Faces on Faith: Response to suffering, tragedy matters
In early August, several members of our spiritual community completed a weeks long exploration of the Book of Job. I’m not sure they’ve recovered yet. Or me.
To say that the Book of Job is challenging is like saying the past summer here was “warm.” The book presents a constant and lingering set of questions, quandaries and curiosities in regard to its central theme of the nature of suffering, God’s role in it, and God’s and our response to it. It is, as one commentator puts it, perhaps the most familiar and, at the same time, least understood book in the Bible.
For example, the book has given rise to the popular expression “the patience of Job.” Not exactly. Throughout the narrative, Job is anything but patient. He constantly argues with and rails at the three friends who at first come to comfort him but then quickly, as we can so often fall into, turn to blaming Job for his suffering. And Job also continually argues with and rails at God.
Then, of course there’s God. Despite Job’s constant pleas and demands for God to explain why he has lost everything and his life turned to ashes, when God does finally show up at the end of the book, God offers nothing in the way of anything resembling a specific “this is the why of your suffering” answer.
But as understandably unsatisfying as that is to so many who have read and studied and tried to make sense of this story over the centuries, perhaps that is one of the most vital things the book may be suggesting to us. Perhaps one of the ways we might see this portrayal of God in a helpful — though probably not completely helpful manner — is that what matters more than “Why?” to God when it comes to suffering and tragedy is the response, the “What now?”
That certainly was in clear evidence a year ago in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian. Of course, the “Why?” matters. It matters how buildings are constructed. It matters how land is developed. It matters how we treat and care for — or don’t care for — God’s creation. That matters and matters greatly going forward. But first and foremost, the “What now?” mattered. What mattered most was saving people; offering them shelter and food and water; helping them clear and clean up; giving them comfort and support. And over and over again, that’s what we saw people do. Over and over again, that’s what you did.
That was what mattered most at that time, and still matters most in this continued time of suffering and struggle for so many. It was what Job’s friends did for a brief time before they turned to blame and condemnation. And in the end, while God does not provide a specific answer to the “Why?” of Job’s suffering, God does call his friends to task for making blame and condemnation of Job their priority over offering him shelter, food and water; helping him to clear and clean up; giving him comfort and support.
The Book of Job then suggests, among many other things, that we are called to be the “What now?” people of a “What now?” God. As we were during Ian and its aftermath. As we have been in the year since. As we will continue to be.
The Rev. Dr. Mark Boyea is senior minister at the Sanibel Congregational United Church of Christ.