“Wait, what happened?” my eyes widened as the pastor shared details of the tragic death of a young man in our church. It was senseless, completely preventable, and tragic. His mom had been in the small group I was leading, so I felt like I should do something. But what could I, a 25 year-old seminary student with no kids, possibly say or do to comfort his grieving parents in the middle of an unspeakable tragedy? “Just show up,” an older minister encouraged. Obediently, I did though I didn’t completely understand why.
The scenario above hasn’t exactly repeated itself, but everyone is acquainted with senseless violence, tragedy, or unexpected illness/death. It’s completely natural for those suffering in such circumstances to ask questions like, “Where is God in this?” “If God is so good, then why…”, or “How could a loving God allow…” and countless other versions of the question. It’s also completely natural for committed Christians to feel like their role in these circumstances is to try to help the suffering understand God’s role in or plan through the tragedy. We say well-meaning things like, “God surely has a plan,” or “Trust God’s goodness” that often come across as salt in the wound rather than balm for an aching soul.
Without thinking, well-meaning Christians play the role of Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite from the story of Job.
When Orthodoxy isn’t the Point
After a brief prologue (Job 1-2), much of the book of Job is structured around a series of speeches. Job makes a speech complaining about his unjust suffering to which one of his friends responds with a defense of God and an insistence that this is all because of Job’s sin, to which Job responds with a refutation, followed by another friend tagging in to pick up the argument, and around and around we go for almost 30 chapters. Then, a younger man named Elihu chimes in for 5 chapters worth of speeches in which he rebukes everyone but takes up the argument of Job’s friends.
We’ll come back to what happens next shortly and try to identify where this all goes so sideways, but for now I want to point out something that is often missed in conversations about Job. If we skipped the prologue which describes events occurring in Heaven and approached the book with only the knowledge of the human actors, we would likely agree with Job’s friends. While we may not go so far as to insist that Job’s suffering is because of his sin, the strategy of many North American evangelical Christians when someone is in the midst of suffering is to attempt to defend and exonerate God.
This is exactly what Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar, and Elihu do for more than half of the book of Job. Their arguments appear orthodox. Their reasoning makes sense and feels more objective than the emotional decrees that Job makes. If we removed the knowledge we gain from the first 2 and final 5 chapters, we might find ourselves nodding along with much of what they say and cringing a bit when Job speaks.
But we shouldn’t remove the knowledge we gain from the first 2 and final 5 chapters. Because what we learn there means everything to how we understand Job’s story.
He Said What, Now?
Imagine you’re Eliphaz. You’ve been going round and round with him for a while now and no one seems to be making progress. Job is entrenched in his position that he’s innocent and insisting on having an audience with God. You’re entrenched in your position that God doesn’t afflict righteous people unjustly. No one is making progress.
Finally, God shows up. It appears that Job is having a conversation with God (Job 38-41:6), but you’re unprepared for when God turns his attention to you.
What are you expecting? Are you scared out of your mind? Maybe you’re expecting a “Well done” from the Lord.
Instead, God says:
7I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has. 8 So now take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and sacrifice a burnt offering for yourselves. My servant Job will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer and not deal with you according to your folly. You have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has. —Job 42:7-8
God Himself just told you to your face that He was angry with you. Further, He told you two times that the reason for His anger was because “you have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has.”
If that doesn’t make you re-evaluate the way you’ve read Job, I don’t know what will. God showed up in the story and rebuked the guys whose arguments sounded the most orthodox and said that all along it was Job who had been speaking the truth about Him! Job, whose speeches mostly consisted of emotional declarations of God’s injustice, his innocence, and his desire to appeal his case with God face-to-face.
Job eventually received that opportunity, but what happened in that interaction is for another blog.
For the purposes of this blog, let’s remember that according to God, Job’s friends are the ones in the wrong for this whole debacle.
It Didn’t Have to Go This Way
Piling on Job’s friends is pretty easy once we understand that, according to God, they were in the wrong. But that also misses the point. Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar didn’t show up in the midst of Job’s suffering and immediately begin defending God. Their response was almost the direct opposite:
11 When Job’s three friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite, heard about all the troubles that had come upon him, they set out from their homes and met together by agreement to go and sympathize with him and comfort him. 12 When they saw him from a distance, they could hardly recognize him; they began to weep aloud, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads. 13 Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was. —Job 2:11-13
They started out so well! The whole purpose of their time with Job was to “sympathize with him and comfort him.” And when they saw their disease-ridden friend who had lost his children, his home, his possessions, and his health, they sat in silence with him on the ground for seven days.
How did we get from that to 30+ chapters of contentious debate? Because when Job finally spoke out of the bitterness of his soul in chapter 3, Eliphaz couldn’t recognize it as lament and bitterness. Instead, he felt compelled to defend God.
Perhaps that’s why when God addresses Job’s friends in chapter 42 only Eliphaz is rebuked by name.
Sympathize and Comfort
Six months before I graduated seminary my wife and I experienced a series of misfortunes that made it feel like our lives had completely fallen apart. The icing on the cake was a miscarriage that compounded our feeling of being abandoned by God.
To make matters worse, we lived and worked on a seminary campus. I managed the campus coffee shop, a rather public-facing job, which meant everyone knew what had been going on with us. And, like good seminarians, everyone was concerned for my faith. I received a lot of the well-meaning exhortations to “Trust God” and reminders that “God has a plan” that I mentioned earlier.
After a few weeks, I had had enough. I was angry. I was hurt. And it felt like no one wanted to acknowledge that these feelings were appropriate for what we had been going through. Everyone was ready for us to just move forward with seemingly no acknowledgement of our pain. I went to work that morning not sure what I would do the next time someone expressed what felt like empty sentiment to me, but knowing it wouldn’t be a good response.
About an hour later a professor walked in. Professors got free coffee or tea and I knew what everyone generally drank, so without saying a word I made his tea and handed it to him. He nodded, said “Thanks,” and turned around to walk away. After he took a few steps he stopped and looked at me over his shoulder. “Oh no.” I thought. “Not him. He’s going to be the one that feels my wrath.”
He began walking back up to the counter while I tried to contain my bubbling rage. “Ya know,” he began, “30 years ago when my wife and I were missionaries in Columbia we had a miscarriage.” My heart dropped. I didn’t know this.
He continued, “And even though it was 30 years ago, every year on that day we both feel sad.” He looked at me, smiled, and walked away.
After I stood there dumbfounded for a minute or so, I went to my desk and weeped. Someone understood. Someone knew the pain and knew it wasn’t the end of the story.
It still took time, but that was the day my healing began. Someone saw my pain, knew it was valid, and gave me hope that this wasn’t the end of the story. And he did it all without feeling the need to defend God.
Give Your Presence, Not Your Arguments
I often remember that professors actions when my students know someone going through unspeakable suffering. Now, my exhortation to them is the same as that I received from the older minister while I was a seminarian: “Just show up.”
When someone is going through unspeakable suffering they often do not need your arguments. They will not benefit from your theological exercise of sense-making. They need your presence so they do not have to bear the burden alone. They need you to hope for them when their hope is lacking. And they need you to be able to stand under the weight of their pain and doubt when it feels like they can’t stand for themselves.
We have to recognize that it is normal and good for people to speak out of the bitterness of their souls. I mean, have you read the Psalms? It’s chalk-full of expressions of bitterness of souls directed towards God, questions about God’s plan and justice, and statements that sound a lot like someone suffering from depression.
God can handle your friends’/loved one’s questions, doubts, anger, and pain. Your job is to give them yourself. Offer sympathy and comfort. Be a balm for their soul. And leave room for God to do His work.
He’s much better at it anyway.
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