Sermon preached by Rev. Emily Tanis-Likkel, Eagle Harbor Congregational Church, UCC
Job 23:1-9; 16-17 and Mark 10:17-31
October 11, 2009
In the Dark
This morning we heard about two different men. One saddened and grieved by the call to sell his possessions. Another sitting on an ash heap, stripped of his possessions, his family, his health, everything that gave him reason for living. Although the Job text is our focus today, I am also conscious of the connection between the stories, imagining both Job and the rich man with faces in their hands, feeling so much darkness closing in on them. One of them having such a hard time letting go of all material goods, the other not even having a choice in the matter. Their sorrow is so bitter, but perhaps they avoid conversation with others who attempt comfort, not wanting anyone to inadvertently bump salt into their gashes. But they cannot hide forever. What is said to those who are lumbering around in the dark, hungry for an encouraging word? When we ourselves are desperate for any kindness we can grab as a lifeline to pull us through darkness, we hope we will be understood.
Job heard from his dear friend Eliphaz, people in a state like you are being punished for something. Better get that figured out, Job. Bildad told him no offense Job, but you probably have just not attained the height of piety as the rest of us. Zophar told him, don't take it personally, much of what you are experiencing is not even real, you simply lack the divine wisdom to see it that way. His friends have no problem talking about their own strong faith and concepts about God, and yet don't really have a clue what their friend is going through. They do not validate his experience. They do not recognize God in the picture. Job replied, “How long will you torment me, and break me in pieces with your words.” He said to them all “Miserable comforters are you all. Have windy words no limit? Or what provokes you that you keep on talking?” (16:1-3)
We all know about statements that sting when we are feeling low.
You shouldn't feel that way!
Have you wondered whether you have brought it on yourself? Maybe
you aren't praying enough.
It must be God's will.
I know exactly how you feel, the same thing happened to me last week, let
me tell you all about it . . .
Perhaps most grating to our hearts: I can top that story – listen to this!
You think you've got it bad? Wait till you're my age, or your kids are the
age of my kids, or at least you have a job, or at least you don't have the
disease I've been stricken with.
Buck up--snap out of it—pull yourself together! and the list goes on.
You've heard these comments from a bumbling fool trying to find the least awkward piece of comfort to dole out to a friend. Let's face it, we've all probably been the bumbling fool – maybe once or several times – this morning! Or maybe our friend's pain was overlooked, our perspective having been muddled by our own issues.
How then do we empathize? I think we can take a lesson from the story of Job.
First, we listen – to pain, stories, to struggle, even to complaining. It is our God-given freedom to complain. It feels crummy to be misunderstood, to have our pain go unnoticed, to not be seen. Job was longing for a sense of God's presence. Job felt invisible from the comments his friends made to him, and invisible to God. Job said “I would lay my case before God” He wanted assurance that God was hearing and seeing his struggle. As dark and as hellish as his life became, he still proclaimed, “For I know that my redeemer lives, and that at last he will stand upon the earth; and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh I will see God.” God showed Job empathy by finally revealing to him that he was seen as he truly was. God acknowledged Job's complaints. God responded, and reminded him of the vastness of his love. God met him in his darkness and Job was changed. How does God empathize with us? God sees us, God hears us, and is always with us. Many people do not feel that God is with them. We then need to be that presence for those who are only feeling God's absence. We can validate their feelings, show them that they have been heard and taken seriously. We can seek to see things from their perspective, and offer them encouragement, not advice, but some light for them to find their way through the dark.
For the rich man in the story in Mark, Jesus looked at him, really peered into his soul. He knew that his wealth was an obstacle to his true calling. He looked at him, really understood him, and loved him. The man walked away, and we don't know what became of him. The untidy ending reaches out for our hands and invites us right into the struggle.
We all struggle. We struggle to let go, we have health issues, we have grief, we have families in disrepair, we have a world of war, and disease, and poverty, and natural disasters, and a planet under distress, and we feel it. We are bonded with others when we suffer. In our pain, we link arms with the whole creation that groans for transformation. I don't believe that God plans bad things to happen to us. Bad things just happen! But I do believe that God works in our lives to help us emerge from hellish experiences somehow changed – with some blessing, with something gained, something learned. Parker Palmer, in speaking of his depression, taught that the path to humility, to be brought low, renders us powerless, stripped of all pretenses and defenses, so that we are allowed to regrow our lives from the ground up.
