I MUST HAVE DONE SOMETHING GOOD

Job 1:1-5, John 9:1-7

Scene One. A moonlit Austrian summer night, at a gazebo. And in a frosty-edged scene, a young woman named Maria, played of course by Julie Andrews, looks up into the eyes of Captain Von Trapp, played by Christopher Plummer, and confesses her love, and sings, "Somewhere in my youth or childhood I must have done something good to deserve this moment."

Scene Two. A hospital bed at Princeton Medical Center. A young woman in the hospital for pneumonia, recounting a story about her evangelical Christian friend, who told her, "You'd better accept Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior. This is a sign. He, capital H, He gets angry, you know."

Scene Three. The 700 Club television show. Pat Robertson interviewing the Reverend Jerry Falwell two days after the 9-11 attacks. Jerry Falwell saying in the interview, "The pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and lesbians, the ACLU and People for the American Way--I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen.'"

Scene Four. Several thousand years ago. A man named Job, the world's most righteous man, going to the temple and offering an animal for the priest to sacrifice in case, just in case, his kids might have sinned.

Scene Six. You. Late at night. Staring at a paper with a diagnosis on it. Wondering to yourself, "What did I do to deserve this?"

I'd invite you to keep those scenes in mind, through these four Sundays in March, as we explore the Book of Job. We begin a study today of the Book of Job in the Old Testament. To me it is, indeed, one of the most important books of the Bible for us to study. It is, in a way, a wonderful prism through which to look at our own humanity and to reflect on the nature of God. I hope that you can come for each of the Sundays and keep up with the reading. Next week it's pretty easy--just the first two chapters of Job you're asked to read.

Here are some of the questions that will come up in our study of the Book of Job:

* How does the universe work? And how does God function in that universe?
* What, if anything, is the meaning of suffering? We often hear that the Book of Job is about the question, "Why do bad things happen to good people?" We're going to reflect a little bit about that.
* How can we comfort people in the midst of suffering, as people of faith? How can we genuinely be with them, in a faithful way?
* What are the limits of human wisdom?

These are some of the questions that we'll be exploring in the next few weeks. And today, primarily, I want to focus on that first question that I raised. What's the nature of the universe, and how does God function in that universe? Again, a very narrow scope of inquiry for this morning. We take on the big questions here. As Emeril says, "This is a big budget show."

This morning, we're going to explore a principle that is embedded in much of the Old Testament, the Hebrew Scriptures, a principle that provides a kind of fundamental understanding of the way the universe works. But before I explain that principle, I want to offer a preliminary thought, to help us understand this principle. It's important to understand that in the time of the Old Testament was written there was of course no concept of science, as we understand it today. A rock falls on the mountainside, and we certainly understand, we moderns, that there are principles of gravity and physics at work there. But the universe was a far more mysterious place in the time of the Old Testament. There was no distinction between theology and science. God was responsible for all the phenomena that a human being experienced, or the gods. And so the question was: how do I deal with all these powers that impinge upon me? How do I negotiate this universe where God, or the gods, are responsible for these forces?

So that's preliminary thought to our exploration of this principle, upon which the universe functions. And here it is. Are you ready? In it's most basic form, it's the idea that people get what they deserve. It's a principle of justice, implying that the universe is basically a just place. Otherwise it would be pretty chaotic, wouldn't it? You get what you deserve.

More specifically, this principle I'm speaking of embodies the idea that if you are good, you will receive blessing, and if you are evil, you will receive punishment. There will be a consequence for what you do. And the name that theologians attach to this concept, which we find throughout the Old Testament, is retributive justice. And, to be again more specific, who is it that enforces this mechanism? God, of course. It is God who ensures that the rules are fair. Do good, you will be blessed. Do evil, you will be cursed.

In a way, if we think about that principle a little bit, it's a great thing for human beings, in a certain sense, because it gives us a certain amount of control over the universe, or our part of it. We can control our destiny to some extent. "I am good, and therefore, I get blessing." You know, I can control the outcome of my life through my behavior. I, am in control. It's a kind of transactional relationship that I have with God. I'm good, you owe me blessing. I'm bad, and watch out, I get punished.

And moreover we have a way of measuring what good behavior is. The Law, the first five books of the Bible, the Torah, gives us a yardstick by which to measure what is good, and what is evil, and as long as we're following the good, we're OK! God made a covenant with the people. Not just an individual person, with a people. And the covenant basically says: if you follow this covenant, "You shall live," as it states in Deuteronomy. "So choose life." If you do not follow this covenant, watch out. And the Hebrew people, of course, told their story through the lens of this principle.

The prophets were all about warning people, and saying if you don't shape up, there will be consequences. The Babylonian exile, which is a huge part of the history of Israel, you might say, is just one big huge lump of coal in the collective stocking of the people. We did bad--we didn't keep up our end of the covenant--and therefore, this is what happened to us.

Now the question in the book of Job--we met him for the first time today, the world's most righteous man--the question is, is this how the universe really works? Is it true? That's what we're going to test out and examine today--does is work that way?

So, to start with, we might want to just reject this principle out of hand and say no, it doesn't work that way. And yet before we do that too quickly, we should also observe what the world would be like if there were no consequences to our actions. We need to not be too quick in rejecting that principle. The Buddhists and the Hindus--and Christians--have the idea that there's a certain law operative in regard to human behavior. Every action has some kind of reaction. The Buddhists have a phrase called "instant karma." What is the punishment for bad behavior...but bad behavior? What is the reward for doing good...but doing good itself? In some sense, in every theological system, it's necessary that we understand that somehow what goes around comes around--in some way. But, let's just bracket that for a moment.

