You better watch out. You better not cry. Better not pout. I'm telling you why.
Santa Claus is coming to town
He's making a list And checking it twice; He's gonna find out Who's naughty and nice.
He's making a list And checking it twice; He's gonna find out Who's naughty and nice.
Santa Claus is coming to town
He sees you when you're sleeping. He knows when you're awake.
He knows if you've been bad or good.
So be good for goodness sake! Ohh! You better watch out! You better not cry. Better not pout.
So be good for goodness sake! Ohh! You better watch out! You better not cry. Better not pout.
I'm telling you why. Santa Claus is coming to town. Santa Claus is coming to town...
When we were kids, the lyrics of this song motivated us to be good as Christmas approached. We wanted Santa to approve of our behavior so that we would receive lots of presents.
We assume that is true today. “What goes around, comes around.” If we behave morally, our lives will be better. If we behave badly our lives will go badly. Unfortunately life doesn't seem to work this way. Look at what's going on in our world.
Fourteen million people in Yemen are on the brink of famine as a result of a proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia.1 While news of the migrant caravan and US border policies dominate our news,2 the unprecedented global crisis of 68 million displaced people fleeing from death and destruction, hardly enters our consciousness.3 A typhoon and tsunami in Indonesia killed more than1500 people, injured thousands and displaced more than 71,000.
These statistics grip us because we know this pain intimately, through our own suffering and through the suffering of those we love. Each of us has stories of unwarranted suffering in our personal lives and in the lives of those we love.
Whether we place our trust in Santa Claus, God, or our higher power, it is true that terrible things continue to happen to good people and that bad people are often rewarded.
The question, “Why is there unwarranted suffering in the world?” has troubled humans since earliest times. Ancient Babylonian and Sumerian poems (2000-1700 BCE) raise this question as does the book of Job, the oldest book in the Hebrew Testament ( 600-400 BCE).4
The story of Job begins with a gathering of God's council, which includes Satan. Satan, in this ancient story isn't the red demon with the long tail, horns and a pitchfork. Satan is the member of God's council who is “the accuser” or “the prosecutor.” He wanders the earth and brings charges against people who are corrupt or disloyal to God.
Satan argues that Job, a wealthy man, is faithful because he has not suffered. God then allows Satan to visit all sorts of tragedies on Job. His crops and flocks are destroyed. His children and servants die. His body is covered with sores.
As Job sits on an ash heap, scratching himselfwith a broken pottery shard, his wife and friends come to him. They advise him to confess sins that he hasn't committed so God will stop punishing him. They urge him to stop being a righteous man because God is not rewarding him for his goodness. Job refuses on both counts.
Job then questions God about his unwarranted suffering. God responds that Job has no idea what he is talking about because he didn't create the earth and everything that lives on it. Job acknowledges the fact that he can't understand the Transcendent. The story ends with God praising Job because, unlike his friends, Job speaks his truth to God.
Like it or not, we must engage Job's dilemma. Why should we live moral lives? Why should we continue to work for compassion and justice in a world where suffering seems random and capricious? It's possible that we live in a cosmos, governed only by chance, where human greed and avarice are the norm. It's possible that our efforts to promote justice and compassion in the world are futile. This begs the question, “Is the God we worship sufficient to the task?”
I'm not talking here about the God of your childhood. I'm talking about the present reality in your life, the reality upon which you depend, when you are experiencing tough times. This reality may be God, Yahweh, or Allah of the monotheistic religious traditions. It may be Jesus or the Holy Spirit of the Christian tradition. It may be your inner Buddha nature. It may be some other Higher Power. I believe we all have something that we depend on to guide our thoughts and actions, even if we don't name it.
It takes courage to “hang in there” as Job did in this ancient story. It takes courage to be true to yourself when times are tough. Job did this when his friends told him to give up. He continued to live according to God's commands in spite of his suffering. In doing this, Job was transformed. He was able to engage his God in ways he before experienced. He was able to move beyond the traditional understanding of God, held by his wife and friends. He was able to say to his God, “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you;5
Job was faced with three choices in his suffering. He could continue to suffer, blaming himself for his suffering. He could reject his commitment to live a moral life because he was not being rewarded for his behavior. He could stay true himself and consciously question the source to which he was committed.
He chose the third way; the way of transformation. These are choices facing each of us as we deal with the unfairness of the cosmos, both personally and societally. This problem cannot be solved rationally. It is something we must engage personally, through story. I will share the story ofmy personal Job experience. While I do this, allow yourself to remember a Job experience in your life.
My Job experience occurred in my mid-twenties when I was a graduate student in St. Louis. Jean and I had been married a year. We were isolated from our family and friends in Minnesota. I remember lying in bed one day; deeply depressed and unsure if I wanted to live. I hadn't passed the qualifying examination that would allow me to continue in grad school. I had given my all in the effort, but it wasn't enough. Jean was homesick, and our young marriage was on rocky ground. I felt abandoned by God and everyone else. It seemed that God was punishing me, demanding more than I could achieve.
This was the beginning of multi-year struggle with God. I retook the qualifying exam, complete my degree and took a research fellowship at the University of Wisconsin. Three years later, I changed careers and became the first director of Madison-area Urban Ministry (MUM). I served MUM for 25 years, still following the call of a demanding God. I suffered a second injustice, when I burned out with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Once again, I had given my all. Again, it was not enough. This time, I was so tired, I didn't even have the energy to argue with God.
