Is suffering retribution?

Job 20:1-11 (NRSV)

Then Zophar the Naamathite answered:
"Pay attention! My thoughts urge me to answer,
because of the agitation within me.
I hear censure that insults me,
and a spirit beyond my understanding answers me.
Do you not know this from of old,
ever since mortals were placed on earth,
that the exulting of the wicked is short,
and the joy of the godless is but for a moment?
Even though they mount up high as the heavens,
and their head reaches to the clouds,
they will perish forever like their own dung;
those who have seen them will say, 'Where are they?'
They will fly away like a dream, and not be found;
they will be chased away like a vision of the night.
The eye that saw them will see them no more,
nor will their place behold them any longer.
Their children will seek the favor of the poor,

and their hands will give back their wealth.
Their bodies, once full of youth,
will lie down in the dust with them.

Job is one of those books from scripture that I really believe needs to be read as a whole.  Most know that Job has suffered because God has allowed Satan to test Job's righteousness through a series of misfortunes and suffering.  But the book is structured in such a way that it's heart is most apparent in its entirety.

Zophar is one of Job's three friends who come to Job to sit with him in his suffering.  Their series of their speeches to Job show their theology: that God punishes the wicked and therefore Job must have sinned.  Job's blamelessness is something they can't conceive.  For them, God is a God of ordered discipline for sin and reward for righteousness - despite evidence to the contrary in the life of their friend Job.

It's still something we believe on some level sometimes, isn't it?  I admit that in some dark moments - moments of pain and suffering, occasionally my mind goes there.  

But it doesn't stay their long.  I have only to look at this morning's headlines after the devastation in the Philippines to know that God isn't simply parceling out retribution through suffering. 

Some famed TV evangelists still act as Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar.  How many natural acts have we heard them attribute to God's anger at the sinfulness of the place that was stuck?  Rather than comfort the afflicted, they afflict them more with a theology that the book of Job laid to rest long ago. 

We will always undoubtedly as a people ask the question "Why do good people have to suffer?"  The answers to that are never pat and never easy.  Be wary of those who try to give answers that are.

But we know we have a God who, rather than sit back and enjoy the view of our suffering, walks through that suffering with us.  Accompanies us and lifts us up when we stumble.  We have a God who knows suffering and weeps with us as we suffer.

St. Paul's letter to the Romans may not give an answer to "why" we suffer, but it explains much better the outcome than Job's three friends do:  suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

Gracious God, walk with us today when we are faced with trials and evils we cannot account for.  We also ask that you be with the nation of the Philippines as they deal with the aftermath of unimaginable loss.  Remind us that they are our neighbors and help us to reach out in comfort to them as they try to put their lives back together.  Amen.