Dumb Things People Say
A Sermon on Job 23:1-9,16-17; Psalm 22:1-15; Hebrews 4:12-16 and Mark 10:17-31 for Pentecost 21, 2024
Job 23:1-9,16-17; Psalm 22:1-15; Hebrews 4:12-16 and Mark 10:17-31
The Book of Job is the place in the Bible where we tend to go for answers to questions about why good people suffer. It pushes this question to extremes by presenting us with a hypothetical situation in which an utterly righteous person suffers horrendously in every dimension of life, and then invites us to watch – to see how this might unfold.
People have been reflecting on the problem of suffering for thousands of years, and there are some easy answers that keep coming up, but that are all rejected by the story of Job.
1. You could say that God is powerless
2. Or that God doesn’t care or is vengeful.
3. Or you could say that all suffering is an illusion.
If you take any of those three paths the problem is resolved, and you don’t need to think about it any more. But Christians stubbornly refuse all those easy answers. We believe God is sovereign. We believe suffering is very real. And we believe God loves us all.
Without easy answers, we are left to wrestle with God in the darkness.
And that is where we find Job.
In the dark.
Refusing all the easy answers that are fired at him.
Wrestling with God.
Wrestling with God is a completely appropriate response to suffering. Our God is not the sort of god we need to tiptoe around so as not to give offence. Our God doesn’t wake up in a temper and look for someone to smite.
That’s what some of the gods of the ancient world were thought to be like. People assumed that gods must be like their kings only more so. Paranoid. Easily offended. Violently defending their own dignity.
Accidentally offending a king could lead to great suffering – even the loss of one’s head. So, it made sense to think accidentally offending a deity might also be a major cause of suffering.
What do you do if you think you may have offended a god?
Well, you try to find out which god you have offended, and you offer sacrifices to propitiate them – to butter them up so they forget their anger and leave you alone.
That is what most people in the ancient world thought. And before we scoff at their simplicity, we should ask ourselves if that way of thinking has really vanished from our world. When people suffer today, don’t they still find themselves wondering if they have offended God in some way – if they are being punished for something they have done? And when whole communities suffer, isn’t there always someone who declares it to be God’s righteous judgment? We only need to think back to the AIDS epidemic.
The book of Job doesn’t give us all the answers, but it does utterly demolish this way of thinking. It shows us that God doesn’t want tiptoeing servility. God doesn’t want to be buttered up. When people have an issue with God, God wants them to protest, to complain, to wrestle.
Jacob wrestled with God all night and was blessed; Jeremiah battled with God in prayer; and here Job meets God in a kind of courtroom battle. Satan is the prosecuting attorney. God is the supposed judge. And Job is left to manage his own defence. At first, he refuses to enter this arena of battle. He remains silent for a long time. But eventually he finds his voice. He brings his complaint against the judge to the judge and voices a defence of his own blameless life.
His supposed friends try to defend God by insisting that Job must have sinned; must have brought this suffering on himself. But by accusing Job, they find themselves siding not with God but with Satan – the accuser, the prosecuting attorney.
And I think this might actually be the heart of this story. It doesn’t give us satisfying answers to our questions about why suffering happens. It focusses, instead, on a much more practical question: how can I avoid being like Job’s friends? How can I be a real friend to someone who is in pain?
The character of Job is unique and hypothetical, but in one way we all share his experience. It is a universal human experience, I believe, to have people say really dumb things to us when we are in pain.
When we are grieving after the death of someone we love, we have all had people say dumb things to us, like:
God needed them more than we did.
They had a good innings.
They are in a better place so you shouldn’t cry.
God must be trying to teach you something.
God must know you are strong enough to get through this or else God wouldn’t have allowed it to happen.
People say dumb stuff to give easy answers to people who are grieving. It happens all the time. I am sure that you are thinking now about dumb things people have said to you. And I am sure you are also thinking about dumb stuff you have said to other people. We have all done it. We have all said dumb stuff to friends who are in pain.
I have done it; and I cringe when I remember.
Why do we do it? Clearly it was also happening thousands of years ago when Job was written, in a very different culture. It happens everywhere. It happens to everyone. Even though we all hate it when it happens to us, we still do it.
Why?
