There was once a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job. That man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil. ... One day the heavenly beings came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them to present himself before the Lord. The Lord said to Satan, “Where have you come from?” Satan answered the Lord, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.” The Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil. He still persists in his integrity, although you incited me against him, to destroy him for no reason.” Then Satan answered the Lord, “Skin for skin! All that people have they will give to save their lives. But stretch out your hand now and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse you to your face.” The Lord said to Satan, “Very well, he is in your power; only spare his life.” So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord, and inflicted loathsome sores on Job from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. Job took a potsherd with which to scrape himself, and sat among the ashes. Then his wife said to him, “Do you still persist in your integrity? Curse God, and die.” But he said to her, “You speak as any foolish woman would speak. Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips.
(Job 1:1 & 2:1-10)
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Probably every night, someone somewhere steps up to a podium, taps a microphone and says “testing, testing.” No one pays much attention because this, of course, is not the main event of the evening, although I have been to meetings at which the sound test has actually been far more interesting than the keynote speaker! Still, no one listens to the sound test in the expectation that anything profound is about to be said. We ignore things like that. It’s been a while since I’ve heard these words on television, but many of us probably remember them: “this is a test of the emergency broadcast system.” Those tests were so frequent during the Cold War that I wonder if anyone would have actually paid any attention if something was actually happening and it wasn’t a test! To me, back in the 60’s and early 70’s, tests of the emergency broadcast system were basically unwelcome intrusions into the truly important work of watching cartoons! But not all tests are unimportant. School exams are important of course, as we work our way through the education system and demonstrate that we can apply the things we’ve learned. And tests of faith matter, too. Last week, we spoke about four different circumstances in which James recommended prayer: when we’re in trouble, when we’re happy, when we’re sick and when we’re sinning. James advice was a test of sorts: will we stay faithful in prayer and, by extension, to our relationship with God, regardless of our circumstances.
Tests of faith aren’t uncommon, and they’re often tragic. A little over a week ago, three children and their grandfather died north of Toronto when hit by a drunk driver. How do you deal with that from a faith perspective? And yet the mother of the three children said with great confidence in the midst of an unimaginable test, that she believed her children were with God. Just a few days ago I conducted a service for a baby who had died unexpectedly shortly after birth. My faith wasn’t shaken, but words were hard to come by. What does one say to try to help a family through such a horrible time?
Well, this week - and through the rest of October - we’re going to discover that a man named Job illustrates an Old Testament theme that life itself and all its varied circumstances is a test, with the guidelines for the test laid out in the biblical covenant between God and Israel. As Christians, we rejoice in being a part of a new covenant: the cup of the new covenant in the blood of Jesus, as we’re reminded every time we celebrate Holy Communion, and we face tests of our faithfulness to that covenant, and I want to consider the testing of our commitment to the new covenant by reflecting on the testing of Job’s commitment to the old covenant.
Job was tested in order to answer this question: how sincere was he in his love for God? It was a valid question, and Satan (who makes one of his very few Old Testament appearances in this passage) was right to ask it. After all, Job had been a rich and successful man. He had everything that anyone could possibly have asked for: money, power, family - and he loved God, but Satan argued that Job loved God only because God had been good to him and allowed him to prosper. The first test Job faced, which we didn’t read this morning, was to have his possessions taken away from him. How sincere would Job’s faith prove to be once he had lost everything? Job passed that test - the story tells us that after losing everything, Job “did not sin or charge God with wrongdoing.” Still, Satan wasn’t satisfied. He wanted a more difficult test: “... stretch out your hand now and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse you to your face.” God gave permission for this second test, and Job was stricken with a terrible disease. How sincere would Job’s faith prove to be when his own well-being was at stake. Again, Job passed the test - “Job did not sin with his lips.”
Our Christian faith, of course, is tested from time to time. We suffer illness, poverty, grief and injustice (and if we don’t suffer any of those things Satan may be saying to God right now - what about that person?) and through it all we wonder why we should remain faithful to God in the face of it all. Why remain disciples of Jesus? What’s in it for us? Faith doesn’t take all our problems away, so what’s the point of faith? A new covenant we may well be under, but we have the same problems after we become Christians as we had before we were Christians and our faith is still tested, just as Job’s was: will we remain faithful to God in those tough times that test our faith? When we see things that are so horrible as to be unimaginable? When things happen to us that just make no sense and that seem so unfair? Will we stay faithful? Not remaining faithful in bad circumstances may not mean that a person is actually without faith, but it should move us all to reflect on what faith is really about. What kind of relationship does God want with us? The point of all those times when our faith is tested is to allow us to see if we’re motivated by a pure and unselfish love for God. In Job’s case, he remained faithful to God in the midst of adversity and he demonstrated the sincerity of his faith with simple and yet profound words: “the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord,” and “shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?” Those tests proved Job’s faith to be an unselfish faith, and they demonstrated an essential point about the nature of God: even though bad things might happen, God is good.
Victor Frankl, a Viennese psychiatrist, survived the Auschwitz death camp and actually came out of the experience with a new understanding of the meaning of life. In a 1956 book called Man’s Search For Meaning, Frankl wrote,
If there is meaning in life at all, then there must be a reason in suffering. Suffering is an ineradicable part of life. … The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity - even under the most difficult of circumstances - to add a deeper meaning to his life.
Thankfully, we don’t generally undergo the types of tests faced by either Job or Victor Frankl, or the mother who lost her three children, or the parents whose baby I buried last Thursday. But if we avoid those extremes, there is still an element of testing to a Christian life and faith: a testing of our commitment to the new covenant. Do we turn to Jesus out of pure and unselfish love? We have to ask from time to time what it is that makes us respond to Jesus. Surely it’s not for personal gain. All of us here today must have suffered in some way at some point in our lives from some kind of trouble: grief, finances, health, conflict, employment. Jesus and our faith in him didn’t spare us from facing those troubles, and yet we’re here - offering him our devotion and expressing our faith. We must be here then not because of what Jesus does for us (although he does far more for us that we can ever give adequate thanks for) but rather simply because of who he is to us. He’s our Lord, our Saviour and our Friend. And today, we’re called to demonstrate our love for Jesus.
In a few moments we’ll celebrate the Sacrament of Holy Communion. When Paul wrote about Holy Communion in 1 Corinthians, he made testing an essential part of the sacrament: “Examine yourselves, and only then eat of the bread and drink of the cup.” The point is not to examine ourselves to see if we’re sinless, but really it’s to examine ourselves in order that we realize that we’re not sinless. That’s what matters today, because the whole sacrament is built around the forgiveness of sin. This remembrance of Jesus’ sacrifice is, to us, a sign of love: our love for Jesus and his love for us. When we receive the bread and partake of the cup we participate also in the divine love that Jesus demonstrated on the cross. Once we examine ourselves, we realize that our worthiness to be at this table is not because we’re worthy. It’s because Jesus has made us worthy - and it’s because Jesus has extended the invitation.
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