WHEN DARKNESS DESCENDS
Job 1:1, 2:1-10; 23:1-9
Mark
15:33-37
Rev. Gary Paterson
Nov. 8, 2009
Prelude
This is the year,
thanks to the unfolding of the Lectionary, that we are
invited into a wrestle
with the book
of Job. It was to
have happened last month, but for us,
here at
St.
Andrew’s-Wesley, that
was Stewardship season; I don’t know if it’s more
difficult to preach about money or the suffering of Job;
it’s a bit of toss-up.
But, although
I had a perfect out
for side-stepping this book of the
Bible, and
perhaps
looking at it
three years from now, the passages kept calling out… “Pay
attention,” they said; “This is important stuff.” And so,
finally, I decided
that we would pay
some attention to Job
– a month late, but perhaps on a
Remembrance Day Sunday,
not a bad
choice. However, this week, as I sat down at
the
desk to create this sermon, I kept thinking to myself,
“Whose idea was this,
anyway? Who wants a sermon on pain
and suffering – do I
really want to write
this; will anyone really want to hear
it?” But by then it was too late to change
my mind… so
here we go… and
definitely, will you pray with
me.
________________________________________________________________
A few weeks ago I was faced with the challenge of contacting a real person at Telus. There was something wrong with my computer hook-up, and so I punched in the telephone numbers, and began the long trek through numbered options, pressing buttons one, two, three, hoping to eventually wind up with someone who could actually help me. At times when it seemed that I was on endless hold, I found myself wondering what might happen if voicemail/voice messaging ever arrived in heaven. Can you imagine, at the end of offering up a heartfelt prayer, if you were to hear a sweet voice say,
I’m sorry, all the angels are helping other callers right now. Please stay on the line. Your prayer is important to us and will be answered in the order it was received. In the meantime, press 1 for requests, press 2 for thanksgivings, press 3 for complaints. If you want to find out if a loved one has been assigned to heaven, press 4, then enter his or her social insurance number, and then press the pound key. If you’d like to hear King David sing a Psalm while you’re holding , please press 5.
We laugh…. but within the laughter I sense a serious edge. Sometimes I wonder about prayer – is there really someone at the other end of the line; am I on eternal hold as my desperate prayers travel forever through space? I can live with this as long as life is going well… oh, too bad… not getting through. Oh well, I tried; and frankly, sometimes just leaving a message on the machine is faster and more convenient; you don’t actually have to get into a two-way conversation… which can take time, and get involved; and personal. But when troubles come, when I cry out to God, “Where are you? Why? Why me?” – well, I want a response; I punch 1 for requests, 3 for complaints, and the star key to flag the message as urgent.
The silence of God is on my mind these days. Partly because it’s Remembrance Day, and the suffering of war grips our hearts. A couple of days ago I printed out the list of Canadian soldiers who have been killed in Afghanistan so that their names could be read out in today’s early morning Remembrance Service held in the Chapel. It is a list to make you cry – 139 women and men, and the list grows longer every week. Job’s suffering is on my mind. And partly it’s because yesterday I attended a Memorial Service for the mother of a dear friend of mine; and I watched her granddaughters struggle to accept their los. And partly it’s because I know that Tom is sitting behind me, and that on Thursday we will be gathering for a Memorial Service for Audrey whose long struggle with cancer has ended. I look out over the congregation – one person in our midst is beginning chemo next week; another is finishing up; and a couple of others are somewhere in the middle of their treatment. I know that four people in this community have buried their mothers this past month. At least two people are trying to be calm and centred after long unemployment. Some of us are living with depression, dementia, strained marriages, troubled children. And then there’s the newspaper headlines blaring out bad news in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Israel and Palestine; 6.3 million people facing starvation in Ethiopia; countries like Sudan, Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, North Korea – no longer “newsworthy” perhaps, but still gripped by terrible suffering. In Texas, a man breaks, cracks … and there is a massacre.
Suffering is not optional; it comes to all of us, one way or another; it’s not “if” bad things happen to good people, but “when”. Death comes to us all, and to all the people that we love. Oh, sometimes if a person has lived a good long life, and there has been ample opportunity for a peaceful departure, where everyone has said what needs to be said, then, perhaps, we feel more accepting; although I suspect that no matter what our heads may tell us, our hearts go lurching into grief. Throw in suffering, sudden accident, youth… and then there’s even more pain. It’s never easy to say good bye.
