October 28, 2012 | 4:00 p.m.

A Sermon Series on Job: Part 4

Adam H. Fronczek
Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Psalm 19
Job 42:1–6, 10–17

Thank God there is a happy ending to Job. His fortunes are restored. He is given twice what he had before. His brothers and sisters all return to him—each of them bringing money and a ring to place on Job’s finger. His latter days are even more blessed than his early days: he has 14,000 sheep, 6,000 camels, 1,000 yoke of oxen, and 1,000 donkeys. He has seven new sons and three new daughters who are more beautiful than any other in the land. And he lives to a ripe old age . . .

Something about all of that just doesn’t seem right. What about all that Job has lost? What about his children from before? Why is nothing said about the wife who loses faith in him during his suffering—where has she gone? What are we to think of these fair-weather brothers and sisters who were nowhere to be found when times were tough and have now come bringing gifts, maybe just to get back in Job’s good graces and get in line for their slice of the pie?

The happy ending leaves us asking lots of questions and with good reason. Our own life experience shows us the inadequacy of this kind of resolution to hard times. Good luck in the present or future doesn’t replace the grief of the past. Does it make any sense to say to a parent who has lost a child, “Well, you can always have more children”? Of course not. So we are understandably suspicious when that insensitive platitude becomes Job’s reality.

Not only are we suspicious of Job’s “replacement happiness,” we’re probably somewhat suspicious of happy endings in general. Sure, from time to time, everyone enjoys watching It’s a Wonderful Life, envisioning life just as we hoped it would be. It’s always our hope that the same thing will happen to us, that a good stroke of financial luck will come our way at the eleventh hour, that the tumor will be benign, that the rebellious teen will come to his or her senses. But we all know that it doesn’t always turn out that way. And the deeply dissatisfying part of the ending of Job is that the restoration of Job’s old fortunes with even greater ones may be a nice turn of luck, but it is also a total non-answer to the questions he asked when he was in the midst of suffering. As Gary Charles has written, “Job may begin with a ‘once upon a time’ tenor and close on a ‘happily ever after’ note, but there are forty-some chapters of misery tucked in between” (Gary Charles, Feasting on the Word, p. 194). Something about the fairy-tale ending just doesn’t seem right.

Well, if you feel that way, you are hardly the first one to notice. Biblical scholars have been talking about this for ages. Countless books have been written trying to explain the ending of Job. There are some scholars who focus on the literary quality of the book, interpreting moves like the change from poetry to prose in the middle of chapter 42. Others called redaction critics study the different ancient manuscripts we have of the book and agree that Job might have had any one of three “original” endings (J. J. Ahn, Feasting on the Word, p. 199). It could be the case that it ends as we have it here, with verse 17: “Job died, old and full of days.” But others suggest the story might have ended back in verse 9: Job’s friends are humiliated and proven wrong, but Job prays for them and “the Lord accepts Job’s prayer.” Not a totally happy ending, but at least everyone seems to get what they deserve. Still others suggest the story might have ended back in verse 6: Job repents. He comes to some kind of more mature understanding of what has happened to him, but there is no “happy ending” story of his fortunes being restored. The literary theory is that, much later, the “happy ending” was added by someone who didn’t like the original one.

I suppose I can understand the desire to leave people with a happy ending, but as I indicated in my opening remarks, when the happy ending is so obviously questionable, so deeply unsatisfying, it seems reasonable to look at what the author’s original intention might have been without the “happy ending” and to ask what might be gained by paying attention to the original story. So I’m going to assume the original story ended in verse 6, but not just because that’s what the scholars think. I’m going to assume that because a less polished ending sheds light back on the rest of the book in a way I ultimately believe is much more helpful. I’m going to tell you a story to illustrate why.

This story comes from a movie many of you may have seen called My Best Friend’s Wedding. The movie has kind of a special place around here because, besides the fact that it was made in Chicago, the wedding scene was filmed right here at Fourth Church.

The premise of this movie, for those who haven’t seen it, is that Michael, who lives in Chicago, falls in love and gets engaged, and he calls Julianne with the news. Julianne is his best friend. She lives in New York; they don’t see each other very often, but they have a lot of history, they know each other very well, and for a short time, years before, they dated each other. For whatever reason, the timing wasn’t right, and they decided they were better off just being friends. When Michael calls, the news of his engagement throws Julianne into a panic: he has long been her “safety” guy who she always thought she would end up with. And she heads for Chicago ready to do whatever it takes to break off the engagement.

There’s a scene about halfway through the movie that is powerful simply because it reveals a human emotion that so many of us have felt. It’s the day before the wedding, and Michael and Julianne are spending the afternoon together in Chicago, a kind of last afternoon together as friends, while Michael’s fiancée, Kimmie, gets ready for the wedding. Julianne is sure this will be her opportunity to pour out her feelings to Michael and steal him away from Kimmie, and the way the movie tells the story, you’re kind of rooting for her, hoping that she won’t miss her chance for true love.

