Why Bad Things Happen (The Book of Job)

The book of Job that we have been reading this past month is one of the most challenging, profound and, I dare say, relevant books of the Bible, and so I want to spend some time talking about it this morning, though we will only scratch the surface.

I expect many of us are at least somewhat familiar with the story. Once upon a time, in a land far away, there was a man named Job, a very prosperous man with wealth and servants and many children. Now Job was a blameless and upright man who feared God. Even God holds Job up as an example of righteousness. But Satan – not

the devil, but an associate of God in God’s holy court – suggests to God that the only reason Job is so good and so religious is that he has been rewarded for it and is prosperous as a result. According to Satan, Job’s religion is nothing more than enlightened self-interest.

God disagrees and allows Satan to put Job to the test. And so Job is stripped of everything he has. His livestock are stolen, his servants are murdered, a house collapses and kills his children, and then Job himself is struck with painful and loathsome sores from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head. Eventually, we find Job in misery, sitting in a heap of ashes, scraping his skin with a shard of pottery.

This initial prologue is intended to set up the main part of the story, which follows. But first, a couple of comments.

We know from the language that this is a fable or a parable, and what we’ve heard

so far is intended to set up what is to come. In other words, we don’t need to worry too much about the disturbing picture of God that we find in this introduction to the story, a God who is willing to ruin someone’s life in order to settle a dispute amongst the heavenly beings. That’s just the setup required to get to Job on the ash heap. What we do need to know in order to continue with the story is that, first, Job is truly innocent, and second, the suffering that has come upon him is, from Job’s perspective, extreme, undeserved, and inexplicable.

The prologue also sets up the first question of the book of Job, and it might not be the one you expect. The first question we encounter is this: Does religion depend on a system of reward and punishment? Or to flip it around, if there was no system of reward and punishment, would humans still be faithful? Is religious behaviour no more than enlightened self-interest? Will Job, faced with his unjust suffering, curse God and die, as his wife suggests he should, or will he maintain his integrity and his faith in God?

We like systems of reward and punishment. Who among us has not cried out “that’s not fair” at some point in our life? A prominent theology in the Old Testament – the theology embraced by Job himself and by the friends who come to “comfort” him in his distress – is that God rewards the righteous and punishes the wicked. It is a theology of retributive justice, often associated with the book of Deuteronomy. Why do people suffer? According to this theology, suffering is as a result of sin.

But as Job found out, this theology of retributive justice doesn’t always fit the realities of life. Christianity has mostly, but not completely, moved away from the idea of reward and punishment in this life. But systems of reward and punishment persist, especially

the notion of reward and punishment in the next life. Heaven and hell, with rules and requirements that determine which way you’re going. Baptism as an entry into heaven. Forgiveness as dependent on confession and doing penance. Indulgences as a way of lessening time in purgatory. Or, more recently, the notion that you’re only going to get to heaven if you “accept Jesus as your personal saviour.”

Why are these systems of reward and punishment so persistent in our tradition? Why are they so attractive to so many of us? One reason might be because they’re very satisfying psychologically. They give us order. They give us power and control. If I know the rules and can follow them, then I have power and control over my own destiny.

But there’s also a problem with this. Operating within a system of reward and punishment can lead to self-interest rather than authentic relationship. Do I truly love God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength? Or is my faith nothing more than enlightened self-interest operating within a framework of reward and punishment?

Let’s go back to Job on the ash heap. When his world comes crashing down, when he suffers unjustly and his theology of reward and punishment is called into question, what will he do? Will he curse God? No, despite all that has happened, Job maintains his faith in God. The book of Job’s answer to our first question is yes, there can

be faith beyond reward and punishment. Yes, there is the possibility of authentic relationship with God beyond self-interest.

But that’s not the question you’re most interested in, is it? The question that grabs most of us is the second question of the book of Job: Why do bad things happen to good people? Why do bad things happen at all, to anyone? What do we do, what do we say about God in the midst of extreme, undeserved, and unexplained suffering?

As Job sits on the ash heap, scraping his sores, three friends come to visit. And one by one, they start to explain to Job what has happened to him. They all operate out of the worldview of retributive justice, that the righteous are rewarded and the wicked are punished. They tell Job that he must be responsible for his own downfall. They

tell Job that he must have sinned and that he should examine himself and repent of his sin. When Job insists that he is innocent and that God is treating him unfairly, his “friends” defend God. In fact, the more Job protests his innocence, the more his friends find their own orderly worldview threatened, and the more vicious their attacks

on Job become. “Is not your wickedness great” his so-called friends tell him, in a desperate attempt to keep their own theology from falling into chaos.

