sermon excerpts: Odd Job

...Job's “friends” were helpfully trying to figure out what it was he did wrong that made him so unlucky. A common understanding of the day was the accidents, misfortunes and illnesses in life were a punishment for sin and wrongdoing. For Job to have all this happen to him, he must have done something really wrong.

Job protests and maintains his innocence. He has done nothing wrong. Let him talk to God, present his case and he will be found not guilty. He’s convinced of this fact.

Maher Arar is a modern day equivalent. All he wanted was a day in court, a chance to present his case. Here was a man who was living his life, doing the best he can to provide for his family, to be a good citizen and contribute to society. For no fault of his own, he is arrested, exiled and tortured. All the while being grilled about what it was that he’s done to deserve such treatment.

Given these degrading conditions, I can understand why someone would confess to something they didn’t do. It’s an example of how evil uses our love against us. To make the agony stop, to protect our families, we might admit to anything.

After the fact, he wants justice. He wants his story to be told and his name to be cleared. He wants the truth to be known. And sadly, it’s not just him, the list is long: Reuben “Hurricane” Carter, Sam Sheppard, Guy Paul Morin, David Milgaard, Steven Truscott, and untold others. They all crave justice, an explanation why things happened the way they did, why to them, and a chance to tell their side believing if only they could give their witness, they would be declared innocent.

The scariest part of their stories is not knowing if it could happen to us. In many ways, the book of Job is a parable for each and every one of us. I think we can all remember a time where it seems that nothing is going right, that one thing after another seem to target us, our family, or someone we know. Sickness, accidents, they have no rhyme or reason, but it seems they accumulate all at once. When that happens, it hardly seems fair; we want answers, we want explanations, we want to let people know we’ve done nothing wrong to deserve this.

We live in a world where things just happen. God put into the place the machinery of creation and has set it aside to do what it is supposed to; we call this free will. There is neither good nor evil in a forest fire, flash flood or earthquake, in and of themselves. That’s just how the world operates. We are the ones who interpret and infuse such events with moral interpretations of punishment or blessings.

... Job spoke up despite the fact that he was alone in his opinion. Most people won’t argue with God, thinking it’s bad manners, you don’t question authority figures, especially not the holy divine, creator almighty, king of kings. We are to trust and obey and all that.

We believe that disagreeing with God, or protesting the way God is treating us, is a lack of faith. But we see that Job does not doubt God’s existence, even saying that God is evident in the work he sees of the world. Job’s faith remains strong, even if he is unhappy with his current lot in life.

To ease the pain, Job had to confess to something that he didn’t do. All he had to do was let go of his innocence, his identity. This was something he could not do. Even though all his possessions were taken from him, the blessings in his life were removed, he held onto his innocence and his faith in God.
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We are faced with the same dilemma as Job. What do we let go of, what do we hold onto? We cannot explain why it pours when it rains, when bad news heaps up at the same time. People, maybe our friends, maybe respected voices in the world, are questioning our faith. What kind of God is this?

We cannot control our anger, our fear, our sense of unfairness. We can talk about it, be honest and open about why God seems far away. We can be caring, compassionate friends when we hear of other people’s troubles. There is already enough blame in the world, we don’t need to dump more on people who are suffering, or on ourselves. If anything let us remember that we are not alone. We live in God’s world, which admittedly does seem to have its own incomprehensible rules, but we are not alone. Thanks be to God.