Comments for Joey

Sunday, March 22, 1998
Joey Noble

"Mourning into Dancing"

Job 7: 1 - 6; 42: 1 - 5; Romans 14: 7 - 9

The most difficult faith question for most of us is "Why do bad things happen to good people?" We long for good people to be rewarded, and even for bad people to be punished, but our reason tells us that that is not the way it is. We look around us and see innocent babies dying, and we are totally devastated, We walk through the Holocaust Museum and shake our heads in utter disbelief. While we would like to blame the devil or pinpoint particular individuals, atrocities of war, shortages of food and housing are often the result of "ordinary" folks like you and me who lack a vision that includes all people. Further, natural disasters -- "acts of God" -- and the suffering and pain they cause lead us to further doubt God's power and ability to respond. Our OGHS offering that we dedicate this morning is one way we seek address the needs of those are touched by fire, earthquakes, floods. But we know there will be more needs than we can address, and we wonder, "why doesn't God punish evildoers? Why doesn't God bless those who call on God's Name for relief?

In our 9:00 adult education time this morning, Deacon Ellen Jennings led us in a discussion that focused on this question: "Is it alright with God if we suffer?" And if it is alright, what kind of a God do we worship? And if it isn't alright, why doesn't God do something about it?

Through the ages. people have grappled with these questions. The writer of Ecclesiastes seems to be in the camp of those who say, "Whatever will be will be." The author writes,

Those who wrote the psalms express anger and despair at the injustice they see around them. They cry out to God in their distress: Listen to these words from Psalm 31:

This psalm expresses desperation, and longs for the Lord to deliver him. Most of us have experienced something of this despair. And when God seems unresponsive, we seek to make some sense of it all. The insert in the bulletin gives several interpretations of suffering, but none of these theories satisfies me. While I would agree that "pain is a part of life", acceptance of this reality hardly comforts or consoles.

There are no easy answers., but again we turn to the Bible in the hope of finding strength and courage. The Book of Job is a remarkable story that appears in the Hebrew Scriptures. While it does not explain the mystery of suffering nor justify the ways of God, it does probe the depths of faith in spite of suffering.

Job is introduced in the first verse. He is described as an innocent and upright man who revered God and turned away from evil." Job is blessed with sons and daughters. He is also very prosperous -- 7,000 sheep; 3,000 camels -- and on and on. As we are introduced to Job, we are also let in on a heavenly conversation between God and Satan. Satan challenges God to test Job's loyalty. God agrees to this wager, with the only stipulation being that Job should not die. Immediately Satan brings calamity after calamity upon Job. Even though Job loses his children and all of his worldly possessions, Job remains faithful. He says almost matter-of-factly,

But Job's wife has had enough of the disaster's befalling Job. When Job is "inflicted with loathsome sores - - from the sole of his foot to the crown o his head," she screams out in rage: "Curse God and die!" But Job refuses to curse God. "Shall we indeed accept good from God," Job replies, "and not accept adversity?"

Three of Job's friends, having heard of Job's travail, come to see him. At first they simply sit with him -- practicing what I call "the ministry of presence". I have experienced this ministry from you in my own struggles -- a smile, a hug, a caring look that all tell me that I am not alone. It helps me -- gives me strength -- to know that others are accompanying me on my journey as they are able. There are no adequate words, so we sit silently together.

But sometimes there is a kind of restlessness that occurs. There must be something that can be done, or someway that all of this can be explained. Job's friends attempt to justify God's will and Job's suffering. They express their belief that Job must have done something to have merited God's punishment. As they continue to urge Job to repent, he explodes with grief, resentment, and outrage. Eventually he challenges God to charge him directly. God responds to this challenge through a storm, a kind of whirlwind, by saying that there is no way a human being can understand divine knowledge. God dismisses the friend's explanations, and accepts Job's acknowledgment that he is human and will never be able to understand the mind of God.

