Looking at Lent and Easter Through the Eyes of Job: Why is God Silent?

Sermon by Dr. George B. Wirth

Scripture: Job 13:1-3, 18-24; 23:1-9; 30:16-20

First Presbyterian Church of Atlanta

The Fifth Sunday in Lent

April 9, 2000

 

Introduction

Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, as the world was consumed by war, Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick climbed into the pulpit of Riverside Church in New York City and preached a sermon entitled Why Is God Silent While Evil Rages?

 

It was a time of precarious uncertainty for America and our allies as the enemy forces were advancing in Europe and the Pacific. And in the midst of great national and international apprehension, Dr. Fosdick spoke up for many people as he began his sermon:

 

“No thoughtful person can live through an era like this without asking searching questions about God. ...And among them inevitably is this: Why is God silent while evil rages?...Thomas Carlyle, earnest believer though he was, exclaimed once, ‘God sits in heaven and does nothing,’ and long before Carlyle, the writer of the 83^rd Psalm cried out: ‘O God, keep not thou silence; hold not Thy peace...for lo, Thine enemies make a tumult.’”

(From the sermon Why Is God Silent While Evil Rages? by Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick, Harper and Brothers, New York and London, 1944)

 

According to our scripture lessons this morning, that was Job’s question as well. He had lost his family and most of his possessions, he was betrayed by his friends, and as he suffered through the physical affliction and emotional pains of hell on earth, Job looked toward heaven and shouted out loud, “I cry to Thee and Thou dost not answer me!” What Job wanted to know was “Why? Why is God silent while evil rages?”

 

During the dark and difficult times in our own lives, we, most of us, have asked that question too. Some of us may have even grown cynical about it all, saying together with Virginia Woolf, “I read the book of Job last night and I don’t think God comes well out of it.”

 

And if that turned out to be our only option - stoic cynicism and fatalistic attitude toward life - if God is, in fact, a silent and indifferent creator who has left us alone on this planet to fend for ourselves, then we might as well close this Bible, say the benediction, go out those doors and not come back to this church ever again.

 

But as Christians, we believe just the opposite is true - that even though there are no easy answers to our questions, God has spoken down through the ages of time and still speaks to us today. And as we have come to worship Him this morning, I fervently pray that we will discover words of help and healing for our pain and sorrow and hear a whisper of hope, which will lead us toward tomorrow.

 

Part 1

Eight years ago, in 1992, William Safire, the Pulitzer Prize winning columnist for The New York Times, wrote a book about Job that I recommend to you. It’s entitled The First Dissident, and Safire’s theory, which I find theologically sound, is that Job had every reason to speak up and speak out about the apparent injustice and unfairness of his situation. Moreover, Safire implies that God gave Job permission to do so (page 25), to lift up his dissent as if he were in a courtroom with all of heaven hearing his plea.

 

And that is where we find Job in our scripture readings today. Listen again as he states his objections:

 

“But I would speak to the Almighty, and I desire to argue my case with God” (13:3)”...Behold, I have prepared my case; I know that I shall be vindicated” (13:18) “Let me speak and do Thou reply to me” (13:22)”...O that I knew where I might find Him, that I might come even to His seat! I would lay my case before Him and fill my mouth with arguments. I would learn what He would answer me and understand what He would say to me” (23:3-5)”...There, an upright man could reason with Him, and I should be acquitted forever by my Judge” (23:7).

 

Standing, as it were, before the judgement seat, Job, the first and foremost dissident of the Bible, states his case and lays down the gauntlet at the feet of the almighty One. Now, let us recognize that in his defiance, Job does not stop believing in God. To the contrary, it is because Job still trusts in God’s goodness and justice that he challenges Him to speak. It is the silence which Job cannot bear, for in that silence, God appears to be indifferent, a distant Creator who just doesn’t care about Job’s suffering.

 

There is a legend, which tells about a monk who joined a monastery and took the vow of silence. The rules allowed him and his fellow monks to speak only two words every five years. After the first five-year period, the monk stood before the abbot and said “Cold food.” The abbot nodded and sent him on his way. Five more years passed, and again, the monk came to abbot and said “Hard bed,” and returned to his silence. Finally, in the fifteenth year, the monk spoke once more, saying “I quit.” The abbot shook his head and replied, “Well, I’m not surprised. You’ve done nothing but complain ever since you arrived!”

 

And here’s the point: in the midst of his suffering, surrounded by silence, Job wasn’t just complaining about his situation. Rather, he was asking God, yes even challenging God to give some kind of explanation for the trouble he was in.

 

Part 2

Next week, on Passion/Palm Sunday, we’re going to find out what happened when God did finally speak to Job. If you want to read on ahead, we’ll focus our attention on chapters 38 through 41.

