Bitter Complaints (Or, Finding Hope in Job's Suffering) - Job 23:1-9, 16-17 (Proper 23B)

     Complaining is the worst. I mean - with all that wasted energy, you could do so much! Good thing we don’t have any complainers among us! I certainly wouldn’t know any in my household. Or even all over the Bible! That may be a reason why we can’t get more people to church; there’s so much complaining - just in our scripture. From the Israelites right after they were released from captivity to even Jesus complained about how stubborn people can be. I saw the photo that's on the cover of the bulletin. It inspired me because I imagined the man shouting his complaints into the void, much like yelling at the TV or writing comments on the internet. 

    Now, you know of those televangelists who love to talk about their faith and prosperity, that God can accomplish anything. Complaining is the worst. I mean - with all that wasted energy, you could do so much! Good thing we don’t have any complainers among us! I certainly wouldn’t know any in my household. Or even all over the Bible! That may be a reason why we can’t get more people to church; there’s so much complaining - just in our scripture. From the Israelites right after they were released from captivity to even Jesus complained about how stubborn people can be. I saw the photo that's on the cover of the bulletin. It inspired me because I imagined the man shouting his complaints into the void, much like yelling at the TV or writing comments on the internet. 

    Now, you know of those televangelists who love to talk about their faith and prosperity, that God can accomplish anything, and you need to try harder to believe in all of God’s blessings in your life. They love to preach on texts like Psalm 139, “O Lord - you have searched me and known me… For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb”. This is a fabrication of an overbearing and controlling God who wants all of us to be divine. Sin? Who needs sin? God knows all of our insides, and if there’s sin anywhere from a single hair on my head to the nail of my toe, God will heal and cure me of it! Optimism and productivity everywhere - let me be sinless like Jesus!

    I feel my message this morning would not be fit for television because this morning, we find ourselves in the thick of Job’s struggling. Job can’t see God - he wants to, but God just slept in or something. Don’t worry - I didn’t, so let’s get into it. This scene is a small portion of his grief offered in our reading. The rest of it is 30+ chapters of discussion between Job and his so-called friends, most of whom are just blaming him for some unrepentant sin that has shown up in his life, causing the affliction. 

    Isn’t that typical, though? We tell someone, hey - I’m going through a hard time. And the response is something that’s not helpful at all, like - oh, that happened to a friend of mine or my cousin. Or, what’s the matter with you - that’s no big deal, it happens to everyone. It makes many of us not want to open up - there’s a lot of judgment and complaints when we get vulnerable with people. 
    

     It’s one thing to get the wrong answer from fellow humans, but it’s another to get silence from God. Job is complaining in our passage today that he wants a few minutes with God to reason with. Job would present his argument to the Holy One, and Job knows that he would be relieved and vindicated. But Job feels like God has left the building, that he’s gone on vacation, that God has abandoned him. 
        

    Have you ever felt like that? I know I have. You pray, and you pray, just knowing it’s just the proper prayer and that God’s will is behind your request. You long for justice, mercy, or healing. You long to mend a relationship or even start or build a family. You can’t quite make ends meet, whether it’s financial, spiritual, or social. It is frustrating when those things can be so visceral that it takes up so much of your brain that you can get lost. But, unfortunately, the answer is not yet.
    

    Three questions seem to come forth when we look at the whole of chapters 3-28, which I encourage you to read this week to have context. 

The first question: Is God just?
Second question: Does God run the whole of creation on a principle of justice?
Third question: If he does, then how does that explain Job’s suffering?

    In these questions, there is a big assumption that all four people run into - if you’re a wise and morally good person, good things/rewards will happen to you. Then, the opposite, if you’re foolish and evil, naturally, bad things/punishments will happen to you. 
But that’s missing the point. 

    Suffering happens to all of us. Raise your hand if you have never felt suffering in your life. Job is answering those questions I asked before, arguing that he is innocent and wants to proclaim his innocence to God and that God is unfairly not allowing a forum for him to do so. This also implies that his punishment is not divine justice and that God is unfairly targeting him. We talked about last week that God affirms Job’s righteousness many times in the prologue, and so Job’s conclusions must be one of two ideas: either God doesn’t stick to a strict principle of justice, or worse, God is not fair.

