--2:13 and 42:7-17), however, undercut any challenge to the retribution ethic, and for that reason many think that they are additions to the original book, namely, the central part.
Our reading for this Sunday introduces Job and the advent of his suffering. The first verse of chapter 1 does little more than establish that Job "was blameless and upright." However, that point is crucial to the whole story, since, if this is not a true description of him, the whole story becomes rather pointless. A series of tests of Job's faithfulness launches the narrative. In the first test, his property and children are taken from him, but he maintains his "integrity" (1:6-22). The second test is told in the second part of our reading (2:1-10).
Chapter 2, verses 1-10 depict the reason Job is made to suffer. The setting is the celestial court with "heavenly beings" (literally "sons of God") gathered around the divine throne. Then "the satan" enters stage left! The Hebrew word translated satan means "accuser." The figure of the satan goes through several stages of development within the Old Testament. He begins as he is represented here, not as God's opponent but as a kind of prosecuting attorney for the Lord, and satan is not actually a proper name but a description of his function. Hence, it is more accurate to speak of "the satan" than of Satan, as if in this case that were a proper name. This view of the satan was compatible with strict monotheism, but gradually the figure evolved into the representative of the evil side of a dualism. (See e.g., 1 Chronicles 21:1.) In our passage, he is a heavenly being who convicts humans of wrongdoing, but always under God's control.
The scene in 2:1-10 is nearly identical to the one in 1:6-12, which tells the story of the satan's attack on Job and his loss of all his property and his children. Now the scene is repeated in preparation for still further affliction of Job. The satan has been scanning the world in search for those whom he might accuse of sin, and God asks if Job has been considered (see 1:1). Job is God's prize and joy! He has not wavered from his faith, in spite of all that the satan has done to cause him to doubt. The satan's reply, "Skin for skin," is difficult to translate. It seems to represent some kind of bargaining. The satan is certain that Job will do anything he has to do in order to save his life, including cursing God, so he now wagers that Job will crumble if he is stricken in "bone and flesh." God consents to the wager but orders that Job's life not be taken.
The consequence of the satan's new bargain with God is that poor Job is afflicted with "loathsome sores" all over his body (vv. 7-8). His wife's reaction to all of the suffering seems more realistic than her husband's, and she urges him to "curse God and die." That would be better than enduring all of this tragedy. She is really asking her husband to abandon his "integrity" (v. 3), for she fears that, if he persists in his faith, he will become phoney. Job's reply is that faith means receiving both good and bad from God, reflecting the ancient Hebraic idea that all conditions come as a result of God's action, both the good and the evil. The scene closes with the narrator's telling us that "Job did not sin with his lips" -- but what about his heart?
At this point in the story, Job's suffering is the result of a game the accuser and God are playing. He is afflicted for the purpose of seeing just how much he can take before he breaks. The issue is his integrity amid all of this nonsensical affliction, and the beginning of the story seems almost a parody of suffering. It makes no more sense than the idea that suffering comes as a result of heavenly beings playing chess with him! In other words, the introduction to the book only deepens a sense of the meaninglessness of suffering and calls into question God's character.
Hebrews 1:1-4; 2:5-12
The author of Hebrews, however, offers a more sophisticated concept of suffering. Coupled with readings from Job, the next three Propers will all include lessons from Hebrews, and the concentration on Hebrews will continue through the last Proper of the year (29). The first readers of Hebrews were likely second generation Christians, some of whom have become disillusioned about their faith and are leaving the church (e.g., 10:25). Moreover, the book gives a good deal of attention to suffering, although the most recent studies of Hebrews advocate the view that the suffering was more social and emotional than physical. Christians were a minority in the culture and felt like homeless pilgrims. The author of Hebrews is unknown, so we cannot refer to him or her by name.
The introduction to Hebrews (1:1-4) makes a high claim for Christ's identity. (See Emphasis, November-December, 1999, pp. 67-69 and 71.) Not only is Christ the one through whom God has spoken, but he is the agent and sustainer of creation. The description, "reflection of God's glory and the exact imprint of God's very being," attempts to capture the way in which God was revealed through Christ. The affirmation of Christ's nature is followed by a reference to his work on the cross, which this author understands in terms of Jewish sacrificial worship in which the sacrifice sets sin aside ("purification for sins"). Christ is now at God's side and far above the angels. This creedal confession stands at the beginning of the book so that the author can clarify exactly who Christ is.
The second part of the reading (2:5-12) follows the argument that Christ is superior to the angels (1:5-14) and an admonition to remain faithful and not "drift away." Exactly why this author seeks to prove Christ is superior to angels, Moses, and the high priest is not certain, although the argument gives occasion to speak of Christ and his work in a pastoral way. Hebrews 2:4-18 emphasizes Christ's solidarity with humans (e.g., 2:18).
