Sermon – Lost in Loss
Job 1:13-19; 2:7-9; Luke 15:1-10
2/22/26
Life is not fair. If it were, I might win a game against my youngest daughter at least every once in a while. Rachel always wins: Monopoly, Catan, Phase 10, it doesn’t matter what game. She always wins; I don’t.
On a more serious note, life is not and has never been fair. We might try to treat others in fair ways or even inculcate fairness into the early learning of our young people. The justice system seems to be based on some sense of what fair is, and I believe that our concept of human rights is based on some notion of fairness, but there is no fundamental guarantee that anything in nature or life is fair. That is a pretty astounding thing, if we think about it. In fact, it might seem that life is especially not fair. This is more than “bad things can happen to good people and vice versa,” but one can do everything possible to play by the rules and do good and be a responsible, contributing member of society, and that person can still suffer a meaningless catastrophe. There are amazing people out there cut down before the world ever got to see the fullness of their beauty shine. The shooting in Shockoe Bottom just recently is a woeful example of an amazing young person who will never get to live the life she was given. Crime, war, malice, disease, mental illness, and tragic accidents can jolt a system focused on trying to keep things fair. In spite of how much we might crave fairness, this is real life and life is not fair. When things are not fair, they can hurt. They can hurt a lot.
That’s when it stands out the most. When we get the rug pulled out, it hurts. When we get slammed with something unexpected, it hurts. When life is forced in a new direction, it hurts. When we lose the way things used to be, it hurts.
Of course, no one understood this better than Job. The Book of Job is a wisdom book in the Bible. It is not history or just a story or law or prophecy or song. It is wisdom. It is trying to teach us something. It is a very old book, one of the oldest, and sounds different from other OT books. Given where we have already travelled today in this sermon, you might be able to guess what the book might be trying to teach us by the end. Because life in no small part is shaped by our suffering, we need to understand what to do with that. Many people don’t like Job because it can come across as a downer or a depressing book. It can also be confusing because much sounds like irritating lecture, but it is a wonderfully helpful book. It helps us cope with real life and the fact that life is not fair. If we live long enough (and it does not take that long), we will know the harshness of suffering and loss. AND if it does not make sense, that’s ok.
In fact, Job is revolutionary among ancient literature. The common understanding way back then was that if you were suffering some kind of loss that you must be responsible. You must have done something to upset the gods or God. You had a hand in your miserable state, and Job’s friends spend the entire book trying to convince him that there was something he did to deserve the loss of his wealth and children and health. Ironically, if there was anything he DID do to merit the suffering, it was that he was TOO good. God singled him out as an exceptional human, and Satan pushed God to back up that claim by allowing Job to suffer tremendously and mysteriously.
By the end of Job, we understand that there may not seem to be any rhyme or reason to the suffering we face. It is not necessarily because we are bad people or that we did something bad. Bad things happen, perhaps even randomly. I will say that the world has been broken since the beginning of sin, and that brokenness gets lived out in our lives in more ways than we can count. It is not fair, and it leads to our sorrow. Also, God’s hand is too big to understand and God’s vision to great to grasp. That can also feel very difficult. I will always marvel about Paul and Silas praising God while they are locked up in prison. For the rest of us who might not be able to see quite that much good in everything, it becomes our loss, and that is loss that we carry.
Thankfully, Jesus also had something to say about loss. In fact, Jesus regularly addresses the pain and brokenness and loss that dog us each day. Luke 15 is an entire chapter devoted solely to this point. It is a beautiful response to the loss we face and the literal losing of what is important to us. Surprisingly, we even see a God who feels loss, also. We read the three parables in Luke 15, and they are all stories about what is lost compared to what is found. We have a lost sheep, a lost coin, and a lost son. That last one you may know better as the prodigal son, but “lost son” sounds better with the other two. All three of these parables show how something can be lost and then found. They show how we suffer and struggle with loss, but our loss is not forever. They show how God’s purpose is for things to be found or restored and that there will be great rejoicing when even small things are restored. Let me be clear – while loss is a regular part of our lives, it is not our end. It is also not God’s joy for us to hurt. God even feels loss over us, each and every one of us, even the ones who are smallest and easiest to miss, even the ones that do not make sense to miss. God feels their loss, and when they are found, when they are restored, when they are made whole, heaven erupts in joy.
God is the Father in the third parable. Just suggesting that God might act the way the father does would have been infuriating to those listening. It is quite a story that shows radical love through loss. It is the culmination of a chapter that confronts loss and God’s love.
What is missing is you and me. That is where the season of Lent comes in. This time of the church year can easily be framed in terms of loss. It is a time to become acquainted, again, with sorrow and human brokenness. It is a time to remember why Jesus died the way that he did. It is not meant to point out just how bad we are, but it does show our need for help. We do share in the suffering and loss of this world. We can be the reasons and the innocent victims. But we are also God’s children. Loss is not the last word for us, and loss is not what we are meant to hold alone. This is where Luke 15 came short and Job’s friends ended up not being friends, but the larger biblical witness does point us to what it means to face our suffering together. Each and every single one of us must walk our own paths, even through the valley of the shadow of death, but we do not walk alone. If you are lost in your own loss today, not sure of which way is even up, we are here to help. We are here to listen. We are here to love. We are here to be community. We are here to share the weight of life and to find God’s goodness. What is lost can be found in the grace of God.
To God be the glory. Amen.