Day of the Church Year: 4th Sunday after Pentecost
Scripture Passage: Job 38:1-11
The book of Job asks the perennial and age-old question, the one we ask in many different ways, the one question that, finally, seems to matter more than almost any other: why do bad things happen to good people?
Job is blameless and upright, fears God and turns away from evil. Job is wealthy in land and animals, goods and family. When God lifts up the righteousness of Job in conversation with Satan, Satan challenges God: Job only serves and praises you, God, because you have blessed him. And God accepts the challenge, allows Satan to take away everything from Job, everything except his life. In all this, Job does not sin or charge God with wrongdoing. When Job’s wife declares, “Do you still persist in integrity? Curse God and die,” Job responds, “Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?” Now, Job grieves his losses, deeply, agonizingly, descriptively. Job’s friends interrogate his faith and trust and acceptance. For over thirty chapters of scripture, Job and his friends go back and forth. And then, God answers Job out of the whirlwind saying: “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements—surely, you know!” God continues with what reads to me like sarcastic demands of knowledge and power—knowledge and power that God well knows Job does not possess.
Why do bad things happen to good people? We struggle with this question because we believe God is good—all the time. All the time—God is good. We believe that God is almighty, powerful beyond measure, more powerful than any other force in the universe. We believe that God is omniscient, sees all, knows all, understands all. If God were only good and powerful but not all knowing, evil could result from God’s ignorance. If God were only good and all knowing but not all powerful, God might not have the power to stop evil or suffering. If God were only powerful and all knowing but not always good, God might sometimes take action that allows or even demands suffering. But my guess is that we do not want to let go of our steadfast faith in a good, almighty, and omniscient God. I know I don’t...want to let go of my faith in a good, almighty, and omniscient God.
Some of our sisters and brother in faith read the book of Job and declare Satan the problem. Evil entered the world incarnate in Satan, and the world has been topsy-turvy ever since. An angel at one shoulder, the devil at the other, good and evil influences close at hand. Except that in this view of the world, God’s power is limited. To suggest that evil is a match for God is to suggest God’s hands are tied by a power greater than the creator of heaven and earth.
Reformer of the church Martin Luther read the book of Job and the apostle Paul and declared the bondage of the will the problem. Luther did not believe that we have free will in the sense of the freedom to choose right or wrong, good or evil, God’s way or our way. Rather, he believed we cannot choose not to sin. More simply, we will choose to sin. Not always, not in every situation, but persistently, regardless of our growth in faith because we are not perfect. While I personally find this argument compelling, the argument raises questions about God’s power and goodness. God created us with a capacity to sin, with a capacity for evil, with a capacity for systemic brokenness. Why?
Scholars, theologians, and people of faith from every walk of life read the book of Job today and wonder. The agonizing response to why do bad things happen to good people is simply more questions. Questions about why we were created with a capacity to do evil. Questions like: What is a good person? How do we distinguish “good” people from “bad” people? How do we determine whether an action is good or bad when we don’t know what effect it may have long term? And we live in a world filled with what appears to be bad things. Gun violence here in the valley this week, staggering heat and wild fires that diminish air quality and lead to heat-related illness, illness and death that leave us sad and angry and scared, and a whole variety of injustices. God’s right. We don’t understand—not just the evil in the world but the many mysteries of the world itself. Even as our knowledge of the world grows exponentially, we continue to wrestle with the wisdom to truly understand how our knowledge can and ought to be applied to every aspect of our personal and communal lives.
Job questions God just as we do: deeply, agonizingly, descriptively. We want to know not just why bad things happen to good people but why bad things happen to us. Sometimes, there is a good reason rooted in a series of choices—made by us, others, or a broken system—we can clearly see and understand. Other times, there is no good reason, and we are bereft. Even when there is a good reason, we are led back to the questions raised by Luther’s argument about the bondage of the will. Why give us the capacity and sin and evil in the first place, God?
God’s response to Job’s agonizing inquiry does not answer his questions but instead reveals the depths of Job’s limitations. He won’t understand how God works in the world because he’s not God just as we won’t understand exactly how God works in the world because we’re not God. The expanse and mystery that is God cannot be understood, at least not in its entirety. In the vast sea of all that we do not and cannot know, one thing remains: God answers. God answers Job. The creator of heaven and earth answers Job. The one who laid the foundation of the earth, who laid the earth’s cornerstone, who shut in the sea with doors, who prescribed bounds for the sea, this One answers Job. The One who is good all the time, the almighty, the omniscient, this One answers Job. Which means this One hears Job, listens, considers, loves, cares for Job and each one of us. In the expanse and the mystery of a God and a universe we cannot fully grasp, the One who does understand listens to our cries, our questions, our hearts. And for that, we can say: Thanks be to God! Amen.