Sermon: When the world walks out
When you are having a difficult time, who is the first person you call? And why do you call them? I am inclined to believe we call that person because we know as the American author Walter Mitchell declared,
“A real friend is someone who walks in
when the rest of the world walks out.”
A month ago, we looked at how when Job’s friends heard of Job’s terrible circumstances and suffering, came to him. When they arrived, the rest of the world had already walked out on Job. He desperately needed friends who would understand his situation, who would sympathize with him, who would stand by his side and offer him comfort and relief.
After Job’s friends sit quietly with Job for seven days and nights, Job pours out his frustration at God beginning in chapter 3. It is at this point that there is a dramatic change in Job’s friend’s attitudes towards him.
Job’s four friends begin to launch to arguments with Job to tell him why he is suffering in chapters 4-37. Their arguments reflect the conventional wisdom of the day that a just God would not allow the righteous to suffer unjustly.
Therefore Job’s suffering is a direct consequence of some specific that he has committed. The four friends or sometimes ironically called Job’s comforters are free to offer their insights into what specific sins Job has committed. Job knows better, he believes he is suffering unjustly and does not know why such calamity has occurred to him.
Job’s friends who started off well as his comforters, because Job’s accusers as they argue with him. The speeches of Job’s accusers lack of empathy, they lack full understanding, and they lack humility.
There is a certain contemporary feel to these numerous theological speeches in the midst of our current societal debates around the Pandemic, vaccination, and how best to get back to normal.
Job’s friends seem unable to comprehend that they may not have all the right answers to what is happening to Job. Their inaccurate human explanations add to the intensity of Job’s misery and suffering.
For example, in chapter 18, which precedes the chapter we read today, Job’s friend named Bildad, calls Job wicked. Bildad believes that the reason why Job is suffering is because he has sinned against God. He believes that Job’s losses of family, property, and health are a sign of his wickedness because God always punishes the wicked and never the righteous as Job claims he is.
Bildad lived in a black and white universe where the good guys always wear white hats and win and the bad guys where black hats and always lose. Bildad’s judgments do not leave any room for the mystery of God’s will and God’s ways, which may not be apparent in any given moment. The big question being debated here is …
“How do you reconcile undeserved suffering with a God who is both almighty and just?”
That is a great question to wrestle with your not suffering. But when you are suffering do you want someone to point out your errors of your thinking or do you want someone to come along you to support you, hold your hand, and sympathize with you?
I don’t know about you, but I’ll take support over criticism and explanations every time.
You have to wonder how Job’s friends would have responded to Jesus and his suffering?
Would they have sought to understand God’s plan in letting the sinless Jesus suffer for those who sin and fall short of God’s intentions for them?
Or would they have stuck to their principles and beliefs that God blesses the righteous and punishes sinners as the Pharisees did of Jesus’ day?
Their response to Job’s suffering tells me that they would have joined the ranks of the Pharisees who condemned Jesus to death who didn’t share their views and follow their interpretations of the Mosaic Laws.
One of the important lessons we learn from Job’s friends and their attempts to figure out what is going on with Job is that our understanding is limited and to offer anyone any sweeping explanations of why someone is suffering is foolish, wrong, and unloving.
Pride motivates us to speak and explain things that can’t be easily explained, it creates barriers and not bridges. It allows one to walk away from those who suffer untouched and without doing anything to relieve the suffering.
Love on the other hands motivates us to listen, to understand, to enter into another’s pain, to stick around with the discussions get messy, and to do what we can to share the burdens of the suffering.
I don’t about you but it saddens me deeply that in the last 20 months of this pandemic so many people have wasted so opportunities to care and come along side others in favor of voicing their opinions that cause only harm and misery to those who are hurting around them.
Like Job, I suspect we have all experienced pain and hardship. I suspect we have been on the receiving end of unhelpful explanations for what has happen to us, our loved ones or our world. I know that I have given my share of foolish explanations to people over the years.
Perhaps you have experienced the pain of feeling you or those you love, have been abandoned by God. Abandonment is such strong and painful human emotion. We hear Jesus use the words from Psalm 22 to express his abandonment from God on the cross.
We hear this in Job’s cry in verses 2 and 3 of chapter 19 demonstrate, which are addressed to his not so helpful and uncaring friend Bildad,
“How long will you torment me,
and break me in pieces with words?
These ten times you have cast reproach upon me;
are you not ashamed to wrong me?
Later in chapter 19, Job cries out his longing for a Redeemer or someone who will walk in when the rest of the world has walked out,
“For I know that my Redeemer lives,
and that at the last he will stand upon the earth;
and after my skin has been thus destroyed,
then in my flesh I shall see God,
whom I shall see on my side,
and my eyes shall behold, and not another.
My heart faints within me!”
Surprisingly in the midst of his suffering Job expresses his confidence that even if he died, he would have a Redeemer, who will offer comfort, sympathy, and even true judgment upon him, which he has not experienced from his so called friends.
The word “Redeemer,” which Job uses, refers to what is called a Kinsfolk Redeemer. A Kinsfolk Redeemer was one who walks in to reclaim family members who had been sold into slavery (Lev. 25:25).
A Kinsfolk Redeemer was one who would go to court on behalf of a wronged relative (Prov. 23:10-11).
In the book of Ruth, Ruth’s distant relative Boaz is a Kinsfolk Redeemer who was willing and able to rescue her, restore her family’s property, and thus gives her new life after the death of her husband Elimelech.
People who are suffering like Job need a Kinsfolk Redeemer “who walk in when the whole world has walked out.”
Job’s desire for a Kinsfolk Redeemer foreshadows the coming of Christ, our Redeemer. Although Job does not know Christ yet, he recognizes God as his Redeemer.
Despite his suffering, Job clung to his hope that God would provide a Kinsfolk Redeemer to give him relief from his dire circumstances and from his friends turned adversaries.
We are reminded this morning as we come to the Lord’s Table that God has provided us with a Kinsfolk Redeemer who walks in the when the whole world walks out on us.
We are reminded too that Jesus has redeemed us from our slavery to our sin, to our need to always be right and to criticize those with whom we disagree.
By inviting us to join him at his table, Jesus challenges us to continue join him in his important work of supporting those facing crisis with words that will in the long run support, build up, and comfort.
May God give us the wisdom to follow in the example of Christ our Lord, who is our strength and our kinfolk redeemer.
Amen!