October 7, 2012
19th Sunday after Pentecost, Year B, Proper 22
The Rev. Dr. Brent Was
“There
once was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job.”
Job. The book of Job was the decisive take on
theodicy by the people of ancient Israel, and we haven’t come up with an
upgrade in all these thousands of years.
The Book of Job about sums up the plight of existence, it unfolds theodicy
marvelously. Theodicy, what does that word mean? “The vindication of divine goodness and
providence in view of the presence of evil.”
The word has Greek origins, a conjunction of the words God and Justice. The theological shorthand is “the problem of
evil.” What does that mean, “the problem
of evil?”____ Right, that if God is an
omnipotent God, all powerful and all good, how could (or why would) God have
left evil in the world. That is a very,
very good question. Why do bad things
happen to good people? How could
terrible things befall those who, like Job, are upright and blameless? That is the question of the hour, or at least
the next 15 minutes.
The
Book of Job. Try not to get hung up on the bet between God and Satan. This
story is not at all about the capriciousness of God. The conversation that starts the tale is
only a literary tool to set up the story.
It provides a pretense to illustrate that there is no rational reason
for suffering, no divine will behind the terrible things that befall people,
there is no rhyme or reason for most human suffering. The story is told to set up that the
arguments of Job’s friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar and Elihu. Their reasoning is that suffering happens
only when God wills it and that God wills it only on the wicked. The form of the story makes that logic
preposterous: we know that Job is
blameless and upright, God knows this, the narrator tells us that God knows,
but bad things still happen to him.
So I hope
we are here beyond the developmental stage of believing that bad things happen
only to the deserving. Right? We all know that terrible things happen to
un-terrible people. We know that God
does not rain punishment down on the wicked like Jerry Falwell would have us
believe, blaming 9-11 on lesbians and Wiccans.
Beyond ridiculous. What this
story is teaching us through the millennia is that we cannot possibly know why
bad things happen to good people, good things happen to bad people and why most
of us in the middle just take it as it comes.
The lesson of Job is that we cannot know the hows or whys of the
workings of the world, we cannot explain fate, nor assign blame. It is beyond our abilities to comprehend so
deal with it. Somehow, “resolution is to
be found in the depths of a pious life
lived before a mysterious God.” Thank
you Mr. Job.
Is that satisfactory? Does this explain to us how evil can occur in
a world created by God? Not really. Remember, evil, theologically speaking, is a
large category. There is evil as in
evil-doing, nefarious activities, predation, greed, inflicting harm on others
kind of evil. That is easily explained away in the doctrine of original sin,
that we, humans have a choice to close with and meet God or to turn away from
God. War is an explicable evil. Poverty
is an explicable evil. Humans have
resisted relieving the suffering of poverty by not sharing, so that’s evil. In
turning away from God we will hurt
others. That is the easy evil.
The hard evil to explain away
is a tsunami that kills 280,000 across the Indian Ocean or small pox that killed
300,000,000 last century. HIV/AIDS is an
evil. Cancer in its infinite varities is
an evil. Each of these evils are what
theologians call “natural evil.” Evil is
best thought of as simply a source of suffering. Anything that causes suffering, by intention
or simple consequence, fit in the category “evil.”
But again, when it comes to all
things theological, the question is how does any of this help us in our day in,
day out lives? Job lays out the idea of
theodicy, the understanding that God is not involved in the creation,
propagation and execution of evil. Does
this help us deal with any given Tuesday morning? Does this make the bad news we have received,
or some day are guaranteed to receive any easier to bear? Does it? ___
I don’t see it. So what is the point? Was Job foolish in remaining
faithful? And where does that leave us?
Thursday was the Feast of St.
Francis. We, that is ten dogs and twenty
people celebrated it on the side lawn that evening. The gospel for this feast is from St. Matthew,
and includes the passage, “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying
heavy burdens… For my yoke is easy and
my burden is light.”
Does anyone know anything about
yokes? Hannah Maeve and I are reading
“The Little House on the Prairie” series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. We are on the third book, Farmer Boy, which tells the story of the
Upstate New York boyhood of Almanzo Wilder, Laura Ingalls’ eventual
husband. Almanzo’s father gives him a
pair of steer that he is to train as oxen.
Key to this gift was the yoke that Mr. Wilder carved of light, strong
cedar. From the first training session,
Almanzo paid close attention to that yoke, molding it perfectly to the curve of
their necks with a piece of glass, wiping it down after each use so the
moisture did not soak in, keeping it clean, hanging it properly, all so that it
would not irritate their necks. Oxen can
bear incredible loads, can made heavy burdens light so long as the yoke is
easy, that it fits perfectly, that it does not strain or chafe or irritate.
Jesus Christ our Lord and
Savior is our Savior in that he offers us a yoke that makes the heaviest
burdens bearable. He is that yoke. His life and death and His Body that persists
in the Church, the Christ event carved, honed, smoothed that yoke so that we
all may take it upon ourselves and bear the loads we all have to bear, or will
have to bear. Even the unbearable.
You get that cancer
diagnosis. Your child falls ill, very
ill. You never saw that other car. You lose your job and your home and
everything in your life is turned upside down.
The specter of depression descends upon you again. There is no reason for this. God is not to blame. You are not to blame. Bad things happen; how good or evil you
happen to be has no bearing on what happens to you and how. There is no explanation: this is the lesson
of Job and his chapters of lament against unjust, underserved suffering, but we
must go on. We must live our lives as
well as we can, no matter what is happening.
That is the will of God, which is revealed in our will to live. It is that same force that through the green
fuse drives the flower that drives us to keep breathing, to keep our hearts
pumping, to keep us reaching out to each other, giving and receiving love. We must bear what is sometimes
unbearable. It is not fair. It is not right, but there it is. And, and,
thanks be to God AND, there is Jesus Christ, standing before us saying, “Take my
yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you
will find rest for your souls. For my
yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
There is no discernible reason
for evil and suffering, but there is a discernible balm. So much human suffering is caused, or at
least is deepened by isolation, by feeling isolated, alienated from the world,
from friends, families, from our own bodies, everything. So much of the suffering I witness in you
all, the people I serve here is related to feelings of aloneness. In God, you
are never alone. In Christ, you are
never alone. In the Holy Spirit, you are
never alone. In community, be it Divine
or temporal, you are never alone. This
is the mystery and gift of faith. To the
skeptic, the unbeliever, maybe all it comes down to is a metaphysical slight of
hand, that if you have faith, if you believe hard enough that you are not
alone, in fact, you will not be alone.
Fine. That is the resolution of
Job. Would he have persisted in
proclaiming the injustice of his suffering if he felt alone? Would he have endured? Could he have endured without the existential
calm, the holy equanimity of faith? Not
faith that it will get better but faith that you are not alone and that you can
bear it.
Jesus Christ does not promise
to heal our bodies, though mysteriously some are healed. Jesus Christ does not
promise protection from evil, though somehow, some are protected .
Jesus Christ, our church, our religion does not, cannot promise you that
everything is going to be OK, because often it is not going to be OK. Moms
die. Children die. Floods happen. Lightening strikes. But somehow, deep in the
recesses of mystery, taking on the yoke of a Savior, sharing your burden with
the One who bore so much, you will find comfort for your journey, no matter
where you are, no matter where have been and no matter where you are
going. In faith you are never
alone. In faith, in Christ, your yoke is
easy and your burden is light. AMEN
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