Job and Peter Parker: Sermon for October 18

Job 38:1-7, 34-41

I am a reader of comic books. Mainly the Marvel comics: the X-Men and the Avengers and my favourite, Spider-Man. When family and friends give me the weird “why are you reading that?” look, I explain that comic books are full of deep and meaningful explorations of life’s big questions. And usually my family and friends snort and walk away.

Issue 40 of The Sensational Spider-Man is called “The Book of Peter”. In it Peter Parker, who as a high school student was bitten by a radioactive spider, is having an extremely bad time, culminating in his Aunt May, his last remaining family member, lying in a coma after being shot. Peter goes to take his anger out on a dumpster and in the middle of destroying it is interrupted by God, who looks a little like a homeless New Yorker. God and Peter then have a discussion about the meaning of human suffering. Peter asks God if he’s being punished for something, or tested, and God says no, human suffering is a mystery. God’s exact words are: “Hard to explain why it’s necessary to someone who wasn’t there when the foundation of the earth was laid … or when the walls were built around the oceans …”

And this is why I love comic books. Because in the middle of a Spider-Man comic, God references the Book of Job.