Sermon: Job Grieves Faithfully (Job, Part 2)
August 9th, 2020 Rev. Betsy Perkins
Scripture passage: Job 2:11-3:5, 7:7-11 First Baptist Church, Delavan WI
Do not hurry as you walk with grief;
It does not help the journey.
Walk slowly, pausing often.
Do not hurry as you walk with grief.
Be not disturbed by memories that come unbidden.
Swiftly forgive, and let Christ speak for you unspoken words.
Unfinished conversations will be resolved in him.
Be not disturbed.
Be gentle with the one who walks with grief.
If it is you, be gentle with yourself.
Swiftly forgive; walk slowly, pausing often.
Take time; be gentle as you walk with grief.
(from Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals, by Shane Claiborne and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove)
In my late teens, when I felt full of angst, as many teenagers do, I wrote poems to give expression to my feelings. Sometimes grief is best expressed in poetry. It seems to have been that way for Job – or at least for the person who wrote his story. After the scene is set in chapters 1 and 2, the rest of the book is written in poetry – all of Job’s complaints, all his friends’ advice, even God’s eventual response – everything until the last 10 verses of the last chapter. In wading through all that poetic expression, there is a lot to learn about grief and grieving, and about coming alongside someone who is grieving.
Job’s friends start out so well. They come. They sit with him. They are silent, offering their comforting presence for 7 full days. This follows a Jewish tradition calling “sitting shiva” (‘shiva’ means ‘seven’), a tradition that guides family and friends through the first week of intense mourning after the loss of a loved one. In those early days, as well as later, often silence and presence are the best things we can offer. It’s a common experience to struggle to know what to say in the face of death and loss. But rather than avoid the person who is grieving or reach for platitudes, what a relief it can be to know that you don’t need to find just the right words to say, but simply offering your silent presence is a great gift.
That’s where the helpfulness of Job’s friends seems to end. After 7 days of comforting silence, when Job begins to give voice to his grief, they respond by offering advice. They declare to Job that faithful people don’t have calamities befall them. People reap what they sow, Eliphaz tells Job in chapter 4, therefore you must have sowed sin and plowed evil to be reaping such trouble. God is trying to correct you, Eliphaz says. But spoiler alert: at the end of this story it is Eliphaz that God corrects, saying, “I am angry with you and your two friends because you have not spoken the truth about me or my servant Job.”(42:7) In the end, Job is commended by God for speaking truth and remaining faithful in the midst of his sorrow. So what does remaining faithful through grief look like?
Job’s immediate responses to his loss, as he desperately clings to God, are expressions of praise and trust. “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised,” he says. When his wife suggests he curse God and die (not a helpful comment, by the way, but we shouldn’t judge her too harshly for she is also grieving; Job’s children who died are her children too). In response, Job asks her, “Shall we accept good from God and not trouble?”
For some of us, it may come as a surprise that Job’s first response to tragedy is praise. We might wonder if Job is actually in the first stage of grief, a stage of shock. Perhaps he is in denial of the full extent of his loss – all his children, all his belongings, his livelihood, his own health, all destroyed. Others of you may feel as though praise and trust are actually the only faithful responses a Christian should have in the face of tragedy. For some there is a sense that all those other stages of grief that chaplains and grief counselors talk about – the denial, bargaining, anger and depression that come before and even after acceptance – are less than true to our faith in Jesus Christ. Yet as the story of Job continues, he goes on to give voice to a whole range of emotions, and we are told that in all of his varying responses Job is no less faithful! The storyteller writes, “In all of this, Job did not sin in what he said.” That means that as shocking as his next words are, when he begins to curse the day of his birth, wishing he’s never been born, as well as in all the many chapters of laments that follow, all of it is a faithful response to intense grief.
