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"Where is God When it Hurts?" Job hurts. He’s lost his fortune. He’s lost his children. He’s lost his health. Once a prosperous, admired man of faith with a model family. Then, enemy raids and natural disaster wipe out his thousands of sheep, camels, oxen and other animals. A tornadic wind hits and in one horrific moment, all of his sons and daughters are killed. Now he sits in an ash heap, scraping at the sores that cover his body with a broken shard of pottery. He hurts. And in his hurt, his friends draw close, not too close, but close enough to examine Job and offer their observations as to how it is that Job has found himself in this fix—for surely if Job knows how it is that he has fallen into this pit, he can correct things and his lot will improve. It’s painful to read this drama—Job’s sorrows and burdens increasing daily, without relief. His friends circling round, listening to his distress and offering their advice. “Job—you brought this onto yourself,” one friend offers. Another tells him, “Job, your children must have sinned—that’s why they were killed. Come clean now or God will make it even worse.” Still another says, “Well, I don’t know who sinned, but SOMEBODY sinned, otherwise God wouldn’t have done this. You probably sinned without even knowing it—and now your clever words are making God even angrier.” Some friends! As I said, it’s hard to watch Job hurt so. It’s hard to hear Job’s despair as he cries out: “If I go forward, God is not there; or backward, I cannot sense God’s presence; on the left, God hides from me, I cannot behold him. So I turn to the right, but I cannot see God.” “If I could just fade away into nothingness, that the darkness would hide me away!” It’s hard to be in the presence of that sort of anguish. When we find ourselves in the company of those who hurt, who hurt deeply, who are suffering beyond our own comprehension…we begin searching for something to say…something we think could fix the hurt. And in searching for something to say…we make the mistake sometimes of going to something that found its way into our thinking, something that has been sitting there in our brain from the time we first heard it and learned it, a “sound bite” that doesn’t require too much thought, but sort of spills out into the vacuum of not having anything to say in the face of so much hurt. Something like… Or, “God needed another angel in heaven and took her to be with him.” Or, “Don’t worry, you’re young, you can have another child.” Or, “God never gives us more than we can handle.” Where do those words come from? The problem is, we heard them, or words like them at a time when we, ourselves were not suffering. And they sit there, and take root, and wait until we think they will be useful to help someone who is hurting, and then we let them out of our mouths and …. Just like Job’s friends! Somewhere along the way they had learned that God prospers the faithful, and inflicts the wicked. That God does not trust the angels who are perfect in God’s sight, let alone human beings. Somewhere along the way, they learned to blame those who suffer, and give thanks that they are not among the ones who hurt. And they let those things spill from their mouths, and when they do, Job’s pain and suffering increase. Because they say things that imply that God has inflicted Job. That God is the one who devastated Job’s life. That God is the one who caused the deaths of his children. That God is the one who covered Job with boils. That God is the one who has brought these unthinkable and unbearable things to pass! The same way when we say “God never gives anyone more than they can handle.” Do you hear it? God never gives? As though God is the one responsible for sickness, suffering, frailty and pain? God never gives? Or when we say, “God took him, or God took her…” God took? As though the pain of grief is only so much collateral damage resulting from God’s need for another angel? God took? Why do we so quickly assume God is the deliverer of the worst, and yet have so much trouble giving thanks because we cannot fathom God as the provider of the best? We’ve all been concerned from the news of the school shootings, the worst being the one at the Amish school in Pennsylvania where 10 little girls were shot, 5 of them killed. Two others still so critical we don't know yet whether they will survive. Can you honestly tell me God caused such a thing to happen? Be careful when you say, “God took these little girls so that…” Be careful when you think, “God never gives anyone more than they can handle.” The truth is, the world is filled with the tragic and the painful and the horrific and it’s often more than folks can handle. Don’t allow yourself to think or believe or by all means say that God is the one who gives such things. No wonder Job cannot find God. He’s surrounded by his so-called friends and their hollow counsel. He goes forward, and there is Eliphaz. Backward and there is Bildad. To the left, and there is Zophar. To the right, Elihu. Not God. But others who do not understand Job’s suffering, and have nothing to offer but words of blame, shame and guilt—that somehow God did it and Job made God do it. And the only way to turn it around is for Job to do something that might please God so that God will relent and not hurt him any longer. It’s a pity, Job didn’t have one, single empathetic friend. If he had, I think he might have found God. If he had one friend who didn’t feel a need to explain Job’s suffering, but whose own heart broke when he saw Job’s distress. Who simply drew near. Not just near enough to challenge Job’s sin, but near enough to touch him. A friend who was willing to sit in the ashes with Job, and soothe his hurts, and comfort his soul. One friend. That’s where those who suffer find the presence of God. In a friend willing to draw near enough to our pain, that their heart begins to beat in rhythm with our hurting heart. Some here have known that kind of friendship in the midst of tragedy. Others here have been that friend, the friend without the answers, but willing to draw near and remain close by through it all. One friend…and God is there. A friend willing to offer something redemptive. Something restorative. A friend who will bear God’s presence and draw near--that the suffering might sense the presence of God. For God does not abandon us in our suffering. Never. God is present. But that presence may be missed without the physical presence of such a friend. But Job will continue to search for answers. For understanding. Until he hears from God in a powerful way. Next week, we’ll hear what God has to say.
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