How do we keep from becoming miserable comforters?

If you visited here to see the response to the question in Grace’s bulletin, here’s the quick response:

• Haven't we run out of questions yet? Well, no. Exploring questions about my faith help me better understand what I believe and don’t believe, and bring me closer to God. The questions evolve and, even if they don’t, the answers often do.
• Are we going to keep asking and exploring questions through the summer?  I’m not sure how many folks from Grace actually read the blog (the recent Adult Discipleship evaluation suggests not too many), if blogspot’s stats are to be believed, several somebodys are checking things out each week. So, we'll give it a try for a while longer.  

That was going to be the quick Memorial Day weekend post since a lot of folks will probably be kicking off summer and won’t be checking blogs (or at least that’s how it should be). But, in the aftermath of the tornado that devastated Moore, Oklahoma, some Christians made declarations along the lines of the tornadoes being part of God’s work either to punish us for something we've done or to call us to repent. We've explored whether natural disasters were part of God’s wrath after hurricane Sandy hit the east coast. Not that we “resolved” anything, but I want to look at a different question… or at least point you to a post that does just that.

Chaplain Mike provided a good write-up this week about the controversy stirred up by a couple of tweets by John Piper and the reactions to those tweets at the Internet Monk. Referring to the book of Job, he says that what we should be offering is “expressions of solidarity and mutual grief,” not theological explanations or moralizing (what makes for miserable comforting):

Even with both tweets, perhaps especially because of both tweets, Piper represents a “miserable comforter” who, remarkably, still has not learned the wisdom of Qoheleth: there is “…a time to keep silence, and a time to speak” (Eccles. 3:7).

     I have heard many such things;     miserable comforters are you all.     Have windy words no limit?     Or what provokes you that you keep on talking?

          - Job 16:2-3 (NRSV)

 By steadfastly refusing to be silent, to take his place by the side of those who are suffering with mouth shut and heart open wide, he misses the point of the very Bible book he cites in a misguided attempt to bring theological perspective to the Oklahoma disaster.

Now when Job’s three friends heard of all these troubles that had come upon him, each of them set out from his home—Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. They met together to go and console and comfort him. When they saw him from a distance, they did not recognize him, and they raised their voices and wept aloud; they tore their robes and threw dust in the air upon their heads. They sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great.- Job 2:11-13 (NRSV)

This is the high point of the three companions’ friendship and ministry to Job. Silence. Tears. Presence. Symbolic expressions of solidarity and mutual grief.

Once they opened their mouths, it was all downhill. They became “miserable comforters.” It is not simply a matter of timing. The friends’ words came after the accepted period of silent mourning. Their words were wrong. And so it is with John Piper. It is not as though Piper’s words, inappropriate in the tender moment, would be appropriate once wounds have healed somewhat, once things have calmed down and we have time to gain perspective on the tragedy. No, his understanding and application of the book of Job is wrong. He has taken his place with Job’s friends, not with the argument of the text.

Chaplain Mike describes Job as one of those “conversations in God’s kitchen” where a variety of viewpoints are presented and argued (one of the reasons we’re called to engage with the Bible). He argues that the book of Job counters the concept of God as vengeful enforcer of the law:

The argument of the book is that the approach of Deuteronomy and Proverbs is too simplistic, too pat. God is bigger than the sovereign, retributive monarch that those traditions made him out to be. His ways are more complex, mysterious, and unexplainable than obedience – blessing/disobedience – curse.

Why do so many some Christians feel compelled to espouse this view of a God who continues to punish us for our wayward ways? [I’m not sure it’s a majority, although the ones espousing this view are very vocal and visible]. Is that really what we get from Jesus and the gospel? 

How should we respond? How would Jesus respond to such a tragedy? How would he respond to those who say either God is punishing us for our sins? Shouldn’t we do the same? And how should we respond when we think that something being espoused as a "Christian response" conflicts with the Gospels?