http://www.mediafire.com/file/nkzymmzrtzz/Pondering Pain.mp3
“Pondering Pain: Punishment for Sin or Message from God?”
Brimfield Faith UMC
January 17, 2009
Job / 1 Kings 19:9-11
Brimfield Faith UMC
January 17, 2009
Job / 1 Kings 19:9-11
INTRO:
I appreciate Dawn’s story on so many levels. This is the second time I’ve heard her share it publically. I value her courage, strength and resolve in sharing it. I love the fact that in her darkest hour she found God, instead of blamed God. I hope her story has inspired some of you to do the same in your times of struggle and pain.
When it comes to questions of God’s will and pain, many people wonder if God is behind the tragedies that happen on a daily basis. On a small scale, I was wrestling with this question in my own life. As tragedy befalls our lives, most of us wrestle with the same questions. Where is God in the midst of this? The question reaches far beyond us, as we watch devastating effects that the earthquake had in Haiti. Whenever something like this happens, people re-ask the question, why did God allow this to happen? As I have read the news stories and the comments below them, people have a variety of opinions when it comes to this. Some people site such occurrences as evidence of there not being a God. Others claim it to be God’s punishment for sin and a message to the world. The debate is a contentious one and one that we will enter into this morning.
Coincidentally, we are in week two of our sermon series “Good God, Bad World.” Last week, we talked about how a good, loving, all-powerful God can exist when there is so much suffering in the world. I posed the idea that because God is loving is the reason pain and suffering are able to exist in the world. Love can only exist as an act of free will. For us to experience the joys of a loving relationship with God and others, God gave us the gift of free will. With the gift of free will, came the inherent risk that we might abuse our ability to choose. Adam and Eve, in fact, chose to disobey and allow sin to enter into the world. With that sin, God allowed pain and suffering to enter. This morning, I hope for us to discover what God is trying to communication through pain and suffering.
THE GIFT OF PAIN
I think as we look closer at pain we might see that pain isn’t necessarily a bad thing. A large part of Jesus’ ministry involved healing people. When we think of the act of healing, we think of someone taking pain away. Healing doesn’t always involve the alleviation of pain. Did you know that Jesus performed at least 11 miracles that actually allowed people to experience pain? By my count Jesus healed 11 people of leprosy in the Gospels. According to Dr. Paul Brand, a prominent researcher in the field of leprosy, leprosy is less a skin disease and more about a loss of sensation. We always think of people with leprosy as having skin lesions and that sort of thing. In actuality, the skin lesions are caused when people do damaging things to their bodies without realizing it. The reason this happens is because leprosy causes people to lose feeling in the bodies. For the leper, the warnings and protection that pain offers have been taken away.
We probably don’t need the illustration of the leper to know that pain can be a gift. Subconsciously, we know that pain is a protector and an important part of human existence. Pain keeps us from engaging in activities that might bring harm to us. Pain is protects us. Pain also warns us about dangers. When Dawn found out that she melanoma, it was because she had a mole that was causing her pain. Without that pain, she might not have noticed the abnormal mole in time to receive treatment. Pain can actually play a role in saving our lives.
NOT PUNISHMENT BUT A TEACHER
This is quite a shift from thinking of pain as strictly negative. Sometimes we have been programmed to think of pain as God’s punishment for sin. I wrestled with this thought when I found out that I had two herniated disks in my back. I thought God was punishing me for not listening to him. Thankfully, I was able to see this was not the case. Most of the time, God doesn’t need to punish us for our sins. Instead, God created a world in which there are consequences for behavior. It is called the law of cause and effect or the principle of reaping and sowing. Some call it Karma. You get what you deserve. If you disobey the rules of the world, you will most likely suffer undesirable results. Because of this cause and effect relationship in the world, God does not need to inflict further punishment. Pain is the result of our poor choices not direct punishment for disobedience.
For instance, when my mom was a kid, my grandma caught her playing with matches. My mom hadn’t burned herself, she hadn’t caught anything on fire, she hadn’t actually done any harm. If she hadn’t gotten caught, there would have been no consequences of her actions. Now my grandmother knew there could be serious results from playing with matches and she wanted my mom to stay away from them. A punishment was necessary to teach my mom the lesson of matches. So for the next hour, my mom stood over a metal trash barrel and lit matches. Needless to say, my mom never played with matches again.
The punishment was only necessary because my mom hadn’t suffered any pain from the experience. If she had caught the house on fire or burned herself, my grandma probably wouldn’t have punished her. The effects of the burns would have been painful enough to teach her the lesson that she needed to learn. I think most of the time God operates in the same manner. He doesn’t need to punish us because we have already experienced the pain of our actions and behaviors. Pain can indeed be a positive thing if we are willing to allow it to be. Pain can effectively teach us things if we will learn. Pain can warn us if we listen. Pain can protect us if we heed to it.
