August 7 sermon (on Job, of all things)

Reading of the day: Job 42:7-17 

I’m sure you can all imagine how thrilled I was to learn that we had one more week of Job. Better yet, the Gospel reading assigned for this week in the narrative lectionary is the Beatitudes. Great; that's less complicated...

As Pastor Mike has explained over the past several weeks, the story of Job teaches us that suffering is complicated. Suffering is not necessarily tied to behavior. “Good” people can have very bad things happen to them. Bad behavior may or may not result in negative consequences. As humans living in society we establish rules and norms, and we hold each other to standards of justice. Crimes often result in prison sentences. When mediocre students suddenly submitted papers using astonishingly advanced vocabulary and grammar, I’d do a quick Google search and usually wind up assigning a zero grade for plagiarism. We all know, however, that our best attempts at justice are imperfect. Guilty people go free. Innocent people are punished. College kids slide through school on the strength of Wikipedia.

Job, of course, is a really good guy who experiences the most comprehensive series of misfortunes on record. He doesn’t deserve it. We struggle with this. We continue to struggle with this. A couple months ago, for reasons I’ll get into in a minute, I was asked about the theological question I most wanted to grapple with. My response was that I struggled to cope with the existence of evil and suffering in the world. I’ll let you know when I’ve come up with my answer.

This last chapter of Job can give us a bit of whiplash. Over the last couple weeks, Job has railed at God, and received a bit of an attitude adjustment in return. God reminds Job that he is not the center of the universe. God restores for Job a sense of perspective. Job responds. No, it turns out he can’t “draw out Leviathan with a fishhook” (41:1). Job acknowledges God’s omnipotence – God’s all-powerful nature. He acknowledges God’s omniscience – the reality that God knows and understands all. And then, God promptly restores – and then some – his sheep, his camels, his oxen, his donkeys, his sons, and his daughters.

Okie dokie.

That's great.

But what on earth, then, was that suffering all about?

As Pastor Mike indicated, Job is a story that is “true” in its deeper meaning. It isn’t history; it’s a lesson with a deeper metaphorical purpose. We don’t know precisely “why” Job suffered, but this last week of our encounter leaves us with two really important lessons, lessons that may point the way toward taking purpose and meaning from Job’s harrowing story. First, Job speaks to God, and that is reckoned by God as the “right” thing to do. Second, not only does God restore Job’s fortunes – Job is brave enough to accept those fortunes. He’s brave enough to try again.

Remember, Job got mad at God. God, in turn, could have become pretty ticked off with Job. God does remind him, in no uncertain terms, that God’s world is bigger and wider and deeper and more mysterious than anything Job can understand. God reminds Job that Job is not at the center of the universe. In the end, though, God pronounces Job’s reaction to be “right” – Job’s reaction, and not the fawning, sycophantic, you-MUST-have-done-SOMEthing reaction Job’s friends had in the wake of Job’s misfortunes. God, it seems, prefers honesty to brown-nosing. God can take our anger and our frustration, our doubt and our questioning. God doesn’t need yes-men and yes-women. God prefers honest, sincere, struggle.

Second, Job is brave enough to start again. The theologian of the week in the preaching resources available for the narrative lectionary mentioned this fact, and it was a truth that really resonated for me. Job suffered immense tragedy and loss. I think, if we’re honest with ourselves, most of us would find it really difficult to move on from such devastating loss – and it’s important to recognize that what Job had to do here was move on. This wasn’t a restoration of his old fortunes – it was a bestowal of new ones. Nothing – nothing – could truly replace what he had lost. In the end, one camel may be about the same as another – I really couldn’t say, not having spent much time around camels. But when we turn to the question of children, I’m sure we can all agree that 1) Job loved these new sons and daughters and 2) he never, ever, ever stopped mourning for his previous children.

Moving forward – not replacing.

Thankfully, few of us have to grapple with the intensity and variety of suffering Job experienced. I certainly haven’t, and for that I am immensely thankful. I can appreciate, however, the bravery involved in starting over. I am currently a candidate for Word and Service Ministry with the Oregon Synod of the ELCA. I’m starting a master’s program in ministry leadership at George Fox Evangelical Seminary this fall. I’m pretty sure neither of these things were my idea.

My idea was to be a history professor. I have a Ph.D. in history from UCLA. I’ve published in my field; I taught part-time for years at George Fox while we were living down in Newberg; I received good feedback from students and had the respect of my colleagues. And I found that every. Single. Time. I attempted to obtain a tenure-track teaching position, doors closed in my face.

