I wrote this sermon as an assignment for one of my classes. Like everyone else, I'm struggling to make sense of what happened in Sandy Hook, a town in which my brother's family once lived, and at a school that my nephews once attended. Writing this helped me process my thoughts; I hope that reading it might help you process yours.
Words fail. For all of the ways in which we have become a wordier society—a society of status updates, tweets, and text messages—our words sometimes fail us. They cannot fully convey the horror of what transpired in an elementary school in Sandy Hook, Connecticut, just two days ago. They cannot begin to describe the overwhelming sense of loss of parents who cheerfully sent their children off to school with their lunch or their lunch money, their book bags, and a kiss goodbye, only never to see them again. They don’t adequately capture the moral outrage that we may feel at God for allowing evil to triumph over innocence. Where is the justice of a God who is supposedly all powerful and good if God allows innocent children to suffer so horribly? Where was God when the shots were firing?
I will be honest with you—there are no easy answers to these questions. They cut to the very character of God, a God who sometimes seems mysteriously silent, if not absent. At the same time, God is not wholly silent but speaks to us through the Word of God, which we have heard today in reading Job 42:6. The book of Job is one of the most perplexing books of the Old Testament. Unlike many Old Testament books, it never mentions the covenant that God made with the Israelites at Sinai, in which the Israelites were set apart to be a chosen people. Nor does it show a priestly preoccupation with maintaining holiness as other books do. It doesn’t even share the concerns of the prophets for righteousness and justice on the part of Israel. However, what the book of Job does is seek to make sense of a world in which God seems arbitrary if not indifferent, where the innocent suffer without any recourse to divine justice. The book of Job begins with what is, in essence, a wager between God and ha-satan, which in Hebrew simply means “the adversary.” God lauds Job as a man of unparalleled faithfulness, to which the adversary says, in effect, “He is only faithful because you reward him for being so. But if you were to take away all that he has, he would curse you to your face.” So God allows the adversary to attack Job, who learns in quick succession that bandits have stolen all of his oxen and donkeys and killed his servants, that fire from heaven burned up his sheep and the servants guarding them, and that still other raiders have come and made off with his camels and killed the servants tending them. This series of horrendous misfortunes culminates when Job is informed by another messenger that while his children were gathered for a feast in the eldest son’s house, a storm blew in from the desert and leveled it, killing all ten of his children. As one can imagine, Job is devastated. In a sign of mourning he tears his robe and shaves his head; then he falls to the ground and worships the Lord who gives and who takes away. Unpersuaded of Job’s faithfulness, the adversary challenges God to allow him to attack Job’s person, saying, “All that people have they will give to save their lives. But stretch out your hand now and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse you to your face.” God grants the request, stipulating only that Job be left alive, and poor Job is then afflicted with sores from the sole of his foot to the top of his head. Job casts a pitiful character, sitting amid the ashes and scraping himself with a shard of broken pottery. Then something remarkable happens. Hearing of Job’s misfortune, three of his friends meet and decide to comfort and console him. Seeing him from a distance, they at first have trouble recognizing him. As they approach him, they too tear their robes, and in a sign of grief, throw dirt in the air upon their heads. They sit with him for seven days and seven nights without saying a word. After all, what could they possibly say to assuage his grief? Words fail. If the book of Job had ended then and there it would be a wonderful story of Christlike compassion, of entering into another person’s pain and sharing the burden of their suffering. Of course, the book of Job goes on, for another forty chapters, in fact. And the story quickly changes. The Job who appears in chapter 3 is not the same Job that we met in chapters 1 and 2. This Job laments his condition, feeling that he has been unfairly singled out by God, and he goes so far as to wish that he had never been born. Having lost all of his wealth, his servants, and his children, can we blame him? Not only does Job appear quite different in chapter 3, so too do Job’s friends. The silent, sympathetic comforters of chapter 2 are replaced by fault-finding, explanation-seeking critics in chapter 3. They cannot accept that God would allow Job to suffer unjustly. Surely, Job must have done something, must have sinned in some way to bring this “punishment” upon himself! God is teaching Job a lesson. If only Job would acknowledge his sin, God would take this suffering from him. But Job is defiant, affirming his innocence and lamenting that he cannot address God directly, saying, “If I summoned him and he answered me, I do not believe that he would listen to my voice.” On and on the debate rages between Job and his friends for much of the rest of the book as the two sides remain locked in opposition, Job maintaining that he is suffering unjustly while his friends argue that his suffering is justifiable. After 37 chapters the stalemate is finally broken by the appearance of God in chapter 38. From out of a whirlwind God appears before Job, only not to answer Job but to question him. Over the course of the next four chapters God harangues Job with a litany of rhetorical questions that emphasize God’s transcendence in the face of human mortality. “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth,” God asks. “Have you commanded the morning?” “Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth?” It is not a fair contest, and Job is humbled into submission. Having been harangued by the Almighty for four chapters and being made to see the infinite chasm that separates humanity from the mind of God, Job confesses in all