 

But as we come alongside Job now at this critical moment in the story, there are three insights I want to share with you which might shed some light on Job’s question, on our question, Why is God silent? and the first is this: When we do all the talking, then we are not listening to God or anyone else.

 

It is not my intention to be unfair to Job - God knows he experienced enough of that! But thus far, in reading from chapter one to chapter 30, I cannot find a single time when Job stops talking and gives God an opportunity to get a word in edgewise! In addition, Job’s wife and three friends join him in the relentless conversation, creating a waterfall of words and questions and theological interpretations about what God is up to and why all of this is happening, without any of them pausing to take a breath and listen for God’s voice.

 

The Episcopal priest and prolific author, Barbara Brown Taylor, observes in her book When God Is Silent that “even now, some of us today as Christians have trouble listening to God. Many of us prefer to speak. Our corporate prayers are punctuated with phrases such as ‘Hear us, Lord...’ as we name our concerns and give God suggestions on what to do about them. What reversal of power might occur if we turned the process around, naming our concerns and asking God to tell us what to do about them? ‘Speak Lord, for your servants are listening!’” (From When God Is Silent by Barbara Brown Taylor, the 1997 Lyman Beecher Lectures on Preaching at Yale Divinity School, published by Cowley Publications)

 

That is also true in our relationships with one another. A recent New Yorker cartoon pictures a wife and husband sitting in their living room. She looks up from the book in her hands and says to him, as he appears numb: “I’m sorry dear. I wasn’t listening. Could you repeat everything you’ve said since we’ve been married?”

 

My friends, if we want to develop a deeper relationship with those whom we love, we need to learn to listen to them. And so it is in our relationship with the Lord. If we want to draw near to Him and feel His presence in our lives, we must take the time to listen to Him in prayer and make the time to be available to Him in worship.

 

And when the hard times come, as they surely will, we need to stop all of our frantic activity and follow the admonition of the 46^th Psalm, which says “Be still and know that I am God” (46:10). Then, and only then, will we be able to hear the words of help and healing, which He alone can give to us. Because, when we do all the talking, we are not listening to God or anyone else.

 

And here’s another insight about Job’s question, our question: Why is God silent? Even when we cannot discern His voice speaking to us, there is much we can learn about the care and compassion of God in the silence.

 

As a pastor, I must confess that there have been many times when I was called to the side of a person in suffering and pain and realized that no words could adequately express or explain what was happening to them. And in those moments, when I have stood or sat there in silence, holding that person’s hand with tears in my eyes and a quiet prayer in my heart, I have felt a Presence, a Presence in the absence of words, which has the power, far greater than my own, to comfort that person and assure them that they are not alone.

 

The apostle Paul tried to describe it in his letter to the Romans: “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness...for the Spirit intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words” (Romans 8:26). He was talking about the healing power of God’s Holy Spirit, which ministered to Job, even though he didn’t know it, and reaches out to us, and through us, even when we can’t completely comprehend it.

 

I think that’s what the poet Robert Browning Hamilton meant when he wrote those familiar lines which still touch our hearts today:

 

“I walked a mile with pleasure,

She chatted all the way;

But left me none the wiser

For all she had to say.

 

I walked a mile with sorrow

And ne’er a word said she;

But oh, the things I learned from her

When sorrow walked with me.”

 

You see, even when we cannot discern God’s voice speaking to us, there is much we can learn about His care and compassion in the silence. It is a Presence in the absence of words, and we call it the healing power of the Holy Spirit.

 

Conclusion

There is one final insight to consider about the silence of God and it leads us from Job to Jesus: although Job wanted to know, demanded to know what was happening to him and why, he did not have the capacity to understand the mystery which would be revealed at a later time.

 

Job challenged God to speak up and to speak out, pleading in chapter 30 of this story:

 

“I cry to Thee and Thou dost not answer me; I stand and Thou dost not heed me.”

(Job 30:20)

 

Those words were written in the fifth century B.C., that is “Before Christ,” when the chasm between God and humanity was as wide as it ever had been. But if we believe that the suffering of Job was a foreshadowing of the cross, then we can see, looking at Lent and Easter through the eyes of Job, that Job’s cry for help was finally answered by a Savior who came to live among us 450 years later.

 

He was God’s Word in person, sent to show us how to live and how to love. As He died, He identified with our own suffering and pain. And when He rose from the grave, He promised that we would never be separated from God again.

 

What Job was not able to see, nor hear, nor comprehend, has been revealed to us in Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns on earth and in heaven. Through Him, God broke the silence and spoke to the whole world, once and for all. Which means, Christian, that it might be time to change the question from “Why Is God Silent?” to “Are We Listening?” “Are We Really Listening to Him?”

 

In the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.