“I get by with a little help from my friends”

Job 1:1, 2:1-10

August 24, 2025

First Congregational United Church of Christ of Manhattan, KS

Sermon by the Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

At the risk of embarrassing myself, I’d like to share the story of the first time I listened to the entirety of Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band - the album by The Beatles. Now, it was released in 1967 but will you forgive me if I tell you I didn’t hear it all until 2009? I was going through a big Beatles phase and I queued it up for my regular commute to Indianapolis. It turns out it’s only about 45 minutes long, so I listened to the whole thing in one sitting and LET ME TELL YOU that is definitely how it was designed to be heard. It’s a whole experience from beginning to end. By the time I got to the final track, A Day in the Life, I had tears streaming down my face as I pulled up in the seminary parking lot. I mean, wow. 

One song near the beginning made me laugh a bit, though. Do you know this one?

What would you think if I sang out of tune?

Would you stand up and walk out on me? 

Lend me your ears and I’ll sing you a song.

And I’ll try not to sing out of key. 

I giggled because I had never heard that version of the song before. I grew up on Joe Cocker’s version which has a very different feel. You gotta sing along with me if you know it because I’m not Joe Cocker and I need help.

What would you do if I sang out of tune?

Would you stand up and walk out on me?

Lend me your ears, then I'll sing you a song

I will try not to sing out of key

Oh, baby I get by with a little help from my friends…

Okay, so if you’ve heard both versions you know that it’s hard to believe they’re the same song. The Beatles version is kind of goofy, upbeat, straightforward. Cocker’s version is EPIC and soulful with soaring guitar lines and passionate percussion. What I didn’t realize until I listened to them again this week is that one of the reasons they sound so different is that they’re in different meters. The original is in 4/4 time -  neat and organized (sing example). Cocker’s cover is in 3 / 4 time - and organized is not a word that comes to mind (sing example). 

Some of the best covers of all time are the ones that stray pretty far from the original: Johnny Cash’s cover of Nine Inch Nails’ Hurt, Dolly’s I Will Always Love You covered by Whitney, and the totally revamped Proud Mary by Tina Turner. 

It turns out that sometimes the original needs a little help. Sometimes you need to really feel comfortable remixing and moving and playing with art to freshen it up. And sometimes a cover can even rescue an original that wasn’t that great to begin with (I’m looking at you original version of Respect by Otis Redding).

I’ve always felt like the Book of Job could use a little remixing. Because the original is…..well….I’d encourage you to read it and form your own opinions if you haven’t ever read it. I’ll attempt to give a little summary, with the disclaimer that it’s not my favorite book in the Bible, so if I seem grumpy about it, well, that’s highly likely. 

Job opens like this: the heavenly beings are bored and the Adversary and God get into an argument about a man named Job, who is righteous and blameless. The Adversary sees an opportunity to have a little fun and says to God, “Well, of course he’s a nice guy. You’ve been protecting him. We’d all be nice if our lives were perfect like Job’s. But I’d be willing to wager that if things started to go poorly for your friend Job he’d start singing a different tune.”

And, just like that, the stage is set for Job’s torture. The answer to that ancient question, “why do bad things happen to good people?” is this: “Because the heavenly beings thought it would be interesting.”

Not a great answer, from my perspective. I find the entire book of Job so very troubling. This poor man. He loses everything...his livestock, his home, all of his beloved children. And all because of a cosmic bet. 

For 40+ chapters we watch Job receive terrible counsel from his “friends” and argue with God. In the end, we’re meant to believe that there’s a happy ending. Because Job learns humility and learns to trust that this very mean God has his best interests at heart, he gets everything back. Though it’s hard to say how one gets their deceased children back, precisely. All’s well that ends well….I guess?

I have to say, although I don’t find particularly helpful answers to the question of why bad things happen to good people in this story, I do appreciate that it’s in the Bible. It gives me some comfort to know that people have been struggling with this question forever. And, in a weird way, I find it reassuring to know that even the people who wrote these stories and canonized them into our holy scriptures couldn’t answer the question fully. 

Another thing about this book that I find to be immensely helpful is that it’s a crash course in how to be a good friend. Or, perhaps more accurately, the Book of Job shows us what NOT to do. Can we remix Job’s friends a bit, maybe switch the story to 3 /4 time or add a better bass line to make it more useful? 

