Have you ever been deeply-broken hearted that you felt you couldn’t go on? Have you ever felt, like Job, in our first reading: Is not man's life on earth a drudgery? In other words, have you felt that life is just one series of a miserable circumstances after the next? Have you ever had an existential crisis, a moment in your life where you wonder “what is the point of it all?”Such experiences are not uncommon. The whole branch of existential philosophy was developed to grapple and wrestle with the universal human experience of questioning the purpose of it all. The existential Philosopher Albert Camus even claimed, that “Deciding whether or not life is worth living” is “the fundamental question in philosophy. All other questions follow from that.”
We Christians take that question seriously. Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen even launched a radio show and later what became the most popular television show at its time, called “Life is Worth Living.” The book of Job grapples with this question: if life is filled with so much drudgery and suffering, is life worth living?
In ancient times, suffering was understood to be caused by sin. If you suffered, it must be your fault, or the fault of somebody down your family line. But, this was not the case for Job, Job was a just and honest man, and yet he still suffered. So how does the virtuous and faithful Job understand his suffering?
The Book of Job ultimately concludes that the man of faith is called to trust in God whether he suffers or not, “the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” “Bless the Lord at all times” as the Psalmist says. That’s a faith and trust that we all need to aspire to. And Job shows us that sort of faith isn’t always easy. How did Job reach this level of spiritual maturity? How did he go from existential crisis to deep faith, from seeing his life has monotonous and meaningless to seeing the hand of God in his life?
Job’s spiritual awakening certainly came after a lot of questioning. Maybe you’ve asked these questions too. “Why?”, “why me?”, “why is this happening to me?” But Job has a breakthrough when he shifts his focus, he changes the type of questions. He stops asking “why must I suffer?” and starts asking God “what do I do about my suffering?” Life IS worth living, no matter the suffering, so how do I deal, how do I cope with the things that are causing my unhappiness, these circumstances threatening my peace and well-being. What is the way forward?
Self-examination is a powerful tool for spiritual growth. If we are unhappy we do well to question the cause of it. Why am I unhappy and depressed? Well it might be because my drinking has increased, or I’ve not forgiven my spouse, or haven’t prayed with any real depth in a few days, or I’m really angry at my boss, or I haven’t been helping anyone but myself lately. Unhappiness is often a sign of unresolved anger, resentment, envy, gluttony, lust, sloth, self-centeredness. There is great unhappiness when one is isolated by selfishness, when one lives only for oneself. Taking a moral inventory is quite necessary from time to time.
But the road to happiness doesn’t end with the self-examination, it needs to lead to action: cutting back on the drinking, Netflix, and video games; standing up to the boss who’s been taking advantage of you, making a spiritual retreat, or maybe going to couples’ therapy if there are deep unresolved issues with your spouse; or getting involved in volunteer service if you’ve been living selfishly lately.
Life IS worth living, and even when there is suffering, even when life feels like monotonous, meaningless drudgery, we have some choices to make. And those choices will determine if we remain stuck in unhappiness or we discover God’s presence with us.
Now, one of the great miseries of life, which Job experienced as well, is the death of a loved one: a parent, a child, a spouse, a dear friend. When a loved one dies there’s often a whole host of feelings: numbness, confusion, anger. Sometimes the pain is so great it feel like you can’t go on living either, such broken-heartedness can be devastating. We ask God some of those Job-like questions: why, why did this happen, why was my loved one taken from me.
And so often, the road to healing involves that shift: from “why was my loved one taken from me” to “now what can I do to heal, to find peace”
That’s not always an easy question to ask. It’s hard to trust that healing and peace CAN be discovered again, to allow yourself to go on living, to allow God to bring you healing. As we recited in the Psalm today: “the Lord, heals the brokenhearted…Great is our Lord and mighty in power; to his wisdom there is no limit.”
To cry out to God with a broken heart is better than not crying out to Him at all. And I think that was Job’s great shift towards deep faith: learning how to turn to God and trust God amidst the suffering.
In today’s Gospel, people came from all places to be healed by Jesus—to be freed of their earthly miseries and bodily pains and their demons. And the Lord certainly, certainly wishes to bring us wholeness and peace and healing, just like he did for the citizens of Capernaum.
But I’d say most often that healing looks a little different than what we first thought. Healing and peace typically don’t come by a wave of the magic wand, but like Job, they involve learning to see things from God’s perspective, learning to trust God amidst the suffering, trusting that life is worth living, and adopting healthy ways of reflecting that faith.
The poet Stephen Vincent Benet put it: “Life is not lost by dying; Life is lost minute by minute, day by dragging day, in all the thousand uncaring ways.” So let us care deeply, love deeply, give of ourselves deeply, that we may discover the healing and life Jesus died to obtain for us for the glory of God and salvation of souls.
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