I spent nearly two years isolated and on disability. Like a wounded animal, I crawled into my personal cave to heal or die. Then something amazing happened. My demanding God morphed into a friend. I imagined us sitting by a campfire just talking. God morphed again into a mysterious presence that I experience but can't define. This strange presence is still with me and is somehow a part of me.
As you remember your Job experience, how is this affecting your experience of God? (Remember, the God I am referring to is that guiding source in your life.) What new challenges does it present? How is it affecting the way you live? Is your present source of guidance adequate? Is there a deeper source of guidance available.
This is one of the amazing things about the stories and traditions surrounding religious/spiritual leaders. Often, their lives were profoundly affected by situations of injustice and suffering.
Siddhartha Gautama,6 a wealthy prince, was so moved by suffering in the world around him that he left his family and position of privilege. He wandered the country as a penniless ascetic, nearly starving himself as he renounced the world to seek release from the human fear of death and suffering. While sitting in meditation, Siddhartha finally saw the answer to the questions of suffering that he had been seeking for so many years. In that moment of enlightenment, Siddhartha Gautama became Buddha ("he who is awake"). For the remainder of his 80 years, Buddha traveled the country preaching the Dharma (the teachings of the Buddha) in an effort to lead others along the path of enlightenment.
Christian tradition describes Jesus as the son of a carpenter who was raised as an observant Jew. He yearned for a Messiah or Liberator who would free his people from (Roman) domination as King David had freed his people in the past. He went to John the Baptist who preached that God would defeat the Roman dominators. At his baptism, Jesus experienced an epiphany. He, like Buddha, went off by himself into the wilderness seeking enlightenment regarding his role in the liberation of Israel. 7He emerged preaching a reign of God based on love and compassion rather that of violence preached by the zealots who fought to overthrow Roman Rule. Throughout his life, Jesus continued to engage Yahweh, his heavenly parent, as he faced increasing opposition from Roman and Jewish authorities. Eventually, Jesus realized that he was going to be executed as an enemy of the state. The night of his arrest he contended with God, fearful that his life's work would be in vain. 8Even as he was crucified, he cried out to God in the first verse of the lament of Psalm 22,9“My God, my God, Why have you forsaken me.”10 Like Job, he refused to abandon his commitment to God even in his suffering and dying.
Mother Teresa relinquished a position of wealth and privilege to join the Loreto Sisters as a teacher in Calcutta. On her way to an annual retreat she reported that Christ spoke to her. He called her to abandon teaching and to work instead in "the slums" of the city; dealing directly with "the poorest of the poor"--the sick, the dying, beggars and street children. She followed this call. Shortly after she began her ministry,Jesus took himself away. Teresa lamented, “Lord, my God, who am I that You should forsake me? The Child of your Love.” Years later, describing the joy in Jesus experienced by some of her nuns, she observed dryly, "I just have the joy of having nothing--not even the reality of the Presence of God [in the Eucharist]." She described her soul as like an "ice block." Yet she wrote, "I accept not in my feelings--but with my will, the Will of God--I accept His will."11 Like Job, Mother Teresa remained faithful even though God seemed absent.
Rev. William Barber and Rev. Liz Theoharis, co-director of the Kairos Center, at Union Theological Seminary, are revitalizing the Poor Peoples Campaign begun by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Reverand Barber has ankylosing spondylitis, an arthritic condition that causes him chronic pain, and forces him to lean forward when he stands. When asked how he copes with his condition, he recounted that once, when he was visiting an encampment of homeless people, a woman offered him her chair, one of her few possessions. He then recalled how Harriet Tubman suffered from epilepsy, and that Franklin Roosevelt commanded the country for thirteen years, through the Depression and global war, despite having been stricken with polio, that all the heroes of the Bible had some physical or mental challenge.12
It's difficult to remain faithful to our inner guidance in a world where unwarranted suffering, greed and violence seem to be the norm. It's difficult to live a moral life when all around us immoral behavior seems to have the upper hand.
Yet, this is the message of Job. This story was written in ancient times with an outmoded world view. Even so, the message is there. Job remains true to God even through his unwarranted suffering. Job speaks his truth to God and engages God at a deeper level than those around him.
It is time for us to ponder the meaning of this story for us. Why should we live moral, compassionate and loving lives when such living will not save us from unwarranted suffering and injustice? Why live this way when the odds are stacked against us? What's at stake in terms of our deep humanity?
I cannot answer these questions for you. I can only speak personally. Something changed in me through my Job experience. It makes no rational sense. Yet for me it is compelling. I feel overwhelmed by the seeming randomness of suffering and injustice in the world. I will still try to live in ways that promote justice in ways that are loving and compassionate. I don't believe this kind of living will earn me rewards. I simply feel more whole when I try to live this way.
There is a deep mystery in all of this, a deep unknowing. Something in us yearns to be more than we are; reaching for something beyond ourselves. Surely it is worthwhile to keep on reaching.
1https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2018/10/23/world/middleeast/23reuters-yemen-security-famine-un.html?module=inline
2https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-45951782
3https://www.mercycorps.org/articles/worlds-5-biggest-refugee-crises
4https://www.ancient.eu/article/226/the-ludlul-bel-nimeqi---not-merely-a-babylonian-jo/
5Job 42:5
6https://www.biography.com/people/buddha-9230587
7Mark 1:4-12; Matthew 4:1-11
8Matthew 26:36-46
9Psalm 22:1-3 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer; and by night, but find no rest. Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel.
10Matthew 27:32-50
11http://time.com/4126238/mother-teresas-crisis-of-faith/
12https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/05/14/william-barber-takes-on-poverty-and-race-in-the-age-of-trump