Let’s start with the original. Even a cursory skim through the text reveals an immediate problem with Job’s three friends. There are TOO MANY WORDS. Like, WAY too many words. Anyone who has ever been going through hell and back knows that the last thing you want when your life is wrecked is a friend who shows up to deliver a speech. Especially an esoteric philosophical discourse. NOT HELPFUL. 

They start out strong. Job’s friends come and sit with him for a full week, “and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was great.” But then they do what so many of us are tempted to do when things are terrible. They start trying to FIX IT, explain it away: “God’s ways are not our ways. Whatever is happening is God’s will and even though we don’t understand it, it’s for the best.” And also, “Job, you must have done something wrong. Search your heart. Figure out what your sins are. Confess them to God and then everything will get better.”

You’ve heard these speeches before, right? When a person loses a child: “I guess God needed another angel in heaven.” When someone receives a brutal diagnosis: “God won’t give you more than you can handle.” When someone is assaulted: “Maybe next time you’ll remember the buddy system.” Or abused: “Why don’t you just leave?”

How might we remix the Book of Job, perhaps imagining ways his friends could have been more helpful? 

The first potential remix for Job’s friends: talk less, listen more. A commentary I read earlier this week said that Job’s friends were doing pretty good….until they opened their mouths. When someone is really struggling, we can listen closely and try to reflect back the person’s emotional and spiritual state. I had a chaplaincy professor in seminary who taught about the importance of meeting people where they are. If someone is down here in the depths? Don’t come along and yank them up. Instead, listen and notice their current state of being. And then join them in the depths until they’re ready to start climbing out together. 

A second possible change for Job’s friends to consider: talk less, do more. Instead of trying to explain all the pain away, see if there are ways to offer tangible support. And when we offer that support, do it in a concrete way. Instead of saying, “Let me know if I can do anything to help,” try, “I’d like to bring you dinner. How about Tuesday?” We should always allow refusal, but it’s better to ask them to opt OUT instead of IN because it’s really hard for most of us to admit needing help.

Regardless of whether you know how to be practically helpful, don’t turn away. Even when you’re worried you might say the wrong thing or don’t know what to say, show that you care in some way. Send a note in the mail. Leave a message and make it clear they don’t need to call you back. Tell them you’d like to come visit. You can sit and say nothing. Turn on the TV and stare at it silently. Just BE. Together. 

Finally, I know I’ve talked about this one before but it’s so good it really does bear repeating: do you know about the “ring theory”  coined by Susan Silk and Barry Goldman? If not, I encourage you to Google it. [1] In brief, ring theory says that when something terrible happens to someone, they are at the center of a series of concentric rings. The next people out are immediate family, extended family, close friends; acquaintances, colleagues, neighbors. The person in the center gets to complain as much as they want to anyone else. And the people who are on the next ring out will also be struggling because it’s a lot to support the person in the center. They also get to ask for support...but only to people further out. The rule is, “Comfort in, dump out.” When we are trying to be a good friend in the midst of a difficult time, it’s important to be mindful of where we are located in this series of rings. “Comfort in, dump out.”

In a world where so very much seems to be out of our control, making the daily decision to show up for those who are hurting is a heroic act. When things get hard, we sometimes want to turn inward. And there are certainly times where we all need some space. 

But we humans are made for community. We are made for love and friendship and care. When we show up for each other, there is nothing sweeter. When we get it wrong, the Holy whispers words of grace to us, encouraging us to try again tomorrow. 

You know, we welcomed new members today and when we do that we always remind ourselves of the promises many of us made when we became members of this congregation. Membership in a church is holy friendship - an opportunity to come together in a world that privileges individualism and say, “This covenant - this binding together in holy friendship matters to us. We will show up for each other, pray for each other, encourage one another, speak hard truths when needed, bear each other’s burdens and share each other’s joys. We won’t do it perfectly, but, with God’s help, we’ll keep trying.”

Learning to be a good friend may take a whole lifetime….and every moment we spend practicing is time well-spent. Because we need a little help from our friends. 

[1] http://articles.latimes.com/2013/apr/07/opinion/la-oe-0407-silk-ring-theory-20130407