Above: The Stoning of St. Stephen, by Paolo Uccello
Image in the Public Domain
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The Collect:
Ever-living God, your Son gives himself as living bread for the life of the world.
Fill us with such knowledge of his presence that we may be strengthened and sustained
by his risen life to serve you continually,
through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord. Amen.
–Evangelical Lutheran Worship (2006), page 45
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The Assigned Readings:
Job 11:1-20 (Thursday)
Job 12:1-25 (Friday)
Job 13:1-19 (Saturday)
Psalm 34:9-14 (All Days)
Acts 6:8-15 (Thursday)
Romans 16:17-20 (Friday)
John 4:7-26 (Saturday)
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See that you never say anything wrong;
do not deceive people by telling lies.
Turn from bad behaviour to good,
try your best to live in peace.
–Psalm 34:14-15, Harry Mowvley, The Psalms Introduced and Newly Translated for Today’s Readers (1989)
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One might start by refraining from blaming victims for their plights.
The titular character of the Book of Job, the opening of that composite text informs us, suffered not because of any sin he had committed. No, God had permitted Satan, then an employee of God in the Hebrew theology of the time, to test the loyalty of Job. (The adversary did not become God’s rival in Jewish theology until much later. Many readers miss that point and read the Book of Job anachronistically.) The primary guilty party in the case of the suffering of the impatient Job, then, was God. (The expression “the patience of Job” makes no sense to me, based on the text which bears his name.) Job’s alleged friends, including Zophar the Naamathite, argued however that God, being just, would not permit the innocent to suffer, so Job must have done something wrong. Job gave as good as he got, as Chapters 12 and 13 indicate:
But you invent lies;
All of you are quacks.
If you would only keep quiet
It would be considered wisdom on your part.
–Job 13:4-5, TANAKH: The Holy Scriptures (1985)
Nevertheless, much of what Job’s alleged friends said sounds like what one reads elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible, especially in the Books of Psalms and Proverbs, stated authoritatively. (Those books are too naively optimistic in places. Of course some of those raised to follow God grow up and depart from the proper path, despite Proverbs 22:6, for example.) These alleged friends were not entirely wrong, but they proceeded from a false assumption, one common in antiquity as well as today. Old ideas–including demonstrably false ones–persist. If one’s sins necessarily lead to one’s suffering, how does one explain the crucifixion of Jesus, the living bread, the living water, and the sinless one? One must also, if one is to be intellectually thorough and honest, contend with the sufferings and martyrdoms of many faithful, mere mortals, from antiquity to current events.
There are, of course, various reasons for suffering. The Buddhist statement that suffering results from wrong desiring covers much of that territory well. One might suffer because of the wrong desiring of another person or because of one’s own wrong desiring. Even that, however, does not account for the suffering one must endure apart from that with causation in wrong desiring. Why do some children enter the world with terrible diseases with genetic causes, for example?
St. Paul the Apostle, writing in Romans 16:17, urged his audience
to keep an eye on those who cause dissensions and offenses, in opposition to the teaching that you have learned; avoid them.
—The New Revised Standard Version (1989)
I file Zophar the Naamathite and the false witnesses against St. Stephen in that category.
A complicating factor is that “those who cause dissensions and offenses” usually do not think of themselves as such. They might even consider themselves as righteous people, or at least as people who perform necessary, if unpleasant, deeds for the greater good. Furthermore, you, O reader, and I might be among these people, according to others. The only infallible judge of such matters is God.
We can attempt to act kindly, at least, and to refrain from blaming victims for their afflictions.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
JUNE 1, 2015 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF SAMUEL STENNETT, ENGLISH SEVENTH-DAY BAPTIST MINISTER AND HYMN WRITER; AND JOHN HOWARD, ENGLISH HUMANITARIAN
THE FEAST OF SAINT JUSTIN MARTYR, APOLOGIST
THE FEAST OF SAINTS PAMPHILUS OF CAESAREA, BIBLE SCHOLAR AND TRANSLATOR; AND HIS COMPANIONS, MARTYRS
THE FEAST OF SAINT SIMEON OF SYRACUSE, ROMAN CATHOLIC MONK
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Adapted from this post:
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BLOGA THEOLOGICA 
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