Zits and Suffering

Job 1:1, 2:1-10; Psalm 26; Hebrews 2:5-12 | Proper 22 | Christopher Miner

Besides being a week late in posting this (sorry, TJ), I also end up with lectionary readings that deal with suffering. Lucky me... And yes, I do see the irony of whining about writing about suffering in my writing about suffering.

The readings start with Job, which is the immediate place to start when thinking about what the Bible has to say about suffering. A quick recap: Job is a righteous guy, honoring God and living well. God is in his council meeting with his cohorts, when 'The Accuser' or 'The Adversary' (literal translations of the Hebrew word Satan) shows up. God brags about Job, the Satan challenges God's faith in Job, and God gives him permission to un-bless him however he wants, except he can't kill him. And the first thing the Satan does is give Job super zits from head to toe. The word here is usually translated as boils but I don't think many of us can relate to that. All of us can relate to zits. Now imagine the worst acne breakout your adolescent self ever endured, but make all the zits 10 times bigger and put them on every surface of your skin. This is what Job is dealing with here, and for no apparent reason.

Psalm 26 could have been written by Job in the midst of all his sufferings (which get much, much worse than zits). Job spends most of the book that bears his name arguing with people who think his misery must be his fault. His wife and his friends both tell him to give up, admit defeat, "Curse God and die!" Job refuses to do so. He insists he has done nothing to warrant the awful turn of events he has endured. The Psalm says the same thing, even calling on God to test their faithfulness. (I will stick with the Lord's prayer on this subject - do not lead us to the test, but deliver us from evil!)

Neither Old Testament writing answers the question I think most of us ask when suffering comes - why? All of us know we are going to go through some bad things in the course of our lives. Most of us likely just hope there's nothing TOO bad, however we may define that. But all of us will eventually suffer, either due to illness, poor decisions, bad circumstances, other people's actions, or a host of other triggers. And all of us will ask why at some point, I think. So it may be very frustrating that the Bible, of all writings, does not really try to answer that question directly. Job never gets told why he suffered what he did, the Psalm does not even ask the question.

The passage in Hebrews gets closer to answering this question, but does not really get there. The writer says that Jesus had to go through suffering and death in order to gain his current glory and honor, and to make a way for us to gain the same glory and honor without death ('so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone'). But if Jesus already suffered why do I still need to suffer now? How does that work? In other parts of the New Testament the authors talk about sharing in Jesus sufferings in order to share in his glory, which maybe moves even closer to an answer to the why of suffering. But there are also passages that talk about Jesus taking our sufferings for us, even though we know we still suffer. Add in the thought that most of the New Testament epistles (letters) were written to Jesus followers who were facing some kind of persecution, and it's enough to make you throw up your hands.

Here's the spoiler alert for this post: For the most part, I don't have any idea why we suffer like we do. And I don't think the Bible gives any kind of simple, clear answer to this question either. I have come to the conclusion that this is on purpose. Sometimes we think of the Bible strictly in terms of the Divine - God's behind it, he inspired it, etc. But at it's core, the Bible is a collection of stories about people interacting with God and trying to make sense of what God is doing. God's activity is present and evident, but the focus is more on people's experiences with God in all parts of their lives. I would also suggest that the Bible is an honest appraisal of people - we see people at their best and worst, and even the 'heros' have very obvious flaws and problems. And people in the Bible suffer, regularly. The Bible does not shy away from that. When people suffer, however, there are some common themes that come through the stories in the Bible:

-People cry out to God in their suffering. They are not shy or stoic. They rant and rave, cry and wail, and insist that God DO SOMETHING.

-God is with people when they suffer, though maybe not in the way they want or expect.

I hope that the worst of your suffering is zits. I know that, most likely, your suffering will be more than that. May we have the courage to see God with us in our suffering, whatever that is.