Meanwhile, I felt called to serve a couple years as a youth worker down at our old congregation in Newberg. I felt called to serve on committees, to write, to agree to preach when the pastor was out of town. I received hint after nudge after poke after blindingly obvious suggestion I should consider ministry. (As when, for example, our interim pastor said, “have you ever considered going into ministry yourself?”)

God didn’t cause me to suffer. God didn’t see those history-job applications flying hither and yon and intercept them with tiny lightning bolts. But God did have other plans for me. I was meant to be doing something different with my life – something that would require me to suffer the loss of my previous sense of self and summon the courage to embark on a new journey.

Fortunately my friends and family are significantly more supportive than Job’s buddies, and I’ve had the support I’ve needed to start again, to answer God’s call. Word and Service Ministry is currently the umbrella term for the three lay rosters of the ELCA: deaconesses, diaconal ministers, and associates in ministry. All of these rosters are composed of people who feel called to bridge the gap between the church and the world. The ELCA is in the process of uniting these three lay rosters into one and calling us all “deacons” – so I’m entering the process as an “associate in ministry” and will probably wind up being consecrated as a “deacon.” I may wind up working in a congregational setting, for the synod, or in a church-related organization.

Answering a call to church work doesn’t replace my identity as a historian – at my candidacy interview, members of the committee joked that this will make me a “Deacon Dr.” Rather, it represents moving forward. I have to trust that the God who’s pointed me this direction will continue to guide my journey.

Some of you will have faced – or are facing – loss far greater than the loss of a vocational dream. We all have to cope with our own, unique experiences of suffering. Job’s example shows us that even in suffering, our faith can propel us forward. Choosing bravery – choosing to move forward and accept God’s continuing grace in our lives – doesn’t release us from suffering. Rather, it frees us to move on and experience all of what lies ahead. The road might be rocky sometimes, but if we aren’t willing to travel we’ll miss the blessings that also come along the way.

I’m reading a book by a psychologist named Angela Duckworth that’s titled Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance. Duckworth discusses the attributes of “gritty” people, people who are driven by passion and perseverance to live lives of purpose. To some degree, “grit” is inherent – some people are naturally “grittier” than others – but we can also adopt practices and learn skills that will increase our “grit.” One factor influencing “grit” is the degree to which we respond to situations with optimism or pessimism. Optimists and pessimists are just as likely to encounter bad events. Optimists, however, are more likely to search for temporary and specific causes of suffering, while pessimists assume they’re the victims of permanent, pervasive experiences. When asked to imagine a situation in which they haven’t been able to get all their work done, for example, and explain why it happened, optimists tend to say they mismanaged their time, while pessimists are more likely to say they’re losers. (Duckworth 174)

At first blush, perhaps the optimists’ emphasis on the temporary and specific sounds like Job’s friends, looking for what Job “did” to “deserve” such punishment. I’d argue, however, that if we look a little closer, it’s how Job responds to his situation that is most important. Job’s friends assume humans are victims of a God of wrath, subject to God’s punishment when they go astray even when they’re unable to determine what they could possibly have done wrong. Such thinking is a recipe for hopelessness. God becomes a tyrant who must be satisfied – and we’re missing the rulebook. Job, on the other hand, stands up for himself. Job doesn’t understand why things have to be this way – and he says so. And most importantly, when God makes a new promise, Job responds with trust that his suffering is temporary and the future can hold better things.

Now, “moving forward” can start to sound like an item on a to-do list, and as Lutheran Christians we recognize we are saved by God’s grace – not our own actions. Here’s where some Good News factors in. We have a significant advantage over our man Job, because we are blessed to be New Testament people. Jesus’ death and resurrection demonstrate beyond a shadow of a doubt that our suffering is temporary. We are not helpless victims, losers swept along on the winds of a wrathful God. We’re beloved children, given free range to become all God has created us to be. Through the cross Jesus meets us in our suffering, here and now, and not in some future time when we’ve magically attained perfection. We move forward with the help of the Holy Spirit, living in each and every one of us – now, in our suffering, and in days yet to come. God has definitively answered Job’s cries of “why” – the cries we echo – with the promise that this is not the end. We are Easter people. God is at work. God can handle our cries and our questions. God’s love helps us, too, to move forward. Good News, indeed. Thanks be to God!

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