Miserable Comforters: Where Job's Friends Were Right & Where They Went Wrong

“Miserable Comforters: Job’s Friends”

Message @ Jericho Ridge– Sun, Jan 17 2021 (Series: Worst Year Ever)

Hello, friends.  My name is Brad and I’m part of the teaching and leadership team here at Jericho Ridge.

Some people are calling 2020 and the now, frankly, the first part of 2021, the worst year ever.  The hardships that many have and are experiencing are certainly mounting and the stress is palpable.  So we wanted to explore a book of the Old Testament that deals with questions of hardship and suffering and the interplay between Divine and personal responsibility.     

We are looking at the life of a man named Job.  He lived a very, very long time ago and there’s a book in the Bible tucked in just before Psalms, that bears his name.  As a quick refresher course from last weekend, Job is part of the wisdom literature tradition, meaning that it is intended to give us guidance for life and to answer some of our big picture questions, although not always in the neat and tidy ways we want it to. 

The rest of the book delves into the very normal question that you and I and most anyone would ask when bad things happen.  WHY?  Why did this happen to me?  Was it something I did wrong? Was God someone involved in this?  Is God punishing me?  The writer of Job is going to spend the next 40 chapters probing the big question that we are still asking today: (?) What’s the link between prosperity & piety? If I am ‘good’, doesn’t God OWE me ‘goodness’? If I’m experiencing bad things, doesn’t this mean I was bad?

The book seeks to answer this question by setting up a series of poetic conversations between Job and his three friends which we will meet today. Last week we learned that after being presented as the most righteous and the wealthiest dude in the ancient near east, Job’s life has taken a bad turn.  He’s had his own personal “worst year ever”.  After living a hashtag blessed life, Job has experienced catastrophic financial losses. His 7 sons and 3 daughters have died in a horrific accident, and how his persona health has deteriorated. 

He is at his lowest point.  He needs help and support.  He needs his friends, his community.  Surely they will help poor Job!  Let’s pick up the narrative in Job 2:11:  When three of Job’s friends heard of the tragedy he had suffered, they got together and traveled from their homes to comfort and console him. Their names were Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. 12 When they saw Job from a distance, they scarcely recognized him. Wailing loudly, they tore their robes and threw dust into the air over their heads to show their grief. 13 Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and nights. No one said a word to Job, for they saw that his suffering was too great for words.

This is where our Jewish friends get the practice known as sitting shiva.  Shiva means 7, and Job’s friends sat with him in his loss for 7 whole days of mourning.  They are joining him in the ancient ritual of grief and loss, waiting, throwing dust over their heads, tearing their clothes. This is high-commitment mourning and high-commitment friendships bonds. 

So before we rush to criticize Job’s friends, (and there is lots to criticize) I want us to pause and look at two things that they get right in this moment.  Things that you and I can take and apply into our friendship situations.

First. They show up & sit (for a week).

We don’t know what their schedules were or occupations or how far they travelled, BUT it is a high commitment to drop what you are doing, travel a long distance and sit with a friend in a time of need – for a whole week! Job is dealing the loss of his ten kids and if you place yourself alongside him, I wonder “what would I have done? What would I have said?”  And that’s the challenge, isn’t it?  We want do SAY something. 

But Job’s friends understand, at least in this moment, that when someone is going through hard times, sometimes it isn’t’ what you SAY that makes the difference.  It’s just showing up and sitting.  Being present with them in their grief.  Mourning with those who mourn. 

You see friends, The ministry of presence is often forgotten in the modern world.  A well-intentioned emoji or even kind words (‘praying for you’) are insufficient to honour deep pain.  Facebook or Instagram as connective as they are, are not sufficient spaces to show up in when a friend is in deep grief.  You need to get there. To be there. In-person.  To sit. To Listen.  To cry with them.  This requires putting aside your own agenda or calendar or what you might want said in that moment. 

I can remember when our daughter Sophie was an infant and was suddenly hospitalized for a respiratory virus.  We spent News Year’s Eve in Emergency.  And Pastor Wally came up.  And I don’t remember what he said.  I just remember that he sat with us.  He was the presence of Jesus to us in that time of chaos and anxiety.  Be a person who practices the ministry of non-anxious presence, friends.  It is such a gift in our world.