humility, “I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.” Whereas before he had heard of God, now Job has seen God. And now we have come to our scripture passage for today: “therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.” The Hebrew of verse 6 is notoriously difficult to capture precisely; the word for “despise” could be translated as “recant” without the direct object “myself,” which is not in the Hebrew, and the word for “repent” can also mean “am comforted.” In fact, this same verb appears six other times in the book of Job, each time translated as “comfort.” Therefore, Job’s words can also be translated: “Therefore I recant and am comforted in dust and ashes.” To recant means to no longer hold an opinion or belief. Job had believed that God was indifferent to his suffering. What Job believed of God was the same as that of his friends—that God does not allow the innocent to suffer—all they differed over was whether Job was, in fact, innocent. However, now Job sees God in a new light. Far from indifferent to his suffering, God has come to meet with Job face to face. God’s self-revelation to Job in chapters 38 to 41 is an unfurling of a deeper mystery. It is a revelation that conceals as it reveals. Job learns that God is not the god that he and his friends had assumed God to be, which is to say a god who doles out reward and punishment in a rational manner based on human faithfulness or sinfulness. God will not be confined to human expectations. Having truly seen God for the first time, Job is comforted to see God as God truly is, and not as he imagined God to be. That Job is comforted in dust and ashes attests to his human frailty before this transcendent God. With the book of Job so strongly affirming God’s transcendence, we might be tempted to think that this is the point of the book—that God is a transcendent mystery of which the human mind cannot conceive and the human tongue should not question. But that would be to miss the forest for the trees because one of the key truths of the book of Job is that God responds to Job’s plea for an audience. “If I summoned him and he answered me, I do not believe that he would listen to my voice,” Job had lamented earlier. However, far from not listening, God has listened to Job all too well! In doing so, God is revealed to be not only a God of transcendence but also an intensely personal God who responds to human entreaty, only not in the manner we might prefer or expect. We might prefer that God would eliminate our suffering. We might expect that God would at least alleviate it. Yet far from remaining silent in the face of suffering, far from abandoning us to suffer alone, God has chosen to be with us by entering into our suffering. Across the infinite chasm that separates our understanding from the will of God, we strain to hear what God is saying to us, but instead of hearing an answer, we see God himself on the cross. “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear,” says Job, “but now my eye sees you.” We see God coming to be with us in the most unlikely of ways—as a baby born in poverty, as a member of a persecuted religious minority, and as a suffering servant. Where was God when shots were being fired in an elementary school in suburban Connecticut? God was with the teachers and other staff who sacrificed themselves for the well being of the children in their care because God knows what it is to sacrifice. God was with the survivors because in the midst of suffering God still affirms life. And God was most certainly with the children who lost their lives because Jesus Christ, in an act of unparalleled love, gave up his life for them and for us all, that we might have new life in him. Words may fail, but love never fails.
I will be honest with you—there are no easy answers to these questions. They cut to the very character of God, a God who sometimes seems mysteriously silent, if not absent. At the same time, God is not wholly silent but speaks to us through the Word of God, which we have heard today in reading Job 42:6. The book of Job is one of the most perplexing books of the Old Testament. Unlike many Old Testament books, it never mentions the covenant that God made with the Israelites at Sinai, in which the Israelites were set apart to be a chosen people. Nor does it show a priestly preoccupation with maintaining holiness as other books do. It doesn’t even share the concerns of the prophets for righteousness and justice on the part of Israel. However, what the book of Job does is seek to make sense of a world in which God seems arbitrary if not indifferent, where the innocent suffer without any recourse to divine justice. The book of Job begins with what is, in essence, a wager between God and ha-satan, which in Hebrew simply means “the adversary.” God lauds Job as a man of unparalleled faithfulness, to which the adversary says, in effect, “He is only faithful because you reward him for being so. But if you were to take away all that he has, he would curse you to your face.” So God allows the adversary to attack Job, who learns in quick succession that bandits have stolen all of his oxen and donkeys and killed his servants, that fire from heaven burned up his sheep and the servants guarding them, and that still other raiders have come and made off with his camels and killed the servants tending them. This series of horrendous misfortunes culminates when Job is informed by another messenger that while his children were gathered for a feast in the eldest son’s house, a storm blew in from the desert and leveled it, killing all ten of his children. As one can imagine, Job is devastated. In a sign of mourning he tears his robe and shaves his head; then he falls to the ground and worships the Lord who gives and who takes away. Unpersuaded of Job’s faithfulness, the adversary challenges God to allow him to attack Job’s person, saying, “All that people have they will give to save their lives. But stretch out your hand now and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse you to your face.” God grants the request, stipulating only that Job be left alive, and poor Job is then afflicted with sores from the sole of his foot to the top of his head. Job casts a pitiful character, sitting amid the ashes and scraping himself with a shard of broken pottery. Then something remarkable happens. Hearing of Job’s misfortune, three of his friends meet and decide