The Mayberry Preacher

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO "THE-COUNTRY-SONG-PLAYED-BACKWARDS"

Job 42: 1-17
Steve Lindsley
October 25, 2009

I'm sure you've heard the joke before: what happens when you play a country song backwards?  Well, now it's not just a joke anymore.  Not that I spend a lot of time listening to Disney movie soundtracks, mind you, but it's come to my attention that there's actually a song for a Disney movie by country group Rascal Flatts called “Backwards.”  The lyrics go like this:

I was sitting on a bar stool in a barbecue joint in Tennessee
When this ole boy walked in and he sat right down next to me
I could tell he'd been through some hard times, there were tear stains on his old shirt
And he said you wanna know what you get when you play a country song backwards?

You get your house back, you get your dog back
You get your best friend Jack back
You get your truck back, you get your hair back
Ya get your first and second wives back
Your front porch swing, your pretty little thing
Your bling bling bling and a diamond ring
Your get your farm and the barn and the boat and the Harley
First night in jail with Charlie
Sounds a little crazy, a little scattered and absurd
But that's what you get when you play a country song backwards

Which, of course, begs the question – what do you get when you play the Backwards song backwards – do you lose all that stuff all over again?

I couldn't help but think about this song when I started reading our scripture today.  I think most everyone is familiar with the Biblical story of Job – a story that, lest we forget, is just that: a story.  This is not actual history being recounted here but a parable of sorts passed down during the generations before Jesus.  In the story, Job is the unwitting victim of a wager between God and Satan, testing Job's mettle and the extent of his faith when his storybook life comes crashing down around him.  It is the worst kind of country song come to life – Job loses his family, his livestock, his assets, his health.  And to add insult to injury, three of Job's “friends” provide little relief, grilling him with questions and subjecting him to long lectures on the traditional understanding of human suffering – an understanding that assumes he must've done something wrong to cause all this to happen.

In a nutshell, that's Job's story.  But again, it's just a story.  The real meaning behind this parable goes much deeper than one man's terrible misfortune and a divine wager that, let's be honest, is offensive – as if human life is nothing more to God than a Richard Heene reality TV show science experiment.  No, the thrust of this parable revolves around one of the most difficult issues we humans face: theodicy.  It's a fancy word for the existence of evil in a world supposedly ruled by a loving God.  How does this happen?  Why do bad things happen to good people – or ever better, why do bad things happen randomly or without reason?  Is there any truth to what Job's friends keep telling him – that karma rules and  misfortune is cosmic punishment for past misdeeds? 

Theodicy is the single question the book of Job deals with for 41 of its 42 chapters.  And it all comes to a head with a conversation between Job and God, where Job begs God for an answer.  And we the readers are waiting anxiously for the final declaration, for the ultimate answer to be unveiled, for that moment of truth when the mystery of human suffering is forever solved and closure is brought to the previous 41 chapters.....

And that is when we get a country song played backwards.

Actually, we don't get it quite yet. Instead we get Job's repentance.  His repentance!  Even though he didn't do a thing wrong, there is his: repenting “in dust and ashes.”  And before we get a chance to really digest that, we also find that Job and his friends suddenly make up, fully reconciled, as if such a thing can happen after days and days of totally unhelpful and un-comforting conversation.

And then we get the country song played backwards.

I mean, Rascal Flatts could not have written it any better!  Job's lot does a complete 180.  He gets his entire fortune back – twice as much as what he had before, in fact.  His friendships and his standing in the community are fully restored.  He gets a brand spanking new family – ten kids in all.  He gets a huge crop of livestock, many more than he had before.  He goes on to live a nice long life and dies, as the very last verse of the book tells us, “full of days.”  It is as if Job has been transformed from some fictional character in a Hebrew parable wrestling with a major theological conundrum, to the punchline of a funny joke and the subject of a three minute and 23 second song off a Hannah Montana movie soundtrack.

And see, here's the thing: if Job were a real person I'd be happy for him.  No, I'd be elated.  I'd be the first in line at his restitution party; I'd pat him on the back for the new family, marvel at his huge livestock, shake my head in amazement and gratitude at his sudden turn in fortune.  I'd tell everyone I knew that it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy, especially after the horrible tragedies he endured.  I'd be right there in the thick of the celebration.

But here's my beef with the way the book of Job ends, and maybe it's yours too: Job is not a real person.  Real people don't go through the kind of horror Job did and then have everything magically fixed in the end.  Real people don't get a full mulligan in the game of life.  The scariest thing about life is that our good fortune can turn on a dime, with no warning whatsoever.  Oh, we can understand when it's a direct consequence of some poor action or choice – when a student fails a test they didn't study for; when the drunk driver is in a car accident.  But what terrifies us is the random-ness of tragedies.  Hurricanes – I mean, they just happen!  Cancer – there's a big one.  Our friend who dies when they are hit by that drunk driver.  When stuff like this occurs, we wrestle the same way Job did.  We wonder why this is happening to us – why, why, why!  We want to cling to our faith, but it's hard – especially when we have others offering simple solutions or easy answers that just don't do it.