So that’s the first gift Job’s friends gave him.  The second one is closely related to that. They listen without trying to fix

In his book Being There, Dave Furman notes that: “There is a kind of ministry that is without words. Often we think that to truly minister to someone, we must swoop in and fix the issue. But what if, instead of offering our lessons, our insights, our theology, and our reasonings, we simply offered our ears?”  Sometimes the best thing you can do is Show up and shut up.

Because here’s one of the facts of friendship that I have learned the hard way:

• You will find out who your friends are when you are most vulnerable, not when you are at your most victorious! 

In my own life, when my character has been attacked, my family under fire, my integrity questioned, it is in those moments that you learn who your friends are. Not the moments when you are riding the waves of success. When you are at your most vulnerable, who are the ones whose couch you pour out your soul on?  They are the ones who carry you when you break down.  I am so grateful that God has given Meg and I these kinds of friends.  Ask yourself “what would it take for me to be that kind of friend?”   

So after this amazing display of friendship, sitting Shiva for 7 days, Job begins to speak at the start of chapter 3.  And I’m going to give you an overview of the next dozen chapters in beast mode so stick with me here as we’ll power through quickly but at a high level.

After a week of mourning, Job’s suffering leads to the place he wishes he was never born.  Job feels God has “surrounded him with difficulties” (3:23) Job asserts his innocence & that his suffering is not Divine justice.

The narrator has told us that Job is innocent.  Now Job affirms this as well – “what have I done that I’m in this state?”, Job asks (not unfairly).  Job wants to know if God has had something to do with this.  But Job also wants his friends to know that he is confident that this has not happened to him because he has sinned. 

Remember: the core question is the connection between goodness (piety) and blessing.  Job was experiencing incredible goodness, not he is experiencing incredible suffering.  WHY. Would this happen?  Job doesn’t have a good answer “3:26 “I have no peace, no quietness.  I have not rest. Only trouble comes”

And now begins the speeches.  Job’s three friends line up to give him words of comfort. Except they are really miserable comforters.  For two chapters, 4-5 Eliphaz (likely the oldest) holds court.  Let me give you the basic contours of his argument.  Look at Job 3:7-8… He makes his statement in the form of a life-experience question:   “Stop and think! Do the innocent die? When have the upright been destroyed? 8 My experience shows that those who plant trouble and cultivate evil will harvest the same.

He says, in essence, “listen, Job, buddy.  I know you don’t think you have done anything wrong, but let’s talk about it for a moment.  How else do you explain you going from the top of the heap to the bottom?  Job 5:3 “I have seen that fools may be successful for the moment, but then comes sudden disaster.” 

We might summarize his thinking as follows:

• “This is how God runs the universe, Job! The righteous are blessed, the wicked punished!”
• His Logic: Job’s suffering must stem from Job’s sin

I mean, no one is innocent before God, am I right?  So God must be punishing you!

Look at 5:17 Do not despise the discipline of the Almighty when you sin. 18 For though he wounds, he also bandages. He strikes, but his hands also heal. 19 From six disasters he will rescue you; even in the seventh, he will keep you from evil… “We have studied life and found all this to be true. Listen to my counsel, and apply it to yourself.”

Let’s pause for a moment and think not theoretically or theologically but personally.  It can be very easy for us to judge Job’s friends for being theologically sloppy or speaking from their personal experience.  But at the same time, we can slide into this kind of thinking. 

We can look at a person with chronic illness and wonder “if wonder… maybe if they had a bit more faith, maybe they could be miraculously healed.”.  Or we can look at other countries and easily cast judgement. 

I cannot tell you how many pastoral leaders I know who are friends are fond of saying things like “well, this is just God’s judgement on our country for us walking away from God.” (whether it is with respect to the events at the capitol building or in the US over the past few weeks or with respect to a damaging weather that kills people or a new law being passed in Canada.  There is a deep desire in us to link causes and effects.  And so we do it sometimes unconsciously:

But here’s what the book of Job is going to help us de-link so pay attention:

• Judging a situation to be the result of sin may be an easy way to resolve it, but that doesn’t mean it is the right conclusion

Jesus comes across a man born blind and his disciples immediate thought accordingly to their religious world view is a cause-effect.  “Who sinned? This man of his parents?”  Somebody done messed up if blindness is the result, am I right?  And Jesus says “neither.” 

