The Unanswered Question: Will God Be Fair?
Sermon
Sermons On The First Readings
Series I, Cycle B
Ancient people were terrorized by the thought of God. We have to strain our minds and our imaginations to try to conceive of the confusion and fear that people of antiquity faced when trying to get to know and understand God. They looked at the weather, the storms and the peaceful days, their own lives, the times of the year, and the way nature unfolded and tried to understand God.
They did not have Jesus Christ and his teachings, so they looked upon bad things as tests and punishments by God for the behavior of their lives.
Rabbinical tradition concludes that the book of Job belongs to Moses and even one of the remnants from the Dead Sea Scrolls (dated from 225-150 B.C.E.) has the text in an ancient Hebrew script commonly used before the Babylonian exile (587-539 B.C.E.) This was probably retained to attest to its ancient origins.
Like many of us of today, Job was a man who had a lot and lost a lot. Job was a man from antiquity, and when we try to study and understand his ancient predicament, we have to come to Job with the mind of an archaeologist, looking backwards in trying to unearth his wisdom and his struggle in this speech to his friend, Eliphas. That being said, the beauty of the poetry of Job's struggle is, even today, God at work in antiquity as God is alive in our lives millenniums later.
Most of us know Job as a man of patience (James 5:11), but that is a superficial comment about the content of the book or the man.
Dr. Laura Schlessinger, the talk show host of great renown, says that the book of Job is about "character." Dealing with loss shows whether an individual has character or not.
Where on our list of priorities do we place "character"? How much effort do we spend with our children at home and with their education, and how much time and space do we see on television and in the newspapers dedicated to the issue of building "character"? Seems that beside fame, glamour, wealth, computer literacy, and youth, character is not important enough that we can call it worthy of the effort for "politically correct" discussion.
Today's reading has our heroic man of character in a place of deep darkness, frustration, and pain. The bottom line for us to understand is that this "man of character" feels abandoned by God: his complaint is bitter; he feels that the heavy hand of God is adding extra weight on his already heavy burden; he can't find God anywhere; God appears to be hiding and is therefore actively avoiding him; so he can't get God to listen as he pleads his case; he can't find out what it is that God understands that he doesn't; and he doesn't know if God doesn't speak to him perhaps because God is so much greater than he is.
The pain of this position has brought Job to the place where he feels that God has actually made him weak and fearful by his absence.
"If only I could vanish in darkness, and thick darkness would cover my face!" (23:17). This death wish sounds like Job is experiencing "clinical depression."
Job is not like our modern men. When they are depressed and you ask them what is wrong, they always say, "I don't want to talk about it!" Not our hero, Job! Talk about it he can and does, for page after page of eloquent poetry.
Maybe the first thing that Job has done for us is to give us a picture of the massive size of the silence concerning our own anguish. We can thank Job for that.
If we wish to discover "the word of the Lord" from this text for us, we are confronted by a problem that doesn't resolve; there is no conclusion; there is no story movement as we find in a parable of Jesus. We parachute into the middle of Job's dilemma, and all the text gives us is an unanswered question, an unresolved dilemma.
Where is God and why is he not helping this righteous man? Is God fair?
If we are good, then we are supposed to have God's ear, are we not? Is not our faithfulness and God's apparent inaction a pivotal issue for all humankind that cries for resolution?
You might say that there is an end to this story. We can look it up in chapter 42. Job does not know the conclusion at this point, and what is even more important, you and I can face the same dilemma in our own lives.
When we are in the middle of a mess, we can't look up chapter 42 either! There are simply times when we are in exactly the same place: we have an unanswered question ourselves, and God does not seem to be responding.
Why do good parents lose an innocent child? Why does an excellent person get fired from his or her job? Why do the good die young? Why does a good person suffer terribly from illness? Why does someone you love become an addict or exhibit other kinds of destructive behavior?
The deeper question is: Can we live with a question that has not been answered? Do we privately say to ourselves that if God doesn't answer this or that question the way I want, then I'll believe or not believe in God?