Job goes very quickly from praising God to bargaining with God: just undo the day of my birth, undo the night of my conception. If only I had been allowed to die as an infant, then I would be at peace and at rest right now, he rationalizes as his anger begins to build. Job demands answers: “Why did I not perish at birth?”(3:11) “Why is light given to those in misery and life to the bitter of soul?”(3:20) Why?! Why?! Job rails at God: “the arrows of the Almighty are in me, my spirit drinks in their poison; God’s terrors are marshaled against me.”(6:4) Next Job rails at his friends: “But my brothers are as undependable as intermittent streams,” (6:15) he says, comparing them to a creek that overflows causing damage in one season, only to dry up and be useless in the next. Angrily, Job accuses them, “Now you too have proved to be of no help; you see something dreadful and are afraid.”(6:21)
Job’s depression is deep. He is wishing he could die, wishing he had never been born. He moans, “If only my anguish could be weighed and all my misery be placed on the scales! It would outweigh the sand of the seas.”(6:1-2) Job wishes that he could somehow prove to everyone how miserable he feels. On the pain scale, his misery is off the charts, and he explains, “No wonder my words have been impetuous.” A moment later Job returns to bargaining again: “Oh, that I might have my request, that God would grant what I hope for, that God would be willing to crush me, to let loose his hand and cut off my life!” (6:8) Job tries to rationalize that if God would just kill him, he wouldn’t risk saying something bad or out of line.
Despite that concern, however, Job keeps on talking. He doesn’t rush his grieve or cut short his complaints. And as he talks about his suffering and pain, Job talks less and less about God, and more and more to God. This is in stark contrast to his friends who never get beyond talking talk about God and about Job. They even neglect to talk to God on behalf of their friend; to pray for him. But Job speaks to God directly, honestly. “Therefore, I will not keep silent, I will speak out in the anguish of my spirit, I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.”(7:11) He speaks in all his anger and pain, his frustration and despair, because he knows God is big enough to handle it all.
In grieving faithfully, Job offers God both his praise and his full and honest laments. Seminary professor, Kathryn Schifferdecker, writes about how both of these expressions are faithful ways to grieve. “Praise and lament are two side of the same coin. In both praise and lament, we cling to God, even when we don’t understand God. In both praise and lament, we believe that our lives are inextricably bound up with God’s life. In both praise and lament, we acknowledge that God is God and we are not.” (workingpreacher.org)
What I am hearing from many of you, as well as from pastors and other faith leaders, is that we are in a time of collective sorrow. I know I feel the weight of it myself many days. I check the COVID death tolls and grieve the loss of life. ICU doctors and nurses and EMTs share stories of what they are seeing and we grieve the suffering. We are grieving the loss of livelihoods causing even more hunger, even more homelessness, even more sickness. We are grieving the ongoing racial disparities and discrimination that our Black brothers and sisters have to endure and that we have been unaware of. We grieve the trauma being endured by children still separated from their parents in immigration custody. We grieve the trauma of destruction in Beirut this week. We are grieving the loss of being together under the one roof of our church building, of singing the hymns of faith and the songs of praise together, of being able to lay hands on one another with holy hugs. We are grieving the divisiveness that is tearing churches, families, nations, apart. All that grief on top of personal struggles and losses.
Job gives us guidance and words for walking the journey of grief faithfully. The story of Job gives us permission for the free expression to both praise and lament: to name the pain, to name the loss, to thank God for his faithfulness, even as we beg for God to do something more or to be present more. Every stage and expression of grief can be faithful when we offer it to God with honesty and trust. When we accompany one another in the difficult journey.
Last month the American Baptist Home Mission Society offered church leaders an online Space for Grace conference that addressed the grief that is cracking us open and reshaping, reforming our lives. One of the speakers was Dr. Yvonne Martinez-Thorne, an American Baptist psychologist and chaplain who has spent her career helping people as they grieve. She has been a part of emergency response teams, traveled to refugee camps around the world, ministered to those who have survived disasters and serious traumas. One of the tools that Dr. Yvonne teaches those who are grieving is something she calls the Butterfly Hug.
For the Butterfly Hug, you cross your hands in front of you, linking your thumbs together. Now place your hand butterfly on your chest, up on your collarbones. Let the wings of the butterfly beat quickly on your chest, as you allow yourself to name your pain, as you bring to mind the people and things that you have lost and your struggles. Then, having named those things, gradually slow the beating of the butterfly wings so that it becomes a gentle patting that slows, slows, and finally stops with the wings of the butterfly resting quietly on your chest. We are going to give ourselves a Butterfly Hug, as Chuck sings for us the song, “I Want Jesus to Walk With Me.” …
I leave you with these reminders of Jesus’ words:
- Jesus said, “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Mt.28:20) God will never leave you or forsake you!
- Jesus said, “After I have risen, I will go ahead of you…” (Mt. 26:32) God is out ahead preparing a new day and opening a new way forward!
- Jesus said, “My grace is sufficient for you, my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2Cor.12:9)
Blessed be the name of the LORD! Amen.
Closing Song: “Abide With Me”
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