ENDLESS PAIN
This notion of positive pain has its limitations though. How do we embrace pain and suffering when it seems to be endless or senseless? How do we explain long painful illnesses? How do we explain untimely deaths? How do we explain natural disasters, earthquakes, hurricanes? I want to address this issue through the lens of the earthquake since we have been bombarded by it this week. I want to show a short video of the effects of the earthquake in case you’ve been living in isolation or haven’t seen it. [VIDEO] How do we explain what occurred there?
I’m sure you’ve heard explanations of this tragedy. Pat Roberson, a televangelist said this week that the earthquake was sent because the Haitian people had made a pact with the devil, basically implying that God was punishing them for being godless people. When Hurricane Katrina hit the explanations ranged from the wickedness of New Orleans to America’s support of homosexuals. In times like these I think it is helpful to turn to Scripture for a clearer picture. For this, I’d like to look at the book of Job.
JOB
The story of Job opens like this, “There was once a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job. That man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil.” Job followed the ways of God and in all senses of the word should have had no evil inflicted upon him. In the matter of hours, Job loses all of his children, all of his property and then falls ill. Job is understandably over come with grief. What he doesn’t know is that in heaven, Satan has basically placed a bet with God. Satan doesn’t think Job will still worship God if he endures a little suffering. As the story unfolds, Job has three friends who come to Job and try to convince him of his wrong doing. They try to get Job to confess his sins and be forgiven. Job insists, rightly, that he has done nothing wrong.
We catch a glimpse of Job’s conversation with his friends chapter 19. “How long will you torture me? How long will you try to crush me with your words? You have already insulted me ten times. You should be ashamed of treating me so badly. Even if I have sinned, that is my concern, not yours. You think you’re better than I am, using my humiliation as evidence of my sin. But it is God who has wronged me, capturing me in his net. “I cry out, ‘Help!’ but no one answers me. I protest, but there is no justice. God has blocked my way so I cannot move. He has plunged my path into darkness.”
Job is a man that defies the common thinking of his day and one that many Christians still embrace today. The belief of his friends is that God would not allow bad things to happen to good people. They thought that when people suffered their lives were unholy and full of sin. Job’s story turns this thinking upon its head. While there may be times when a person’s choices have caused their pain and suffering, it is not a one to one correlation.
In the times when suffering appears to be senseless, I think it is important that we not view God as angry with us. Equally as important, we should never tell someone there suffering is the pouring out of God’s wrath for their sinful ways. Job’s friends chided him and told him to repent of his wickedness when there was none. Job was indeed blameless before God. Towards the end of the story, Job’s friends are scolded by God for their foolish and hurtful behavior with their friend. I wish people like Pat Robertson would remember the lesson of Job’s friends before they speak words of condemnation to suffering people and suffering nations.
CONCLUSION - GOD IS THERE
By casting such judgment we push people away from God in their greatest time of need. There is not a good explanation for why God allowed such a terrible to happen. I know some tectonic plates shifting caused it. There may be no greater reason for the earthquake. I do know is that God will bring God out of it. I do know that God wants to walk through the pain with us and see us to the other side. Psalm 46:1 states, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”
I think it is foolishness to look too closely for God’s will and voice in natural disasters. In 1 Kings 19, the prophet Elijah does just this only to find that God has not in them. Instead God spoke in a different way. “And as Elijah stood there, the Lord passed by, and a mighty windstorm hit the mountain. It was such a terrible blast that the rocks were torn loose, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. 12 And after the earthquake there was a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire there was the sound of a gentle whisper.” When tragedy strikes, we would do well to draw our strength from God, to look to him as our refuge, and encourage others to do the same.
I want to share a few words from an article on the United Methodist Website that I read this week.
When I am confronting situations like the Haiti earthquake, I hear this conviction as if it is a whisper, "God is here. God is with us. God is in our midst." I cannot explain it. The logic of faith breaks down in the complexities of human suffering and the struggle to comprehend life and not give victory to death. I hear this whisper and I believe it. It is beyond logic and even beyond reasonable comprehension.
We exist in the embrace of God who weeps with us, comforts us, stands with us in the midst of our suffering, feels the emptiness of our silence and holds us in the palm of God's own hand. "The Lord has comforted his people, and will have compassion on his suffering ones.But Zion said, "The Lord has forsaken me, my Lord has forgotten me."Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands... (Isa. 49:13-16. The Wesley Study Bible)
I don’t know what your plight is, how you suffer, where your pain is, but I do know that God is not punishing you. God is not angry with you. God has not removed his hand from you. We would do well to seek to hear God’s voice in the same manner and to find refuge in our times of trouble. Let’s pray.
