Sermon 9-18-11 responses to suffering – you’re only human Job 3:11-26
11 “Why did I not perish at birth, and die as I came from the womb? 12 Why were there knees to receive me and breasts that I might be nursed? 13 For now I would be lying down in peace; I would be asleep and at rest 14 with kings and rulers of the earth, who built for themselves places now lying in ruins,-- 15 with princes who had gold, who filled their houses with silver. 16 Or why was I not hidden away in the ground like a stillborn child, like an infant who never saw the light of day? 17 There the wicked cease from turmoil, and there the weary are at rest. 18 Captives also enjoy their ease; they no longer hear the slave driver’s shout. 19 The small and the great are there, and the slaves are freed from their owners. 20 “Why is light given to those in misery, and life to the bitter of soul, 21 to those who long for death that does not come, who search for it more than for hidden treasure,-- 22 who are filled with gladness and rejoice when they reach the grave? 23 Why is life given to a man whose way is hidden, whom God has hedged in? 24 For sighing has become my daily food; my groans pour out like water. 25 What I feared has come upon me; what I dreaded has happened to me. 26 I have no peace, no quietness; I have no rest, but only turmoil.”
Job the series
Last week – Im sorry, I love you, I stand with you.
Today- our responses to suffering
Job is depressed- no peace, only turmoil
Large suffering or small, this is our story
1. Anger from job’s wife – 2:9
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[b] woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?”
2. Some people fall into self pity
Self pity itself can destroy you
Seeing yourself as a victim
Some people never live again
Becoming embittered so that the love in us is soured into envy and hate
3. Some live in denial and refuse to face reality
If I shut my eyes long enough
I don’t want to talk about it
numb
Drown sorrows in self medication
You never face the pain
You never learn from the pain
Your rob yourself of your life –life is good
4. Some people bargain with God and demand a miracle ...
god I have been faithful, pls fix this.
Quote scriptures and scripture promise books
God I have done this for you, so you must do this for me
God if you fix this, I will do such and such
5. Lose your faith
"I cry to you and you give me no answer; I stand before you but you take no notice" (Job 30:20).
As long as we expect God to make life easy, we are going to respond to suffering in ways that show the worst of us. There is another way……
Learning
Our tragedy is not that we suffer, but that we waste suffering
Anthony Bloom, a doctor before becoming a priest, spoke of a young woman who was dying of cancer. Despite great pain, she refused to take drugs to alleviate her suffering. She said that the time had not yet come. Then one day she called him and said she was now ready for the drugs. She had now learned everything that pain had to teach her, and she could go in peace.
Our culture has a great desire to escape suffering
• We need to understand tho that suffering like everything else, is related to our journey towards God.
• When we escape suffering we may lose a chance to understand something of great importance for ourselves and, consequently, for others.
Suffering can help our relationship with God.
C.S. Lewis wrote that pain is God's megaphone to arouse us from our deafness. It is only when we are afraid or bewildered, aware of our own helplessness, that we turn to God. If we are to be re-made, re-born, turned around, we must be first broken into pieces:
Think of people that have come to Jesus. How did you come to him?
Suffering gets us in touch with our soul
It is the source of great poetry, music, art and the great discoveries of life.It is in sorrow that we can look into ourselves and find God.
Suffering can help our relationships with others
We can only gain from suffering if we use the opportunity to grow in compassion and understanding, to become more sensitive to the needs of others.
Are we here for pleasure, or to care for one another, love one another, and comfort one another?
"Help carry one another's burdens; in that way you will fulfill the law of Christ" (Gal 6:2).
2cor 1:3-
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. 5 For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. 6 If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. 7 And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.
That there is some therapeutic value in suffering is obvious. When our own need is great, to whom do we turn? To the person for whom life has always been easy? Or to the one who has been buffeted by more than one storm?
Choices
When do you pray for something to get better and when do you choose to accept it as a part of the world that is yours to deal with?
We cannot choose to not suffer
But we can choose to let tribulation have its work James
Human beings can be carried to the height of redemption only after passing through the valley of despair.
We do not suffer in order to become other than who we are, but to become the real persons lying dormant within us.
It all depends on ourselves. The suffering that produced a Beethoven or a Helen Keller could also produce a snivelling weakling riddled with self-pity.
Two people suffer the same anguish: one is destroyed, the other enriched!
One is caught in one's own turmoil and withers; the other searches more deeply and finds profound meaning –
Woman in the wheelchair
Having broken her neck, she was completely paralyzed, without feeling or skin sensation from the shoulders down. She looked after herself in her own flat (it took her two hours to get dressed), drove across London each day and did a nine to five-thirty job, after which she was too exhausted to do anything but sleep. She rejoiced in her independence, "For me it is the most wonderful and unbelievable thing. Every morning when I wake up, I think, another day! I've made it!" To find hope and joy in the midst of affliction, -- that is the ultimate achievement of faith.
Something amazing about those who have learned not just to endure, but to grow thru suffering…..
Among many of the survivors of the camps, one meets this tremendous inner strength, this indestructible human spirit. Such survivors seem to have passed beyond hatred and bitterness because they saw where the hatred and bitterness led. They are linked together by a powerful bond and mutual compassion. I shall never forget the woman I met in Warsaw at a party for survivors of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. Suddenly she turned to me and said sadly, "I wasn't there; but I wish to God I had been. I'm on the outside. Do you understand?"
found on the body of a dead child at Ravensbruck camp where 92,000 women and children died:
O God, remember not only the men and women of good will, but also those of ill will. But do not remember all the suffering they have inflicted upon us; remember the fruits we have bought, thanks to this suffering -- our comradeship, our loyalty, our humility, our courage, our generosity, the greatness of heart which has grown out of all this, and when they come to the judgment let all the fruits that we have borne be their forgiveness.
Natural responses. Anger, fear, self pity, denial.
All of this is ok, all of this is normal. God is not offended by our humanness.
But he also invites us to aspire to rise above our humanness
The cross points the way
At the centre of all that God is offering us, the cross stands as a commentary -- the historical sign that Jesus fully shared our human situation.
"I, if I be lifted up, will draw all people to myself" (Jn 12:32).
If we stand in spirit at the foot of the cross, we can see that all the sorrow in the world is gathered together into one sorrow; and there, in the moment of seeming utter defeat, the victory over sorrow is complete.
In your suffering I turn you away from your feelings. Away from your self. Away from magical answers to the pain and I turn you toward Jesus. The man of the cross. And together we join hands, one with another……
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