This author often argues a case by means of citations of Hebrew Scripture, and that practice is evident in our passage. The point is that creation and the world yet to come are for the sake of humans, and the author supports the point with a quotation from Psalm 8:4-6. (But compare humans are "for a little while lower" and "a little lower.") The author's comments on the Psalm (vv. 8b-9) stress that "all things" are or will be under human control. This subjection of all things to humans is as yet incomplete, but Jesus' exaltation is indication of the fulfillment of the promise to humans. The brief little story of Jesus in verse 9 includes his earthly life, when he was temporarily "lower than the angels," and then his enthronement with God. That exaltation was due, the author says, to Jesus' willingness to suffer death (see Philippians 2:8-9), a death which was "for everyone" (hyper pantos) or "benefited all people." Christ suffered death because he was so completely identified with humanity for whom death is inevitable.
Verses 10-12 shift attention slightly to how Christ is the means of human salvation and why he had to suffer and die in order to accomplish his mission. A part of God's purpose in creation was that suffering should be the means by which the Creator establishes relationship with humans, since suffering is an important part of the human experience. These references to creation in the first part of verse 10 accomplish two things. First, they relate God's saving activity with God's creative work, and, second, by stressing that God is Creator and Sustainer, the author contrasts God's transcendent otherness with the divine identification with human suffering. So, God makes "the pioneer of their salvation perfect through suffering." By calling Christ "the pioneer" (archagos -- leader, originator, founder), the author credits Christ with establishing salvation and leading the way through death to life. Jesus suffered in order that he might become "perfect" (teleiosai -- the verb is teleioo). In this case, perfection has to do with Jewish sacrificial worship again, in that the offering had to be without blemish. But how does suffering make Christ perfect? The process is that of the accomplishment of Christ's purpose and not a moral maturation (see John 19:30). Christ completes his mission in suffering, because in suffering he fully shares the human experience, and in dying shares human destiny. Both are necessary for Christ to overcome suffering and death for us.
Verse 11 makes another point of Christ's solidarity with humans. Like all humans, he too calls God "Father." Consequently, he becomes our brother, and we his sisters and brothers, and the quotation of Psalm 22:22 intends to document Christ's kinship with the whole Christian family. The next quotation makes the same point, and verses 14-18 develop still further the theme of Christ's solidarity with humanity.
The Christology of Hebrews is rich but complicated. Moreover, this author dared to try to make sense of the mystery of the cross -- an ambitious undertaking. What is important to us is the author's insistence that suffering is integral to human existence. There is no human life without suffering. Equally important is that Christ's suffering was necessary for him to experience human existence fully and in its most terrible moment. God's plan to win humanity back into a relationship requires that the divine experience the human. Why? Because it demonstrates the depth of God's love of humans and because God can conquer suffering and death only by entering and experiencing it in Christ. Suffering takes on a new face, without annihilating its gruesome features.
Mark 10:2-16
The dimension of suffering that surfaces in this lesson is very different and somewhat disguised. The reading once again patches two separate pericopes together to create a single unit. Both pieces are part of the teaching section in Mark that is sandwiched between the second (9:33) and third (10:32) passion predictions. The two parts of the reading are Jesus' teachings regarding divorce and remarriage and regarding children. Since we want to focus on the first of these units, we will deal with it at some greater length after touching on the episode about the children.
Verses 13-16 are comprised of two related parts. First, "little children" are brought to Jesus, and he blesses them. In their fog of misunderstanding, the disciples rebuked (epetimasan, again) them, and Jesus has to straighten them out. Children had little social status in Palestinian society, and the disciples thought Jesus shouldn't be wasting his time with them. Jesus' angry response claims that the kingdom of God belongs to children. This claim is not based on any idea of childish innocence or gullibility. Children belong to the kingdom, because, unlike adults, children have nothing to claim as their own. They are without significance, cannot defend themselves, and have no accomplishments to which they can point to establish their worth. They are, as one commentator has said, beggars. The section concludes with Jesus' claim that the helplessness of a child is the model for what anyone must become in order to fit into this new commonwealth God is forming. We do not enter into God's dominion because we are good people or free of sin. We enter because we are like children without any claim to worth. As the episode began with Jesus' blessing the children, so it ends.
The reading commences with the conflict story on the topic of divorce (vv. 2-12) and has two parts -- one in which Jesus encounters and responds to the Pharisees (vv. 2-9) and the other in which he is alone with the disciples and furthers the discussion. The Pharisees ask if divorce is "lawful." A strange question since the Torah prescribes how a man legally divorces his wife, so Jesus asks them what Moses has to say about this matter. They summarize Deuteronomy 24:1-4, but Jesus will not accept it as binding. His words in verse 5 mean that humans are sinful and are bound to break marriages, so Moses simply gave them the best way of doing an evil thing. (Compare Matthew's 19:1-9.)
