In this chapel‑style podcast recorded at Springfield Regional Medical Center, Chaplain Rick Lee James offers a reflective sermon on the Book of Job, specifically highlighting the often‑maligned three friends of Job. He explains how, before offering any counsel, the friends exemplify the "ministry of presence" by sitting silently with Job for seven days, weeping, tearing their robes, and sharing his suffering. James connects this biblical example to modern chaplaincy, emphasizing that in moments of profound pain—especially in a hospital setting—what many patients need most is compassionate, wordless companionship rather than explanations or solutions. He discusses the broader theological questions raised by Job’s story, the temptation of caregivers to rush to fix or explain suffering, and the importance of simply being present. The episode includes hymn singing, prayers, and a closing invitation for listeners to access on‑call chaplains for support, underscoring a non‑denominational, empathetic approach to pastoral care.
Chapters
Welcome back to Voices in My Head. As always, I'm your host, Rick Lee James. This week's podcast was a chapel service that I recorded last week at Springfield Regional Medical Center. I hope you enjoy it. Have a wonderful week, and thank you for listening to Voices in My Head.
In the dark of the midnight, I have loved in my face while A storm's out above me and there's no hiding place with the crash of the thunder. Precious Lord, hear my cry, keep me safe till the storm passes by. Till the storm passes over, till the thunder Sounds no more till the clouds roll forever from the sky. Oh, when the blast let me stand in the hollow of thy hand, keep me safe till the storm passes by. Many times Satan whispered, "There is no use to try, for there's no end of sorrow, there's no hope by and by." But I know Thou art with me, and tomorrow I'll rise where the storms never darken the sky. Till the storm passes over, till the thunder sounds no more, till the clouds roll forever from the sky. O, if thou hast learned to stand in the hollow of that hand, he is safe. 'til the storm passes by. When the long night is lifted and the storms come no more, let me stand in thy presence on that bright peaceful shore, in that land where the tempest never comes. Till the storm passes over, when the thunder sounds no more. Till the clouds roll back from the sky. Oh, the past is past. Let me stand in the hollow of thy hand. Keep me safe till the storm passes by. Keep me safe till the storm passes by.
Thank you all for singing with us today, and I am Chaplain Rick Lee James, and welcome to our non-denominational chapel service today. Um, that song, it just felt appropriate to me when I was looking through the hymnal for songs that might be fitting with the short message that I have today. I wanted to offer a brief reflection on Job. Today, specifically though not just on Job but on Job's three friends, who I feel like get a bad rap often because we always look at what they did wrong, but we don't always look at what they did right. And so we're going to look at Job just briefly today, but I wanted to give you a little bit of background. The literary style of the Book of Job, it's actually a mix of prose and poetry, both. Um, a lot of it is just a big poem that is written out, and Job is introduced in the Book of Job as a good man. He's faithful, he's upright, he's deeply devoted to God, and he has a full life. In the beginning of the story, he has a family, he has wealth, he has this sense of blessing. But then suddenly, due to a kind of cosmic wager that takes place in the heavenly realms between God and the accuser, everything in Job's life unravels. Job loses his wealth. His children are killed, which is incredibly tragic. Job's health begins to fail him, and he develops painful boils all over his body. And I think that today, as we're here in this hospital setting, that at times many people who come into this place feel like Job. They feel like there's been one loss after another until there's almost nothing left. And what makes it even more difficult is Job doesn't know why. Job has never offered an answer throughout the entire book. There's no explanation. There's no warning of don't do this again or you'll be punished even worse. There's no clear reason in Job for why any of this happens. From his perspective, his world just collapses. So by the time we reach the moment that we're about to read in the story in the Book of Job, Job is sitting in ashes. He's mourning. His wife has just told him to curse God and die. Doesn't she sound lovely? I mean, if you've ever had a person tell you that— well, Job is grieving, he's disoriented, he's trying to make sense of something that doesn't make sense. And that's when Job's friends arrive. Job's three friends, I really do think they get a bad rap. Ultimately, they do overstep. They say the wrong things to Job, but I want to praise them because in the very beginning they're kind of like chaplains. And we have 3 chaplains in the room today. I think we have one chaplain who may be watching from the camera right now. Um, but when Job's friends arrive, I want to actually praise them today for being very much like chaplains when they first come to him. Before they say anything at all to Job, they do something remarkable, and we're going to look at it in the scripture today. It's in Job chapter 2. If you have a Bible and want to read along, if not, I'm going to read it to you. In verse 11, it says, when Job's three friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite, heard about all the troubles that had come upon him, they set out from their homes And they met together by agreement to go out and sympathize with him and comfort him. When they saw him from a distance, they could hardly recognize him. They began to weep aloud, and they tore their robes and they sprinkled dust on their heads. Then they sat on the ground with him for 7 days and 7 nights, and no one said a word to him. Because they saw how great his suffering was. Now the book of Job is not just about one man's suffering. Many scholars believe that the book might also reflect something bigger, that it might be intended to narrate the experience of the whole Jewish people who are trying to make sense of their pain. After the Babylonian exile, the people of Israel, they were asking questions that they had never asked before. Like, where is God? Why have we been abandoned? How do we understand the loss that we are experiencing when we were promised blessing? Their world had collapsed. Their land, their temple, their sense of stability— all the old explanations they had, they didn't seem to work anymore. And I think that's what makes Job so powerful, because Job is described as faithful. He's described as blameless, and yet everything is taken from him, which raises a question that still hasn't gone away: what do we do when suffering doesn't make sense? And right in the middle of Job, Job is essentially asking that question about his suffering in this moment. But then we see his three friends show up, and for all the mistakes they make later in the story— they start blaming Job later, they start talking about all the things Job, you must have done something wrong to bring this all down on you.
