Tuesday, March 24, 2020

Friends like these...

Given the pandemic, it now feels quite apt that I chose for daily reflection during Lent the book of Job. However, when I set myself and the churches I serve the challenge of reading our way through this book of the Bible, I did not realise how difficult the words would become to read as Job's pain and his friends explanation rub up against what we are experiencing.

For those of you who may never have ventured into the book of Job, it is a book of the Old Testament which is a fictional story of man who suffers greatly through no fault of his own. In the opening chapters we are told that what happens to Job comes from what might be best described as a bet between God and Satan. Satan reckons he can get Job to turn his back on God, God believes otherwise and tells Satan to do his worst! However, Job and his friends have no knowledge of what had passed between God and Satan, so the story is them trying to work out why all that happened to Job happened.

Although God is very much within the story and as a book of wisdom helps the reader wrestle with the character of God, we also find, upon the pages, a very human response to suffering. We find in the conversation that erupts between Job and his friends a search for reason and for blame. To slightly over simplify the response of Job's friends: Job must have done something wrong for all that he endures. Now, however unfounded Job's friends explanations are in trying to bring understanding to Job's plight, I have come to see what passed between them in a different light in recent days.

It would not make for a very good story, but if I could end the book of Job prematurely, then I would draw it to a close in chapter 2:
Now when Job's three friends heard of all these troubles that had come upon him, each of them set our from his home ... They met together to go and console and comfort him. When they saw him from a distance, they did not recognise him, and they raised their voices and threw dust in the air upon their heads. They sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great. (Job 2.11-13, NRSV)
However, even though some of what passes between Job and his friends makes me feel uncomfortable and I would never dream of saying that to a good friend, I see in some ways Job's friends, in making Job proclaim his innocence and give voice to the injustice he clearly felt, actually helps Job and the reader make sense of it all. They help Job and us rise from the ashes.

This weekend, I heard for the first time the Script's single 'Run through Walls' and it instantly reminded me of Job and his friends. As you can hear, if you click the video link below, Job's friends might not seem immediately recognisable, but then there is the line: 'Friends won't let you do stupid things alone'. Job's friends did not let Job wrestle with his pain or God alone.


In these difficult times, we might not be able to go and physically be with our friends, but we do not have to let them face this alone. We can still all cry together, ask the stupid questions and carry each one through and rise from the ashes.

Prayer:
Almighty God, as we look around us
seeing the pain and suffering,
the fear and uncertainty,
we cry to you and question why.

Like Job we sit in the ashes,
knowing what is best to do.

Then our friends turn us
and we question together,
we search for reason
and look upon you awesomeness
without know how to respond.

Thank you for those friends,
those that call and carry the burden with us.
Protect us all in this hour of need
in Jesus Christ we pray, Amen

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