It is a human phenomenon that we want our questions answered. Our intelligence, our ability to reason and be rational, is a foundation of our humanity and our civility. We expect our politicians, our police, our physicians, our parents, our spouses, our children, our clergy, and why not our God to give us the answers we want and, especially, the answers we need.
There is no doubt that much of our activity in life is determined by the answers we receive for our questions.
But could we also be honest enough to admit that we often don't go by the answers we receive? We don't use the answers we do indeed have to make our choices: we still drink and drive, we take addictive drugs, we commit acts that lead to incarceration, we refuse to love our neighbor and forgive those close to us, we overeat, we overwork, we procrastinate, and we do all sort of things we know are not good, and yet we have the audacity to question God for some of the questions we feel are unanswered!
Is it not the height of arrogance for us to say, "I'm going to ignore all of the good information that I have for the betterment of my life, but I am going to have a real snit over this one question I feel is not answered"?
This is the point where we have to go back to Job, the eloquent, moral, suffering, tenacious man of character.
If there is one thing that the book of Job says to us, it is that "he honors the struggle." Job doesn't run away from the struggle, he doesn't go into denial, he doesn't act out, he doesn't give up, he keeps trying, and he keeps asking.
I can't speak for God; I can't make life anything other than what it is, but life is a struggle. There are unanswered questions and we can't make a case for good and bad that if you are good, you will have it easier. Surely the book of Job and his life tell us that the good may, and indeed do, struggle.
But what I can tell you for certain is that the struggle of living with unanswered questions does not stop life and happiness, personal growth and movement towards connection with the Creator and love of neighbor.
A missionary told a story about going to India during the monsoons. Hundreds of the hungry took refuge in the local railway station from the deluge. The resident church workers introduced the missionary to a particular woman whom they thought he might find interesting. He talked to her as the bread was distributed. She received hers as they were talking and she broke the bread and offered him a piece of her meager portion; the first bread she would have had for three days. He was stunned. Even though he had had breakfast before he came to the station, how could he reject this woman's opulent generosity in the midst of her poverty?
You want an unanswered question? Why did this hospitable woman offer a portion of her bread of life to this well-fed stranger?
The faithfulness to the principle of love is the answer Job, and this woman, lived in their lives thousands of years apart. It is the only answer you and I really need. Amen.
They did not have Jesus Christ and his teachings, so they looked upon bad things as tests and punishments by God for the behavior of their lives.
Rabbinical tradition concludes that the book of Job belongs to Moses and even one of the remnants from the Dead Sea Scrolls (dated from 225-150 B.C.E.) has the text in an ancient Hebrew script commonly used before the Babylonian exile (587-539 B.C.E.) This was probably retained to attest to its ancient origins.
Like many of us of today, Job was a man who had a lot and lost a lot. Job was a man from antiquity, and when we try to study and understand his ancient predicament, we have to come to Job with the mind of an archaeologist, looking backwards in trying to unearth his wisdom and his struggle in this speech to his friend, Eliphas. That being said, the beauty of the poetry of Job's struggle is, even today, God at work in antiquity as God is alive in our lives millenniums later.
Most of us know Job as a man of patience (James 5:11), but that is a superficial comment about the content of the book or the man.
Dr. Laura Schlessinger, the talk show host of great renown, says that the book of Job is about "character." Dealing with loss shows whether an individual has character or not.
Where on our list of priorities do we place "character"? How much effort do we spend with our children at home and with their education, and how much time and space do we see on television and in the newspapers dedicated to the issue of building "character"? Seems that beside fame, glamour, wealth, computer literacy, and youth, character is not important enough that we can call it worthy of the effort for "politically correct" discussion.
Today's reading has our heroic man of character in a place of deep darkness, frustration, and pain. The bottom line for us to understand is that this "man of character" feels abandoned by God: his complaint is bitter; he feels that the heavy hand of God is adding extra weight on his already heavy burden; he can't find God anywhere; God appears to be hiding and is therefore actively avoiding him; so he can't get God to listen as he pleads his case; he can't find out what it is that God understands that he doesn't; and he doesn't know if God doesn't speak to him perhaps because God is so much greater than he is.
