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Writer's pictureRev. Joel L. Tolbert

Job's Friends?

Perseverance of Job, a sermon series for the Fall from the book of Job, week 1 of 4, preached Oct 6, 2024

Question of the Day

Today’s question is, “Is God fair?” Group up in twos or threes and discuss this question together for just a few moments. Ready, Go!

 

(Open YouTube livestream, muted, on iPad, and chat with online attendees?)

 

Great! For anyone wishing to share, in person or online, what did you come up with?

Context

This is week two of our series, the Perseverance of Job. Last week, we read from Job 1, and heard some really bad things happen to this good person, Job. In chapter 2, Job’s three friends heard of all the troubles that had come upon him, and each of them set out from their homes—Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. They met together to go and console and comfort Job. From chapters 3 to 27, we hear what these friends believe and say to Job, and how Job replies.


Today we have some guest readers. I will take on the voice of Job, and Dal, Scott, and Bland have the voices of Job’s friends.


Before we read scripture and preach, let’s pray…

Prayer for Illumination

God as we open your word, may it open us. As we read your word, may it read us. And may these words we say or hear point our minds, hearts, and whole selves toward you. Amen? Amen.

Scripture               Job 17:1-5               Joel

17 Job said “My spirit is broken; my days are extinct; the grave is ready for me.

2 Surely there are mockers around me, and my eye dwells on their provocation.

3 “Lay down a pledge for me with yourself; who is there who will give collateral for me?

4 Since you (God) have closed their minds to understanding, therefore you will not let them triumph.

5 Those who denounce friends for reward — the eyes of their children will fail.

Scripture               Job 18:1-5               Dal

18 Then Bildad the Shuhite answered:

2 “How long will you hunt for words? Consider, and then we shall speak.

3 Why are we counted as cattle? Why are we stupid in your sight?

4 You who tear yourself in your anger — shall the earth be forsaken because of you, or the rock be removed out of its place?

5 “Surely the light of the wicked is put out, and the flame of their fire does not shine…”

Scripture               Job 19:1-7               Joel

19 Then Job answered:

2 “How long will you torment me and break me in pieces with words?

3 These ten times you have cast reproach upon me; are you not ashamed to wrong me?

4 And even if it is true that I have erred, my error remains with me.

5 If indeed you magnify yourselves against me and make my humiliation an argument against me,

6 know then that God has put me in the wrong and closed a net around me.

7 Even when I cry out, ‘Violence!’ I am not answered; I call aloud, but there is no justice…

Scripture               Job 20:1-7               Scott

20 Then Zophar the Naamathite answered:

2 “Listen! My thoughts urge me to answer because of the agitation within me.

3 I hear censure that insults me, and a spirit beyond my understanding answers me.

4 Do you not know this from of old, ever since mortals were placed on earth,

5 that the exulting of the wicked is short and the joy of the godless is but for a moment?

6 Even though they mount up high as the heavens and their head reaches to the clouds,

7 they will perish forever, like their own dung; those who have seen them will say, ‘Where are they?’

Scripture               Job 21:1-7               Joel

21 Then Job answered:

2 “Listen carefully to my words, and let this be your consolation.

3 Bear with me, and I will speak; then after I have spoken, mock on.

4 As for me, is my complaint addressed to mortals? Why should I not be impatient?

5 Look at me and be appalled, and lay your hand upon your mouth.

6 When I think of it, I am dismayed, and shuddering seizes my flesh.

7 Why do the wicked live on, reach old age, and grow mighty in power?

Scripture               Job 22:1-5               Bland

22 Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered:

2 “Can a mortal be of use to God? Can even the wisest be of service to God?

3 Is it any pleasure to the Almighty[a] if you are righteous, or is it gain to God if you make your ways blameless?

4 Is it for your piety that God reprimands you and enters into judgment with you?

5 Is not your wickedness great? There is no end to your iniquities…

Scripture               Job 23:1-7               Joel

23 Then Job answered:

2 “Today also my complaint is bitter;[a] God’s[b] hand is heavy despite my groaning.

3 Oh, that I knew where I might find God, that I might come even to God’s dwelling!

4 I would lay my case before God and fill my mouth with arguments.

5 I would learn what God would answer me and understand what God would say to me.

6 Would God contend with me in the greatness of God’s power? No, but God would give heed to me.

7 There the upright could reason with God, and I should be acquitted forever by my judge…

This too is the word of God for the people of God… (Thanks be to God)

Sermon                

How about a big hand for our dramatic readers this morning, Dal, Scott, and Bland. Thanks guys.


Okay, let’s remember where we are. God asked the God council if they had considered the faithfulness of Job. Ha satan, the role of adversary and accuser on the council, suggests Job’s faithfulness is because of God’s blessings, or God’s protection. So God allows ha satan to do whatever to Job, just not kill him. Job loses all his business, his children die, and his body is ravaged with disease.


When Job first suffered those things, do you remember Job’s response? “The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” We talked about that kind of belief last week, how it is simplistic and dangerous to assume everything that happens, good or bad, comes from God, as if God’s plan micromanages all things, maybe even for some greater good we cannot understand. To think like that about God, like Job did early on, is to make God a puppet master, and to strip creation and humanity of any free will. And without will, it would strip us of the ability to love.


We can say, “Sure, God has a plan,” as in the will and the power for all things to move and eventually arrive at peace, wholeness, and justice. But in the meanwhile, there are lots of bad or evil things that happen to resist God, and humans and creation find ourselves the perpetrators of those bad things, and the victims. Still, as big or fast as we can break things, God is healing all things toward goodness again.


