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How Will You Cope? Sermon by Brian Russo July 19, 2009, Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill Job 1 Job 42 So when I told a friend from home that I was preaching on Job this week, his response was, "oh good choice, that should be easy enough." Easy enough, I asked? There is definitely nothing easy for me about this passage; after all these are the very same chapters that once convinced me some years ago that there was nothing more to be gained from religion. And gasp as you might, I must in honesty admit to it; we all have skeletons rattling around in our attic and I am most certainly no different. Simply stated, it went like this: I reached a dangerous point where my entire faith was predicated on the absolute truth of the Word, thinking that the Bible must be interpreted sola scriptura, and that if it were looked at in any other way, than it could only be rendered worthless -- indeed a very dangerous and sad perspective. So when I actually began reading scripture, instead of merely parroting narratives passed down to me in my childhood, I came upon several unforeseen road bumps, and the Bible as I thought I knew it suddenly appeared drastically different. You see, Job to me was my childhood hero, my homeboy. What faith he showed; there was nothing, nothing that could dissuade him! I so wanted to be like him, and would even parade around middle school wearing Jesus Bookstore t-shirts, encouraging the taunts from my friends and strangers. yes, I sure was different. The only problem with all of this was, was that I was completely disingenuous, for truth be told, I never really ever read anything about Job, for as I just shamefully admitted before, the first time I actually opened my Bible to the book of his story was when I was older and in college, during a time when my faith was already wavering like a poorly constructed Jenga tower. And thus, ironically, so it happened that these bookending chapters of Job became the official and final demise of what was then my religious enterprise. I simply couldn't make sense of these texts, or at least continue to justify and rationalize them any longer. I mean, it is plainly written here in the very first chapter of our text this morning, that God actually struck a deal with the Devil, and not only that but wagered on one of our lives, and not just any of us, but a blameless, righteous and pious soul! And not only that! But virtually sanctioned the deaths of all those around Job, from his livestock to his very own children! And even more! God somehow thought that repaying him years later with new daughters, spectacular in physical beauty would somehow make up for the tragically unnecessary and undeserving loss of his original offspring. I just couldn't rationalize it. Thus, under my fundamentalist, immature and impressionable mindset which based Everything on a Surface reading of scripture, it was simply too much to bear any longer. I could no longer rationalize the Word as divinely inspired, especially if it also contained such divine evil. And so I decided to part with religion, and in doing so, I relinquished the assumption that truth could at all be found within it. Well just how young and stupid I was, for there is perhaps more truth in Job than in any other written work that you will ever come across, Ever! And I turned towards this revelation not right away, but only a couple years back when I encountered the hymn we just sang a couple minutes ago - "It Is Well with My Soul." When I first heard it, not only was I so moved by its musical beauty, but I was equally compelled by its lyrics. Read them! So I researched the author, curious to discover his or her inspiration behind their conception. The author's name it turned out, as some of you may know, was Horatio Spafford. But what perhaps some of you do not know is that Spafford's life was blanketed in extreme tragedy, and it was right at the height of his tribulation that he penned these very lyrics. Spafford, you see, was once a wealthy business man, a lawyer who lived in Chicago in the second half of the 19th century. He had a lucrative firm and a thriving investment in the city's real estate, and more, a loving, full, and devoted family, encompassing a wife and four daughters. But in 1871, the first tragedy came in the form of the infamous Chicago Fire. The winds of extreme temperature swept through the city streets and left little standing, and Spafford's entire investment burned before his very eyes. For the next two years, he struggled to recapture both the style and prominence of his previous life, and thus thought it well, as you or I would, for the family to go on a much needed vacation to Europe. But at the last second, before they were to depart, a business dilemma was called to Spafford's attention, which threatened the entire voyage. Unwilling however to deny or delay his wife and daughters the pleasure of getting away, he decided it best for them to go on ahead of him. So Anna, his wife, took all four of their daughters and set sail on a steamship headed for Paris. On November 22, 1873, two years after that great fire, that steamship collided with an iron shipping vessel, and 226 people lost their lives. including all four of Spafford's daughters. All four. Anna was found floating unconscious on a wooden plank by another ship, alive. And when she touched land, she sent what is now then infamous telegram, "saved alone." Alone. Spafford, a religious man, must have wondered like Job what he had done to warrant this kind of tragedy. He must have encountered the most harrowing and terrifying of emotional pains. You can almost imagine what he must have thought in the silence of those first nights. "If only I didn't send them ahead. if only I was there with them. if only." Spafford had not only lost his business like Job lost his livestock, but now, just the same, he had lost of all of his children in one fell swoop. But amazingly, astonishingly, extraordinarily, just like Job, Spafford did anything and everything but curse or deny God. In fact, just days after the ship sank, Spafford, alone, boarded a different ship en route to meet his wife, and when he passed by the very spot where his daughters drowned, it was there at their grave site that he became so inspired to write the words to "It is Well with My Soul!" Now doesn't that just take your breath away? Here was a man who virtually lost everything, without rhyme or reason, and instead of turning on religion, instead of blaming God or finding God to be useless, he