Mint Chocolate Chip in a Dish, with Sprinkles

When I was a kid, my favorite flavor of ice cream was mint chocolate chip.  And every time my mom and dad took me to the ice cream place right there on the edge of town, I always ordered the same thing—mint chocolate chip, in a dish, with sprinkles.

Never a cone.  Always a dish.

Why?

Well, to put it kindly, I was a bit of a sensitive kid, but really, you would just call me anxiety-prone.

The idea of eating ice cream on a cone, where it might melt and drip down my fingers and make a mess, or—worse yet—fall off the cone into my lap or onto the street—that was the stuff of nightmares for me.  How could I possibly enjoy my ice cream if I was worried about such things?

The truth is—I wanted a cone, especially a waffle-cone, but I just couldn’t take the risk.  This was how I understood suffering as a child.  It was something to be avoided at all costs.

Today’s first reading takes us back to Job, our Biblical poster child for suffering.  And for Job, there is no running away from it.

Job is another one of those problematic books like Leviticus from a few weeks ago.  Job is widely considered to be the oldest book in the Bible and like Leviticus gives us—perhaps—a God that we are not familiar with.

In Job, God is basically bragging to Satan about his servant, Job.  Have you seen Job? God asks.  How awesome is he?  He praises me.  He’s always right on time with his burnt offerings and he’s always sacrificing the best of his animals.

God’s bragging here has always troubled me because it seems really out of character for Him.  Not that the God of the Old Testament isn’t concerned about offerings and sacrifices.  Going all the way back to Cain and Abel, He clearly is, but does God really love Job more because of his offerings?

I mean, honestly, here in Job, God seems like one of those parents with the “My Kid is an Honor Student” bumper sticker on his car.  Except God’s bumper sticker would read, “Hey, have you seen my servant Job?”

It just sort of seems beneath God.

And then we get this portrayal of Satan, who, in this interpretation, is merely “the accuser” and not the devil, fallen angel, denizen of Hell that we are used to.  All Satan is in Job is someone who has his doubts and challenges God.

“Well of course, Job praises you,” he tells God.  “Job’s life is perfect but take all that away from him and he will curse you.”

And God, in yet another way that makes me uncomfortable, says, “Challenge accepted.”  And God strips Job of everything, his wealth, his children, his health—everything.

The Book of Job seems more in keeping with the old Greek myths than it does with anything else in the Bible.  In Greek mythology, the gods are petty and always playing with the lives of humans.  And every hero must prove himself with ridiculous and obscenely difficult tasks.  Think of Hercules and Jason and Odysseus.

The Book of Job is just flat out bizarre, and it leaves us with—perhaps—the mistaken idea that God is responsible for our suffering, that God plans out our suffering in advance. 

And it’s difficult for me to believe that that’s the case.

In the past, I have used the example of Joseph, in Genesis, sold into slavery by his brothers and falsely accused of rape and imprisoned.  At no point does Joseph blame God for his suffering.  What he does do, is blame his brothers and he tells them in Genesis 50:20 that while they may have intended him evil, God has used his suffering for good, to save many lives.

But Job is more problematic.  Not only is God clearly the author of Job’s suffering, but God also seems to have no grand plan in mind.  He is not trying to save lives.  He’s simply trying to win an argument.  And so perhaps our first mistake in reading Job is to put too much emphasis on God’s motives, to try and read God’s mind and know His intentions when it comes to human suffering.

In fact, when Job questions God’s motives later in the book, God responds in Job 38:4, with, basically, “Where were you when I created the universe?”  In other words, God doesn’t have to explain Himself to Job and even if He tried, Job wouldn’t understand.

This is God’s way and the author’s way of saying the Book of Job isn’t about God’s motive.  Stop stressing over it.

So what is the Book of Job about?

Well, it’s about suffering right?

But here’s the crazy thing—what if I told you that the thing that should disturb you most, in this book, is not that Job suffered unimaginable loss … but rather that he had made it so far in his life without any prior suffering?

What if the strangest thing about Job is that he hadn’t ever really suffered at all?

Because here is what we all know to be true about suffering—it happens to everyone.  Everyone in this world suffers.  We can argue about the extent and severity of their suffering, but no one escapes this life without pain and loss.

Suffering is as much a part of our lives as breathing is—and, some might argue, maybe just as necessary.

Don’t get me wrong.  I still believe that God has no hand in our suffering.  He does not cause us pain.

But I also, one hundred percent, believe that God will use suffering to shape us into full and complete human beings.

In Richard Rohr’s new book, The Universal Christ, Rohr writes, “Only great love and great suffering are strong enough to take away our imperial ego’s protections and open us to authentic experiences of transcendence.”

Only love and suffering can bring us closer to God.

After all, didn’t Jesus experience both?

Paul tells us in Romans 3:3-5 that we, “also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,  and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”

Paul is not saying that suffering is a part of God’s plan for us.  He is not encouraging us to seek out suffering.  He is simply saying that suffering is a part of life.  And that by having faith in God, we know that however awful and horrible we suffer, God will use that to strengthen us, to give us hope—that in our suffering God’s love for us will manifest itself.

God’s love for us is ever present.  God does not hide Himself from us in our suffering.  He is present with us through everything.

This is the lesson of Job—that God is ever present.  God may not answer Job’s questions, but He does not hide from Job either.

Last year, I was at the zoo with my niece, who was three years old at the time.  Her mom got her an ice cream cone and wouldn’t you know—about half of it wound up on the sidewalk.  There were tears and my heart broke for her, and we all made appropriately sad faces. 

But at no point did I say to her, “You know if you had only ordered that in a cup or a dish, you’d be a lot happier.”

Loss, suffering—it’s part of life—it’s not something we can run away from.  It’s not something we can avoid.  But the important thing to remember is that even in our suffering, we are never alone.  We could all empathize with my niece that day.

But nobody is better at showing His love than God, the great Empathizer. 

Amen.