    Job’s “friends” are making a different argument - that God is just. God sees all and knows all, so what has Job done to deserve this? It must be something he’s not revealing to the world. These guys represent the best of philosophy at the time, and so they argue that God manages His creation fairly, and so Job is getting what he divinely deserves. Some of the arguments for what he’s done are just made-up stories that may not have happened because they’re so SURE that they’re right. That doesn’t happen nowadays. The Church has been blinded by its mission - to create disciples that we’ve somehow forgotten to BE disciples. If we don’t learn how to be disciples of Jesus Christ, how will others learn and be encouraged to join us? If we are just here to fill our building, what kind of witness is that? How does that TRANSFORM anyone’s life, let alone the world? 

    In chapter 22 (which is before this reading), his friend argues that as long as Job would acknowledge and repent from his sin (which may or may not have happened), God can restore him, and everything can go back - even to intercede on behalf of others! But Job cannot do this because of his integrity. He wants to go into the courtroom of God, declare his innocence, and, as the movies say, the truth will set him free. His frustrations are fueling his bitter complaints - not only with his friends’ lack of compassion and understanding but because of God’s inattention and seeming abandonment. But is God a judge? Can he get justice from the Creator of the universe? Job wants a judge because there is logic in that. There is the control that he can wrestle in the situation.

    You may be wondering - How does this tie in with our October theme of overcoming adversity? Sometimes, the process of overcoming adversity means sitting through it and pursuing an elusive God. It’s uncomfortable, yes, but it’s human. Too many folks have become discouraged and even given up, whether spiritually or physically, resigning themselves to what they perceive to be God’s will. Job helps to remind us that even in suffering, our faith is what allows us to continue. We can abandon our faith when life gets hard, but what kind of faith is that? Arguing with God can be a profoundly spiritual way to strengthen one’s resolve to overcome, not just passively accepting the perceived God’s fate that, excuse my crudeness, life is terrible, and then you die.

    So - I don’t think I will get a call to be a televangelist anytime soon. I don’t think that will do well with the focus groups. We want to view ourselves as Job, the one who is going through this persecution, this suffering; when shouldn’t we be identifying with his friends? The institution of the church has been excellent about pointing out where people have done wrong and how each denomination or sect has a solution for that, but who is just connecting with Job in his darkness? Where would Christ be in this situation? Would He be convincing Job that he is to blame for his destruction? Or would he be joining Job in his lament? Remember, even on the cross, some of Jesus’ own last words were, FATHER, WHERE ARE YOU? WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?

    So, in suffering, there can be hope. We can be reborn through Jesus Christ, the one who suffered for all of humanity, as someone who was WITHOUT sin. Job was not without sin; Job was not perfect. He was just as flawed as the rest of us despite being as good and upright as God had touted him to be last week. In the middle of his turmoil, he wants answers. But again - this is the middle of the story - we have two weeks to go. That’s something I had to remember when watching multi-part movies, like The Avengers or even Lord of the Rings. Even though this story is stopping, we know it continues; we know there is more to it than what there is time for. While watching the Two Towers (which is the middle story in the Lord of the Rings saga), I had to remind myself that there is not going to be any resolution at the end of these two-odd hours. And it’s lonely - we like having answers. 

    The God Job sought is the same God we seek and is with us, even in times of suffering. And - spoiler alert - God does respond; God hears him, which we will talk more about next week. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian, wrote in Letters and Papers from Prison in a world of suffering, “Only the suffering God can help.” Jesus answered. Jesus knows the depths of our despair. Paul even reminds us in Romans that NOTHING - not injustice, not suffering, not even the feelings of God’s absence - can separate us from the love of God. That’s the good news, folks, and let’s not be blinded by our suffering to forget it. Let’s take this hope into our suffering world to be disciples and ease the pains and misfortunes of those who think they deserve the suffering. Amen.