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Every thinking person knows that he or she lives every minute on the brink of disaster. Life is transitory, perilous, potentially horrible. Every observant person realizes that all too often someone in his or her circle of acquaintances goes through a season of great, sometimes completely overwhelming, distress.

There is hardly any one of us who has not had a family member or a friend suffer the destructiveness of cancer. Many of us know families whose lives have been torn apart by an automobile accident. And we've all known people whose emotional health may have taken a tailspin into a cataclysmic episode.

Because the pattern of life can change in the flash of a moment, every thinking person begins to wonder about life. Do I simply trust that my good luck will not end? Do I depend on my virtuous living to protect me from any mishaps or misfortunes? Do I pray that God will keep me safe? And on the other hand, what do I do if disaster strikes? What kind of person would I be if all that is important to me were taken away? In a case of any terrible loss, what would I cling to?

Let's take a personal approach. Let's imagine a person who is a portrait of perfection. This person's whole life is a personification of perfection. And let's imagine this perfect person going through all kinds of trouble. If this person wants to continue living in the midst of all this trouble, then there may be some hope. But if that little spark of determination to stay alive is snuffed out, then the person feels like giving up on life before it gets more painful.

But wait! We don't have to use our imaginations because such a situation has already been described in one of the books of the Old Testament. It is the Book of Job. It's the story about a man who was a portrait of perfection and to whom the worst did happen.

We are told, right at the beginning of the story, that Job had all the qualities of a noble man who "feared God." He was a hero of justice who was blameless. He was a wise man. And Job was a man whose public life was matched by his private piety. He could have taken his entire life and put it on the public square for all to see. He had nothing to hide -- from others or from God.

Everything had gone well for Job until one day it all fell apart. Four times in one day messengers came to him with distressing news. Job, a bunch of Sabeans attacked, killed your foreman, and drove all the cattle away. Job, there was a thunderstorm and lightning struck, and your sheep and shepherds were electrocuted. Job, a band of men have raided your stables, killed your drivers and taken all the camels. Job, a tornado has destroyed your son's house, and all your children died when the house caved in.

Job's whole life was changed in the course of a few hours. He was dazed at the severity of all this bad news. Bankruptcy, shock, and emotional agony rocked his whole being.

What did Job do? He acknowledged what had happened. He did not blame fate or blame God for the disasters. Instead, he fell on his knees and prayed that his relationship with God would not be shaken by these circumstances.

As he was adjusting to his losses, disaster struck again when Job discovered that his physical condition was beginning to deteriorate. It may have been leprosy. It may have been cancer. His whole body was covered with sores.

His wife suggested suicide. "Job, how can you stand any more? Death would be better than what you are enduring." And to add to his woes, Job had to listen to the platitudes of sunshine theology from his friends who, for some reasons, had lost touch with the man and his suffering.

We begin today an observance of Lent, the forty days before Easter. It is a time of preparation, penitence, self-examination. During the Sundays in Lent, I want to attempt a very difficult task, a task I am not sure I will be able to fulfill adequately. I'd like to attempt a series of sermons comparing Job and Jesus, putting the major struggles of that Old Testament figure in the context of Christ's agony and suffering.

Today I'd like to try to help us see how Job affirmed where he was in life: the ash heap on which he found himself; the agony which he was enduring; the pain of life that came to him.

In confirmation class over the past weeks, the members and I have been studying the life and ministry of Jesus. We've gone through the Gospel of Mark in order to focus on Jesus as a teacher, a preacher, and a healer. One of the things we have noted is the way Jesus kept telling his followers that he would be put to death. The Gospel records that Jesus told his disciples three times he would be handed over to people who would kill him. Each time we ran across that prediction in our class, we tried to figure out what Jesus had done up to that point in his ministry to deserve the hostility he encountered. In all three times we were never able to come up with any indictments. But it made us look more closely at what Jesus did and said, how he went about life in spite of the rejection that he was experiencing. We learned that he continued to live each day, affirming what was to happen but living in spite of it.

That is the first clue we have of a relationship between Job and Jesus.

Job acknowledged that life was difficult. He was suffering. The physical pain he endured was excruciating. The death of his children was paralyzing. The loss of his property was a terrible blow to his financial health. The suggestion of his wife that he end his life almost destroyed him.

