From Job to #GeorgeFloyd

Provoking Faith in a Time of Isolation

7 June 2020

Carved wooden figure of Job. 

Probably from Germany, 1750–1850 CE. 

The Wellcome Collection, London

Job 1.1-22

The question of why terrible things happen to innocent people

            is one of the biggest challenges to faith.

Why would God allow George Floyd to be killed?

            Why would God allow a pandemic to sweep the globe.

            What about hurricanes, earthquakes, and criminals?

But it’s actually more problematic than this,

            because the innocent to whom terrible things happen

            are rarely the random victims of chance.

They are usually those who are already disproportionately disadvantaged,

            and often Black and Minority Ethnic, or women, or in poverty,

                        or disabled, or of a minority sexuality or gender,

                        or suffering from poor mental health,

            or some combination of these characteristics.

Susceptibility to victimisation

            correlates to vulnerability and marginalisation.

And so, with a man killed for his colour in 21^st century America,

            with protests and riots sparking violence on streets around the world,

            and with news that the worst effects of Coronavirus

                        disproportionately affect people of colour,

            we come to the book of Job.

This week is the first of a five week series,

            in which we will seek wisdom from this extended meditation

            from the Hebrew Bible on the nature of suffering before God.

The opening chapter starts with what modern theologians

            call the question of theodicy,

            which is the problem of why a good God permits evil in the world,

and it’s something people have struggled with

            since the dawn of religion.

It may even be the question

            which drove the evolution of religion in the first place,

            as people sought answers to their experience of capricious suffering.

The Hebrew Bible offers a range of perspectives on this,

            but the dominant one is found

            in what is known as the Deuteronomic history,

this is the version of the Jewish story

            articulated in the book of Deuteronomy and those that follow it,

            namely Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings.

These books were probably first written in the 7^th century BCE,

            shortly before the time of the Babylonian exile,

            and reached their final form during the exile.

And they tell the story of Israel based on a premise, which is this:

            God has chosen Israel to be his people,

                        and has given them the law,

            which they are to keep as their response

                        to God’s choosing of them.

If they obey the law God blesses them,

            and if they disobey the law disaster comes upon them.

This means that if things are going badly,

            it is an indication that they have in some way departed from God’s law.

So, for example, the invasion of the Assyrians,

            the destruction of the Temple at the hands of the Babylonians,

                        and the exile that follows,

            are the result of Israel’s faithlessness.

In the Deuteronomic texts,

            this mechanism of cause-and-effect around suffering

                        is understood primarily at a communal level,

            with faithfulness or faithlessness

                        seen in the actions of the leaders of Israel,

            and divine punishment experienced

                        in terms of war or disaster;

and we’ll come back to this issue

            of national or structural culpability later.

But when people considered the problem of personal suffering,

            it was harder to always see

            how individual calamity

            correlated to personal faithlessness.

We find this tension reflected in the story of Jesus and the man born blind,

            when the Pharisees asked Jesus whose sin had led to his disability

                        - his own or his parents (John 9.1-3),

            and the answer Jesus gave was to reject the premise entirely,

                        and to shift the focus away from the cause of the disability,

                        towards the action of God in what comes next:

            ‘Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned;

            he was born blind so that God's works might be revealed in him.”’

And so we come to the book of Job,

            which offers a different perspective on personal suffering,

introducing another strand of theology

            to set alongside that articulated by the Deuteronomic texts.

Job is an innocent and righteous man

            who suffers unbearably through no cause of his own.

And the book that tells his story

            echoes the approach of Jesus to the Pharisees,

by devoting relatively little space

            to the question of ‘why’ these things happen to Job,

and most of the text to the question of how Job responds before God

            to his experience of unjust suffering.

But we will come to that part of the story over the coming weeks.

Today, we are in the first chapter,

            and today we have before us the ‘why’ question.

And the answer, to be honest, is less than satisfactory.

            But let’s take a look anyway.

Maybe the reason Job suffers is that it’s all Satan’s fault?

Certainly, I’ve met many Christians over the years

            who have been very quick to blame Satan for all of their life’s woes.