Real people's lives can look a whole lot like those first 41 chapters, but 42.....  well, 42 is the stuff of sappy movie endings where the guy gets the girl as the last credits roll.  42 is the stuff of Harlequin Romances and fantasy worlds.  It's not our world – and there's the rub here.  We wallow through 41 chapters of suffering in the book of Job, designed to lead us to some kind of answer; a perspective in which to anchor ourselves to something meaningful and solid and certain.  Instead we get a country song played backwards.  We want to find the truth – and we are cheated out of the truth.

So what do you think – do you think this is the best ending for the story?  Not a good ending, not one the makes us feel all warm and fuzzy.  Do you think this is the best way to bring closure to all the hardship, all the angst, all the struggle that came before it? 

I don't know about you, but it seems that the 42nd chapter of Job ought to come with some kind of disclaimer: Warning: Harmful Assumptions Ahead.  Those harmful assumptions come when we believe that our faith in God will somehow spare us from life's hardships, sidestepping the struggles that others endure.  It's the same thinking that's led some to embrace the “prosperity gospel,” where faithfulness translates to more digits in one's bank account.  Or the Prayer of Jabez fascination a while back, where simply praying an obscure prayer from 1 Chronicles leads to material blessings.  If only it were that easy! 

Life experience tells us something quite different, doesn't it?  Life experience tells us that people sometimes suffer for no reason at all, and that a simple prayer or act of repentance rarely makes everything right again.  Life experience shows us that we cannot jump so quickly to the happy ending; and that there is even a time and a place for the struggle.  We have this wonderful thing in the Christian faith called Easter, where we celebrate victory over death and new life for all.  But before we get to the empty tomb we have to gather around the table on Maundy Thursday, mired in conflict and uncertainty and betrayal.  Before we get to the tomb, we have endure the cross, a bloody spectacle and a complete defeat of the powerless by the powerful.  Our very faith lays testimony to the fact that there is no such thing as cheap grace; no such thing as an “easy out.”

But there is something else that the gospel proclaims over and over and over again – in the story of Job, in the saga of the Israelites searching for their Promised Land, in the collective voice of the prophets, and in the life of one man from Nazareth – and that is hope.  Not quick resolution, not the simple solution.  Something better: hope.  Not easy answers to life's quandrys; not a “get-out-of-jail-free” card in the Monopoly game of life.  Something more foundational: hope.  Not promises which never come to pass; not false protection and immunity to life's challenges; and certainly not some automatic restitution of all that was lost.  Something more life-giving and satisfying and enduring: hope. 

Hope had to have been what pulled Job through his struggles, don't you think?  Hope enabled him to continue clinging on to faith in a God whose ways were a mystery, a God he was angry with.  Hope sustained him through those fruitless, frustrating conversations with his friends.  And hope ultimately allowed him to face God in the end as a changed man, acknowledging his place in the big picture and recognizing that there is more to the life of faith than understanding everything.

And Job was changed, mind you – and it wasn't because he got everything back.  He was changed because he went into that place where there are no easy answers, where there isn't a quick fix; where the country song is playing forward at full speed.  Even in the midst of his ordeals – in fact, because of them – Job discovered something more powerful and meaningful than answers: he discovered his faith.  Through all that life dealt him, Job found the foundation, the strength he was looking for.  Job found God.

And as I think about that, I keep coming back to an image that burns heavy in my mind from the gospels: of a boat floating in the water.  And in that boat are some fishermen, out for their daily catch.  And as the skies above begin to turn black, as the seasoned men quickly realize that the fast-approaching storm is more than even they can handle, they cling to one another in terror.  The boat careens violently back and forth; and the men realize that if they lose the boat they will lose their lives as well. 

And then quite unexpectedly, through the storm and the surge and the waves, a man comes walking across the water toward them.  He comes to them in the midst of their storm, in the midst of their time of greatest need, when they thought all was lost, when they thought there was no hope.  And what the men will remember days, months, years later is not the storm that eventually subsided.  What they will remember is Jesus who came to them in the midst of it.

I wonder what would happen if Christians all over the world changed the way we do things.  What if, instead of offering the easy answer, the quick fix, we offered something more meaningful: company along the sometimes turbulent journey of life?  What if, instead of trying to make everything make sense, we acknowledged the fact that we don't know everything?  What if, instead of trying to steer clear of the storms, we chose to go right into them – to face them head on, knowing we are not at all alone?