When we are fumbling for words of compassion, we can first listen, acknowledging the pain, telling that brother or sister that we don't know why it is happening either, and then hold their hand as they sit on that ash heap, asking God to use us to mediate God's love. Human pain is real. God is here, loves us, and suffers with us. God knew how hard it was for the rich man who was possessed by his possessions. God gets it. Job had nothing left, but he carried around his pain, his feeling of abandonment, his unresolved issues, he lugged around his big question of why me? It felt like a hand was pushing him down. His friends' unhelpfulness added to the weight on his shoulders.
God saw Job and his struggle. Jesus saw the rich ruler, really looked into him, and loved him. God sees us, too, even when we don't recognize God. Joyce Rupp tells the story of a woman who would often tell her friends how much she wanted to stand in a rainbow. “One day as she and her companions were driving along, they saw a magnificent rainbow a mile or so in front of them. She was elated and hurried to go and stand in it. . . to her surprise she couldn't tell when she was in the rainbow. She kept calling to the others, 'Am I in it yet? Am I in it now?' 'Yes!' They called “You just can't see it, but we can.” We can't always tell if we are encompassed by God's light, but thankfully we can look to others and say, “God is here, right?”
Imagine yourself on that ash heap. Imagine God coming to you in that place, saying, not “buck up” and certainly not the line I use with my kids “you need an attitude adjustment.” No, God doesn't say anything, just hunkers down and sits with you in you pain. What do I do about the pain, sorrow, the grief I'm experiencing? you may ask God. Listen for the answer. Are you to sit awhile longer in the darkness—is there more to be learned there? Or is it time to fumble around in the dark soil of your situation, reaching for a way up and out to a place you can bloom? And then -- what next? Perhaps give something of value away. Volunteer your time. Create beauty. Be an advocate for someone. Start a new spiritual practice. Get outside. If you spend a lot of time with kids, cultivate friendships with adults. If you don't have kids in you care, adopt a grandchild. Read good books. Take out your calendar and look for things you can delegate or delete. Exercise. Bake cookies and give some away. Push the laundry off for another day and visit a neighbor. Find the people who radiate God's light to you, and soak it in! It can even be a person in your imagination.
We all have times when we are plunged into darkness. Sometimes the cause is very logical, such as specific illness or disorder, or financial or family crisis. But the integration of our minds, bodies and spirits often do not allow us to place just one finger on what the difficulty is. At times it feels like everything is wrong, and other times that nothing is wrong except that we are depressed. Mental disorders run in my family – maybe they run in all of ours! I often daydream that I could have a conversation with my Grandma Tanis, who didn't speak much in the few years that I knew her before she died. She suffered from schizophrenia, and lived in a time where there was even much more stigma on mental illness than today. In my daydream I sit with her, and offer her empathy. I would say, I'm sorry you have been through so much pain. I would encourage her too, and say, you are a remarkable woman to have raised a family of such strong faith, to have done the best with what you were given, and to make your children feel so unconditionally loved. Surely the light of Christ was reflected from you to so many. She’d know that I have struggles too, that I experienced times of darkness as well. I'm not sure what she'd say, but I know she would sit with me, her polyester dress swishing as she shifted her weight to reach out and tightly grasp my hand. I'd soak in her knowing, and her loving, and that would be enough.
In the beginning of the sermon I talked about all the lines the bumbling fool doles out, attempted empathy that falls flat on the ground. But here is where it gets even more personal. Have you fed any of that spiritual malnourishment to yourself? You may have asked “God, why would you do this me?” But bad things do not come from God. God allows bad things to happen because God gave us the gift of free will, of choices. You may say, “I need to snap out of it.” Maybe you don't. Maybe there is some reason you need to stay in the dark longer. And what makes you think you need to heal on your own? God gives you strength to heal, and God gifts us people in our lives who can help us put the pieces back together. Perhaps you've told yourself you struggle because you are somehow defected or unworthy. Well guess what, you are a precious child of God. Perhaps you need to see yourself a little more like God sees you. Job found it hard to see, but at the end of the day, he found God in the dark. Some of us have too, and if you haven't yet, you may need to keep waiting and trusting that you are seen.
Parker J. Palmer, Let your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2000.
Joyce Rupp, Little Pieces of Light: Darkness and Spiritual Growth. Mahwah, New Jersey: Paulist Press, 1994, p. 63.