But the problem here is that Satan in Job

            isn’t the Satan we know and love to hate

            from later Christian mythology.

I preached a whole sermon on Satan at Bloomsbury back in 2014,

            so I won’t repeat that here,

but I’ll make sure the link is in the blog

            if you want to follow that up a bit more.[1]

But let me just refresh your memories a little if you’ve forgotten…

Satan is the Hebrew word for ‘adversary’;

            and the Old Testament only has three places

            where it depicts a personified adversary, or satan.

Both here in Job (chs 1-2) and also in the book of Zechariah (ch. 3)

            we find visionary descriptions of the heavenly throne room,

            which is pictured in terms similar to the throne room

                        of an ancient near eastern ruler

            – with God sat in the place of the king, surrounded by his advisors.

One of these advisors takes the role of ‘the satan’, or ‘the accuser’,

            and seems to have a function similar to a prosecuting counsel

                        in a contemporary courtroom

            – his job is to put the other side,

                        to test the integrity and righteousness of the person on trial.

Here, the satan is not a personal name,

            but a role that one of the members of the divine court fulfils.

The third reference to satan in the Old Testament is found in 1 Chronicles (21.1),

            and it refers to a human being who provokes David

            to take a census of Israel, against the will of God.

None of these are remotely close to the kind of ‘evil alternative to God’

            that many seem to imagine Satan being.

So, I’m afraid, those looking to blame Satan

            for Job’s misfortune, need to look elsewhere…

But if it’s not Satan’s fault, maybe it is God’s fault after all,

            I mean, it does look a bit like God can’t resist a flutter,

            as he takes the bet that the satan lays before him,

                        and plays dice with Job’s life.

Virginia Woolf once said,

            ‘I read the book of job last night,

            I don’t think God comes out well in it”.

And fair enough, because if our basic premise for reading this text

            is that this is all about God torturing a man to see if he’ll break,

            then this is not a view of God that I want to subscribe to at all.

Frankly, it’s worse than the Deuteronomic view of God,

            and that was bad enough.

I think the key comes in verses 9-10

Then Satan answered the LORD, "Does Job fear God for nothing?

Have you not put a fence around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land.

The issue that Job is addressing

            is not fundamentally about where suffering comes from,

            but whether faith can survive suffering.

It is a conscious attempt to unpick the Deuteronomic perspective

            of a cause-and-effect relationship between fate and faith.

What I suspect we have going on here, historically speaking,

            is that the author of the book of Job, whoever they were,

drew on an existing folk-tale

            that told of a character called Job

            who was a righteous man who suffered.

And they took this folk-tale as the starting point

            for their profound meditation on human suffering that follows.

The first chapter is just the setup, it’s not the answer,

            and we shouldn’t expect it to be the answer.

The question of where suffering comes from

            is simply not adequately explained in Job;

but it is surely significant

            that the view that suffering comes as a result of individual sin

            is explicitly rejected.

Which brings me back to the world as we experience it,

            in our time, in 2020.

As I said earlier, the suffering of the innocent

            cannot always be adequately explained by random chance.

And we, like the book of Job, will surely want to reject any suggestion

            that the victimisation of the blameless is a result of their sin.

That would be to collude in compounding the abuse,

            by blaming the victim for their own suffering;

            a tactic favoured by abusers the world over.

But how are we to respond to the fact

            that it is the most disempowered, the most victimised,

                        the most righteous,

            who often seem to suffer the most.

Why do the global poor suffer most from the effects of climate change,

            when they have made the least contribution to its cause.

Why are those socio-economically disadvantaged as a result of racism,

            who fly and travel less than those who are white and wealthy,

            now finding themselves at the most risk of COVID?

Why was George Floyd killed by a white policeman?

Well, here I think we can begin to draw, helpfully and carefully,

            on the insights of the Deuteronomic perspective,

but re-reading them in the light of the book of Job.

Because structural sin is very real:

            from institutional racism, to systemic marginalisation,

            to sanctioned exploitation, to authorised disempowerment;

Like a contemporary pastiche of God in the book of Job,

            our global society instigates and perpetuates systems

            where the most righteous are required to suffer the most.