That—
and they try to do what we so often do, they try to explain it away. Surely this couldn't be from God. But nobody knows. But in this initial moment, again, I want to give them praise because they sat on the ground with him for 7 days and nights, and they were just silent. They were just with him in his suffering. They tore their clothes. They they wept, they put ashes on. This is no small thing for a friend to do, to accompany someone in their suffering. So I want to give Job's friends a break today, and I want to say to them, I see what you did. I'm grateful for this example. And if we know the rest of the story, we know they try to explain it, they try to fix it, they try to make some sense of it. And that's where the mistakes start happening. That's where mistakes start happening when we start to do it sometimes too. But here in this quiet moment, they are showing incredible empathy. They are deeply compassionate and they just sit with their friend. Sometimes it's all we can do. We want so badly to rush in with answers. We want so badly to offer some theological explanation for why this happened and how it happened. We want so much to look on the bright side and say, "Hey, let's look at this from a different angle." There are times and places for those things, but in this moment when people are in such suffering, sometimes what they need more than anything else is someone just to be there and just to be present. Speaking for myself, I have trouble sitting for 7 minutes. You know, sometimes it's a, it's a slog for me to get through a church service on Sunday morning because I want to be up doing something. 7 days in silence.
Wow.
Most of us have been trained in the caring profession. We want to help, we want to fix, we want to improve people's lives, and that is so important, but sometimes it does get in the way. Because not all suffering can be explained, and not all suffering needs an explanation. There's some pain that just can't be fixed, and sometimes the most faithful thing we can do is simply sit with those who are suffering, to be silent and suffer with them, to be present without an agenda, to honor the load that someone else is carrying. This is the ministry of presence. That's what chaplains call it. Presence says, "You're not alone. I see you. I'm with you. I'm here to be with you." So in closing this reflection today, I just want to ask a few questions. So often in Jewish parables, they don't give a lot of answers, but they give several questions. So in that tradition, I'm just going to ask a few questions of us today. Where are we trying to fix what needs to only be witnessed? Where are we reaching for words when presence might just be enough? Where are the places of silent presence that God is inviting us into today? Job's friends sat with him for 7 days. And I am grateful they did. That's a powerful example. For that moment, it was exactly the right thing to do. And in the quiet of this moment today, we're going to close with a song. It's, it's actually on 630, and I think we're just going to do it with our voices. And Jill, I appreciate you playing piano, but I think, I think we're just going to sing with our voices today. And this is going to be just a way for us to acknowledge, as in the words of— on page 630, it's from scripture. It says, 'Be still and know that I am God.' And it's just an encouragement as we sing. We are not saying that we are God. We are announcing that God is God today as we sing this together. It's a really simple verse chorus. It just goes like this: Be still and know that I am God.
Be still and know that I am God. Be still and know that I I am God.
And maybe you need to just hear it today and just close your eyes and just as though God was singing it to you.
I am the Lord that healeth thee. I am the Lord that healeth thee. Thee. I am the Lord that healeth thee. In thee, O Lord, I put my trust. In thee, O Lord, I put my trust in thee, O Lord. I put my trust.
O God of quiet presence, will you teach us how to sit with one another? Will you give us patience to remain when things are difficult and help us to listen deeply and not to rush in too fast to try to fix? And in our presence, may your presence be reflected.
Amen.
So thank you all for being in here. For those of you that are watching on our camera or watching on our feed online later, We just want to remind you that our chaplains are always available to you, even if it's in the middle of the night. We have on-call chaplains that are available, and we would love to just be present with you. Our job is not to push our beliefs on you. Our job is to walk with you in the places where you find meaning and purpose and connection, and we would love to come and be with you. So ask your nurse if you would like a visit today, and we will be happy to come by. God bless you, and thank you for worshiping for worshiping with us today. And thank you to all of you who are in the chapel with us this morning.
And that was our podcast for another week. Please tune in for our next episode with Jenny Owens, who I'm excited to have back on the podcast. Also, you can find more of my podcast, the one that I host with David Dahl called Truth, Justice and the Way: Superman to Spirituality on Substack at supermanpodcast.substack.org. And you can always go to rickleejames.com and find out more information about what I have going on. Thank you so much for listening to Voices in My Head. God bless you and have a wonderful, wonderful week.
