Sermons

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The Patience of Job
August 25, 2002
Last in a series of four sermons on "Mentors in Faith"
Pastor Dan Baumgartner

It’s good to be back with you…our family had a great trip to England and France…the first time any of us had ever been in England or France. Since we returned, I’ve had lots of folks ask us about the language barrier there. The funny thing is, sometimes that was harder in England than in France!

We flew into Gatwick Airport a bit outside of London, and took the train into the city. On the way in, I was sitting and studying the map, and slowly became aware that the woman across the aisle was watching me rather intently. Eventually, as I sat reading the map, she leaned over and said: “Are you happy with where you’re going?” I confess, all I could think was “Well, I’m thrilled with where I’m going, but…” And she said it again, “Are you happy with where you’re going?” Eventually I figured out that she was offering to help us find the right way in town!

This morning, we have the last of our character studies from the Old Testament, the fascinating character of Job. Looking at Job can be an exercise in frustration. If you are a person who likes things black and white, with clear answers to clear questions…don’t read Job.

If you get frustrated with Job, know that you are not alone. In the history of the church, Job may be the character who appears least in writing or works of art…why? We had a wedding here last night, and afterwards some friends said, rather eagerly, “We have to go out of town tomorrow, and we’re missing church…tell us what you’re preaching about!” When I said, “I’m preaching on Job,” all the enthusiasm drained out of their faces! Why? Job makes us uncomfortable. He hits too close to home.

“There was once a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job. That man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil.”

And so the story begins. Job is a good guy. Job is a godly man. And things go well for Job. Job was wealthy, he had a fine family (seven sons, three daughters), he worshipped the Living God, and he was appreciative of all he had. Job, in other words, was a very good man whose life had gone very well. And why not? Strong faith and a grateful heart mean things should go well, right?

That’s the way life is supposed to work…isn’t it?

But the story takes a very unexpected turn in the form of a conversation between God and Satan, the being scripture sometimes calls “The Accuser.” As God enjoys Job’s righteous obedience to Him, Satan scoffs: “Of course Job does what he can to please you…you’ve coddled him. Given him everything he wants. It would be a different story if he did not have so much.”

And God says, “Let’s test that theory out.” In the blink of an eye, Job’s various herds are stolen by raiding bands of enemies and his servants are killed. In the next blink, a driving windstorm collapses his house, killing all his children.

Still, Job does not sin or lash out at God. And Satan, the Accuser, again talks with God:

Job 2:3-10

I already have a problem with this story. God’s conversations with Satan make it seem as though the human life is something of a game for God, and a human being merely a pawn in some sort of celestial chess game.

But at the same time…there is a disturbing resemblance to real life here. No matter who you are…painful things happen in life. No matter how good you are. No matter how much you love God. No matter how much you worship or live with a grateful heart. Businesses fail, people betray, friends die, cancer strikes …Faith in God does not come with immunity from life.

Then what good is faith? Deep down, many of us feel that life with God is a sort of negotiated agreement: “God, I’ll live the way you want, if you protect me…or make me feel happy” …or whatever you think, at a core level, God’s part of the bargain is. But what good is living well if God doesn’t come through with His part of the bargain?

That is Job’s wife’s question. That is so often our question. Perhaps a better question would be: What IS God’s part of the bargain? Or maybe there IS no bargain at all. [At this point, I would encourage you to mentally think of someone in your life who is in a difficult time, facing tragedy or suffering…maybe that is you, or a friend or someone else. Keep them in mind as we talk about Job.]

Job has three friends, who hear of the tragedies that have befallen him, and come to console and comfort him. For seven days they say nothing…they just sit with him. Their ministry to Job in those days is not one of advice, of trying to fix his problems, of trying to make sense of it all…it is a ministry of presence. And it is a powerful ministry.

Those of you who have experienced painful tragedies in your life know the value of a person wise enough to merely come and be with you. We put far too much value on words sometimes. Sometimes the greatest help we can be to people we love who are in pain…is to acknowledge: “I wish I could just hit a switch and make it better for you…but I can’t.” And then sit with them. And in fact, in this situation though Job is in shock and pain, in some ways everything is just fine…as long as his friends are quiet.

But when Job begins to grieve out loud…their answers begin to pour forth from the three friends, and later a fourth who joins them. And the answers are not superficial, nor are they glib. They are, in fact, most likely the very answers that a godly man like Job would have given to others that HE was comforting…when times were good for him. They are theological answers, sound ones in many ages of faith: “Job, you think you are innocent…but surely you have sinned. God does not allow such things to happen to the righteous. Fess up, and take your medicine like a big boy. God will not reject a blameless person.”

Job’s friends are insistent, and over and over again with increasing irritation, they encourage Job to submit to the fact that it is his sin which has caused such calamity in his life, and that it will be his confession and repentance that will win God’s hand back into his life.

This is not just a story, or a rhetorical question. When we were in France, our friend Jacques was in the hospital receiving treatment for very serious cancer. I had this exact conversation with his wife, who asked: “What has he done wrong that brought this upon him? What has he done to make God do this?”

In both their consoling and berating, Job’s friends speak ABOUT God to Job. They talk theology, they philosophize…But what is so frustrating for Job is that he wants GOD to speak to him: “I cry to you and you do not answer me; I stand, and you merely look at me.” (30:20) For 35 chapters, we hear only the voices of Job and his friends. Until finally in chapter 38…God speaks:

Job 38:1-7

If it sounds as though there are no answers for Job in God’s long-awaited reply…it may be that there are no answers. Only questions. Conservatively, 58 questions (or at least question marks) over the next three chapters from God to Job. All questions asking if Job is able to do something, or to understand something. If Job is honest, he would have to answer “NO, I can’t, I don’t,” to every single one.