The world is not just, it is not fair,

            but this is the world that, for better and for worse,

            we have inherited.

The question before us, as before the characters in the book of Job,

            is what are we going to do about it?

How are we going to respond to a world

            where the innocent suffer, and the righteous are victimised.

Will we shake our heads in sorrow and despair

            at the unfairness of it all;

will we be like Job’s comforters, 

            offering empty words of empathy,

            but continuing to collude in the suffering;

or will we learn to listen to Job,

            to pay attention to the words of those who suffer and die.

Can we hear George Floyd telling the man on his neck that he can’t breathe,

            calling his killer ‘sir’ as his life slipped away;

and in that hear the call to a new world,

            where Job’s righteousness is respected,

            where Job’s life is valued,

            where Job helps shape the future to be different to the past.

---

[1] https://baptistbookworm.blogspot.com/2014/09/satan.html

Transformation, not charity

Provoking Faith

24 April 2020

Transformation, not charity

Acts 3.1-10  

Listen to this sermon here: https://soundcloud.com/bloomsbury-1/transformation-not-charity

The scene which Luke paints for us

          in our reading this morning from the book of Acts

          is as contemporary as it is ancient.

It could be any street, in any city, in any country.

          From Bloomsbury to Bangalore,

                   the picture is as familiar as it is troubling.

A man with a physical deformity has placed himself

          on the pavement at a busy intersection,

          and is begging for money.

Those of us who regularly walk the streets of London,

                   are no strangers to those who sit and beg.

          And whether they present with a disability

                   or a note written on a piece of cardboard,

          the message, the request, is constant:

                   ‘Please can I have some money?’

Well,

This week, I’ve been involved in a number of Zoom meetings

          with our partners at London Citizens,

discussing the situation facing those who are homeless

          both in terms of the current lockdown,

          and also the implications for when lockdown ends.

Apparently, right now,

          despite the government offering to house all people who are homeless

                    in temporary hotel accommodation,

          there are still about 130 people sleeping on the streets of the West End,

                    congregating in Soho Square during the day

                    for meal handouts from local hotels.

In addition, there are real concerns that when the lockdown ends,

          with those who have been put into hotels being kicked out,

their numbers will combine with those who have lost their jobs and security,

          to bring about a homelessness situation in London

          far worse than we were facing before this crisis began.

And here I want to suggest something radical:

          which is that this homelessness crisis won’t be solved

                    by providing accommodation and money alone.

There are deep structural and systemic injustices in our society,

          which keep people disempowered and on the streets.

Simply opening hotels to the homeless

          doesn’t solve the problem.

As a trip to Soho Square this afternoon will amply demonstrate.

And neither does feeding people solve homelessness,

          nor having a stock of cast-off clothing,

          nor offering a washing machine for people to use.

These things may help make today a bit better,

          but even at their best they don’t solve the underlying problems

                    of poor mental health, addictions, and disempowerment;

          and at their worst, they actively perpetuate the toxic cultures

                    of dependency and patronage

                    which keep people on the streets.

And it was no different in the first century,

          with our anonymous friend we meet in the book of Acts,

                    sitting outside the Temple in Jerusalem,

          strategically positioned in prime location

                   by the gate called ‘Beautiful’,

          where, the cynic in me suspects,

                    the contrast between the soaring sublime architecture,

                   and his own deformed body,

          was carefully constructed to elicit maximum sympathy (and cash)

                   from those entering the temple

                   to bring their worship and offerings before the Lord.

After all, how could a person with their eyes turned to God

          ignore the plight of one of God’s suffering children?

It’s the same reason that today people often choose to beg

          in places where others are having a nice time.

I’m sure that many of those who came to the temple

          gave to the beggar at the gate,

                   believing that by doing so,

                   they were offering to this unfortunate man

                   a tangible expression of the care that God had for him.

But where they doing any good?

          Or were they merely perpetuating a dysfunctional system

                    where the wealthy made themselves feel a bit less guilty for their wealth

                    by giving the beggar a gift that, far from transforming his life,

          simply trapped him ever more firmly

                    in the toxic system of begging for survival.