Let's get back to the question, does the universe really function in the way that I have just described--according to this principle of retributive justice, which is enforced by a God who has given human beings fair rules? If you do evil, you will be punished. Do good and you'll be rewarded. There will be something in your life that crops up later on about which you can say, "Oh, God is punishing me." Or, "I deserve this good life, because I've followed all the rules."

If we look at life closely, of course on the surface, we have to admit, it doesn't look like the world works that way. It's obvious that bad people do rather well. And it's perhaps equally obvious that good people often suffer terribly.

It's important that we know that there's a dialogue about this business in the Bible itself. The people who wrote the Hebrew Bible were not dumb people, and so there's a debate going on. Psalm 1, the first psalm in the songbook of the Bible, verse 6: For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous but the wicked shall perish. That typifies this kind of theology that I've been talking about--the righteous will be rewarded and the evil will be punished. But look in the book of Ecclesiastes. Take a moment this week if you have a chance. In chapter 8, for example, verse 14: There is a vanity that takes place on Earth. That there are righteous people who are treated according to the conduct of the wicked, and there are wicked people who are treated according to the conduct of the righteous. Now Ecclesiastes is great, because he's the biblical realist. You know, he's saying basically, "Look. There are bad people who prosper. And there are good people who suffer. You know, that is the way the world works." The main problem in the book of Job is this problem. Is that the way the world works? And if not, what does that do to our understanding of God?

But to be even more specific, what's at issue in Job is how the formula I've been describing works. Now bear with me just for a moment. We're going to do a little bit of theological math. Here's the formula that I've been describing: A (you do bad, you do evil) equals B (you get punished, you suffer). What's at stake in Job is the issue when you reverse that formula. Instead of A (you do evil) equals B (you get punished) what happens if B (you are suffering, you're being punished) therefore A (you must have done evil)? That's the question at stake in the book of Job. What is the meaning of suffering? Is it evidence, as that woman in the hospital bed was claiming, that you sinned? Or as Jerry Falwell was claiming for our nation, we have sinned? Is that the way it works? Does suffering equal punishment from God?

I can't finish this morning without giving some answer to that question. I won't give the answer--if I ever do, then you have permission to fire me--but I will give you an answer, and it's actually an answer from the New Testament. And I think it's the answer that we will find as we explore the book of Job. It's not that there's a break between the Old and New Testaments--today it's Jesus who makes clear and fully reveals the meaning of the Old Testament. As I end my sermon today we're going to do a little Bible study.

And I'm going to do something I haven't done before. I'm going to come down there. But I'd invite you to actually get your Bibles out, before I do that. And turn to page 976--I hope that's the right page. Is it John 9? Did I get it right? Are you there yet? And the question is, that we're examining: what's the meaning of suffering? Is it, in fact, the means through which God punishes us according to this formula? So, what's happening? The disciples are walking down the road, and they see a blind man, born from birth. And what question do they ask Jesus? Who is bold enough to....Yes: "Who sinned?" But more specifically, what--who do they think might have sinned? Why do they say that? What's at stake here? He was blind from birth. So could he have sinned before he was born, to deserve this punishment? That's the question that we're testing out. The disciples see his suffering, and think, how could he be suffering punishment for his sins, if he were born blind? Maybe his parents sinned. That's what they're testing out with Jesus--a sort of theological brain twister. Who sinned? And what's the answer that he gives? What does it say in verse 3? Not this man or his parents....But that the works of God might be revealed in him. Now there's the "Aha!" There's an answer. It turns the whole formula on its head, doesn't it?

What is the meaning of suffering? I'm not going to answer that question for you, but for the purpose of this text in that moment, the reason for this person's suffering wasn't God's punishment. It was so that the grace of God could be shown in his life. It's a completely different understanding of suffering. It's not punishment--it's the means through which the grace of God is shown to us. And you might think, who thinks that who really might think that when they suffer, they are being punished? Fact is, I run into people all the time who encounter suffering suddenly, and then begin to ask the question, "Why am I being punished like this? What did I do to deserve this?" B equals A.

I want to end with a quick story about a man named Charles Roberts, IV, who on October 2nd, walked into a one room Amish schoolhouse, and with a gun in his hand killed six schoolchildren, six girls, and wounded six others. And Charles Roberts then killed himself. And the Amish community who suffered so deeply from that event, apparently, according to news reports about that event, never asked the question, "Who sinned? How did we deserve this?" But what we know they did do was to forgive Charles Carl Roberts, IV. And not only did they do that, but they went to the funeral of Charles Carl Roberts to comfort his widow. Now what was the purpose for those girls dying? I don't know. I would never presume to tell you why. Was that a moment of utter darkness, through which the grace of God were made manifest? I think so.

Let us pray.
Holy God, as we examine the suffering that exists all around us, in our lives and in our world, we ask that you would give us your wisdom, through which we might know not your punishment, but your love. Your love that was made known to us not through a moral code written on stone, but through a cross, and through an empty tomb, that the message might be written on our hearts. We pray in the name of Jesus the Christ. Amen.

March 4, 2007

Jeff Vamos

(click here to go back to sermons)