“Justice too long delayed is justice denied.”
If you never have an opportunity to make your case…
If you are never allowed to truly be heard and seen…
If you believe that if someone just listened to you, they would see what was wrong…
Job cries out for justice.
He cries out for a hearing, a trial, an opportunity to lay out his case before the Lord.
And the days and weeks pass and no one is listening.
No one is paying attention to his pleas.
No one truly sees his struggle.
His friends try.
In fact, for 29 chapters there is a back and forth between Job and his friends.
They take turns speaking, lifting up platitudes, calling Job to repentance… and after each speech, Job responds in turn… his frustration growing with every sentence.
You see, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, believe that God is a God of justice, like Job does.
A God of retributive justice.
You get what you deserve.
If you live a righteous life, then you are blessed with peace and prosperity.
If you do unrighteous things, if you sin, then you are punished.
And those friends are looking at Job’s sorry state – his loss of family and income and now bodily distress.
Seeing all of that pain and misery, they conclude that if he is suffering, it has to be because he has done something wrong.
They take turns, but each one of them makes the case, that Job must be reaping something he himself has sown.
Don’t we do that?
When we see someone who has an unfortunate life experience or seems to be down on their luck, isn’t our first response to wonder what mistakes they might have made or how they got themselves into that situation?
We make assumptions about the cause of another person’s anguish, instead of simply being present and listening to them.
These friends… they don’t listen.
They don’t question their own assumptions.
Instead, they leap to intervention.
They see just how much harm has come into Job’s life.
Each one feels like they now have a burden to uncover his sin, point it out, so that Job can repent of that sin.
And this is because while they believe God is just, they also believe God is merciful.
“Happy is the person whom God corrects; so don’t reject the Almighty’s instruction. He injuries but he binds up; he strikes, but his hands heal.” (Job 5:17-18)
If they can get Job to repent, they believe they will save his life.
But for every one of their speeches, Job has an answer.
He has done nothing wrong.
Can’t they see that?
Can’t God see that?
We get a glimpse of his responses in our scripture reading for today. In yet another of these cycles where his friends speak and he responds, Job declares he is innocent and he demands justice… but God won’t even show up in his life so that Job can question him and lay out the case for his innocence.
“Justice too long delayed is justice denied.”
Those words from legal wisdom were echoed by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as he sat in a jail cell in Birmingham, Alabama.
He, too, is responding to friends – colleagues – the white Jewish and Christian leaders of the day, who had criticized the methods and timing of the demonstrations taking place in the city.
Dr. King was seeking justice for those who were suffering from racial injustice and segregation in the city, and was willing to put his own life and liberty on the line for the freedom of others.
What he encountered instead, was that people who should have been on his side – namely the white moderates – were instead finding all sorts of reasons to delay justice.
Like Job’s friends, they were making all sorts of assumptions about what was the cause of injustice and what might remedy it.
This isn’t the right path of action.
You aren’t the right person for the task.
It isn’t the right time.
He answers every single one of their charges and then finally turns his attention to this question of waiting.
“There comes a time,” Dr. King writes, “when the cup of endurance runs over and men are no longer willing to be plunged into an abyss of despair.”
There comes a time when you simply can’t wait any longer.
When the delay of justice becomes a denial of justice.
When it feels like no one is listening and you have been absolutely deserted.
That loneliness can be found in Dr. King’s letter.
We see it throughout Job’s pleas to God.
We can also hear it in the words of Christ on the cross, echoing the psalmist – “My God, My God, why have you left me?”
You see, along the path towards true justice are moments of doubt when we aren’t sure we can keep going.
The fight appears too daunting.
The resistance is overwhelming.
There is no energy left to carry on.
And the loneliness… maybe that is the worst part.
Feeling like you are in this all by yourself and that there is no one out there to help you and no one out there is even listening.
But you also can’t wait any longer.
That desperation is all over Job’s pleas that we read in our passage of scripture today.
He wants his day in court.
He still, firmly, unwaveringly believes that God is a God of justice and if he could only make his case that he would be justified.
In many ways, Job helps us to find our way forward in our own times of great agony.
When we don’t receive answers those deep questions about why something is happening, we could choose to turn our back on God altogether.
We could also resign ourselves and simply give in – This must be what God wants, I guess I should just accept it… in fact, remember this was Job’s initial response when everything was taken from him.
Or, we can resist the suffering we see in our life or in the life of others. We can actively fight against it while at the same time clinging to our faith….
Rev. Nathalie Nelson Parker sees this paradox through the lens of theologian Martin Buber: “’Job’s faith in Justice is not broken down. But he is no longer able to have a single faith in God and Justice.’ Although God and Justice are not mutually aligned in his current situation, ‘He cannot forego his claim that they will again be united, somewhere, sometime, although he has no idea in his mind how this will be achieved.’”
Or as Dr. King once said, the moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends towards Justice.
In the face of suffering, it is hard to cling to hope.
It is hard to see God’s presence.
Both Job and Dr. King remind us of the persistent struggle to be seen, to be heard, to be known… and what it means to keep fighting, even when you feel like you are fighting all along.
I think for many of us, the question, however, isn’t what it means to be the one who sits in lament and struggle, but what it means to be the friends and the bystanders… the ones who so often make assumptions about where God is and what is really happening.
Rather than making excuses for God…
Rather than making assumptions about what is wrong in the lives of other people…
Rather than pushing our own understanding of what is right and wrong…
Maybe what we should do is sit back and listen.
Listen to the cries of suffering and injustice.
Listen to what those who are oppressed or struggling would like us to do.
Listen for where God might be calling us to lay aside our own assumptions.
Simply listen.
May it be so. Amen.
