This is Rev. Graham Crawford’s sermon for 04 October 2015 – World Communion Sunday –

Over the years people have described life in many ways:

• Life is like a box of chocolates, according to Forrest Gump,
• Life is a Fury, slinging flame, according to Tennyson,
• Life is an empty dream, according to Longfellow, and
• Life is a joke that’s just begun, according to Gilbert.

Life is many things to many people but one thing is for sure that  – for many people – life ain’t a bowl of cherries. Or, if it is a bowl of cherries, someone has eaten half of them and left you the stones!

Life is tough, life is hard

I know that for many, who I have been visiting over recent weeks, it seems as if life throws us many curveballs and seems intent on kicking you when you’re down. If that is how you feel, you are not alone. In fact, you are far from it. Indeed, I would even suggest that, compared to some, it is not as bad as you might at first believe.

Taiwan has now been hit by two super typhoons in the last few months. There have been deaths, hundreds left without homes and millions without power. As someone said recently about the refugee crisis in the Mediterranean, people would only ever get in a boat if they thought it was safer than the land, yet we do not know how many hundreds have died trying to cross the Mediterranean in order to seek safety in Europe.

Christians in Pakistan are afraid to open their mouths because of the new blasphemy laws, where they can be stoned on the spot by Islamic extremists. No, life may not be easy for us, indeed, I know that, for some, the last few months have been quite horrific, but all things are indeed relative.

Words from an unknown author

In the midst of all these things that are going wrong, in the midst of trials and tribulations, an unknown author tries to talk to us. An unknown author tries to say stand firm. An unknown author tries to teach us some simple truths about suffering and our faith. Let us hear what the author of the book of Job has to say:

2 On another day the angels came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them to present himself before him. 2 And the Lord said to Satan, “Where have you come from?”
Satan answered the Lord, “From roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it.”
3 Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil. And he still maintains his integrity, though you incited me against him to ruin him without any reason.”
4 “Skin for skin!” Satan replied. “A man will give all he has for his own life.5 But now stretch out your hand and strike his flesh and bones, and he will surely curse you to your face.”
6 The Lord said to Satan, “Very well, then, he is in your hands; but you must spare his life.”
7 So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and afflicted Job with painful sores from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head. 8 Then Job took a piece of broken pottery and scraped himself with it as he sat among the ashes.
9 His wife said to him, “Are you still maintaining your integrity? Curse God and die!”
10 He replied, “You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?”

In all this, Job did not sin in what he said.

In the ancient world, there was a quite simple correlation. If you were sick, if bad things happened to you, it was obviously your fault. You sinned and therefore God (whichever god you believed in) punished you. This world view is clearly seen in passages such as Psalm 38 where the psalmist writes:

1 Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger
or discipline me in your wrath.
2 Your arrows have pierced me,
and your hand has come down on me.
3 Because of your wrath there is no health in my body;
there is no soundness in my bones because of my sin.
4 My guilt has overwhelmed me
like a burden too heavy to bear.
5 My wounds fester and are loathsome
because of my sinful folly.

Everything that had befallen the writer was, in their mind, quite clearly because of sin.

The writer of Job could not disagree more.

Bad things happen to good people

The writer of Job was quite clear that misfortune, death, illness and disease could afflict the most faithful and pure and, in so doing, promotes a line of thinking that was supported by none other than Jesus Christ.

This can be seen by the exchange between Jesus and his disciples recorded in John, Chapter 9 where we read:

“9 As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

3 “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.”

This is a very similar line to Job in that, while the most horrendous things befall Job, including the deaths of most of his family, he not only defends his own integrity but also God’s.

He is not about to do as his wife suggests and curse God and die. He is out to prove that his redeemer lives and he will be pronounced faithful in the end and, in so doing, he will display the works of God through his faith.

He is out to prove that disasters can befall the most faithful people because bad things happen, not because of his unfaithfulness, but simply because disease, death and sin are here. In so doing, he proves his mettle in a very dramatic way.

As he says at the end of our short passage:  “Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?”

Good and bad happen to everyone: it is how you respond to the good or the bad that is a mark of your faith.

Exposing superficial faith

A second reason for this story (for it is generally recognised that this is a folk tale that has been incorporated into the Bible to make a theological point) is to counter a very pervasive common thought.

There are many who have very superficial faith, many who play the game of religion for what they can get out of it instead of what they can contribute. This is effectively what the tempter accuses Job of having.

God says that there is no one on earth as faithful as Job and the tempter says: “Well, it’s no wonder. He was a man who had everything. He was the Bill Gates of his day.” The tempter says: “Take away everything and see his faith go with it.”

And God lets him test his theory. God stands by Job’s faith. God is confident that Job’s faith is not superficial. God is confident that it is not about what he gains but it is a genuine faith against which the armies of hell cannot prevail.

It is a very simple tale, simply told

It is even perhaps a little too simplistic for our day and age, particularly if you fast forward to the end of the tale when Job is rewarded for his steadfastness by even greater wealth and a larger family.

After all, we all know many people who have suffered in life until their very deathbed who never got such a material reward for their faithfulness.

How would these words sound to the beleaguered Christian community in Mosul suffering persecution and death at the hands of ISIS? How would they sound to the parent who has just lost a child or the would-be parent who has just suffered a miscarriage? I think the words would sound pretty hollow.

But these words are not to be taken in isolation

Chapter 42 of Job does not mark the end of the Bible or even the Gospel story. The story goes on. The story is told of a father who did watch his son suffer and die, even although they were sinless. The story is told of a man who said that life was not about the rewards you get but the gifts you give, the love you share. The story is told of a Kingdom where eventually every tear will be wiped from every eye, when the suffering servant, the suffering Son of God, returns to take his people home.

On this world communion Sunday, as we celebrate the feast that our Lord Jesus Christ himself prepared, I believe we need to do more than just accept that bad things happen to good people. We need to do more than simply cling to a superficial faith, based on what we can gain personally from our belief in Jesus Christ as our Saviour and Lord.

This day was established so that Christians in all corners of the world – from the richest in the First world to the poorest in the Third world – from those whose faith is easy to those whose faith results in torture and death – might celebrate our common faith and, by these elements, be united in one goal: the Kingdom of God.

Yet, more than that, we must commit to working for that Kingdom so that we do more than play the game of religion for what we can get out of it but, instead, support those whose faith is being tested, support those who are suffering from tragedy, research and find out what we can do to support the Christian communities from Syria to Mosul, from Egypt to Pakistan, who face persecution and death on a daily basis because Jesus is their Lord and Saviour.

This is about more than drinking and eating together. This is about how we can show our love for Christ through our love for our brothers and sisters in the faith in practical action.

Image: Looking north into the Moray Firth from Lossiemouth West Beach on a calm autumn evening.