wrote and sang, "when sorrows like sea billows roll. even so it is well with my soul." Here then was my real-life Job, a human that stepped outside of the shadow cast by so many Biblical, other-worldly characters that sometimes seem so distant and foreign to us two thousand years later. And thus, it was through Spafford's example and his AWEsome hymn that I rediscovered Job, scripture, and religion as a whole. Because really, there just had to be something real.something true to his faith. how else could Spafford possibly write such a praising song when he perhaps should have done the exact opposite? Yes, there must have been a truth behind Spafford's unyielding faith, and I felt compelled to discover it. So with matured eyes and a more cultured center, I went back to Job, and did so without attaching to it any limits or expectations. I no longer required of it to be an exact historical account, with no strings attached. No, I merely read it for the Story that it was, and through such, I was shaken to the core as I discovered profound Truths and answers to riddles that still challenge us in our present era. You see, this sermon then is really for myself; just as it is for the children; and also for the teenagers and adults who are still not set in their faith; for all of those who are encountering doubts and denials, and listening to the voices of the masses around them. Our society, our schools, our media, cast religion off as a scam, as a crutch, as an obsolete fantasy. The Bible is looked at, much the same way I once did, as an incoherent collection of tall-tales and fables that are nice and appeasing to the heart which hopes, but that are otherwise irrelevant to the common age of science, capitalism and post-modern relativistic thought. But you see, this Bible, and so many of its stories. it is just so much more. And Job is the prime example of this. Job is so much more than its fantastic story, its curious dialogues, its suspicious allusions of a potentially not so benevolent God. Yes, Job is a Real life story of pain and agony but yet also one of wisdom, which is absolutely, 100% true. For just as all of us have at some point wondered, "why do bad things happen to good people," so too did the writers of the Old Testament. The prevailing wisdom prior to Job was the proverbial saying, "you reap what you sew," which virtually meant that if some terrible tragedy befell you, than you must have done something to deserve it. But through the evolution of human intellect, that stance became humanistically bankrupt. For all one has to do, either 3,000 years ago or today, is to open their eyes and look around, and see that so many people who suffer are completely innocent, that so many who struggle are utterly blameless, that so many who are born into poverty either devoid of riches or of spirit did not have a choice or a chance in the matter; no the "reap what you sew" wisdom was and is antiquated, and a new explanation was and is needed. And that's the essence of Job's greatness and validity. For it is a book that addresses this very concern, and beautifully crafts a Real, yet difficult answer to this question.namely, that there is in no fact no answer, that with the good also sometimes comes the bad, and all we can do in the end is learn how to cope and move forward still. But you might say, wait a minute, doesn't Job provide an answer? Isn't Job's life and family restored and his wealth doubled? Yes. But look at the very last line in Job 42, verse 17: "And Job died, old and full of days." What might first appear to be a self-evident and uplifting verse is in reality anything but. For this is the same expression used to describe Isaac in Genesis as well as David in 1 Chronicles, and both of whom we know did not enjoy a particularly happy ending to their existence. Thus, the author of Job here gives us one of his finest points, and through this literary allusion he articulates in profound truth, that even though you may be doubly blessed and restored by God, there are still certain wounds that will never truly heal. My friends, just how true is this? How many of us feel blessed but at the same carry the burden of regret, loss, death and agony? How many of us go throughout our days experiencing intense swings from happiness to sadness, from laughter to tears, from love to despair? Isn't life truly lived in both the up and the down? Oh, how then could anyone, even the old me included, ever say that this Bible isn't true? That the story of Job is without grounding or merit? No, my friends, Job is a pearl of the truest wisdom and teaches us in unparalleled brilliance that we ought to accept and cope as best we can with whatever it is that life throws at us, both the good and the bad. But now some of you might be thinking that this is too much. That it's too romantic to think that you could ever become like Job or like Spafford when staring into the abyss of such unthinkable tragedy. In fact, you might this very moment be thinking, "these are saints and extraordinary souls who are far better than I. I just can't, I couldn't. That there's no way I'd be able to write such a praising hymn, or carry on with my life in such a positive manner, I just couldn't; that it I'd probably end up turning to the bottle or to the needle, or to gambling or loveless sex. that I'd simply wouldn't be able to cope." Well would you know that there is a youth here today, a young man amongst you this very moment, who would think otherwise? For when Ian Brunell lost his father a short while ago, he never allowed it to crush him, he never said he couldn't. While most other teenagers his age would give up and resort to easy escapes, Ian has done anything but that. He works two jobs, both so he can go out and have fun with his friends and also so that he can help provide with and for his loving mother. He told me this week that he has dreams of studying abroad in Europe and perhaps one day owning several extravagant hotels. Ian, my friends, Ian is the embodiment of the truth that is personified through Job. And even though he most certainly carry's on full of days with the living pain of his father's loss, Ian has refused to do anything other than cope and move forward. And even though, and even though he would be the first to tell you that he is not blameless, that he is not and never will be Job or Spafford, Ian nonetheless is a living testimony to strength, courage and hope, and is the emblem for all of us who think that we can't. Take pride Chestnut Hill, Ian is a son of this church. My friends, how then will you cope? Amen. |