Needless to say, Job’s friends are not very helpful, so Job turns from talking about God with his companions to talking directly to God. We call this prayer. More specifically, we call this lament – the prayer of those who suffer, the prayer of those who scream out to

God in anger, grief, pain, and despair. It is as if Job is clinging to God with one hand and shaking his fist at him with the other. He holds onto God with a fierce faith, but refuses to let God off the hook for the inexplicable suffering that shadows our world.

And we learn something here: the better response to suffering is not theology, but prayer. In the face of suffering, it is better to talk to God, than to talk about God.

Maybe that’s the reason for the first question of the book of Job, and the response which asserts that yes, there is the possibility of authentic relationship with God.

Our response to the question of suffering will be built on that relationship. As Job laments, as he pours out his heart to God, there is movement. Job’s words change from expressing his desire to die, to crying out for justice. He wants to find God, to lay his case before him, to prove to God that he is innocent.

And suddenly God answers Job out of the whirlwind.

Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?

Gird up your loins like a man,

I will question you, and you shall declare to me.

Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?

Tell me if you have understanding.

Who determined its measurements – surely you know?

…who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb?

Is it by your wisdom that the hawk soars

and spreads its wings toward the south?

Can you draw out Leviathan with a fish hook

or press down its tongue with a cord?

“No one is so fierce as to dare to stir up Leviathan. 

Who can stand before it? 

Who can confront it and be safe? 

Under the whole heaven, who?”

Certainly not Job! In fact, not one of us is safe.

God’s responds to Job in soaring poetry that extends through four chapters of the book. It is fascinating to me as a quantum physicist that there are two long sections in this poem dedicated to Behemoth and Leviathan, the two mythical monsters of ancient times that represent chaos and randomness.

In recent times, scientists have rediscovered just how important chaos and randomness actually are. When you dig down deep to the subatomic level, there are no discernable causes for individual events. Stuff happens randomly. Now, there are overall patterns and probabilities that make our lives predictable in many ways. When I drop a pen, I can be confident that it will fall to the floor. But microscopic events – such as the genetic mutations that enable the evolution of human beings but that also generate cancer cells – these are random processes. For some reason that only God knows, God has created a world, a universe, that is majestic and beautiful, but also dynamic in a way that allows for chaos and randomness within the limits set by God,

enabling creation itself to be wild and free. This is the world that God made and that God loves, a world that is beautiful and good and free and wild and grace-filled, a world that is much bigger than ourselves, a world that is not entirely safe for human beings, a world where good stuff happens and bad stuff happens, to good people and

bad people alike.

When God speaks out of the whirlwind, he does not answer Job’s questions. Instead, he paints an amazing picture of creation and invites Job to live in this wild and dangerous world. Job’s response is awe and wonder, and he places his hand over his mouth.

Out of the whirlwind, God has broken Job’s world wide-open. You see, Job used to feel that he was at the centre of the universe: prosperous, important, people sought him out, all of that stuff. But God shows him that creation is not centred on Job. It’s not even centred on human beings. It’s much, much bigger!

Job used to think he had everything figured out, that he knew the rules: the righteous would be rewarded, the wicked would be punished, and if he could just play by the rules, he would remain in control of his own life. But God shows him that the world is much wilder than that, and that it is not nearly as safe and predictable as Job used to think.

But God shows Job one more thing as well. Even though Job is not as important as he once thought he was, even though his life is not as safe and as predictable as he thought it was, even though Job realizes that he comprehends much less than he thought he did, God offers Job something much more valuable – the possibility of living

in authentic relationship with God.

Before, says Job, “I had heard about you” but now he says, “my eye sees you.”

And here, the transformation of Job is complete. He still sits on the ash heap; he still has his sores, he still suffers. But he has moved, first from wanting to die, then to crying out for justice, then, to being overwhelmed by awe and wonder, and finally, to a determination to live again. He will live in this wild and beautiful world that God

has created and he will do so in relationship with God. Job’s life may be a whirlwind, a whirlwind of suffering and uncertainty and injustice. Maybe your life is a bit of a whirlwind too. But even out of the whirlwind, God speaks and God is with us.

Because in the end, the really amazing thing about this story of Job is not the picture it paints of creation, it is the picture it paints of the relationship between the God who created it all and one, particular, misguided human being named Job who cried out to God in his pain.  The marvellous thing about God’s great poem of creation is not just what God says in his answer to Job but the fact that God answers at all.  The God who created the heavens and the earth cares about Job, and about you and me.

Amen.

Homily. Yr B P30. Oct 27 2024. Trinity

The Book of Job

Image by Nicolo Ubaducci