Job: The Suffering of the Innocent || God's Terrible Silence
Sunday, October 10, 2021
Rev. Dr. Donna Claycomb Sokol
In his book, The Book of Job: When Bad Things Happened to a Good Person, Rabbi Harold Kushner argues that one cannot love someone wholeheartedly unless one feels free to be angry with that person when circumstances warrant. A spouse who refuses to tell their partner how they really feel is not loving that person wholeheartedly. Similarly, "we cannot love God with all our heart, and with all our soul if we feel we have to censor our feelings, to pretend love and gratitude when we don't feel them. If we are angry at the way life has treated us but feel we can't speak out against the unfairness of God's world, we are being emotionally dishonest in our prayers," Kushner writes. Our journey through Job, one of the most challenging books of the Bible, continues this Sunday with Job being brutally honest with God. How might we do the same, demanding God to please show up and stop being so silent or absent? What if shaking our fists and asking, "Where in the hell is God?" is a profound act of faith?