While the Book of Job does not answer all the questions I have about evil and pain, it does affirm that God's Presence is always with us. Further, it is a reminder that there is much mystery in God's Being, and that I simply have to accept that mystery with all of its ambiguity.and obscurity. I am helped to live with this mystery as I remember that others have had to walk their mysterious and unknown roads.. As they have walked, they have been aware that they are being accompanied on the journey. This accompanying Holy Spirit gives courage and strength. After the writer of Psalm 31expresses his distress, he ends this writing with an affirmation:

During the long period of slavery in our country, women and men were sustained by singing spirituals. As they sang together, their voices grew stronger;

Glory Hallelujah -- in the midst of suffering.
Glory Hallelujah -- in the midst of sorrow.
This is no shallow joy, no cheap grace.

The agony, the cruelty, the misery, the hard service. The injustices are very real -- and yet! and yet, "Glory Hallelujah." This kind of faith knows that real pain is a part of life. In the hurts, the brokenness, the injustice -- God is present. However empty and miserable and despairing we might feel, God does not abandon us.

God's staying power does sustain and strengthen us. This power is communicated to us in different ways. I recall a moving episode in the movie, Zorba the Greek., based on Nikos Kazantzakis' novel. Zorba is an emotional man, and at one point he meets the disappointment and frustration in his life with a dance. He begins the dance slowly, painfully,haltingly. After a time, the energy and power of the music and movement begin to gain momentum. The pace of the music picks up. Zorba's weeping slowly changes to a smile, and then to a laugh. In time, he is completely caught up in the dance. The dance becomes a means of healing and hope Our God of Sorrow is also the Lord of the Dance.

Additionally, the power and reality of God's love is communicated to us through each other, and we need to take this responsibility, this privilege seriously. We've all known a time when the caring of a friend, or even of a stranger, has sustained us in our sorrow. To be able to share our pain with another clearly helps the healing process. But how hard it seems to be for us to be willing to listen, to really listen to another We rush in with our own stories. Like Job's friends, we offer opinions, advice, judgment. We fill up the time and space with chatter,and, jokes --thinking we need to cheer up another, rush them through the pain to some kind of a happy conclusion. And yet we know that it is important to simply be with others in their time of sorrow, to listen, sometimes silently, so that the hurting ones can live into their pain on their own timetable. Listening in this way does require involvement, commitment, attentiveness, but it does not require that the pain be instantly relieved, or that we immediately engage in problem solving. There are times when the suffering is so great that it cannot be dealt with words.

But suffering does not last forever. Our faith teaches us that "weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning". The Resurrection does follow the Crucifixion, and so our Christian perspective is one of hope and promise. But if we are not willing to face fully the despair and suffering of the Crucifixion in our lives and in the world, then we cannot know the full power and joy of the Resurrection. If we run away from the depth of the pain, we cannot know the expanse of the joy! Our wondrous God embraces both. Paul reminds us of this

God is present in the midst of crucifixions and resurrections.

If we can take this assurance deep into our souls, if we can affirm the healing power of God's love to sustain us, whatever befalls, transformation begins to happen -- slowly, agonizingly even, but surely. The unfolding miracle of God's love is that it expands pain to include joy. Even as we wait for morning to come -- full of tossing until the dawn -- we can embrace glimmers of light. Just as the energy and power of the music transformed Zorba's dance of sorrow into a dance of joy, so God's energy and power can move through our sorrow and pain, enabling us to keep on with our journey, turning mourning into dancing.

I read a little story once that often comes to me in my times of pain and sorrow. A man and a woman were being chased by a tiger. They jumped from the edge of the cliff to escape, and on their way down, reached out and grabbed onto a bush for dear life. While hanging there, they noticed a wild strawberry growing out of a crevice in the rock. Carefully, they reached out, picked it, and shared the strawberry, saying to each other, "What a delicious strawberry!"

May our eyes be opened to see the wild strawberries around us, even as we weep and mourn. David and I give thanks for the "blessings in the midst" as we move along our cancer journey. These blessings, these signs of God's love, help us to endure. May you, also, find blessings and strawberries until we can all say with the psalmist:

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