In other words, don’t draw conclusions about what God might be up to with respect to other people or nations by looking at the present situation.  You simply don’t have enough data to make a case.  Eliphaz says “Job is in a bad state, bad states are a result of God’s judgement on sin, therefore Job must have sinned.”   But friends,

• There are some things only God has the answers to (we’re guessing)

So Job spends a chapter refuting his friend on this issue saying in Job

6:10 “despite the pain, I have not denied the words of the Holy One” or 6:29 “Look at me! Would I life to your face? Stop assuming my guilt for I have done no wrong.  Do you think I am lying? Don’t’ I know the difference between right and wrong?”  Job still maintains his innocence. 

He also rails at God: Job 7:20-21 “ If I have sinned, what have I done to you, O watcher of all humanity? Why make me your target? Am I a burden to you? 21 Why not just forgive my sin and take away my guilt? For soon I will lie down in the dust and die. When you look for me, I will be gone.”

Well, this doesn’t sit well with the friendship group so #2 steps up to the plate for an attempt to convince Job of the errors of his view of God. Friend #2 is Bildad the Shuhite (no jokes about his diminutive stature in the chat, please).  Bildad does NOT pull any punches.  In fact, I would say his replies are some of the most pointy in the book!

8:2 “How long will you go on like this, you sound like a blustering wind!... “Your children must have sinned against him, so their punishment was well deserved. 5 But if you pray to God and seek the favor of the Almighty, 6 and if you are pure and live with integrity, he will surely rise up and restore your happy home. 7 And though you started with little, you will end with much.”

OUCH!  Can you imagine your friend coming to sit with you for a week after you 10 children have been killed and their best conclusion and best words of comfort are “well, I’m not entirely sure what happened but they must have deserved it!”.  I would unfriend that person immediately.  How insensitive and unkind that would have been to Job. 

But Bildad, we see through the book is more concerned about being RIGHT than he is about being kind.  He feels that Job’s questions are an affront to orthodoxy and thus need to be shut down.  Like now.  He says

• Your children got what they deserved & you’ll get the same” (8:4)
• His logic: God is Holy and Just so this can’t be God’s fault. The only explanation is some moral failure on the part of Job

8:20 – look, God will not reject a person of integrity” so because you are looking pretty darn rejected by God about now, you must not be a person of integrity.  This sounds harsh but they are applying the transactional view of God that we discussed last week and taking it to it’s logical extent.   Nothing that Bildad says is heresy.  In fact, he is worried that Job is the heretic and is saying untrue things about God by asking questions. 

Again, we need to make this personal….

• Most often it’s not only WHAT you say, but HOW you say it that people will remember

In Luke 4, the people are reflecting on Jesus’ teaching ministry.  And they say this” Everyone… was amazed by the gracious words that came from his lips”.  Jesus came from the Father, full of BOTH grace and truth. 

Here’s what I see happening, friends.  Sometime in our efforts to defend and stand up for capital T truth, we end up coming off without grace.  Especially online.  Jericho, some of you need to watch HOW you say things online.  You are conducting yourself with high-truth but low grace.  That is not acceptable.  I want you to conduct a social media audit..  A conversational audit.  What has my tone been as I shared content? 

You have likely seen meme (don’t often use them in preaching). But I thought this had applicability here.  Shouting the truth doesn’t make it palatable.  So as a person with a commitment to truth,  you have to    

Ask: Am I communicating truth in a way that is grace-saturated?

A spiritual practice for you might be that if you have something that you feel needs saying, you write it out and then sit with it for 2 hours.  If you still feel strongly about it, then show it to 2 people to get feedback.   Better yet, sit with it for 2 days and try to see if there are two other ways you can say the same thing with a different tone.  Tone matters.  That’s not a musical pun, by the way. 