By citing Genesis 1:27 and 5:2, Jesus follows his dismissal of the Deuteronomic endorsement of divorce with a view of marriage as God intended it, suggesting that the creation of persons of two genders undergirds the idea of marriage. Verses 7 and 8 continue the quotation of Genesis 1, climaxing with the union of man and woman in marriage. Jesus takes this union seriously -- as intended by God and sacred -- and warns that humans dare not try to divide what God has united.
Apart in private with his disciples, Jesus adds several things to his retort to the Pharisees. First, he claims that divorce and remarriage constitute adultery. Second, he claims that what is good for the goose is good for the gander -- it holds true for women divorcing their husbands and remarrying. That's strange, since in Judaism of the time divorce was strictly a male prerogative, even though there is some evidence of women divorcing their husbands in the Gentile world.
This is not the place for a full discussion of divorce and remarriage. Suffice it to say that Jesus regards it as sinful in the sense that it violates God's original intention for marriage. However, there is nothing about divorce or remarriage that makes it the "unforgivable sin," as some have claimed. There is forgiveness for divorce, and in remarriage God may grant a second chance.
What interests us here is the manner in which Jesus sets aside the Deuteronomic legislation. He does so, we think, in part because of the suffering it inflicted on women. To be sure, without the certificate of divorce, a woman thrown out of her home by her husband would be even worse off. Still, the whole patriarchal system gave the husband complete control over divorce, and there is a rabbinical saying which claims that a man could divorce his wife if he found his soup too hot to eat! Jesus is defending the importance of marriage in this story, but he is also defending women who were thought of merely as a man's property. He implicitly addresses the suffering inherent in such a system.
And that is the connection we make between the Gospel lesson and the other lessons. While suffering is an inevitable human condition, Jesus sought to relieve suffering even as he himself took it upon himself. The reign of God, which Jesus claimed was coming in and through his ministry, overcomes all suffering, as Jesus' healings and exorcisms so clearly demonstrate. While Christians must accept the reality of suffering as part of life and must deal with it in as creative a way as possible, we are also mandated to work vigorously against all forms of human suffering. Christians accept the fact that human life means suffering but believe that God's rule eliminates suffering. Therefore, as children of God's commonwealth, we are commissioned to struggle against suffering even while we know it cannot be eliminated until some final day in the future when God "will wipe every tear from their eyes" (Revelation 21:4).
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By Elizabeth Achtemeier
Job 1:1; 2:1-10
God trusts Job. That is the import of the conversation that the Lord has with his servant, the Adversary, in Job 2:1-6 and in 1:8-11. And we should make it clear that we are not dealing with the figure of Satan in these introductory sections to the book of Job. The Hebrew word satan in 1:6 and 2:6 has a definite article before it, and is much better rendered "the accuser" or "the adversary." He is a messenger of God, who roams "to and fro on the earth," acting as what we might call God's "attorney general," confronting human beings with the evidence and accusing them of their sin on behalf of God. But when the Adversary returns to the heavenly court of God, as is the case in 1:6 and 2:1, and enters into an account of his travels to the Lord, the Lord singles out Job in the conversation as an exemplary model of piety. Job, the Lord is sure, will never violate his trust and obedience of his God.
Job proves that is true when, in the first chapter of the book, the Adversary destroys all of Job's great wealth and fine family. Even then Job will not abandon his faith (1:21). But, counters the Adversary in our text in his second conversation with God in the heavenly court, will not Job abandon his trust in exchange for saving his own life (2:6)? Will he not give up the foundation of his existence ("skin") in exchange for his "skin"? What is trust when life is gone?
That is a question that has confronted countless Christian martyrs throughout the history of the church. And that is the test to which our Lord Christ, whom the book of Revelation names the exemplary "martyr" (= "witness"; Revelation 1:5) was subject when the cross loomed up before him. Nevertheless, in trust he prayed to his Father, ". not what I will, but what thou wilt" (Mark 14:36 and parallels). The question of our story is: Will Job do the same?
Job's life is in fact threatened in the story that follows. He is covered with loathsome sores, so that his whole identity, for others and for himself, is done away. And he is banished from his community to the garbage dump of the town, where he can do nothing but scrape at his putrid skin with broken pieces of pottery. He has nothing left in life -- not his material goods, not his sons and daughters, not his home or place in his community, not his good name (cf. chs. 29-30), not his health. It is clear that he will shortly die. Moreover, his wife, the one remaining possible comfort and help to him (cf. Genesis 2:18) turns against him and just wants to be rid of him. "Curse God," she harangues, "who has brought all of this upon you, and die" (2:9). To that wifely abandonment, Job gives a profound reply. "Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?" (2:10).
