Of the Same Mind

Job 2:11-13

May 18, 2025 • Mount Pleasant UMC

Well, it’s been an interesting year so far, but I am glad to be back in the pulpit today. I appreciate Pastor Rick jumping in to help with an extra week of preaching and all the other things, and I have appreciated all the calls and texts and messages and “Facebook likes” and chai tea lattes that have come my way. It has been quite a journey, one that is not over yet as there is yet another surgery in my near future, but I have appreciated the care that has come my way.

Many of you know our sermon schedule is prayerfully planned out months in advance. And I can’t tell you how many times someone tells me, “That was exactly what I needed to hear today.” Well, today, I might be the one saying that because it seems that our preplanned schedule has lined up pretty well with my life. So don’t tell me the Holy Spirit can’t work through advance plans! As you know if you’ve been here with us, we’ve been looking at characteristics of community for the last few weeks, and what it means that God has called us to be in community. There really is no such thing as a “lone ranger Christian.” The first week I talked about commitment and the importance of being connected to others. And then over the last two weeks, Pastor Rick has reminded us of the importance of having all things in common and vulnerability. But vulnerability will only work well and be truly helpful if we add in the fourth characteristic of community, which is empathy.

Author David Kim suggests empathy is “doing your best to understand people” (Made to Belong, pg. 109). And by “understanding” we’re not just talking head knowledge. It’s going deeper, “choosing to listen to another instead of assuming you know where they’re coming from” (Kim 109). Our daily world is full of noise, which makes listening hard. We’re really good at talking. Most of the time our conversations go something like this: I tell a story, and you then tell another story that is bigger somehow than my story. Or I interrupt you to say what I want to say before you’re even finished making your point. So I could be telling someone how I woke up during my surgery (because I did) and how I felt a lot of what was being done to me and how painful that was. And then the person I’m talking to says, “Well, you think that’s bad? My Uncle Fred was awake for his whole surgery and he died.” See what I mean? Bigger and worse. And not helpful. I mean, how does the fact that knowing someone else died in surgery help me at all? No one actually said that to me, but I have heard people have similar conversations, particularly with women who are pregnant, telling them horrific pregnancy or labor and delivery stories. That is not empathy and it does not help, but it’s a reminder that we are really good at talking. We live in a world where we think we have to have the last word.

Empathy shows us a different way, and we can see a Biblical model in the story of Job. The book of Job may be the oldest literature we have in the Bible. We’re not sure when it was written, but it takes place back in the days of Abraham or maybe earlier. We are told Job lives in Uz (modern day southern Jordan) and that he is a righteous man; one translation puts it this way: “He was a man of complete integrity, who feared God and turned away from evil” (1:1, CSB). Complete integrity, where your actions completely match your words—something you don’t often find today. Job is also a wealthy man with herds and crops and seven sons and three daughters. Job has an idealized life, making some folks wonder if it’s a true story. Well, I don’t know. I assume it’s based on a real man’s life but I highly doubt they spoke in poetry the way the people in the majority of the book do. So maybe, but even if the book is a pure parable, that wouldn’t change anything about its message (cf. Goldingay, Job for Everyone, pg. 4). Job is a wealthy man, a “blameless and upright” man (1:1), and a target for the enemy. Satan comes into the heavenly court (which is a whole other discussion) and does what he does best. His name means “Accuser,” and so he accuses Job of only loving God because of all of his stuff. God has blessed him, Satan acknowledges, and that’s why Job loves God (1:9-11). So God first gives permission for Satan to take away all Job’s stuff (1:12). Then he gives permission for Satan to take away Job’s health. The only thing Satan can’t do (which reminds us that Satan’s powers are limited) is kill Job (2:6). And in all of this, Scripture says, “Job did not sin in what he said” (2:10).

There are two responses to Job’s life at this point: one from his wife and one from his friends. Honestly, you’d expect the more compassionate response to come from Mrs. Job. And you would be wrong. I don’t know where she has been because she only shows up in one brief scene in the story, but she sees her husband, clothes torn, boils all over his body, sitting in ashes and scraping himself with broken pottery (maybe dishes and such they once had in their house?) and she says, “Are you still maintaining your integrity? Curse God and die!” (2:9). Wow. She reminds me how easily it is for us to thank God for our blessings and blame him for our troubles. And I mean “us.” I know it’s easy for me to become Mrs. Job in my attitude, lacking empathy and faith. When Job most needs her to stand beside him, she is, as he says, “talking like a foolish woman” (2:10) because she has given in to the enemies of empathy.