It’s a beautiful day in Chicago, and Michael and Julianne are in a classic romantic location, on the rooftop deck of a Chicago boat tour, sailing up the river through downtown, when Michael starts to talk about his engagement. You can tell he’s having cold feet; he talks about the rushed pace of his engagement, he expresses doubts, he goes so far as to tell Julianne that he’s not sure that he shares all of the great things with Kimmie that he shares with her. As the music gets more dramatic and the looks in both of their eyes become deeper, you know the moment is coming where Julianne is finally going to say what she’s come all this way to say, and Michael practically invites her. He looks at Julianne and says, “You know, you and I haven’t used the word love in many of our relationships.” And after a pause, he continues and says, “Kimmie says that when you love someone, you say it!” It’s just at that moment that the boat passes under a bridge, blocking out the sun. The screen goes almost dark, and we’re suspended there, wondering what Julianne will do. For several anguishing seconds, we sit in darkness. And by the time they pass back into the sunlight, Julianne has said nothing. She turns away to hide her face. She’s choking back tears, because the moment has passed her by.

I told this story, this somewhat melodramatic story, because though it may not have been so dramatic when it happened to you, most of us know what it is like to have a moment in their past where something very important gets left unsaid, when the moment passes you by. Perhaps for you it was in a romantic relationship. Perhaps, like Julianne, by the time you were ready to express your true feelings, the person you love had fallen for someone else. Perhaps it was with a parent or a sibling or another friend or loved one who died. It happens far too often that we mean to say something to repair broken relationships or to tell someone how much we really appreciate them, only to get a phone call that they have passed away unexpectedly.

Quite often the story is much less dramatic because it is not about a death or a love-triangle; I think most often things that get left unsaid are the product of routine laziness and sometimes a little fear that turns into a habit. This is the story of countless relationships—a marriage, a parent and child, brother and sister, coworkers, friends—in which two people resist having difficult conversations in the name of keeping the peace. Often the result of trying so hard to keep the peace is that they stop talking about anything meaningful, they grow apart, and eventually the relationship dies. So many of our relationships suffer not because we hurt one another or argue or have difficult talks, but because we don’t have those talks at all.

The reason I tell you this is because I believe that the beauty of the book of Job has nothing to do with the happy ending. The beauty of the book of Job is that Job never allows what I’ve been describing to happen in his relationship with God. Job keeps his relationship with God alive through the hard things he refuses to keep to himself. Throughout these four weeks with Job, we haven’t read a lot of his words, but we have listened to some of the things he has said as he struggles to grasp his suffering, many of them he says directly to God:

“Why should I not be impatient?” (Job 21–4)

“If I sinned, what did I do to you, guardian of people? Why have you made me a target so that I am a burden to myself? Why not forgive my sin? [Why not] overlook my iniquity?” (Job 7:20–21)

“I loathe my life; I will let loose my complaint; I will speak of my own bitterness. I will say to God, Don’t declare me guilty; tell me what you are accusing me of doing? Does it seem good to you that you oppress me, that you reject the work of your hands and cause the purpose of sinners to shine?” (Job 10:1–2)

“My spirit is broken, my days extinguished. . . . My eye is weak from grief.” (Job 17:1, 7)

“I have understanding as well as you.” (Job 12:3)

If I give up “I’ve called corruption ‘my father,’ the worm ‘my father and sister.’” If I give up “where then is my hope?” (Job 17:14–15)

If only “I could know how to find [God] . . . I would lay out my case before him, he would surely listen to me. . . . I could escape.” (Job 23:3, 6–7)

“For I know that my redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see on my side.” (Job 19:25–26)

Job has said it all. He has left nothing on the table. When life doesn’t make sense to him, when there are frustrations and unanswered questions, when his relationship with God seems to be falling apart, Job speaks about it. He debates, he yells, he cries, he bangs his fists. And he won’t stop until God answers him. As one commentator has written, “Job calls God out of hiding in heaven to confront suffering on earth” (Gary Charles, Feasting on the Word, p. 196).

How many of us allowed a relationship to wither and die because of our refusal to have a difficult conversation? Probably all of us. But Job will not have it that way in his relationship with God. “By lamenting, complaining, and shouting his discontent to the God he believes to be attacking him, he keeps his relationship to God alive” (Kathleen M. O’Connor, Feasting on the Word, p. 196).

In our most important relationships, it is often our most difficult conversations that keep us alive and growing, and our willingness to say the things that need to be said to God is the essence of what it means to be faithful, to one another and to God. Every time I read the book of Job, I learn something new. That’s what I hope I learned this time around.

As this 4:00 service has grown, we have created together something that is one of the most real, meaningful parts of my ministry; it’s the time each week when each of you brings your prayers to God and when I have the opportunity to stand behind the Lord’s Table and read them aloud. We hear the greatest joys in your lives and the greatest concerns, your hopes and your fears, things that, because we say them out loud, will not be left unsaid. Like Job, we, all of us, lift up the things that are most meaningful, and sometimes most difficult, for us to say. When we do that, we are sustaining and growing our relationship with God.

For a long time I have known that our prayer time is important; I have felt its power without knowing how to express its meaning. But as we have traveled together through the last month of these studies on the book of Job, I have learned a new way to articulate why I love this worship service and what I learn from Job. I love and have learned that our prayers matter, even when God’s answer is not clear; I’ve learned that that our lives matter, even when we are not sure of ourselves; I have been reminded that I matter to God, and so do you. I have been reminded that when any one of God’s human children cries, God our creator hears us. I have been reminded that God wants us to speak, because in that speaking to the God who hears us, our love for one another is deepened, and in that speaking our faith is reborn. Amen.