It is in this context that Peter utters his famous line,

          ‘silver and gold have I none, but what I have I give you.’

And on such a sentence the world turns upside down.

In this simple statement from Peter,

          the basic transaction

                    which lay at the root of the Temple system,

          was subverted.

The Temple system represented middle class religion,

          and was primarily populated by those who had money.

The beggar knew how it was supposed to work,

          the worshippers knew how it was supposed to work,

          the temple officials knew how it was supposed to work.

The moneyed worshippers’ job was to give alms to the poor;

          whilst the job of the poor was to receive the handouts.

It was a tried and tested system, and everyone felt better in the process.

The small acts of kindness,

          directed towards an undeserving (or even culpable) poor,

                   appeased the conscience of the rich,

          whilst at the same time highlighting their ultimate powerlessness

                   to effect genuine change.

It was into this context that Peter and John conducted their transgressive act

          against the system of inequality

          that everyone had become complicit in.

They didn’t give alms to the beggar.

          They didn’t give him silver, or gold, or even a few copper coins.

They refused the transaction of handing over money

          in exchange for a temporarily salved conscience.

Rather, Peter looked the beggar in the eye,

          reached out a hand to him, and lifted him up.

This was deeply subversive stuff,

          because it challenged all the implicit and unspoken assumptions

          about the way the world works.

The world says that the poor are not to be lifted up,

          they are not to be looked at as equals.

They are to be ignored, vilified,

          blamed, stigmatized, and done unto.

They are there to provide the ‘weak’

          to the Temple system’s ‘strong’.

If Peter and John had simply given money to the man,

          they would have become complicit in the very system

                   that kept him in his poverty.

But they took a different, more Christ-like path,

          which challenged the system

          and opened the door to transformation.

There is a wonderful story told about Thomas Aquinas

          who once went to see the Pope,

          before whom a large sum of money was spread out

the Pope observed proudly to St Thomas,

          “You see, the Church is no longer in that age

          in which she said, ‘Silver and gold have I none.’

Aquinas replied, “True, holy father,”

          “neither can she any longer say to the lame, ‘Rise up and walk.’”[1]

Those who follow Christ have the God-given capacity

          to see the pearl of great price inside each human soul,

          to discern the spark of the divine in every person.

And our calling is not to charity,

          it is to transformation.

The world might give money to the poor

          to make their today a little more bearable,

but we are called to see their potential

          and to help them discover a way of rising up from their begging-bed,

          to discover a life of true flourishing based not what they have,

                    or even what they do, but on who they are.

I’ve been reading Sam Wells’ book ‘A Future That’s Bigger Than The Past’,

          and I strongly recommend it to you as some lockdown reading.

In there, he points to an essay written by Oscar Wilde over a hundred years ago.

By way of conclusion, I’m going to give Wilde the last word,

          which I think he would have appreciated:

He says:

Just as the worst slave-owners were those who were kind to their slaves,

          and so prevented the horror of the system being realised

                    by those who suffered from it,

          and understood by those who contemplated it,

so, in the present state of things in England,

          the people who do most harm are the people who try to do most good.

Jesus moved in a community

          that allowed the accumulation of private property just as ours does,

and the gospel that he preached

          was not that in such a community it is an advantage

                    for a [person] to live on scanty, unwholesome food,

                              to wear ragged, unwholesome clothes,

                    to sleep in horrid, unwholesome dwellings,

          and a disadvantage for a [person] to live

                    under healthy, pleasant, and decent conditions . . .

It is to be noted that Jesus never says

          that impoverished people are necessarily good,

          or wealthy people necessarily bad.

That would not have been true . . .

There is only one class in the community

          that thinks more about money than the rich, and that is the poor.

The poor can think of nothing else.

          That is the misery of being poor.

What Jesus does say is that [humankind] reaches [its] perfection,

          not through what [it] has,

                    not even through what [it] does,

          but entirely through what [it] is.

Or, as Peter said, "I have no silver or gold, but what I have I give you;

          in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk." 

            And he took him by the right hand and raised him up;

---

[1] Vide Acts iii. 2–8.