Homily for the Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, February 8, 2015, Year B
Fr. Butler is away preaching on special assignment. I submit to you Fr. Charles Irvin's homily on Jesus, Job and the value of our suffering:
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| Peter and his mother-in-law |
Henry David Thoreau once wrote: “The mass of men
lead lives of quiet desperation.” One such person comes to us this morning in
today’s first reading. He name is Job. I’m sure most of you are familiar with
his story that comes to us from the Old Testament.
We enter his story today
finding Job as a successful businessman, enjoying good health, some
considerable wealth, at the peak of happiness, surrounded by a loving family,
and married to a good wife.
But good fortune is like
the wind. Suddenly everything changes. Savage bandits slaughter his servants
and steal his flocks. A dreadful desert storm takes the lives of all his
children. Under terrible pressure and stress his health fails and his entire body
is covered with painful sores, the physical consequences, no doubt, of
unendurable inner pain. In the end, his beloved wife tells him to “curse God
and die.” And the reaction of his friends? “Well,” they tell him, “God is
punishing you for some horrible secret sins in your life.” We hear
similar judgments in our own day when misfortune befalls people.
But while most of us
have not suffered to the extent Job suffered (although I’ve known some who
have), most of us have experienced what was sent forth in today’s first reading
-- never-ending sleepless nights filled with fear, anxiety, guilt, and
self-punishment. Some have felt tempted to literally curse God and die. Many
have cursed the Church and died.
And then there are the
days that follow those nights… long, long days filled with drudgery, pain, and
hopelessness, days that arrive one after another without end. Some of you here
this morning see nothing but those days and nights stretching out endlessly
ahead of you.
There’s something
special about a man or woman who has been born into great wealth, suffered the
loss of it all, and then rebuilt his or her life back up again from nothing. I
knew such a person – he was my father. He was a man acquainted with the task of
facing life without hope of ever returning to his original comfortable state in
life.
Then there’s the loss
through sudden death of people whom we love and care for, or loss through
lingering illness followed finally by a merciful death. I’m not sure which is
more painful, sudden loss of life or loss through long, lingering, and slow
diminishments ending in a final death by exhaustion. Those of you acquainted
with Alzheimer’s disease know what I am talking about.
Many who have greatly
suffered have likewise faced the temptation to curse heaven, blame God, and
then resolve to die in nothingness. Living life over the long haul while
carrying a load of hidden pain and loss that few realize is a daunting
challenge to faith. The temptation to blame God and then stoically endure death
is a very real temptation for many people you and I have known.
Finally there was Job’s
wife, the woman he lived with and loved through- out his entire ordeal. In the
end he suffered a pain worse than being impoverished, suffering terrible
losses, and then finally turning into a physical wreck covered with sores. The
one he trusted, loved, and depended upon, the one he cherished, walked out on
him while advising him to “curse God and die.” That’s polite biblical language
covering over what she was really saying: “Go to hell, Job!”
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