You might win the argument but loose the ‘war’ based on the fact that you communicated truth but you did it without grace.  Remember Colossians 4:6 – “Let your conversation be gracious and attractive so that you will have the right response for everyone.”

After another rebuttal from Job, we finally today come to friend #3, Zophar.  Now Zophar is a bit miffed with Job and lets him have it right off the hop.  Look at Job 11: I’m going to read a longer section: “Shouldn’t someone answer this torrent of words? Is a person proved innocent just by a lot of talking? 3 Should I remain silent while you babble on? When you mock God, shouldn’t someone make you ashamed?

4 You claim, ‘My beliefs are pure,’ and ‘I am clean in the sight of God.’ 5 If only God would speak; if only he would tell you what he thinks! 6 If only he would tell you the secrets of wisdom, for true wisdom is not a simple matter. Listen! God is doubtless punishing you far less than you deserve!

7 “Can you solve the mysteries of God? Can you discover everything about the Almighty? 8 Such knowledge is higher than the heavens— and who are you? It is deeper than the underworld— what do you know? 9 It is broader than the earth and wider than the sea. 10 If God comes and puts a person in prison or calls the court to order, who can stop him? 11 For he knows those who are false, and he takes note of all their sins…

13 “If only you would prepare your heart and lift up your hands to him in prayer! 14 Get rid of your sins, and leave all iniquity behind you. 15 Then your face will brighten with innocence. You will be strong and free of fear. 16 You will forget your misery; it will be like water flowing away. 17 Your life will be brighter than the noonday. Even darkness will be as bright as morning.

18 Having hope will give you courage. You will be protected and will rest in safety. 19 You will lie down unafraid, and many will look to you for help. 20 But the wicked will be blinded. They will have no escape. Their only hope is death.”

Wow.  This having his friends around for comfort thing is really going well for Job, isn’t it?!  I read Zophar’s response as it encapsulates a lot of the thinking thus far from Job’s friends.  Basically Zophar

Introduces a law of divine retaliation (you owe, you must pay).

Like a negative bank balance… God is going to extract the pound of flesh from you in order for you to really feel bad about your sins.  Especially if you keep hiding your sin from God, wow – then God is really coming for you!   

And here friends, is the benefit of living under the Law of Love and the Law of the Spirit, the life in Christ Jesus that sets us free from the law of sin and death.  This language of a balance owing is not unhelpful language. 

You see, if you and I pause and think for a moment and if we are honest with ourselves, we know in our hearts and our heads that we have all done something that isn’t right.  We have all allowed evil to take root in our hearts in little and in big ways.  And participating – passively or actively in this, the Bible calls sin.  Sin is living out of alignment with God’s perfection. And so Job’s friend Zophar, is, on this count, correct. 

You and I do “owe” a debt that we can not make right in and of ourselves.  Oh sure, some of us try hard to be good people.  But you’ll never be able to right the wrongs, to move the balance from negative into positive simply by hoping against hope that on the day of your death, whenever that may be, that you have 50% plus 1 of good deeds over bad deeds.  That is simply not the way that the world works. 

The way that this works is that yes, all of us have sinned.  We all “owe” BUT someone stepped in to pay the outstanding amount.  Someone stepped in to re-write the balance sheet of your life and mind.  And that someone is Jesus.  Friend, the power of the gospel is that Jesus paid your debt by absorbing it on the cross.  And when you believe this in your heart, confess it with your mouth and begin to live a life of following Jesus, you get to experience. Something that Zophar, Bildad and Eliphaz could never have imagined: It’s called grace. 

Friend, if you have never taken this step or if you need to re-embrace grace and mercy, think of what your reaction would be in real life if you had amassed a huge debt and someone came along and paid it all off.  You would be over the moon wit gratitude.  That, friends, is what worship is – it is our response to a loving and gracious God who not only forgives that first time when we say ‘yes’ to this balanced transfer and become part of God’s family, but also in ever moment where we need grace.  For the unkind words spoken. For the attitude of racial or economic superiority. For everything you and I ever have done, ever will do, there is grace.

I invite you to sit with that as we move into this time of responding to God in worship in song.  Receive the vast end endless grace of God’s love for you.