Because the thing is, while happy endings are all sweet, and imagining country songs being played backwards makes us smile, what really sustains us for the long haul is not the easy answer or the quick fix.  What sustains us as people of faith is the promise of hope that comes to us while we're in the process of living – good times and bad, joys and sorrows, mountaintops and storms.  It is there where God does some of God's best work.  And it's where we, with God's help, can do some of our own too.  Thanks be to God.  AMEN.

BILDAD HAS HIS SAY - AGAIN

Job 8: 1-10
Steve Lindsley
October 12, 2008

I don't get it.  I just don't get it!  Why didn't he listen to me?  Why didn't he believe in what I was saying?

I guess I should probably tell you who I am. My name is Bildad – yeah, great name, huh? I doubt you know much about me; not many people do. That's kind of why I'm here. You probably know me better as “one of Job's friends” - I bet that rings a bell, eh? There were two others, Zophar and Eliphaz. And like me, they also are dumbfounded about what happened to the guy, and why he doesn't see things the way we do. I mean, it's so obvious, to us at least, why all that bad stuff happened to him.

See, I know Job about as well as anyone. We go back a long ways, Job and me. We went to grade school together; we used to play games every afternoon with some of the other guys. We went to each other's birthday parties, we hung out all the time.

We also grew up in the faith together – attending Hebrew school as any good Jewish boy. We studied the Torah and learned all the great stories of our faith – Abraham and Sarah; Joseph and Moses; Deborah and King David. We would engage in these wonderful conversations about God and how just God was, and how God looked out for God's people and protected those who were faithful. Man, we had some great talks.

When Job got married, I was the best man in his wedding. When his first baby came along, I got to hold him. Our families used to hang out all the time; our children would play together just like we did when we were kids. We worshiped together every sabbath; and sometimes late at nights the two of us would slip out unnoticed and meet up to talk about God and our faith, like we used to, and how God worked in our world and how we could serve God. And I'll tell you this – I knew no man finer than Job. A family man, an honest businessman, a person of great faith – they don't make them any better than Job. I was glad to call him my friend.

I still am glad – don't get me wrong. It's just that things.....well, things change, as they always do – and boy, did things change for Job. You know those people who suddenly and without warning have their entire life literally unravel before them? That's what happened to Job – within a matter of weeks. It's a horrible story, and you'll probably find it just as hard to believe and accept as I did.

First, within a matter of hours, Job lost his entire livestock – the source of his family's income. Oxen and donkeys were killed by some Arabian nomads. A freak fire accident took out all of his sheep. The Babylonians disposed of his camels. In one single day, Job lost his ability to generate a living for his family – and a mighty fine living it had been. He was permanently out of a job.

But that wasn't the worst of it. Not too long after that - the very next day, in fact – there was this strong storm that passed through our area. It took the roof off the house where his children lived and it crashed it to the ground. Everyone inside was killed instantly. I mean, I can't imagine losing one child, but all of your children – that's just unbearable. And as if that wasn't enough, the day after that he suddenly came down with these horrible, painful boils that ravaged every inch of his body. And they wouldn't go away.

So in just a couple of days, Job went from being a successful businessman, a content father, and a pillar of the community to bankrupt and out of a job, a grieving parent with no children left, and an outcast. I had been out of town when all of this happened, but when I got back a day or two later and heard about it, my heart just sank. I couldn't believe such a horrible thing would ever happen to a guy like Job. I mean, some people, you kind of see it coming, you know? But not Job. Not him. It tore me up to know that my good friend was in such agony – so the first chance I got, I went to him.

Over the course of the next few weeks I had some conversations with Job. I wasn't the only one either – Zophar and Eliphaz were trying to talk some sense into him as well. The three of us met with him individually and tried to be of help. But the thing was, Job didn't want it. In fact, I found our friendship tested more than ever before – because Job was......well, he was just stubborn! That's the only way I can explain it. It kind of ticked me off, to be honest – here I was, trying to help out my good friend who had lost everything. And yet he wouldn't have any of it.

I mean, all I was doing was trying to help him make sense of the unsensible; trying to give some meaning and structure to the chaos that had become his life. You know what I'm talking about, don't you? When something bad happens to you; when you encounter some hardship or tragedy, when the economy's going all haywire or things seem so discombobulated, what's the first thing you ask yourself? WHY? That's what you think! Why is this happening to me? Why am I going through this? Heck, I wasn't even Job and I was wondering that myself!

