[Propertalk] Fw: Sermon On Haiti

[Joe Parrish]

Haiti - Job 1:12-21
Sermon by Brett Blair

Many of you asked for the author and exact scripture text so we are sending
this out again. Members have access to this full sermon when you log into
sermons.com.

On Tuesday of this week just before sunset a powerful 7 magnitude earthquake
rocked the island country of Haiti. You have seen the images of suffering
and the aftermath on the internet and TV. The horrible irony is that this is
considered by many to be the poorest country in the western hemisphere. They
had no direction to go but up. And now this. Already at the bottom
economically and now they have been shoved through the floor. As I watched
TV, listened to radio, listened to people in our community, talked with
children, attended prayer vigils, and met with other clergy, I have been
struck by the questions: Why? Why do such things happen? How can there be
such evil? Where is God? What can I do? How will they ever recover?

Questions are so hard to answer in tragic times. But we ask questions
nonetheless. If you were to take a tour of the Bible you would find that one
book has a more disproportionate number of questions than any other. Which
book is that? It is the book of Job. Job has over 330 questions in its 42
chapters. The first book of the bible, Genesis, only has 160. Matthew, the
first book of the New Testament has around 180. And that's odd because it
seems that Jesus was asking questions every time he opened his mouth. Even
the book of Psalms with its 150 chapters has only 160.

So why does the book of Job have so many more questions? There is a very
simple reason. It is because the book of Job deals with a horrible tragedy.

Here is what happened. Job is a righteous man. Greater than all others. A
hedge, a barrier, is set around him, his family, and his business. Suddenly,
without warning, and for no reason other than his being blameless and
upright, his family and business is wiped out. In the middle of the business
of everyday life two rogue groups conduct a raid taking away Job's livestock
and putting his servants to the sword. Then his family is lost in a freak
accident when a mighty wind sweeps in from the desert, strikes the four
corners of the house, collapses it, and all are lost.

It was swift. It was unwarranted. It was unconscionable.

A very large hit and hit hard. In many ways the events of this past week
seem eerily echoed in the story of Job. Why is there then such a similarity
between the events of Job and the events of this past week? It is because,
even though 4000 years separate the two events, life, and I mean the things
that make life meaningful, have not changed at all. Not even over 4
millennia. We all must make a living. We all love our family. We all want
security. We all want a home.

I

So what do we do in tragedy? We do what Job did when he learned of his loss.
We mourn. He was silent when he received the first two reports that his
business and livestock had been wiped out. But when he received the news
that his children were lost. He got up and tore his robe. Then, he feel on
his knees and mourned: "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will
return." In other words, everything that had meaning in his life was gone.
As he came into this world so Job felt he was leaving it: Barren.

As the news poured in, I saw images of children lying in the streets alone
crowds thronging past them. Bodies lined up on side of the street: Dads,
moms, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends. I have no doubt
there is someone here this morning who knows somebody who has been to Haiti
or lives there. The news has shown us their faces and told their stories and
the mourning has rippled across the country. We mourn for every family lost.
Every family torn apart. We weep for Haiti. We mourn because of their loss.

Mourning is part of a powerful process. It undergirds our strength and
reveals our soul. IT helps us reach out in compassion to those who hurt.

II

After we have mourned, we start asking questions: How can I help? Where do
we go from here? Where do we stand now? And perhaps we also wonder: How can
we stop this from happening again? That last question is the tricky one. I
want to look at that for a moment.

Job had a hedge of protection. A barrier which God erected but then took it
away allowing Satan to have his way with Job. It is the Old Testament's way
of saying even the most righteous and best of this earth are not immune to
evil. Just because we are good does not mean we are protected from bad. Not
in this life. The writer of Job understood this. But Job himself could not.
He was too caught up in his grief and loss.

Neither could Job's friends comprehend what had happened. His three friends
come to him and say, in effect, only those who have done evil perish. Those
who are righteous are never destroyed. They thought Job had done some
terribly evil thing and this is why he was suffering. God has lifted the
barrier to punish you, they said. They of course are wrong.

I was struck this week by Pat Robertson's comments. He appeared to assign
the blame for this tragic earthquake on the Haitian people's pact with the
devil made by the founders who wanted the country to be free from French
control. Now I don't want to go into a long narrative on Haitian history but
a little background is needed here. 200 years ago the French were using
Haitian people as slaves. A fellow by the name of Boukman was a voodoo
priest and he lead a group of Haitians in a revolt. He started this revolt
by conducting a ceremony where a pig was sacrificed and the blood of the pig
was spread among the participants who, caught up by the "spirits" swore to
kill all the French people on the island. After many deaths the French
captured Boukman and beheaded him and crushed the rebellion. Historians
consider this to be the start of the Haitian revolution.

So, is Pat Robertson right? Or maybe we should ask: Is the media's
interpretation of Pat Robertson's words, that the earthquake is the fault of
the Haitian people because they made a pact with the devil, is that correct?
No. God is not, in 2010, punishing one million people because Boukman, in
1791, cut a pigs throat and made some voodoo pact with the devil. Come on.
Really, who believes . . . .

NOTE: You can use this opening for free to begin your own sermon or join to
get the rest of this sermon. The Pat Robertson discussions is expanded upon
and the Job idea is brought to a conclusion in the third point, with a
discussion about where God was and is in all this tragedy.

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Whether you join or not we have made a substantial donation to Samaritans
Purse. Franklin Graham's disaster team is on its way to Haiti and we
regularly support their efforts when disasters strike.

Grace and Peace this Sunday as you address this tragedy.