Q- What should we do in the face of suffering?

Q- Why do bad things happen to good people?

Q- What about Job -- the idea that the suffering started with a bet between God and Satan; and what about his wife and children?

Kirk Bingaman, Teaching

Why do the innocent suffer? Especially people of faith. You would think the very least God could do is keep the faithful out of harm's way, out of the way of difficulty and misfortune. Seems Fair: "In devoting my life to you, God, in giving myself in service to your church, I would hope that you would take care of me." A little quid-pro-quo, in other words. Not that we think about this consciously or rationally, but this primal expectation for a just and orderly universe is still there nonetheless, in the gut, waiting to be reactivated in times of crisis.

A couple years ago I shared with you my misfortune at the New Jersey Seashore. If you were here that Sunday, you might recall that I had prayed, "O Lord, my God, lead me in the right direction, lead me in the right direction. I'm a person of faith, remember? Moreover, I'm a minister. So, let's be fair, God. Help me find the blasted car keys."

What a wonderful day it had been, at least up to this point. But right after lunch on that spring afternoon, after walking 2 miles down the beach and 2 miles back (with my 5-year-old daughter), after having a picnic lunch, after collecting beach "treasures," I discovered that at some point my car keys had fallen out of my jacket pocket. What to do? There was only one thing I could do: retrace my steps. But there was no way I could ask a 5-year-old to walk another 4 miles. So I put her on my shoulders and began to walk the very same stretch of beach all over again.

"Please, Lord," I whispered, "Please, Please, Please. I've learned my lesson. From now on I'll be more responsible. I'll get another key made, right away; maybe keep it in my wallet. Of course that wouldn't help me now, since my wallet is in the glove compartment. Lead me in the right direction. This was supposed to be a day of R & R, not a day full of additional stress. C'mon, God, remember that I have to be back at the church this evening to lead a meeting, doing your work." Up the way, I spotted an older man with, of all things, a metal detector. "Surely, O Lord, surely my keys have activated his metal detector." Wrong! To make a long story short, my wife, Sam, after working all day, had to drive an additional four hours - to and from the seashore - in order to bring me the spare key.

Now, what is going on here? Job, a devoted person of faith, no better, no worse than anyone else, cannot get God to be responsive to his plea for help and relief. A minister cannot get a little break - it was not as if I was asking God to miraculously part the Atlantic Ocean. And, my hunch is that you, too, cannot always get God to sit up and take notice and act. Or is it just me, and Job? Why doesn't God do something, when we have worked our tails off and the business still folds or staff positions are cut? Why doesn't God do something when we are struggling with depression, wondering if the "fog" is ever going to lift? Why doesn't God do something, anything, when we pray for a sick friend or relative to get better, but they do not; their condition gets worse? Why? Why?

Maybe it's the theology of soul-making, or character development - God wants to toughen us up, spiritually, by putting us through the fire of trials and tribulations. Now, do not get me wrong, I am all for developing to the fullest one's character. But, every trial and crisis is divinely orchestrated, to see if we have what it takes, the spiritual toughness to pull through? Carol, the seminary intern at the Lloyd Center this year, was just informed that her ovarian cancer has returned, and she must undergo a fourth round of chemotherapy treatments. She wants so badly to live to see her high-school-age children graduate, go to college, get married, have children. But maybe she won't. God wants to test her faith. I don't buy it.

Or, Elaine Pagels, who I used to see around the university and seminary campuses at Princeton, religion professor and author of the best-selling, The Gnostic Gospels. She recounted, in yesterday's New York Times, how difficult it was to get through that period of time in the late 1980's, when her 6-year-old son died of pulmonary hypertension and, one year later, her husband fell to his death while mountain climbing. God wanted to test her faith? I don't buy it. Nor does Elaine Pagels buy it. As she puts it, the truth that came after these deaths is that what happened is a morally inexplicable series of accidents.

Which heads off at the pass another possible theological interpretation, that maybe the difficulty we experience in life is a matter of morality. Take the Book of Job: Job's "friends" will pontificate, ad nauseam, about their "cause and effect theology:" Job suffers because he has sinned. God forbid there should be any ambiguity or mystery in the universe. The flip side, of course, is that if we do not suffer, if we manage to somehow escape misfortune, then we must be living right, without sin. I don't buy it. Job and my colleague Carol and my former teacher Elaine Pagels are like you and me, no better, no worse than the next person.

So where is God when we suffer? Where is God when it hurts? Not in any cause and effect theologizing, that is for sure. Instead, God is in our compassionate acts, as we work to support, encourage, and sustain one another through our successes and failures, through our joys and sorrows. The harvest of human need is indeed plentiful, even within this faith community. May God send us forth to be the bearers of God’s love, peace, and healing.

Douglas Huneke, Teaching

When we contemplate suffering, we think of Job. It’s as if we’ve lived parts of his story, asked his questions. Job gives us spiritual metaphors and language to wrestle with eternal questions of suffering, grief and loss.

How Job came to suffer is the subject for next week. For now, we remember his staggering descent into painful affliction and the loss of his children, fortune, possessions, and reason to exist. We waited and waited through all the words and protestation, and finally Job asked the eternal questions: Why? Why me? What is the meaning of all this? Where is God?

More than reparations or happiness, Job wanted an answer, a reason, or a meaning. Job rejected easy answers, quick fixes, and silence. He boldly spoke to God, drew God out, made God be present and speak. But instead of a simple rejoinder such as, "Because you did wrong," or offering eternal answers to eternal questions, Job could only hear from God a long string of unrelated questions.

I do not believe the usual Christian interpretation of the origin of Job’s suffering, nor the way the story ends. The origin of suffering is the struggle in Job’s heart-of-hearts, not a bet between God and Satan. Regarding the traditional ending, rather than the wistful fantasy of repentance and pay-offs -- restoration of fortune, property, new children, and faith -- Job could have asked: Why am I blaming God for my fate and that of my innocent children and employees? How do I know and understand my God? Why does my suffering keep me from God and faith?

Is Job the final, unsatisfying word when we suffer pain, loss, and grief? We must look deeper. Job discovered in himself that the empathic Divine Presence must always be the final truth in human suffering. And so it is for us: Christ and the Holy Spirit always present in our trials.

Job teaches us to simultaneously look inward to understand, and for that task, to take strength and guidance from our faith. From Job we learn to always draw the caring Divine Presence into our suffering and struggles.

Arguably, Job teaches us that suffering comes to all people and never by divine action -- that is why God did not, could not, directly answer Job’s questions. The answers were in Job’s heart; God does not make deals with the devil to cause suffering. By staying attuned to his own experience of suffering, and rejecting the diversions of his friends, Job teaches us to resist every cause of suffering and to never equate one form of suffering with another.

We learn from Job that our challenge in times of hardship, suffering, or tragedy is to begin shifting our angle of vision so that God’s light begins to illumine that fierce darkness. Jane Calender’s poem, "Mourning Dove," captures the essence of these lessons,

"Pale dove, perching

on the railing of my mind,

your soft sound and

gentle presence comfort me.

You bring me under the

eaves of God’s house

where white jasmine

climbs the wall

in the sunlight that

I do not see now.

Still, in my grief,

I am sheltered under

your wing of peace."