Job doesn’t think so simply anymore. Now, Job is angry with God, and with his friends. The friends say they came to comfort and console, but what they end up doing is blaming Job for his suffering. In their hearts and minds, in their theology, if someone suffers, they must have done something to deserve it.


The first friend won’t feel compassion for how miserable this must be for Job, and complains when Job’s pain leaks out of him onto them. So he says, “You hunt for words to explain why you suffer, but the only words that come out are angry accusations of us? Job, this is how the world works. If you are suffering, you must have done something to deserve it.”


The second friend is similar. “We came here to comfort and console you, and to counsel you so you could get better, but you insult us? You don’t even sound like yourself. Since the beginning, wicked people may have moments of success, or appear blessed for a while, but they always fall and are eventually forgotten. You don’t want to be forgotten do you? Repent now, so healing can begin!”


And when Job insists they were all wrong, that God and God’s world do not work that simply, and God owes Job an answer, the third friend says, “God doesn’t owe you anything. God set things up so the faithful prosper and the wicked fail. But what, you’re so pious and devoted and religious, you think you deserve some kind of special explanation from God? That’s not how things work. And based on how hard you have fallen, your mistakes must be doozies, and God would never give you an audience.”


All three friends are convinced, Job’s suffering is part of how God set up and supervises the world. If Job is suffering, there must be something Job did to earn or deserve it.


Is that how things work? Good people, good decisions, good efforts are rewarded by God? If we see someone who enjoys the good things in life, they must be good people? And if someone struggles or suffers pains and problems of life, then there must be something they did to earn or deserve those consequences? From this distance, we might shake our heads and scoff at Job’s friends for saying that, thinking that. Surely, we know better, right? No human beings today think that, or would dare say that, would they?


Remember when an evangelical church leader praised God when a hurricane flooded New Orleans because it was too accepting of LGBTQ peoples. In his mind, they deserved it because of their sin of loving and welcoming LGBTQ people.


A couple passes a homeless man, who reeks of alcohol and body odor, and they wonder when the city is going to do something to take out the trash. In their mind, he’s not a neighbor or a brother, but a problem, a stain on a good neighborhood, trash.


A Palestinian farmer works land from his great-grandfathers, but Israeli politicians want to build houses for their middle class. So, they take the land even though he didn’t want to sell, give him a fraction of what it’s worth, and leave him with no home, no income, and just enough money for a few weeks. In their mind, he’s not a child of Abraham, a cousin, but a risk, maybe even a terrorist, so he deserves to lose his ancestral land because of his people’s sin.


See, Jobs friends are not as long ago or far away as we might like to think. They walk and talk in our world still today.


Now, if I had to guess, Job thought like this too, when our story began. Job and his friends became friends because they had a similar world view. They were all fairly successful, and they all liked to say it was because they were smart, and worked hard, and kept their noses clean that they were all pretty well off. Things devolved when they talked about other people, failures and strugglers around them that could have been successful too, like them, if they would just try harder, work harder, work smarter. As if the joys and treats of a good life come to those who earn them, and the troubles and struggles of life fall on those who don’t. That simple world view, that over-simplified theology d Job and his friends held that in common and it made sense for a while, until...


Some terrible things happened to Job. He couldn’t say it the old way anymore, because he felt he hadn’t done anything to deserve this. But he found another quick simple way to say it… “the Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the Lord.” The friends kept saying it the old way, because they didn’t personally suffer. Job’s silly shallow theologies begin melting away. Suffering is real and heavy. Job cannot ignore it. Job is finally letting go of the over-simplistic, and finally wrestling with God. That’s what the word Israel means, wrestled with God, and faithful people will wrestle with God.


Here at the end, Job is saying “I just wish I knew where God lived. I would bang on the door until God opened it, and march in, and demand an explanation. Y’all say that’s not how God works? Well, that’s how God is going to work for me. I still believe this God is supposed to be good and just and loving, and what’s happening to me isn’t any of that. I know God would have to make this right, if God would just hear me out.”


Note, Job names himself as impatient in the scripture, so can we please stop using the phrase “the patience of Job.” He wasn’t patient. He was faithfully impatient. Job demanded God live up to goodness, love, and justice. Job got impatient that God would not respond to Job’s cries or repair Job’s sufferings.


Please brothers and sisters, look for the suffering. Look directly at it. Look for the suffering of the family member with mental illness or addiction. Look for the poverty of the young mother, scraping by on odd jobs and an unreliable car. Look for the suffering of a neighborhood or community hit by a storm, or by another shooting, or a war. Even if there is suffering in you, in your body and spirityou’re your mind or heart, sit with it. Name it. Look right at the suffering.


Its hard to look at, I know, but look at it long enough to let the quick simple easy explanations fall away. Feel compassion for those suffering and struggling. They might have made some big mistakes. But remember, the weight of old old sins like racism, greed, and prejudice are not yet exorcised from our world and continue to do harm. Sometimes people suffer just because they were born on one side of a border instead of the other, born with a skin color instead of another, born into an abusive family instead of gentler one. Do we blame them when they suffer under problems they did not create and cannot control?

Like Job, I think we are better off wrestling with God over why, than we are assuming are struggling suffer neighbor deserved it. That’s no way to love.


To God be all glory and honor, now and forever more, Amen? Amen.

Charge

 

Benediction

Now blessing, laughter, and loving be yours, and may the love of a great God who names you and holds you as the earth turns and the flowers grow be with you this day, this night, this moment, and forever more. Amen? Amen.

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