We don’t know what conversations, if any, came before this one, or really what their relationship was like before this encounter. I kind of feel bad for Mrs. Job because what she’s gone down in history for is this brief conversation, that she just wants her husband to get over it. In her mind, this sitting around and sulking was accomplishing nothing. Maybe she thought that if he was going to get his fortune back, he’d better get out there and do something. And if he’s not going to do that, he might as well just “curse God and die.” It was believed if someone “cursed God,” God would strike that person down, so in some ways, Mrs. Job is encouraging her husband to just end his miserable life so she doesn’t have to look at him suffering anymore (Goldingay 24). To her it really doesn’t matter what, she just wants him to do something. And while we might not say it quite so bluntly, often we too give into the enemy called impatience. Why is this person taking so long to feel better, to act in a different way, to get moving, to do something? We guess what we think we would do or what we think we should do and then we judge the other person by that supposed standard. Men, we are especially prone to this problem because we tend to like quick fixes. Put the duct tape on the problem and move on. I had a friend whose husband had passed away and two years later, she had people asking her why she wasn’t better. She asked me if she was doing something wrong, and I told her of course not. Every person handles and deals with grief and loss in their own time and in their own way. Our timing is not someone else’s timing. Besides that, “people often don’t need solutions. They just need a friend to be there” (Kim 112). Job didn’t need his wife (or anyone else) to tell him what to do next. It takes time to be truly empathetic. Empathy resists trying to provide a quick and easy solution; impatience is an enemy of empathy.

So is ignorance. And by ignorance, I mean Biblical ignorance. Let me say this as bluntly as I can: bad theology can hurt people. Just because something is popular, or it sells thousands of copies, or because there was an ad for it on television does not make it good theology. We live in an age where we tend to prefer to the popular to the truly profound, the quick bites over the deep truths of Scripture. Bad theology and bad beliefs “can prevent genuine care, love and support” (Kim 115). I’ve seen it happen time and again. One of the most popular bad beliefs today is the idea that if you’re a Christian, nothing bad should ever happen to you. You should never have anything financial, health or socially bad happen in your life. I had a friend one time tell me that nothing bad had ever happened to her, even though I knew that was a lie. But that was the theology she chose to live by: nothing bad could ever happen. Do we forget that we serve a savior who died a painful, horrible death on a cross? Do we forget that he told us himself we would have trouble (John 16:33)? Mrs. Job seems to live by that idea, that the only evidence of God’s blessing is material and physical prosperity. If bad stuff has happened to Job, obviously then he has fallen out of favor (there’s another misused word) with God. And if he has, then the only thing to do, in her mind, is “curse God and die.” This is one of the reasons I’m teaching the Bible Breakdown class this spring. And it’s one of the reasons I harp so much on all of us studying and knowing the Scriptures. Not just what other people say about the Scriptures. Not even just what your pastors say about the Scriptures, as wise as we are. Empathy is not about sharing Biblical-sounding cliches or trite Bible verses taken out of context; that’s why ignorance is an enemy of empathy.

So what does empathy look like? It looks like three friends who individually hear about Job’s plight and they decide to get together to go see him. We don’t know how long Job had been suffering before word got to Eliphaz and Bildad and Zophar. We don’t even know exactly where two of them lived, or how close they lived to each other (cf. Smick, “Job,” Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 4, pg. 886). All the text really tells us is that word came to them, and they met and decided the best thing they could do is go see their friend to “comfort” him (2:11). Literally, the text says they went to “shake” for him (Goldingay 23). They want to share the pain he’s going through bodily because in the Old Testament, comfort is more than words. It’s more than “Oh I feel so bad for you.” Comfort involves words and actions, but even more than taking a casserole to those who are hurting. It’s doing what these friends do. You go and you sit with the person who is hurting to remind Job he is not alone.

In the Jewish tradition, there is a custom called “sitting shiva,” which for those of you who watch The Chosen TV series, you’ve seen show up a couple of different times in their story. In our culture, when someone dies, we might go to the funeral home or wherever the visitation is and “pay our respects,” as we say. We might stand in line for a bit, say a few words to the bereaved, and if we’re especially close to the person who died, we might even stay for the service. If we’re family, we’ll allow them to feed us at the funeral meal. And then we go home and go about our life. Not in the Jewish tradition. When someone dies, it is tradition that they are buried the next day but the family and friends gather at the home and they sit together for a week. Seven days. That’s why, in the story of Lazarus, there are still people around the house after he’s been buried for four days (cf. John 11:19). You sit with them for a week and you don’t speak unless the mourners initiate conversation. You are there for whatever they need, not for your own needs. One interpretation of this practice is that mourners are in God’s presence and it is more than impolite for visitors to interrupt that communion and conversation. You don’t offer platitudes. You don’t offer trite phrases. You “sit shiva” in silence (Goldingay 24; Smick 887).

