5th Sunday in Ordinary Time (The Suffering of Job)

One of the best-known books of the Old Testament is the Book of Job. In its first couple chapters, we learn that Job was a good man, and his wealth would seem to be a reward for his goodness. But as we also know, all the good order of his life unraveled, everything went wrong: his family members were killed, his possessions were stolen or destroyed; and Job himself was left with boils all over his body and face. It left Job—and leaves us—wondering, “What happened?...Why?”

To sort through those questions, Job’s friends come to his aid. But what we begin to see, is that even if their intentions were good, they proved unhelpful. They’re a bit like those people—we all know at least one—who talk a lot, and believe it to be wisdom and authoritative, but it’s not. Their myriad of explanations for Job’s misfortunes proved not only to be dismissive of Job’s reality, but also misguided.

          This book may be the first formal treatise on the age-old question: “Why do bad things happen to good people?” But ultimately, the book doesn’t seek to resolve that dilemma. Instead, it holds in tension, the notion of a just and good God, with the fact that suffering is part of life. I’ve heard it suggested that true human wisdom flows from living in the tension of those two realities. It’s something of a mystery, and the mysteries of our faith are not meant to be solved, but instead to be lived and experienced.

The Book of Job works toward its conclusion, explaining that from our finite and limited human perspective, we simply cannot comprehend of the grand scheme of tGod. The LORD answered Job out of the storm and said, ‘Who is this who speaks to me with such words of ignorance?...I will question you, Job…..Where were you when I founded the earth?....Have you ever commanded the morning into being…. brought light into a space….caused the winds to blow one direction or another?….Have you established the innate behaviors of the beasts of the earth? And the inferred answer to these rhetorical questions: Yeah, I didn’t think so (Job 38).

Job came to accept that there is more than we can see or understand, and so we must at least desire to trust in his providence, which is greater and bigger than the immediate moments of our lives, whether we see them as good or bad, easy or hard.

But don’t we still struggle to be satisfied with that: the suffering in our world, things that go wrong and make life hard? As we are left to hold in tension these two contrasting realities, this book calls us to ask ourselves: Do we love God for His own sake, or only because of whatever goodness comes our way? Is my relationship with God predicated on things going the way I believe they should? I suspect our answer depends upon whether we’re asking about it in the abstract, or whether we’re asking it in a moment in which our lives feel like they are unravelling.

          Back to the question of holding in tension the notion of a loving God, even as we experience suffering. Jesus shows us in today’s Gospel, how he came to show God’s goodness by combatting the effects of human suffering—in his healing of Peter’s mother-in-law, and his response to the crowds who came to him, suffering the effects of bodily ailments, but also the spiritually sick. And throughout his public ministry, he formed disciples to continue this work, and they formed the next generation, and so on.

Even more, he promised to remain with us in this work, and does so by means of the Sacraments. To show God’s goodness, he gave us Baptism, an infusion of his life into us—the first dose of Divine Grace. Further, he gave us Confirmation—the second dose, if you will—to draw us out, beyond ourselves, that our lives might be given for the good of others. Even more, he still brings healing—just as he did in today’s Gospel—through Anointing of the Sick, Reconciliation, and the Eucharist.

          He lives and works with and through us in these sacraments, so that we can then be signs of God’s goodness, even as we and others experience suffering—living in that tension. More to the point, we are to be signs that God is good by acting as agents of his healing to a suffering world, employing the various Works of Mercy: feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, comforting the afflicted, praying for the sick, etc. Our active response is needed, especially at a time when there are perhaps too many people who respond like Job’s friends: so quick to impart their wisdom and seeking to assign blame.

An American poet and songwriter who died nearly 100 years ago, Annie Johnson Flint, experienced great suffering in her life. Much like Job’s friends, her fellow Christians suggested that if one were living in accord with God’s will, one should not be visited by suffering. Seeing this false wisdom for what it was, Annie herself, spoke eloquently of the beautiful but difficult truth of this tension:

God has not promised skies always blue,

flower strewn pathways all our lives through;

God has not promised sun without rain,

joy without sorrow, peace without pain.

But God has promised strength for the day,

rest for the labor, light for the way, grace for the trials,

help from above, unfailing sympathy, undying love.