Sermon for March 27th, 2022
Job 20:1-29 (OT p.468)
1 Then Zophar the Naamathite answered:
2 “Pay attention! My thoughts urge me to answer,
because of the agitation within me.
3 I hear censure that insults me,
and a spirit beyond my understanding answers me.
4 Do you not know this from of old,
ever since mortals were placed on earth,
5 that the exulting of the wicked is short,
and the joy of the godless is but for a moment?
6 Even though they mount up high as the heavens,
and their head reaches to the clouds,
7 they will perish forever like their own dung;
those who have seen them will say, ‘Where are they?’
8 They will fly away like a dream, and not be found;
they will be chased away like a vision of the night.
9 The eye that saw them will see them no more,
nor will their place behold them any longer.
10 Their children will seek the favor of the poor,
and their hands will give back their wealth.
11 Their bodies, once full of youth,
will lie down in the dust with them.
12 “Though wickedness is sweet in their mouth,
though they hide it under their tongues,
13 though they are loath to let it go,
and hold it in their mouths,
14 yet their food is turned in their stomachs;
it is the venom of asps within them.
15 They swallow down riches and vomit them up again;
God casts them out of their bellies.
16 They will suck the poison of asps;
the tongue of a viper will kill them.
17 They will not look on the rivers,
the streams flowing with honey and curds.
18 They will give back the fruit of their toil,
and will not swallow it down;
from the profit of their trading
they will get no enjoyment.
19 For they have crushed and abandoned the poor,
they have seized a house that they did not build.
20 “They knew no quiet in their bellies;
in their greed they let nothing escape.
21 There was nothing left after they had eaten;
therefore their prosperity will not endure.
22 In full sufficiency they will be in distress;
all the force of misery will come upon them.
23 To fill their belly to the full
God will send his fierce anger into them,
and rain it upon them as their food.
24 They will flee from an iron weapon;
a bronze arrow will strike them through.
25 It is drawn forth and comes out of their body,
and the glittering point comes out of their gall;
terrors come upon them.
26 Utter darkness is laid up for their treasures;
a fire fanned by no one will devour them;
what is left in their tent will be consumed.
27 The heavens will reveal their iniquity,
and the earth will rise up against them.
28 The possessions of their house will be carried away,
dragged off in the day of God’s wrath.
29 This is the portion of the wicked from God,
the heritage decreed for them by God.”
Other Voices in the Book of Job: Zophar
One day at the gates of hell, the devil welcomes a corrupt politician to his eternal reward. "Your actions and choices in life have earned you an eternity of torment. But since you were always a sucker for a self-serving deal, I'll make you this one: You get to choose between three options." He leads the politician to door number one, the classic fiery furnace where inhabitants are being perpetually roasted in agony. The man nervously asks to see what's behind door number two. The devil opens the second door, which reveals a vast and desolate wasteland. In the distance, the man can see scattered inhabitants, exhausted, and constantly pursued by frightening demons. He says, "Well, that's a slight improvement, but let's see what's behind door number three." As soon as door number three is opened, out comes an almost unbearable stench, and the politician sees the inhabitants of the room standing waist high in what looks like a combination of cow manure, rotten sewage, and (again for classic effect) burning sulfur. But there's one more faint aroma coming out of the room: Coffee. He sees that each of the inhabitants is drinking from a small cup of coffee. "This one definitely seems like the lesser of three evils," says the politician, somewhat relieved. "I'll choose this room." "Popular choice," says the devil with a snicker, as he shoves the man inside the room. And just before the devil closes the door, he yells out in a loud voice to all in the room: "Coffee break's over--back on your heads!"
This joke works for two reasons: First, most of us grew up with some kind of awareness of the twin concepts of Heaven and Hell. The criteria for where you end up tend to change based on what religious tradition you hail from, but the basic description is the same: eternal bliss, or eternal torment. Whether or not you subscribe to that belief is pretty much irrelevant to the joke itself, as long as you understand the basic concept.
The second reason this joke works (and the one I intend to focus on today) is because I told you that the main character, the butt of the joke, was a corrupt politician. Half of you probably had one in mind, and the other half of you had a different one in mind, from the opposite political party. Regardless, we can all conceive of someone like that who we perceive to be thoroughly and incorrigibly corrupt, but immensely crafty and powerful, and therefore also frustratingly immune from all of our cherished notions of justice and accountability.
If fairness and justice are important virtues (and I believe they are), then how can reasonable, thinking people in a civilized society wrap their hearts and minds around the idea that some people will live an entire lifetime full of corruption, exploitation, and harm to others, and then finally die without punishment or judgement, completely beyond the reach of the law?
Well, you could choose to believe that life simply isn't fair, that evil prevails over good, and that innocent people are always destined to suffer at the hands of the wicked. But that's not a very hopeful, or helpful worldview, and I think it leads to despair, resignation, and sometimes even to choosing evil over good.
Another choice--the one advocated by most world religions--is to put what is beyond our control in the hands of God, or some benevolent order in the universe that leads toward ultimate justice. In Buddhism, for example, those who lead wretched lives are doomed to reincarnation in an even more wretched existence, over and over again, until they get it right. But it's still the same principle--we put our faith and our hope for justice in whatever force governs life after death. Even if we don't live to see it, we choose to believe (and live our lives) as if justice prevails in the end. And I think that compels us--sometimes in hope of that eternal reward, and sometimes through fear of that eternal punishment, to live better lives, to teach our children morality and decency, and to work for a better world where more and more people are included in that ultimate, eternal reward.
Here I should note that classic Protestant Christianity, from the time of the Reformation, has taught that God does not judge us on the basis of whether we lead good or bad lives, but rather by whether we put our faith and trust in Jesus Christ, God's son and our redeemer. But Christianity also teaches that if you truly and sincerely put your faith in Jesus, you will also be compelled to live by his teachings, to love your neighbor, and to turn from evil. So the end result is the same, just one additional step (which is quite important to us as Presbyterians) in between.
Even if you're not a Christian, or a particularly religious person of any sort, I hope you can at least see how this ancient and pervasive belief system--that justice prevails in the end--has been a force for good, for hope and optimism and civility for several millennia. Except...when it hasn't.
The argument against Heaven and Hell, or any sort of final justice after this life, usually runs something like this: How could a good and loving God (or benevolent universal force) condemn countless people to an eternity of suffering and torture for disobeying rules that we can't seem to all agree on? Remember, your idea of a "corrupt politician" is probably a hero to the other 50% of the population and vice versa.
Worse yet, the fear of eternal torment has sometimes been used as a threat in the hands of religious leaders to enforce conformity to their own earthly agendas, which are often dubious at best. The promise of heaven has been used in coercive ways, too--promises of salvation in exchange for money, or the promise that baptism, church attendance, or even a quick deathbed conversion are all surefire guarantees of eternal bliss.