I think it is partly because we feel disturbed and confused when we see suffering. Our thinking gets muddled. But we think we have to say something, so we open our mouth and dumb stuff comes out.
We don’t mean to say things that add to the pain - that make a friend’s suffering worse. We mean to say something to take away the pain; to make the suffering better. And that is the problem. We want to believe there are magical words that will make things better. But there are none. There is nothing we can say that will reduce another person’s pain. We reach for words of wisdom. We reach for words of comfort. And we find none.
What is needed is beyond words. Beyond actions.
My Father died when I was 14 and I Immediately picked up the phone and called my best friend. She was not like Job’s friends. She didn’t say dumb stuff. She said the one thing I that could ease my pain just a little. She said, “I’ll be right there.”
What is needed in suffering is not words of wisdom but compassionate presence.
I think that is why the book of Job doesn’t answer the question of why good people suffer. Partly because there are no easy answers, but mostly because answers are not what people need when they are suffering. What Job needed was to know that God was on his side – that God really saw him and understood him. What he needed was for God to show up and say “Job is a righteous dude and I’m here for him! And by the way, Job’s friends are all idiots!”
That’s what he needed and that’s what he gets eventually in the story.
And that’s what we all get in Jesus. No pat answers. No simple solutions. As we read in Hebrews, “we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses”, not someone who has all the answers and is unaffected by the suffering on the world, “but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin.”[1]
Not a solution to the puzzle of suffering, but a compassionate presence in suffering. Jesus entered so fully into human suffering that those words of Psalm 22 apply to him as much as to any other person who ever lived.
He knew the physical suffering of bodily pain. He knew the emotional suffering of betrayal by friends who left him when he needed them most. And he knew the spiritual suffering of feeling that God had abandoned him.
In Jesus, God chose to enter fully and completely into human experience, with all its pain and its joy. When we suffer and we wonder if God has abandoned us – if God is punishing us – then we have our answer. In Jesus, God is right there with us.
So, when an earnest seeker ran up to Jesus with a parched soul and a question about how to gain eternal life, Jesus didn’t give him a theological or philosophical answer. He didn’t outline God’s plan for salvation and call him to pray the sinner’s prayer.
No pat answers – but compassionate presence. “Come, follow me. I will be your companion on this road, and you will find eternal life in our friendship. And do something useful with all that money of yours: give it people who really need it.”
We all have things in our lives that hold us back from following Jesus completely. For this guy it was money, but it could be all sorts of things that we allow to get in the way of being fully present with God who is fully present with us.
This man went away grieving, and I think that is a good sign. It indicates that he may have continued to reflect on what really mattered to him – what he really needed. He may have changed his mind later and come back. We all get second chances, and third chances, and hundredth chances.
And on the topic of saying dumb things and getting second chances, we can always rely on Peter to say dumb things, yet he went on to became a solid foundation for the church.
Peter looks at the guy who went away grieving and instead of expressing compassion he uses him to make himself look good: “Look, we have left everything and followed you.”[2] We have done the hard thing that was too hard for that guy. Yay us!
And what does Jesus say. Yes, you have given up a lot, but look how much you have gained! Don’t you agree that you got a bargain! Even “In this age” you get so much more than you give up for me.
It doesn’t always feel like that, does it!
But when the church is functioning as it should – when we are really being the Body of Christ in this place – then we provide the family people might have left behind to follow Jesus. We provide the home people might have left behind to follow Jesus. We provide the stability, the safety, the security people might have left behind to follow Jesus.
The church is not called to give intellectual answers to the problem of suffering in the world. We are called to suffer with the world; to be a compassionate presence in the world. So that nobody in the world need ever be alone in their distress.
May the presence of Jesus Invite you through all you seek, Unsettle you through all you lose, And comfort you through all you find. As you release your hold On all that holds you back From following him, May you discover all you need To invite, unsettle and comfort A suffering world. And may the blessing of God who loves the world, God who enters the world, And God who unites the world Be with you this day and always. Amen.
With Love from Rev Margaret
[1] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version (Heb 4:15). (1989). Thomas Nelson Publishers.
[2] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version (Mk 10:28). (1989). Thomas Nelson Publishers.
Ah, yes! And that final paragraph is full of answers. It is even soothing to read.