Frederick Buechner wrote a sermon once (I cannot recall where I read it) in which he meditated on John the Baptist's saying in John 1:29, "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world." Buechner concentrated on that phrase, "who takes away." God may take away many goods and blessings from us, as he allowed the Adversary to take them away from Job. And I wonder, can we thank God too for that which he takes away? Surely we can be thankful that he removes from our lives all of our sin and the things that cause us to sin. But do we trust God so much that we know that every action he does toward us is done in love? Do we trust him with our very skin, with our lives, our existence, our all? Our Lord Jesus took that trust with him to the cross and willingly let himself be crucified (John 10:18).
Job did not quite live up to the measure of Christ's trust. He argued with God, accused God, demanded a trial of God, as so many of us demand when suffering and loss overwhelm us. Yet, Job clung to one thing -- his relationship with his Lord. He knew that God had been his friend in days past, and he refused to give up that friendship (cf. Job 29:4). Like Jacob in Genesis 32, he clung to God until God blessed him (32:26). And the epilogue of Job (ch. 42) tells us that the blessing came.
Perhaps that is what we should remember when it seems as if God has brought evil upon us, too. Our Father holds us in his hand, and he never deserts us, though even Christ thought he was deserted on the cross (Mark 15:34). The Father's is a love in his crucified Son from which nothing in all creation can separate us (Romans 8:38).
Lutheran Option -- Genesis 2:18-24
This is the text in the scripture that forms the foundation for our Christian understanding of the marital relationship. And as we preach from this text, we should make it clear that it concerns not just the relationship between an original couple called Adam and Eve. Rather, this story from the Yahwist writer of the tenth century B.C. is intended by him to be an account of us all still today. The Hebrew word for "man" in this story, 'adam, is the word for "humankind." This is a story of God's intentions for us.
The text begins with one of the most merciful words of God to be found in the Bible: "It is not good that the man should be alone." You and I were not meant to be alone in the world, not meant to be self-enclosed, self-fulfilling, isolated egos. No. We were made for relationships with our fellow human beings. In this particular text, the relationship is that of marriage, but the text could be applied to every human connection with others.
God muses to himself that it is not good for the man to be alone. Therefore he decides, "I will make a helper fit for him." That is the RSV rendering of the text. The NRSV is better: "I will make a helper as his partner." But the Hebrew for those italicized words is kenegdo, and is even better read, corresponding to him. That is, God makes for the man one in whom he sees himself, one with whom he can share and care and commune, in a mutual helpfulness and partnership. Right there at the beginning of Genesis, we have the mutual relationship and equality of male and female stated as the intention of the Lord. There is no subjugation of the female here. Man and woman are equal partners.
In his creation of a corresponding partner for the man, God therefore makes the beasts and the birds and brings them to the man to be named. "But for the man there was not found a helper corresponding to him" (v. 20). In other words, our primary relationship is not intended by God to be with the world of nature around us, but with our fellow human beings.
Finally, to make that corresponding partner, God causes a deep sleep to fall on the man -- for we cannot watch the Lord God's creative activity -- and he takes one of the ribs of the man, and out of the rib makes a woman. Male and female were once one, you see, and after the woman's creation, they long to become one again -- the desire of the sexes for one another is the intention of God. Then God the Father brings the woman to the man, and the man cries out in that ecstatic cry, "This, this at last is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh!" Here is the one corresponding to me; here is the one with whom I can share my life, here is the person with whom I can commune and with whom I can enter into the deepest fellowship known on this earth! And so the woman and man are joined together in the joyful new community of marriage, as one flesh, sharing their lives and labors together.
In the strongest terms, our text is here acknowledging the goodness of the body, of sexual desire, of marital companionship (cf. Malachi 2:14), of the home and subsequent family. The Scriptures do not elevate celibacy to a higher spiritual level, nor do they ever denigrate God's good gifts of our bodies and marital love and home. Those are gifts of a loving Lord who created his world "very good" (cf. 1:31). And our text mirrors the intention of God for those goods. That we corrupt those good gifts with our sin, our lust, our perversions, our family disruptions, our marital breakups, and our battle of the sexes is set forth in the story of our fall into sin, which follows in Genesis 3. Nevertheless, our text makes the intention of God for our marriages and homes very clear. And in his teaching, our Lord Jesus repeats those intentions (Mark 10:2-9). Further, by his cross and resurrection, and the gift of his Spirit, Christ makes it possible for us to fulfill God's intentions in our marital lives. In our Lord, there is healing for our sick homes and relationships. The entire New Testament proclaims that glad message.