It would seem that most religions at their very foundation struggle with the questions of suffering. Judaism originates with the story of Exodus, when the tormented cries of an enslaved people finally get through, and God begins to act to bring about liberation; Buddhism begins when the young Gautama leaves his sheltered palace life and for the first time sees a sick person, an aged person, and a dead person; the first of the four great Noble Truths is “Life is suffering.” Christianity has as its central event a crucifixion. Explanations are offered, tried on; theologies explored. My fault, your fault, their fault, God’s fault, nobody’s fault.
One of the gifts of the Bible is that offers multiple understandings of suffering, some contradictory. Take, for example, the story of Job. Remember that story of the good and righteous Job who has been blessed with prosperity, family, health, influence and prestige? Truly a decent man; people in the community looked up to him and came to him for advice, assistance and support. But then, disaster strikes, and everything is taken away – the crops are destroyed, the barns burn, the house collapses, the children are killed, and Job himself is afflicted with a loathsome painful skin disease. The rest of the Book of Job is an effort to make some sense of this.
Now, there are many possible responses when pain and suffering come our way. We can avoid and deny; we can numb it… lots of possibilities there… choose your distraction, your poison; or we can choose to fight it. But what happens if we choose to engage it? Given that it’s not optional, that suffering is inevitable, what happens if we let pain be pain? Do we have a responsibility to be good stewards of our pain? Is that an outrageous comment? I’m not sure; and I hesitate to even suggest it. Only those who are in the midst of suffering can speak honestly and truly about this. Perhaps the best response is to be silent. Indeed, when Job is visited by his friends, they have the wisdom to say nothing, at least initially. The story tells us that Job’s three friends arrive after tragedy has struck, and they do not speak; they simply sit with him… for a week. A silent presence… perhaps that’s what we can offer each other when the darkness descends: the comfort of simply being there; a touch; an offer of food… the traditional casserole. We know; we care; we are here. We recognize that we are in this together; it’s what it means to be human.
But the Biblical story begins to show us further options, and one of the earliest is that suggested by Job’s wife: “Curse God, and die!” You can sense the appeal of that. There’s nothing left; no comfort… just hurt and anger and despair, sliding close to a nihilism that denies any meaning to our suffering. I understand that; we can all identify with such grief.
But Job himself goes in a different direction. He rebukes his wife, or at least her response, and instead replies with a willingness to simply “be” – to acknowledge the pain; to stay with it; and… and here’s the challenge… to keep faith with God. He asks, “Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?” Perhaps this question lies at the heart of it all… if we are willing to thank God for all the blessings we receive, for all the amazing and wonderful moments that cascade into our lives, then what do we say when the bad things arrive? Is this also from the hand of God? Or is something else at work here? Job offers no solution, but simply affirms his trust in the Holy One… as if to say, “The Lord giveth; the Lord taketh away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” And he waits; he stays with the pain; he keeps faith.
It’s not an answer, but it points us to a way of being. A silent, faithful waiting. One of the best definitions of faith that I have come across is to understand faith as a trust that God will do in the future what God has done in the past, although God seems to be doing nothing in the present moment. That’s why we tell the ancient stories… remember, say the storytellers, what God has done for Israel, for Jesus, for the church, for women and men we have known. This God does not abandon us, although it may feel that way in the immediate present; wait… and a new thing will happen. Another word for that might be resurrection. There’s a fine poem by Thomas R. Smith that catches a sense of what this looks like; it’s entitled “Trust” – naturally:
It’s like so many things in lifeto which you must say nor or yes.So you take your car to the new mechanic.Sometimes the best thing to do is trust.The package left with the disreputable-lookingclerk, the check gulped by the night deposit,the envelope passed by dozens of strangers –all show up at their intended destinations.The theft that could have happened doesn’t.Wind finally gets where it’s goingthrough the snowy trees, and the river, evenwhen frozen, arrives at the right place.And sometimes you sense how faithfully your lifeis delivered, even though you can’t read the address.
Do you know what he’s talking about? Have you ever sensed how faithfully your life has been delivered to you, even though you can’t read the address? Even though loss and pain have stripped away all familiar surroundings, and you don’t know where you are? Maybe you find yourself saying -- “Is this where I live now?…. And yet, still, … here is my life. Faithfully delivered. The Lord giveth; the Lord taketh away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”
Tomorrow there will be great celebrations as folk gather in Berlin to mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. August, 1961, the bricks and barbed wire went up; the guards, the checkpoints, the killings. Two worlds; an oppressive and endless barrier. Which so unexpectedly came down. Sometimes you sense how faithfully your life is delivered; press 2 for thanksgivings. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Who would have guessed? But sometimes after great suffering, glimmers of new life emerge. It happens; this is a mystery. And a holy gift.