Job hears nothing from God that gives him the answers to the questions he and his friends have argued over…but something profoundly important happens. Job hears FROM GOD. Not ABOUT God. But FROM him. And that, apparently, is what Job needs. To know that he is not forgotten. To know that he is significant. Job knows that he matters… because out of a whirlwind, God speaks…TO HIM. Richard Rohr says it is as though Job says, “At last…God has spoken…Just talk to me…I don’t care what you say, just talk to me.”

Why does God not give Job answers? I don’t know. Perhaps it’s because even if God did, even if he answered him point by point…it still would not satisfy him. If Job said, “God, why have all these terrible things happened to me?” And God said something like, “Job, the world is not the way I designed it to be, and people are not the way I created them to be. Sin has entered in, and because I have not pulled back the ability for humans to freely choose…horrible things happen.” For someone who has lost livelihood and reputation and children, that is not a satisfying answer.

If God said, “Job, you have a limited perspective. Mine is far different, I see across all eternity, and in the end, I will set all things right.” Even that would not be a satisfying answer. For Job, what seems satisfying…is that God speaks. Job receives what he needs in God’s attention. For when he replies to God’s questions, it is a subdued and quiet Job who speaks:

Job 42:1-6

And so Job finds his peace with God. Granted, it’s an uneasy peace, and it comes not at the end of his sufferings, not in spite of his sufferings…but somehow in the midst of them. Job continues to endure. And having been assured of God’s presence…Job rather surprisingly repents. Not of secret things he has done or not done…but of trying to act like God, of trying to tell God what he must do…of trying to BE God. “I have uttered what I did not understand.”

So what does Job help to build inside of us?

a) Job’s story shows us that a relationship with God is NOT a negotiating session, or a bargaining issue. We do not consent to act a certain way only if God is forced to act a certain way in return. No, the ground rules are set by God, and what Job’s speech finally realizes is the he does not see anything like the whole picture. God in essence says, “Job, you can’t even understand the marvels of the physical world…how can you possibly understand the spiritual one?” Or even something like eternity.

b) Job’s story reaffirms for us…God has chosen to stay in relationship with human beings. We are significant because God has chosen us. A conversation was started that God has not stepped away from. We see a hint of it here in Job. But we see it most clearly when look at Jesus Christ. Though it’s always important to read the Old Testament on its own merits… ultimately as Christians, we read the Old Testament in light of the New Testament. Part of the unfolding mystery that God saw, part of the picture Job does not understand…we can see in Christ.

Job shows God as powerful, creative, mysterious, sometimes silent…A God who might even allow suffering to befall those whom he loves. In Jesus, we see an intimate and compassionate God, a God who knows what suffering is, what injustice is, and who is present with us in it…a God who is capable of taking even the worst evil, the hardest suffering…and somehow bringing some good out of it.

There is a professor at Yale Divinity School named Nicholas Wolterstorff. In 1983, Wolterstorff’s son, who was 24 at the time, died while mountain climbing in Austria. As you can imagine, this father went through intense and very painful years. He was persuaded to publish his journalled thoughts in a little book, Lament for a Son, in 1987.

It is a marvelous, honest account of suffering…and great pain. Pain like Job’s. Even words like Job’s. Listen to these three thoughts:

“O God…I learned to spy you in the light. Here in this darkness, I cannot find you…Are there songs for singing when the light grows dim?”

And later he writes, “Through the prism of my tears I have seen a suffering God...Instead of explaining our suffering, God shares it.”

And still later, “It is said of God that no one can behold his face and live. I always thought this meant that no one could see his splendor and live. A friend said perhaps it meant that no one could see his sorrow and live. Or perhaps his sorrow is splendor.”

Wolterstorff is like Job, to me. Neither would accept easy answers, because there were none. But neither would they quit talking to God.

When I finished reading Job…I put down my Bible and asked myself a question, and I want to ask you the same question this morning: “Will you stay in this conversation with God…regardless of the circumstances?” When life is no fun, when pain is great, when there are no easy answers…will you stay in the conversation?” That would take great faith. Great endurance. Job’s famous “patience” is actually better translated “endurance.” And Job’s enduring answer…is “Yes.”

It’s not unlike the question that every married couple faces. When Anne and I don’t understand each other, when we argue, when we have different priorities, always we come down to this bottom line: Even where it is hard, even where we don’t understand…will we keep talking? Keep listening? Try another angle, another question, back off and start over again? Or throw up our hands and withdraw?

Will WE stay in the conversation? When Job felt God’s absence, he was angry, he cursed his own birth, he demanded answers, he shouted out at God, he wept…all ways of staying in the conversation. Sometimes we even call them prayer. None of them seemed to bother God in the slightest.

In the book of Job, God can seem unfathomable, absent or distant…yet He speaks. In Jesus Christ…God has drawn near, and made provision for our repentance in His own suffering. In the unjust suffering and death of his own son, He has said, “Yes. I will know you. I will not abandon you. I will save you.” Perhaps THAT is His part of the bargain. But it’s not really a bargain at all. It is God’s grace.

The question is: When our times are tough… will we stay in the conversation? It will require the patience of Job…and the love of Christ. Amen.