I appreciate Dawn’s story on so many levels. This is the second time I’ve heard her share it publically. I value her courage, strength and resolve in sharing it. I love the fact that in her darkest hour she found God, instead of blamed God. I hope her story has inspired some of you to do the same in your times of struggle and pain.
When it comes to questions of God’s will and pain, many people wonder if God is behind the tragedies that happen on a daily basis. On a small scale, I was wrestling with this question in my own life. As tragedy befalls our lives, most of us wrestle with the same questions. Where is God in the midst of this? The question reaches far beyond us, as we watch devastating effects that the earthquake had in Haiti. Whenever something like this happens, people re-ask the question, why did God allow this to happen? As I have read the news stories and the comments below them, people have a variety of opinions when it comes to this. Some people site such occurrences as evidence of there not being a God. Others claim it to be God’s punishment for sin and a message to the world. The debate is a contentious one and one that we will enter into this morning.
Coincidentally, we are in week two of our sermon series “Good God, Bad World.” Last week, we talked about how a good, loving, all-powerful God can exist when there is so much suffering in the world. I posed the idea that because God is loving is the reason pain and suffering are able to exist in the world. Love can only exist as an act of free will. For us to experience the joys of a loving relationship with God and others, God gave us the gift of free will. With the gift of free will, came the inherent risk that we might abuse our ability to choose. Adam and Eve, in fact, chose to disobey and allow sin to enter into the world. With that sin, God allowed pain and suffering to enter. This morning, I hope for us to discover what God is trying to communication through pain and suffering.
THE GIFT OF PAIN
I think as we look closer at pain we might see that pain isn’t necessarily a bad thing. A large part of Jesus’ ministry involved healing people. When we think of the act of healing, we think of someone taking pain away. Healing doesn’t always involve the alleviation of pain. Did you know that Jesus performed at least 11 miracles that actually allowed people to experience pain? By my count Jesus healed 11 people of leprosy in the Gospels. According to Dr. Paul Brand, a prominent researcher in the field of leprosy, leprosy is less a skin disease and more about a loss of sensation. We always think of people with leprosy as having skin lesions and that sort of thing. In actuality, the skin lesions are caused when people do damaging things to their bodies without realizing it. The reason this happens is because leprosy causes people to lose feeling in the bodies. For the leper, the warnings and protection that pain offers have been taken away.
We probably don’t need the illustration of the leper to know that pain can be a gift. Subconsciously, we know that pain is a protector and an important part of human existence. Pain keeps us from engaging in activities that might bring harm to us. Pain is protects us. Pain also warns us about dangers. When Dawn found out that she melanoma, it was because she had a mole that was causing her pain. Without that pain, she might not have noticed the abnormal mole in time to receive treatment. Pain can actually play a role in saving our lives.
NOT PUNISHMENT BUT A TEACHER
This is quite a shift from thinking of pain as strictly negative. Sometimes we have been programmed to think of pain as God’s punishment for sin. I wrestled with this thought when I found out that I had two herniated disks in my back. I thought God was punishing me for not listening to him. Thankfully, I was able to see this was not the case. Most of the time, God doesn’t need to punish us for our sins. Instead, God created a world in which there are consequences for behavior. It is called the law of cause and effect or the principle of reaping and sowing. Some call it Karma. You get what you deserve. If you disobey the rules of the world, you will most likely suffer undesirable results. Because of this cause and effect relationship in the world, God does not need to inflict further punishment. Pain is the result of our poor choices not direct punishment for disobedience.
For instance, when my mom was a kid, my grandma caught her playing with matches. My mom hadn’t burned herself, she hadn’t caught anything on fire, she hadn’t actually done any harm. If she hadn’t gotten caught, there would have been no consequences of her actions. Now my grandmother knew there could be serious results from playing with matches and she wanted my mom to stay away from them. A punishment was necessary to teach my mom the lesson of matches. So for the next hour, my mom stood over a metal trash barrel and lit matches. Needless to say, my mom never played with matches again.
The punishment was only necessary because my mom hadn’t suffered any pain from the experience. If she had caught the house on fire or burned herself, my grandma probably wouldn’t have punished her. The effects of the burns would have been painful enough to teach her the lesson that she needed to learn. I think most of the time God operates in the same manner. He doesn’t need to punish us because we have already experienced the pain of our actions and behaviors. Pain can indeed be a positive thing if we are willing to allow it to be. Pain can effectively teach us things if we will learn. Pain can warn us if we listen. Pain can protect us if we heed to it.