But the story of Job does not end here. It begins with faithful silence, and then lurches into thirty plus chapters of wild grief and questioning. Chapter 23… one chapter among many… “Where are you God,” cries Job? “I have questions; I want answers. This is not right.” Press 3 for complaints; press it again, and again, and again. The Book of Job is a remarkable Biblical witness of raw suffering, which takes us deep into the heart of our human struggle, with deep questions that engage the suffering of our lives; questions that will ultimately change us.
I suspect that if Job had punched 5 – hoping to hear King David sing Psalms of comfort, it would have been his luck to hear verses from, say, Psalm 69…
“Exactly!” says Job. “That’s me.” Or what about Psalm 22, with its agonizing cry, “My God, my God! Why have you forsaken me?” A cry that a thousand years later will be offered by Jesus on the cross. The Psalms are not always full of comfort; they include honest pain, deep suffering, and desperate questions.Save me, O God,for the waters have come up to my neck.I sink in deep mirewhere there is no foothold;I have come into deep waters,and the flood sweeps over me.I am weary with my crying; my throat is parched.My eyes grow dim with waiting for my God.
And yet… perhaps Job would have been glad to hear these words; there is something sustaining in the recognition that you are not the only one who has cried out in grief; not the first to question God. It’s not an answer, no; but it does suggest that you aren’t alone in your suffering; you are not the first to go through such terrible times. Not an answer, but perhaps a consolation. Perhaps…. a story from a colleague, Ralph Milton, who tells of his twenty-three year old nephew in hospital, dying of cancer. The family has gathered around the hospital bed; suffering so thick and heavy you might go under. The asked for a priest to come, and Ralph found himself quietly hoping that this chaplain wouldn’t pretend that everything would be fine, that he wouldn’t offer pious platitudes of love and heaven, trying with too much determination to be helpful and comforting. Well, it didn’t happen that way. Instead the priest opened the Book of Psalms, and began reading some of the great laments, the words anguish, and shuddering pain and loss, the huge hurting cry of the soul that the people of God have been offering to the Holy One, time immemorial. These Biblical words, and the family’s tears that accompanied them, they brought peace, said Ralph
… Not resolution. Not answers. But peace. A sense that we were part of a community that had known these things before. We were not alone. We were not the first to shout our anger and despair to God. (Sermon Seasonings, p. 52)
I remember, many years ago, listening to Jack Shaver – a man of wisdom, a mentor; for many years a minister at First United Church. He saw a lot of pain; Jack knew the reality Job was speaking from. And he suggested that perhaps sometimes there aren’t any answers; rather, we are called to “suffer the questions.” I’m not sure that’s very consoling – but there is a ring of truth there; and the phrase has stayed with me for many years… suffering the questions through what often feels like the absence or at least the silence of God. Trusting, waiting, faithful…
I remember reading an article… don’t know where… about a man who had recently received a terminal diagnosis from his doctor – he had a year or so to live. In the midst of his grieving, he decided to take up swimming lessons. Friends thought he was crazy – why learn to swim when you would be dead in a few months? And he replied, “If I can learn to trust the water, I may learn something about trusting God. If I learn how to swim, I might learn more about how to die.” Which makes me think of another poem – “First Lesson” by Philip Booth.
Yesterday, after the Memorial Service for my friend’s mother, I greeted Colleen and Katherine, who were grieving the death of their Granny. We hugged; and there were tears. And as I held them in my arms, I recalled an evening many months ago, when a group of us, which included their father, shared poems that had touched our hearts. And I remember Dan, their dad, speaking this poem, “First Lesson”; I also remember how his voice broke part way through these words….
Lie back, daughter, let your headbe tipped back in the cup of my hand.gently, and I will hold you. Spreadyour arms wide, lie out on the streamand look high at the gulls. A dead-man’s-float is face down. You will diveand swim soon enough where this tidewaterebbs to the sea. Daughter, believeme, when you tire on the long thrashto your island, lie up, and survive.As you float now, where I held youand let go, remember when fearcramps your heart what I told you:lie gently and wide to the light-yearstars, lie back, and the sea will hold you.
When Jesus was dying on the cross he called out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Job in his suffering cried out in a similar way; so, perhaps, do we all. But according to another gospel writer, those were not Jesus’ final words; forsaken, yes; but then, “Into your hands I commend my spirit.” Which is, perhaps, another way to say,
… remember, when fearcramps your heart…lie gently and wide to the light-yearstars, lie back, and the sea will hold you.
Lie back, and trust in the love of the Holy One, who will not let us go… not a single one of us.