See, I'm one who believes that our world, as crazy as it is sometimes, has a rhyme and reason to it. We may not always sense that rhyme and reason, but it's there, lurking beneath the surface; and it keeps everything in this crazy universe from totally falling apart. Personally I identify that force as “God,” and specifically the God of my ancestors Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

I have been brought up to believe – as Job has – that this rhyme and reason plays itself out in our daily lives. And in many ways it comes back to our faithfulness to God. Those who are faithful to God receive God's blessings, and those who are not faithful have to deal with the consequences. That's what I believe our faith tells us – and I'm not alone in this. It's how a lot of people see the world.

Now you may think this sounds old-fashioned or “out-of-date,” but I'm here to tell you – you know exactly what I'm talking about. Just the other day, someone was telling me about a movie of yours; fairly popular in your generation. I think it's called, The Sound of Music. I'm told there's this scene near the end where that lady Maria and Captain Von-whatever finally admit their love for one another. And they're in the courtyard, being all lovey-dovey and stuff; and she's singing this soft beautiful song. And there's this refrain that she keeps repeating over and over again. I bet you know it: Cause somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something good.

See? That's what I'm talking about! She finally found the love of her life, and she assumed it was because at some previous point she had done something tremendous – so this love was a “reward.'' We're thinking along similar lines, you see? And the same thing goes for the flip side: that if you encounter some horrible catastrophe.....well, I guess Maria's song would've been something like, Somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must've done something bad.

And that's exactly what I told Job in our times together, and tried to get him to see. We all tried. We tried to explain that, hard as it may be to understand, there must have been some reason; some major breach in his past that led to all of this – the total unraveling of his life. And if it wasn't him directly, then maybe, maybe his kids had done something, you know? It's just like they say: what goes around, comes around.

Man, I tried to get him to see this, hoping maybe he'd remember something he'd tried long and hard to forget. And if he did that, then maybe he could make things right. That's why I said to him:

If you will seek God and make supplication to the Almighty,
if you are pure and upright,
surely then he will rouse himself for you and restore to you your rightful place.

I thought I said it quite well, actually. But you know what? It didn't make a bit of difference. It didn't matter what I said – he wasn't buying it. All that we had been brought up to believe and trust in all those years – he was throwing it out the window.

So now I'm stuck with my own “why” question: why is Job being this stubborn? Why is he holding on to another belief that, frankly, doesn't make a lick of sense? He tried to explain it to me, but I'm telling you – it's really hard to follow. See, Job admits that some things in your past do affect your future. If all you eat every day is something from one of your fast-food restaurants, your body will pay a price. If you consistently ignore stop signs when driving you're bound to have a wreck at some point. Those kinds of “cause-and-effect” scenarios made sense to Job, as they do to all of us.

But Job doesn't think the same thing applies when it comes to the larger stage of life. For him, the good times are not necessarily rewards for something previously done well, just as calamities are not punishments. Okay, I would tell him, but if that's the case then it takes all the certainty out of life. We don't know why anything happens then – why good things happen or bad things happen. And Job would always say – and he'd stare at me through his tortured eyes, Bad things happen to people, Bildad, whether the people are good or bad.

I'm still trying to make sense of what Job said, but it's so hard.....it's so hard to get my hands around. And you understand that, don't you? You understand why it's hard to believe that sometimes there isn't a good enough explanation for the way things are? Some people think Job's just crazy, and sometimes I do too. But you know, there are other times where I catch glimpses of what he says. Because even though Job knew that his life was rotten and that he had gotten a wrong deal, even when he questioned God about his situation and asked that dangerous question “WHY,” even during all of that, Job believed in something radical. Job believed in grace – the idea that people can receive something for nothing; that faith is not something we earn but something we live; that life is not always about cause and effect but about living and responding.

And for Job that grace came to him not in what was happening in his life – certainly not that! - but in how he responded to everything. Sure he wondered why this had happened to him – who wouldn't? Sure he was down and depressed. But he kept on believing, kept on clinging to God, even if he was kicking and screaming. And most of all, Job never believed that there was a reason for what had happened to him. Job never bought into the mentality that he had something to deserve all of this. Despite what my friends and I said, Job held fast to the belief that bad things happen to all kinds of people, and that people of faith demonstrate their faithfulness in how they respond.

I haven't talked to Job in a while – I find it kind of hard to talk to him these days. I hear things have actually taken a turn for the better for ol' Job and that he's getting his life back together. Kind of reminds me of the joke in your days: what happens when you play a country song backwards? You get your wife back, your truck back, your dog back....

But even so, I don't think Job's life will ever be the same. How could it be? And I'll let you in on a little something: my life won't ever be the same either. After talking to Job, I'm having serious doubts about what I've always believed. I see Job stubbornly clinging onto the notion of a God who loves him; a God who celebrates when the going's good and holds him close when the storms come. I see this and I think maybe, just maybe it's the same for me too.

Maybe I should go and have another chat with my buddy Job. But this time, I think I'll let him do the talking. Thanks be to God, AMEN.