ENDLESS PAIN
This notion of positive pain has its limitations though. How do we embrace pain and suffering when it seems to be endless or senseless? How do we explain long painful illnesses? How do we explain untimely deaths? How do we explain natural disasters, earthquakes, hurricanes? I want to address this issue through the lens of the earthquake since we have been bombarded by it this week. I want to show a short video of the effects of the earthquake in case you’ve been living in isolation or haven’t seen it. [VIDEO] How do we explain what occurred there?
I’m sure you’ve heard explanations of this tragedy. Pat Roberson, a televangelist said this week that the earthquake was sent because the Haitian people had made a pact with the devil, basically implying that God was punishing them for being godless people. When Hurricane Katrina hit the explanations ranged from the wickedness of New Orleans to America’s support of homosexuals. In times like these I think it is helpful to turn to Scripture for a clearer picture. For this, I’d like to look at the book of Job.
JOB
The story of Job opens like this, “There was once a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job. That man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil.” Job followed the ways of God and in all senses of the word should have had no evil inflicted upon him. In the matter of hours, Job loses all of his children, all of his property and then falls ill. Job is understandably over come with grief. What he doesn’t know is that in heaven, Satan has basically placed a bet with God. Satan doesn’t think Job will still worship God if he endures a little suffering. As the story unfolds, Job has three friends who come to Job and try to convince him of his wrong doing. They try to get Job to confess his sins and be forgiven. Job insists, rightly, that he has done nothing wrong.
We catch a glimpse of Job’s conversation with his friends chapter 19. “How long will you torture me? How long will you try to crush me with your words? You have already insulted me ten times. You should be ashamed of treating me so badly. Even if I have sinned, that is my concern, not yours. You think you’re better than I am, using my humiliation as evidence of my sin. But it is God who has wronged me, capturing me in his net. “I cry out, ‘Help!’ but no one answers me. I protest, but there is no justice. God has blocked my way so I cannot move. He has plunged my path into darkness.”
Job is a man that defies the common thinking of his day and one that many Christians still embrace today. The belief of his friends is that God would not allow bad things to happen to good people. They thought that when people suffered their lives were unholy and full of sin. Job’s story turns this thinking upon its head. While there may be times when a person’s choices have caused their pain and suffering, it is not a one to one correlation.
In the times when suffering appears to be senseless, I think it is important that we not view God as angry with us. Equally as important, we should never tell someone there suffering is the pouring out of God’s wrath for their sinful ways. Job’s friends chided him and told him to repent of his wickedness when there was none. Job was indeed blameless before God. Towards the end of the story, Job’s friends are scolded by God for their foolish and hurtful behavior with their friend. I wish people like Pat Robertson would remember the lesson of Job’s friends before they speak words of condemnation to suffering people and suffering nations.
CONCLUSION - GOD IS THERE
By casting such judgment we push people away from God in their greatest time of need. There is not a good explanation for why God allowed such a terrible to happen. I know some tectonic plates shifting caused it. There may be no greater reason for the earthquake. I do know is that God will bring God out of it. I do know that God wants to walk through the pain with us and see us to the other side. Psalm 46:1 states, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”
I think it is foolishness to look too closely for God’s will and voice in natural disasters. In 1 Kings 19, the prophet Elijah does just this only to find that God has not in them. Instead God spoke in a different way. “And as Elijah stood there, the Lord passed by, and a mighty windstorm hit the mountain. It was such a terrible blast that the rocks were torn loose, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. 12 And after the earthquake there was a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire there was the sound of a gentle whisper.” When tragedy strikes, we would do well to draw our strength from God, to look to him as our refuge, and encourage others to do the same.
I want to share a few words from an article on the United Methodist Website that I read this week.
When I am confronting situations like the Haiti earthquake, I hear this conviction as if it is a whisper, "God is here. God is with us. God is in our midst." I cannot explain it. The logic of faith breaks down in the complexities of human suffering and the struggle to comprehend life and not give victory to death. I hear this whisper and I believe it. It is beyond logic and even beyond reasonable comprehension.
We exist in the embrace of God who weeps with us, comforts us, stands with us in the midst of our suffering, feels the emptiness of our silence and holds us in the palm of God's own hand. "The Lord has comforted his people, and will have compassion on his suffering ones.But Zion said, "The Lord has forsaken me, my Lord has forgotten me."Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands... (Isa. 49:13-16. The Wesley Study Bible)
I don’t know what your plight is, how you suffer, where your pain is, but I do know that God is not punishing you. God is not angry with you. God has not removed his hand from you. We would do well to seek to hear God’s voice in the same manner and to find refuge in our times of trouble. Let’s pray.
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