The pain of this position has brought Job to the place where he feels that God has actually made him weak and fearful by his absence.
"If only I could vanish in darkness, and thick darkness would cover my face!" (23:17). This death wish sounds like Job is experiencing "clinical depression."
Job is not like our modern men. When they are depressed and you ask them what is wrong, they always say, "I don't want to talk about it!" Not our hero, Job! Talk about it he can and does, for page after page of eloquent poetry.
Maybe the first thing that Job has done for us is to give us a picture of the massive size of the silence concerning our own anguish. We can thank Job for that.
If we wish to discover "the word of the Lord" from this text for us, we are confronted by a problem that doesn't resolve; there is no conclusion; there is no story movement as we find in a parable of Jesus. We parachute into the middle of Job's dilemma, and all the text gives us is an unanswered question, an unresolved dilemma.
Where is God and why is he not helping this righteous man? Is God fair?
If we are good, then we are supposed to have God's ear, are we not? Is not our faithfulness and God's apparent inaction a pivotal issue for all humankind that cries for resolution?
You might say that there is an end to this story. We can look it up in chapter 42. Job does not know the conclusion at this point, and what is even more important, you and I can face the same dilemma in our own lives.
When we are in the middle of a mess, we can't look up chapter 42 either! There are simply times when we are in exactly the same place: we have an unanswered question ourselves, and God does not seem to be responding.
Why do good parents lose an innocent child? Why does an excellent person get fired from his or her job? Why do the good die young? Why does a good person suffer terribly from illness? Why does someone you love become an addict or exhibit other kinds of destructive behavior?
The deeper question is: Can we live with a question that has not been answered? Do we privately say to ourselves that if God doesn't answer this or that question the way I want, then I'll believe or not believe in God?
It is a human phenomenon that we want our questions answered. Our intelligence, our ability to reason and be rational, is a foundation of our humanity and our civility. We expect our politicians, our police, our physicians, our parents, our spouses, our children, our clergy, and why not our God to give us the answers we want and, especially, the answers we need.
There is no doubt that much of our activity in life is determined by the answers we receive for our questions.
But could we also be honest enough to admit that we often don't go by the answers we receive? We don't use the answers we do indeed have to make our choices: we still drink and drive, we take addictive drugs, we commit acts that lead to incarceration, we refuse to love our neighbor and forgive those close to us, we overeat, we overwork, we procrastinate, and we do all sort of things we know are not good, and yet we have the audacity to question God for some of the questions we feel are unanswered!
Is it not the height of arrogance for us to say, "I'm going to ignore all of the good information that I have for the betterment of my life, but I am going to have a real snit over this one question I feel is not answered"?
This is the point where we have to go back to Job, the eloquent, moral, suffering, tenacious man of character.
If there is one thing that the book of Job says to us, it is that "he honors the struggle." Job doesn't run away from the struggle, he doesn't go into denial, he doesn't act out, he doesn't give up, he keeps trying, and he keeps asking.
I can't speak for God; I can't make life anything other than what it is, but life is a struggle. There are unanswered questions and we can't make a case for good and bad that if you are good, you will have it easier. Surely the book of Job and his life tell us that the good may, and indeed do, struggle.
But what I can tell you for certain is that the struggle of living with unanswered questions does not stop life and happiness, personal growth and movement towards connection with the Creator and love of neighbor.
A missionary told a story about going to India during the monsoons. Hundreds of the hungry took refuge in the local railway station from the deluge. The resident church workers introduced the missionary to a particular woman whom they thought he might find interesting. He talked to her as the bread was distributed. She received hers as they were talking and she broke the bread and offered him a piece of her meager portion; the first bread she would have had for three days. He was stunned. Even though he had had breakfast before he came to the station, how could he reject this woman's opulent generosity in the midst of her poverty?
You want an unanswered question? Why did this hospitable woman offer a portion of her bread of life to this well-fed stranger?
The faithfulness to the principle of love is the answer Job, and this woman, lived in their lives thousands of years apart. It is the only answer you and I really need. Amen.