to comfort and console him. Seeing him from a distance, they at first have trouble recognizing him. As they approach him, they too tear their robes, and in a sign of grief, throw dirt in the air upon their heads. They sit with him for seven days and seven nights without saying a word. After all, what could they possibly say to assuage his grief? Words fail. If the book of Job had ended then and there it would be a wonderful story of Christlike compassion, of entering into another person’s pain and sharing the burden of their suffering. Of course, the book of Job goes on, for another forty chapters, in fact. And the story quickly changes. The Job who appears in chapter 3 is not the same Job that we met in chapters 1 and 2. This Job laments his condition, feeling that he has been unfairly singled out by God, and he goes so far as to wish that he had never been born. Having lost all of his wealth, his servants, and his children, can we blame him? Not only does Job appear quite different in chapter 3, so too do Job’s friends. The silent, sympathetic comforters of chapter 2 are replaced by fault-finding, explanation-seeking critics in chapter 3. They cannot accept that God would allow Job to suffer unjustly. Surely, Job must have done something, must have sinned in some way to bring this “punishment” upon himself! God is teaching Job a lesson. If only Job would acknowledge his sin, God would take this suffering from him. But Job is defiant, affirming his innocence and lamenting that he cannot address God directly, saying, “If I summoned him and he answered me, I do not believe that he would listen to my voice.” On and on the debate rages between Job and his friends for much of the rest of the book as the two sides remain locked in opposition, Job maintaining that he is suffering unjustly while his friends argue that his suffering is justifiable. After 37 chapters the stalemate is finally broken by the appearance of God in chapter 38. From out of a whirlwind God appears before Job, only not to answer Job but to question him. Over the course of the next four chapters God harangues Job with a litany of rhetorical questions that emphasize God’s transcendence in the face of human mortality. “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth,” God asks. “Have you commanded the morning?” “Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth?” It is not a fair contest, and Job is humbled into submission. Having been harangued by the Almighty for four chapters and being made to see the infinite chasm that separates humanity from the mind of God, Job confesses in all humility, “I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.” Whereas before he had heard of God, now Job has seen God. And now we have come to our scripture passage for today: “therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.” The Hebrew of verse 6 is notoriously difficult to capture precisely; the word for “despise” could be translated as “recant” without the direct object “myself,” which is not in the Hebrew, and the word for “repent” can also mean “am comforted.” In fact, this same verb appears six other times in the book of Job, each time translated as “comfort.” Therefore, Job’s words can also be translated: “Therefore I recant and am comforted in dust and ashes.” To recant means to no longer hold an opinion or belief. Job had believed that God was indifferent to his suffering. What Job believed of God was the same as that of his friends—that God does not allow the innocent to suffer—all they differed over was whether Job was, in fact, innocent. However, now Job sees God in a new light. Far from indifferent to his suffering, God has come to meet with Job face to face. God’s self-revelation to Job in chapters 38 to 41 is an unfurling of a deeper mystery. It is a revelation that conceals as it reveals. Job learns that God is not the god that he and his friends had assumed God to be, which is to say a god who doles out reward and punishment in a rational manner based on human faithfulness or sinfulness. God will not be confined to human expectations. Having truly seen God for the first time, Job is comforted to see God as God truly is, and not as he imagined God to be. That Job is comforted in dust and ashes attests to his human frailty before this transcendent God. With the book of Job so strongly affirming God’s transcendence, we might be tempted to think that this is the point of the book—that God is a transcendent mystery of which the human mind cannot conceive and the human tongue should not question. But that would be to miss the forest for the trees because one of the key truths of the book of Job is that God responds to Job’s plea for an audience. “If I summoned him and he answered me, I do not believe that he would listen to my voice,” Job had lamented earlier. However, far from not listening, God has listened to Job all too well! In doing so, God is revealed to be not only a God of transcendence but also an intensely personal God who responds to human entreaty, only not in the manner we might prefer or expect. We might prefer that God would eliminate our suffering. We might expect that God would at least alleviate it. Yet far from remaining silent in the face of suffering, far from abandoning us to suffer alone, God has chosen to be with us by entering into our suffering. Across the infinite chasm that separates our understanding from the will of God, we strain to hear what God is saying to us, but instead of hearing an answer, we see God himself on the cross. “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear,” says Job, “but now my eye sees you.” We see God coming to be with us in the most unlikely of ways—as a baby born in poverty, as a member of a persecuted religious minority, and as a suffering servant. Where was God when shots were being fired in an elementary school in suburban Connecticut? God was with the teachers and other staff who sacrificed themselves for the well being of the children in their care because God knows what it is to sacrifice. God was with the survivors because in the midst of suffering God still affirms life. And God was most certainly with the children who lost their lives because Jesus Christ, in an act of unparalleled love, gave up his life for them and for us all, that we might have new life in him. Words may fail, but love never fails.
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