St. Paul’s United Church October 4, 2009

World Wide Communion

Life Ain’t Fair – Rev. David Mundy

Job 1:1, 2:1-10 Mark 10:2-9

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Since the stock market downturn earlier this year I have had conversations with a number of anxious members here at St. Paul’s about the losses they have experienced and the effects on their finances. Millions of people around the world watched significant percentages of their investments evaporate in a matter of weeks and, let’s be honest, it has been scary. When I get my pension statement, I take a deep breath before opening the envelope.

During the same time a number of high profile financial scams have come to light and these are stories of unscrupulous financial advisors who have fleeced unsuspecting and trusting investors who have lost their life savings. Perhaps the most horrendous story is of Bernie Madoff in the United States, but here in Canada Montreal financial advisor Earl Jones is suspected of stealing between 50 and 100 million dollars from clients. Jones allegedly bilked longtime friends and his own daughters.

There was a story recently about Jones’ two secretaries who worked for him for years. He would speak about them being part of the Earl Jones family and they too trusted him, even though they never saw where the money he received went. One of them got money through an inheritance and asked the boss to invest it on her behalf, and she has lost all of it. To add injury to insult, angry investors assume that these two women had to know what was going on and have sent them insulting and even threatening letters. They have lost someone they thought they could trust, their jobs, their money, and the respect of others.

It all seems terribly unfair but they have discovered, sadly, that life ain’t fair. I’m sure some of you are saying “wonderful, I come to church for a bit of inspiration and I’m told what I already suspected –life isn’t fair!” I didn’t have to come here to discover that. But people of faith, including Christians have tried to figure why this is so. Why isn’t life fair?

This morning we listened to verses from the opening of a book which is part of the wisdom literature of the bible. The book of Job is an attempt to address the reality that most of us struggle with, that life is often not fair, even when we love God and do our best to lead good and conscientious lives.

As you may know, Job took a big hit in the stock market as well, although his stock were camels and sheep and goats, which represented wealth in ancient times. Then he is the victim of a natural disaster when winds blow down his house killing all his children. If that isn’t enough, his health fails, as we heard this morning. Job’s wife is really helpful when she suggests that he just give up being a decent person, curse God and die!

The story of Job was not intended to be a historical account but a way of getting at the mystery of why a loving and compassionate and just God seems to be MIA, missing in action, in some of the most troubling events of life. There wasn’t a real guy named Job and God and Satan didn’t actually make a deal over lunch one day to give Job a run for his money. But the author of Job who lived perhaps 2500 years ago had a remarkably good handle on the struggle we have to understand why bad things happen to good people – and they always do. After I came up with the title “life ain’t fair” I mistakenly typed in “God ain’t fair” and then realized my mistake and the reminder that often when life seems unjust we question the justice of God and even God’s existence.

Job is not a book full of answers to life’s tough questions. In a way this book is an extended parable which is much more an exploration than an explanation. Most of you will remember the book called When Bad Things Happen to Good People written by a Jewish Rabbi named Harold Kushner who wrote it because his son was born with a terrible disease that took his life two days after his fourteenth birthday. Kushner included a chapter The Story of a Man Named Job. He suggests, rightly it seems to me that the book of Job is about what most of us would like to believe

A. God is all-powerful and causes everything that happens in the world. Nothing happens without God willing it.

B. God is just and fair, and stands for people getting what they deserve, so that the good prosper and the wicked are punished.

C. Job is a good person. (And we try to be good persons.)

Kushner goes on to point out that when any one of these statements doesn’t seem true, or is out of kilter, then we do question the fairness both of life and of God. Of course the prominent atheists of our time would say “you have finally come to your senses –so curse God, get on with your life, then die.” One of the most popular books by atheist Christopher Hitchens is God is not Good: How Religion Poisons Everything, a title which suggests that the author is not ambiguous in his approach!

How is life unfair? Actually there are too many ways to count and perhaps that’s why we need stories like Job.

Certainly life doesn’t seem to be fair for those who are victims of natural disasters. This past week and onslaught of natural events including a tsunami and earthquakes and tropical storms hit Asia. Why were innocent people swept away and killed in the blink of an eye, or left homeless in the hundreds of thousands?

Life also feels unfair when our plans and dreams are dashed by circumstances beyond our control or our sense of “happily ever after” is undermined. The global economic downturn is as example. So are relationships which don’t turn out the way we had planned. This morning our other reading was about marriage and divorce, and we heard the words of Jesus offering the high ideal of what marriage can be. But many of us have been profoundly impacted by divorce, either personally or with our families and friends and we find it hard not to be bitter or cynical about what the institution of marriage means.

Perhaps the biggest challenge in holding on to our trust that life and God can be fair is being faced with serious illness or death. It’s fine to offer that death is a part of life until we are confronted by our mortality. A few months ago I was asked on short notice to conduct the funeral of a young man in his twenties whom everyone assumed was healthy, yet died suddenly in his sleep. None of the family knew me and needless to say, everyone was in shock when we first met, struggling to understand why he had been taken in this way. The anger of one close family member was almost palpable and she wanted to know why this had happened. I admitted that I had no idea why, and I didn’t try to offer any of the lame platitudes that get tossed out in these situations.

After she left the room the young man’s sister told me that while some of the other family members didn’t really want a religious ceremony at all, it was important to her because even though her faith was shaken, she needed that faith as well. She just couldn’t believe that her brother’s life was without meaning or that God had abandoned either him or them. Strangely, they asked me to include a phrase from the book of Job in my funeral message, part of a verse which this young man had intended to tattoo on his body:

.Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD. Job 1:21KJV

This sister’s choice to turn to God rather than away from God is essentially Job’s choice. Despite his wife’s advice and the counsel of his friends and his own sense of abandonment Job stubbornly sticks with God as his only option. At one point Job utters the words which many of us know from Handel’s Messiah “I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at last he will stand upon the earth; and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God.” In a way he is saying

Life Ain’t Fair

God Ain’t Fair

God is There

God is there. Our Christian story tells us that God also made an astonishing choice to enter into the pain and heartache of this world in the person of Jesus who suffered and died on our behalf. Protestant churches rarely feature a crucifix because we want to focus on the empty cross symbolizing resurrection. I think we are mistaken. While we celebrate the glory of Easter there is always Good Friday and Jesus’s words from the cross, “my God, why have you forsaken me?” Somehow this tragic, profoundly unfair story becomes our salvation.