March 12, 2006: The Suffering of Others
Job 4:1-9, 7:13-21a, 24:2-4, 24:14-17; Psalm 42:1-5

Eileen Parfrey -- Springwater Presbyterian Church

Death has a way of helping us focus on what's really important. Karen visited her friend twice a day for seven months as she was dying of breast cancer. Dying is hard work, and Karen's faithful companionship was a gift to both friends. One day, as she took her leave, Karen whispered in her friend's ear, "I love you." Her friend made a Herculean effort and whispered back, "I love you more." Those words summarize last week's sermon. Job learns through his suffering to love God for God's sake, and God whispers back, out of the depth of the suffering-which-is-also-God's, "I love you more."

But before that can happen, Job's friends comfort him. After seven days of silence, they speak loud and clear. Their message is, "You must have done something really bad." The Retributive God, the God of an eye for an eye. "You do good, God rewards you; you do bad, God punishes you." It's the explanation that makes sense of the world. A lot of the time. Biblical scholars call this "Deuteronomic theology," the underlying assumption for most of the Law and the prophets. When Job's friends defend God against Job's horrifying questions about why this terrible stuff is happening to him they use this religious party line. It's God they are defending, after all.

You may have been on the receiving end of this kind of comfort, easy words that don't quite ring true. You can have another baby (what was wrong with the one you lost?). You had all those years together (a few more together would have been welcome). You raised some wonderful children together (enjoying them together as grown ups had been your plan). You've still got a job (never mind the demotion). Or the one I hate-God must really love you to test you like this. If anyone can handle the challenges of a child with special needs, it's you. No easy words can comfort your sense of helplessness at your spouse's terminal illness or the estrangement from your kids or the brokenness of your world from the betrayal of your best friend. Job's story has survived these thousands of years because pain is universal. How do humans cope with suffering? How can we find meaning in it? Where is God? Job's story calls into question the notion that we experience pain because we deserve it.

This week Dana Reeve, widow of Christopher Reeve, died of lung cancer. Dana had never smoked, so the cancer alone was unfair, but her diagnosis came within months of the death of her husband who had been paralyzed by a riding accident. If you want to talk about unfair, ask Dana Reeve. When the bottom fell out of their lives, when the daily realities of neck-down paralysis kicked in, Reeve reacted first with anger, then depression and withdrawal. It was only when he and Dana decided to think of others, when they decided to use their experience to help others in similar circumstances, it was then that they both found meaning and grace and faith. In addition to spinal cord injury research, the Reeves worked for health and disability insurance reform, to help others who did not have their advantages. When a simple thing like inhaling and exhaling depends on being able to buy a back-up respirator for when the other machine fails, what is important in life gets pretty basic. Reeve chose to see that he wasn't the only one to experience that. Christopher and Dana Reeve's double tragedy was redeemed for them as they saw that it was about more than them.

This is the journey that Job takes. The thing about the book of Job is its scale. No preacher can read the entire text in worship, let alone address all of its issues in only six sermons. Forgive me, then, for seeming to leap to a conclusion. My conclusion is that Job abandons the understanding his friends urge on him, that of the Retributive God, and finds meaning for his suffering as he gains compassion for the suffering of others. The middle part to his journey, the part between retribution and compassion, takes place as his protestations of innocence fall short. His friends offer cheap comfort while he begs them to stop defending God long enough to hear him. They amp up their hostility until Job finally declares, "I can't possibly have done anything this bad." Modern parenting advice affirms that you don't ground a kid for life for sneaking cookies before supper. Job had lived an exemplary life. The loss of everything, topped off by physical pain and social ostracism-well, it just seems excessive.

Easy as it is to think we don't deserve to hurt is the idea that we do, that any suffering that comes our way is just about what we deserve. Some people seem to go out of their way to take on pain. My mother died of heart failure because I was a stinker as a teen. My husband drinks because I'm a bad wife. I was a bad parent, so my kids can't hold jobs and that means I have an obligation to support them. Everyone's got a cross to bear, this is mine.

The point is to believe that there are no exceptions to the human race. Especially for you. Suffering exists. No one is exempt. The middle part of the journey-too much innocence or too much guilt-the middle of the journey to compassion and ultimately to the meaning of suffering is just that. It is only a middle part. The meaning to suffering isn't found in either our innocence or our guilt, because there is no judgment. You have already been forgiven, already saved. Not to continue to sin, but to give up the God of Retribution, to give up "You must have done something really bad," to give up "You must be a wonderful person to be so blessed." Give it up! Receive Christ's healing.

Rick and I recently saw again the 1942 movie, Casablanca. You may remember the final scene in which the hero puts the love of his life on the last plane out before the Nazis take over, separating to continue working as freedom-fighters. The words that ultimately put her on the plane are, "The problems of three little people do not amount to a hill of beans." The two lovers give up personal happiness for the sake of a greater good. They are willing to pay personal costs and take personal risks, because they value something greater than themselves.

Long before World War II, Job finds a similar insight. When Job finds he's not the only one who suffers, he also finds that his suffering doesn't amount to the proverbial hill of beans because he can ask on behalf of others, "Where is God in suffering?" When Job is able to ask this, he finds a God who redeems. Job's last words in his story are spoken in humility, acknowledging a direct encounter with God. God doesn't hurt us because we're too thick-headed to pay attention any other way. Pain happens. But compassion for others reminds us that an exception has not been made in our case, and then somehow the suffering is not so personal. We don't need to look for martyrdom. We don't need to look for suffering, but we can join with others when they suffer. Because our problems don't amount to a hill of beans, because personal salvation is not about our comfort and pleasure in the here and now. We have hope. God hears our cries against injustice. God could have sent a sympathy card, but instead God sent Jesus. Jesus who died to stand in solidarity with those who suffer. Jesus who lived and died and lives again to offer not just forgiveness but healing. That is our hope. Our hope is that God's kingdom is coming. And in that kingdom there is justice.

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