Jesus acknowledged that life was difficult. He was overwhelmed by those who rejected him. His concept of servanthood was unacceptable. He knew that he would be executed.

Job sat on his ash heap, scratching his wounds with a piece of brick. He cried out in his agony and pain. He felt free, however, to question God and even to contemplate suicide. He answered the accusations of his companions. He never denied that life was difficult. However, from that ash heap, Job affirmed his faith in God.

Jesus was often on an ash heap. He was threatened in his hometown. He was questioned by the religious authorities. He was betrayed and denied by two of his close friends. He was rejected. He was beaten. He was crucified. But from his ash heap he kept affirming that God loves the world, and God sent him "not to condemn it, but to save it."

It is stated clearly at the beginning of the Old Testament biography of Job that his life was blameless and upright. He was determined not to do anything wrong. His integrity was beyond question. Job feared God.

Jesus, we know, lived up this teaching and preaching. He did not strike back, but loved his enemies and prayed that they would be forgiven. He returned good for evil and was always dependent upon his heavenly Father.

In the ash heaps upon which they found themselves, neither Job nor Jesus blamed God for what was happening or thought that they should be immune to suffering because of their faith. They both acknowledged their ash heap and affirmed that even in the midst of it God would sustain them. They both knew that they would live with the scars that the ash heap might cause, but God would sustain them.

There are so many ways to bring the lives of Job and Jesus into our world. There are many of us who have sat on an ash heap and cried out in agony about what was happening in our lives.

We may have lost a child, not necessarily by death, but by the child's choosing a life style that we knew would lead to disaster. We never stopped loving that child and never stopped affirming our love, even though it might be ridiculed or rejected.

We may have buried a mate, and the bleakness of a potential loneliness made the ash heap seem unbearable. But we have kept on living, and even though that pain may be fresh every day, we still get up, wash our face, and keep going.

There may have been ash heaps of rejection, alienation, hostility, estrangement, ridicule. We are not exempt from any of these because we have faith. And they are not sent by God to test that faith or imposed by God to see if we are strong.

There are ash heaps in every life -- even in the life of God's own Son. We do not endure them by denying their existence or by uttering platitudes of sunshine theology. We endure the ash heaps by affirming that this is where we happen to be and by asking God to sustain us.

Some years ago in Newsweek magazine (2/7/83) there was a guest editorial by a 32-year-old woman in California. She wrote of her mother's self-inflicted death and how she herself had attempted suicide a number of times because of depression. Anne Scheinin wrote that she understood how her mother must have felt, longing for release from the feeling of worthlessness and thinking that the best thing she would do for those who cared about her was to remove herself from their presence. So she connected a hose to the car's exhaust pipe and started the motor.

"But my mother was wrong -- and she taught me the most valuable lesson of my life. No matter how bad the pain is, it's never so bad that suicide is the only answer. Her gift to me was a determination to live, as she chose not to.

"I'm glad I'm alive to say to all the people who forced me to live when I wanted to die," Anne continues, "thank you for keeping breath in my lungs and my heart beating, and encouraging me when I didn't have any."

Beyond our personal lives there are other ash heaps we are forced to acknowledge: the tension of international relations, lack of integrity in high places, moral deterioration, the plague of detachment and non-commitment, deception, and manipulation. Sometimes on top of these ash heaps we cry out. And as we shall see next week, we scream for a reason why.

There is a story told of two monks in Japan, traveling together down a muddy road. A heavy rain was still falling. Coming around a bend, they met a lovely girl in a silk kimono and sash, unable to cross the intersection. "Come on, girl," said Tanzan at once. Lifting her in his arms, he carried her over the mud. Ekido did not speak again until that night when they reached a lodging temple. Then he no longer could restrain himself. "We monks don't go near females," he told Tanzan, "especially not young and lovely ones. It is dangerous. Why did you do that?" "I left the girl there," said Tanzan. "Are you still carrying her?"

We have to recognize and affirm that when we are on ash heaps, we will continue to pray and to forgive and to minister to others. We discipline ourselves not to be seen, but to be sustained by God.