“The Redeemer” – Sermon on Nov 10, 2013
November 10, 2013
Scripture: Job 19: 23-27
O that my words were written down! O that they were inscribed in a book! O that with an iron pen and with lead they were engraved on a rock forever! For I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth; and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see on my side, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me!
Sermon: The Redeemer
by Rev. Doreen Oughton
I wasn’t thinking about all that was going on this weekend when I decided to use the passage from Job to preach from. As my Old Testament professor said, Job is grad school level scripture. It is one of the wisdom books, writings that are not focused on Israel, but whose themes are considered universal. The book starts out with God boasting to the divine council about what a wonderful, upright man Job is, how he loves God and is so steadfast in his praise and thanksgiving, so righteous in his living, in the way he has raised his children. One of the divine council members , Satan, challenges God, basically saying, “Well of course Job gives praise and thanksgiving. Look how good his life is. He is healthy, wealthy, respected and loved.” He goes on, “Perhaps he wouldn’t be so righteous, so full of thanks and praise if life got harder. Let me wreak a little havoc, and see what happens.” God consents, and Satan wipes out Job’s children and servants and livestock. Job is grief-stricken, but still blesses the name of the Lord. God is gratified, but Satan is still skeptical. What would happen, he wonders, if Job’s body is afflicted? God again grants Satan permission to afflict Job, as long as he doesn’t kill him. Satan inflicted “loathsome sores from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head.” And Job goes to sit in the ashes. His wife suggests he “curse God and die” already, but Job says why should we receive only good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad also.
His friends come and sit in silence with him for 7 days and nights. At the end of this grieving time, Job starts to speak, cursing the day he was born. He is bitter, he is angry, he is confused about why this has happened to him. His friends respond that it must be his fault, he must have done something to displease God. Most of the book of Job is this back and forth between Job and his friends, his friends trying to get him to realize where he went wrong, and Job defending himself, saying he has done nothing to deserve what has happened to him. This morning’s reading is the very end of chapter 19, which is Job’s response to his friends’ blaming words. Oh that my words were written, engraved on a rock with an iron pen. He wants people to forever know of his pain and suffering. I know that my redeemer lives, he says, and that he will stand on the earth, and that after he is dead he shall see God. He shall see God on his side.
It’s a great passage, but I must say, I think it is even better when you have the whole chapter, all the stuff that comes before it. So I’m going to read it to you: Then Job answered: “How long will you torment me, and break me in pieces with words? These ten times you have cast reproach upon me; are you not ashamed to wrong me? And even if it is true that I have erred, my error remains with me. If indeed you magnify yourselves against me, and make my humiliation an argument against me, know then that God has put me in the wrong, and closed his net around me. Even when I cry out, ‘Violence!’ I am not answered; I call aloud, but there is no justice.
He has walled up my way so that I cannot pass, and he has set darkness upon my paths. He has stripped my glory from me, and taken the crown from my head. He breaks me down on every side, and I am gone, he has uprooted my hope like a tree. He has kindled his wrath against me, and counts me as his adversary. His troops come on together; they have thrown up siegeworks against me, and encamp around my tent. “He has put my family far from me, and my acquaintances are wholly estranged from me. I call to my servant, but he gives me no answer; I must myself plead with him. My breath is repulsive to my wife; I am loathsome to my own family. Even young children despise me; when I rise, they talk against me. My bones cling to my skin and to my flesh, and I have escaped by the skin of my teeth. Have pity on me, have pity on me, O you my friends, for the hand of God has touched me! Why do you, like God, pursue me, never satisfied with my flesh?” Then it picks up with today’s reading. “Oh that my words were written down!”
I find this remarkable, this diatribe against God. These are the things he wants engraved in rock, that God has turned on him. Have you ever felt like that, like God is against you? I must admit I have not. But I have wondered if God has allowed Satan to afflict certain others. There have been a number of people I know who suffer tragedy after tragedy, crisis after crisis, who have suffered unimaginable losses – family, material, and physical, just like Job. These are the hard questions of faith. Why is suffering doled out so differently? Are some chosen for either easy or hard lives for no apparent reason? Does God have a hand in suffering, allow it, even will it? Even for the righteous, even for the faithful? Hard questions indeed.
But the book of Job actually asks a different question. It asks if people can be faithful, can love and thank and praise God even when life is full of suffering. And not out of guilt or fear, as Job’s friends urge him, but out of a steadfast trust in God’s love, even when the evidence is scant. I don’t know if I could. I like to think I would, but I don’t know for certain. I know people who have this deep and abiding trust, and I am awed by it, moved by it, inspired by it, as I am by Job in this story.
For I find Job incredibly faithful in this story. You’ve heard the saying, perhaps, of “the patience of Job.” Patience can sometimes connote a certain passivity, waiting, waiting, waiting. But that is not the kind of patience Job demonstrates. It is an active patience, persistence or endurance might be better words. He does not give in to the “wisdom” of his friends that says he is at fault. He does not shrug it off as random, he does not turn his back on the God who seems to have turned his back on him. No, he keeps at it, keeps insisting that he should have his day in court with God, he should be able to have his complaint heard, he should be justified. And ultimately he expresses faith that he will have his day, that there is One who will stand at his side, will go before God with him, will redeem him so that God is again on Job’s side. If not in this life, then after his skin is destroyed.
So who is this redeemer? Some will read Jesus into the story. Jesus is the one who comes to redeem us, Jesus is the one who stands on the side of those who are suffering. Handel does this in his Messiah, in the song “I Know That My Redeemer Liveth.” And this speaks to me. Jesus, the Word that was, in the beginning, with God and was God. Jesus, who stood on the earth. And while ultimately I reject the notion of a God who inflicts suffering, I do believe that God allows suffering because suffering is part and parcel of free will. Not that we always choose to suffer, but that someone’s choice results in another’s suffering. And sometimes we do choose to suffer. Or at least make choices that lead to suffering. I also believe that our suffering is lessened if we can still find a way to give thanks and praise to God, if we can still bless God’s name, if we can still trust in God’s love. And through Jesus Christ, there is a way.
Hear again what Job wants – record of his suffering and acknowledgment that he did not deserve it! He asks his friends aren’t they ashamed to add to his suffering with their blaming words, with their insistence that he is at fault and deserves it. Think of Jesus’ ministry, the teaching, the healing, the saving, without ever once asking if someone deserved it. He argued against those who attributed suffering to sinning. He cried out in pain over the lost sheep. What he did in the face of suffering was to respond to it with love, with compassion. We also, are invited to be redeemers for Job. We can bear witness to suffering. We can sit in the ashes with our friends who are hurting. We can listen to their pain without blame, without offering a quick fix, without fear that the curse is contagious. We can do this because we know that our redeemer liveth, within us and among us. Christ lives. May it be so.
