Cry when it Hurts

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Cry when it Hurts

• Job 3.1-26

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It Hurts!

• "Someone must have been lying about Joseph K.,
  for without having done anything wrong he was
  arrested one fine morning."
• Franz Kafka, The Trial

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A Definition of Affliction

• "There is not real affliction unless the event
  that has seized and uprooted a life attacks it,
  directly or indirectly, in all its parts, social,
  psychological, and physical."
• Simone Weil, Waiting for God

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Job 3.1-2

• "After this Job opened his mouth and cursed the
  day of his birth. He answered, saying . . . ."

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Job 11-5

• He was "blameless and upright, one who feared God
  and turned away from evil."
• He had an ideal family and all the wealth that he
  could desire.
• He did obsess a little about his children's
  spiritual state, but that is not really
  "abnormal."

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Job 1.6-12

• The Heavenly Scene
• "Have you considered my servant Job?"
• ". . . he will curse you to your face."

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Job 1.14a

• "a messenger came to Job and said . . . ."

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Job 1.16

• "The fire of God fell from heaven and burned up
  the sheep and the servants, and consumed them"

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Job 1.18-9

• ". . . a great wind came across the desert,
  struck the four corners of the house, and it fell
  on the young people, and they are DEAD . . . ."

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Job 1.21

• "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked
  shall I return there the Lord gave, and the Lord
  has taken away blessed be the name of the Lord."

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Job 2.7

• ". . . the satan . . . inflicted loathsome sores
  on Job from the sole of his foot to the crown of
  his head."

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Job 210

• ". . . shall we receive the good at the hand of
  God, and not receive the bad?"

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Job 2.11-13

• "Job's three friends . . . met together to go and
  console and comfort him . . . . they raised their
  voices and wept aloud . . . . sat with him on the
  ground seven days and nights . . . ."

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Job 3.1-2

• "After this Job opened his mouth and cursed the
  day of his birth. He answered, saying . . . ."

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Job 3.3-10

• 3.3 Let the day . . . and the night . . . .
• 3.4-5 Let the day . . . .
• 3.6-7 That night . . . .
• 3.8 Curse of the Day/Sea
• 3.9 Day Night Luminescence
• 3.10 The Reason Since he was not allowed to die
  at birth, he now has had to experience much
  trouble.

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Job 3.3-10

• Jeremiah in a different context Jer 20.14-18.
• "The bourgeois etiquette that has dominated the
  mores of western Christendom, especially in the
  Puritan tradition, is not guide to the rightness
  of Jobs speech." F. I. Andersen
• No thought of Suicide!

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Christian Masochism Calvin's Prayer

• "And surely, O Lord, from the very chastisements
  which thou has inflicted upon us, we know that
  for the justest causes thy wrath is kindled
  against us for, seeing thou are a just Judge,
  thou afflictest not thy people when not
  offending. Therefore, beaten with thy stripes, we
  acknowledge that we have provoked thy anger
  against us and even now we see thy hand
  stretched forth for our punishment. The swords
  which thou art wont to use in inflicting
  vengeance are now drawn, and those with which
  thou threatenest sinners and wicked men we see
  ready to smite.

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Christian Masochism Calvin's Prayer

• But though thou mightest take much severer
  punishment upon us than before, and thus inflict
  blows an hundredfold more numerous, and though
  disasters only less dreadful than those with
  which thou didst formerly chastise the sins of
  thy people of Israel, should overtake us, we
  confess that we are worthy of them, and have
  merited them by our crimes."

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Christian Masochism Powerlessness

• Powerlessness "Powerlessness signifies 'the
  expectancy or probability held by the individual
  that his own behavior cannot determine the
  occurrence of the outcomes, or reinforcements, he
  seeks' . . . . The consciousness that one is
  powerless is a fundamental element in suffering."
  
• Soelle, Suffering

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Christian Masochism Meaninglessness

• Meaninglessness "Meaninglessness. . . . This
  occurs when 'the individual is unclear as to what
  he ought to believe - when the individuals
  minimal standards for clarity in decision making
  are not met.'"
• Soelle, Suffering

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Christian Masochism

• "The logic of this sadistic understanding of
  suffering is hard to refute. It consists of three
  propositions which recur in all sadistic
  theologies 1) God is the almighty ruler of the
  world, and he sends all suffering 2) God acts
  justly, not capriciously and 3) all suffering is
  punishment for sin."
• Soelle, Suffering

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Christian Masochism

• "In the face of suffering you are either with the
  victim or the executioner - there is no other
  option. Therefore that explanation of suffering
  that looks away from the victim and identifies
  itself with a righteousness that is suppose to
  stand behind the suffering has already taken a
  step in the direction of theological sadism,
  which wants to understand God as the torturer."
• Soelle, Suffering

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Christian Masochism

• "When Christians try to explain all suffering in
  and of itself having theological significance we
  end up vacating the cross of its significance
  because we fail to remember that what is
  important about the cross is who was crucified
  there. Moreover such accounts of suffering tempt
  us to masochistic accounts of the Christian life
  that cannot help belie the joy characteristic of
  the Christian orientation."
• Hauerwas, Suffering Presence

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Job 3.11-19

• 3.11-12 Why did I not die at birth . . . .
• 3.13-15 I could have been at rest from my
  troubles like the great people of the past.

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Job 3.11-19

• 3.16 Why was I not buried . . . .
• 3.17-19 I would be relieved from the trouble
  that I am experiencing like those that were
  disenfranchised.

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Job 3.11-19

• Self-lament
• Deep pain that cannot easily be brushed aside.
• Troubled family
• Richard

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Job 3.20-23

• Why is light given . . . .
• A lament leveled at God.

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The Hidden God

• "God being thus hidden, every religion which does
  not affirm that God is hidden is not true and
  every religion which does not give the reason of
  it is not instructive." Pascal, Pensees, 585

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Job 3.24-26

• "Truly the thing that I fear comes upon me,
• And what I dread befalls me.
• I am not at ease, nor am I quiet
• I have no rest but trouble comes."

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Apply the Cry to our lives

• Laments in the O.T.
• Gospel of Mark as an extended Passion Narrative.
• Mark 15.34b "My God, my God, why have you
  forsaken me?"
• Maranatha (?)

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Apply the Cry to our lives

• Rev. 6.10 They cried out with a loud voice,
  "Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long will it
  be before you judge and avenge our blood on the
  inhabitants of the earth?"

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