So when Job’s friends arrive at his house and they see him sitting in the ashes, scraped and bleeding, disfigured and weeping, the text says “they could hardly recognize him” (2:12). But they don’t say anything. They sit in the ashes with him. They weep with him. They tear their robes like he has—and if they are wealthy like him, those are probably some pretty nice robes. But it doesn’t matter. Empathy demands that these dignified men sit on the ground with their friend. And they don’t speak for seven days and seven nights “because they saw how great his suffering was” (2:13). Can you imagine? Now, if you read the rest of the book, you know that once Job does speak (remember, the mourner must speak first), they have no problem criticizing him. Most of the rest of the book is a long complaint about how Job believes God is being unjust to him and how his friends believe God could not be unjust so Job must have sinned and on and on and on the argument goes. I hear people talk about the “patience of Job” but Job isn’t really very patient. The only patience I see in the book is during these first seven days. After Job starts talking, he is anything but patient. He argues with his friends and he demands that God show up and answer his questions. He even questions God and whether or not what has happened is fair. And eventually God does show up and answers Job, but all of that is beyond the scope of what happens in these first seven days. For a full week, empathy flows.

Centuries later, when Jesus is asked what the most important commandment is, he replies—you know what he says, it’s on these banners in front of you every week. Jesus says “all the law and the prophets” [that is, everything God has been teaching his people for centuries] can be summed up this way: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind…Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37-40). Love God, Love People. Love God by loving people. And we love them best with empathy, doing what love requires, even if that means sitting in the ashes and staying quiet for a whole week.

In his letter to the Romans, Paul puts it this way: “Love must be sincere…Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves…Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another…If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone” (Romans 12:9-18). When your friend is rejoicing, rejoice with him or her. That’s easy for us to do, we think—or is it? What if your friend got a promotion or a blessing that you wanted and think you deserve? Still—rejoice with those who rejoice. And mourn with those who mourn. Or, as older translations put it, “weep with those who weep” (KJV). If someone is sad, it’s not our job to “cheer them up.” It’s our calling to be like Job’s friends—sit with them, care for them, maybe get them a sandwich from time to time or something to drink. And we don’t have to offer consoling words; most of those words sound trite and aren’t helpful anyway. When I’ve been standing in the family line at a funeral home and I heard people say to me the same things I had said to others, I couldn’t help but wonder, “Did I really sound like that?” There are no words we can say to take away someone’s pain, which is why the empathetic response, the Biblical response, is to mourn with those who mourn. Be with them. Express empathy. You can’t fix it anyway, so don’t try. One translation of Romans 12:16 says this, “Come to the same mind with one another” (Wright, The New Testament for Everyone: Third Edition, pg. 302). “Empathy is being of the same mind toward one another, which includes both the highs and lows of life” (Kim 121).

Now, I do want to offer at least one word of caution here: empathy is not the same as unqualified acceptance (cf. Kim 118). This has become complicated in our overly politicized environment because we have forgotten that you can love someone and disagree with them at the same time. But “sometimes out of fear or looking unloving, we agree with everything someone is saying or doing” (Kim 118), and that’s not the most loving thing we can do. We can disagree, we can speak truth, we can be in opposite corners and love people all at the same time. As the conversation in the book of Job proceeds, it’s obvious his friends don’t agree with Job on much of anything. But they still love him. They still care for him. They still sit with him. Empathy isn’t about affirming everything the other person says or does. Empathy is about caring for the other with the love of Christ. That might involve a conversation where you talk about your differences, but you still do it in the spirit and the love of Christ. One of my oldest friends has very different political and even some different theological views than I do. In fact, I adamantly disagree in some areas. But you know if my friend had something happen like what Job had happen, I would do what I could to be there. In many ways, empathy is the answer to the question I’ve asked you often: what does love require? Love God. Love people. Love life.

One of the ironies of the story of Job, I think, is that when you get to the end of the story, it’s Job who is caring for his friends. All of them are wrong in their attitudes and beliefs about God, but Job is the only one in the story who stays focused on God himself. He’s the only one who wants to talk to God instead of talking for or about God (still a danger we encounter). And so in the end, God tells Job to pray for his friends (42:7-10). Despite 39 chapters of arguments with these three friends (and one other friend who comes to the party late), they remain friends because they all chose empathy first. How do you know if you’re growing in empathy? Well, for one, you are becoming someone to whom others come when they are in distress, when they need comfort. And when that happens, rather than seeking the internet for the latest advice, how about we just pray: “Jesus, please help me suffer with others well” (cf. Kim 132). So let’s pray that now.