As Rabbi Peter S. Berg took the stage for his final sermon of the week for the 9:15 a.m. morning worship service Friday in the Amphitheater, his tallit glimmered in the morning light. He began by expressing his gratitude for his time at Chautauqua before beginning his sermon, titled “The Friends Job Really Needed.” The reading from scripture was Job 2:11–13.
“Have you ever had a friend or maybe a loved one face a profound personal crisis? A time when life seemed to be too much to bear?” Berg asked. He said that “when people go through such a time, they often feel like they are alone. That no one else has felt what we are feeling, and no one else could possibly understand.”
These experiences, he said, happen to many of us and those we love. For many, he continued, “there comes a time when the crises of life are too much to bear, when life is filled with so much pain and so much suffering.”
Berg shared a story of a man, one the congregation was familiar with, who lost health, wealth, family, community and a litany of others all in one day. His name is Job, and Berg described his story as “as old as the Bible and as recent as yesterday.” While Berg admitted that Job’s suffering was extreme, he recognized that the Bible presents Job’s suffering in a personal way, which represents the many ways in which people suffer. “For hundreds of years,” Berg said, “Job has come to represent the human experience.”
Berg commented on the play J.B. by Archibald MacLeish, in which two men decide to put on a play about the story of Job. They chose Mr. Zuss to play God, and Nickles, Satan. They realized with the two of them in their roles, there was no one to play Job. Mr. Zuss then pointed out: there is always someone playing the part of Job.
“There’s one part of Job’s experience that seems to me particularly important for us to think about this morning,” Berg said, “and that is Job’s mental anguish.” He enumerated how Job’s suffering affected his mental health, before turning his eye toward today’s world. He related that “the figures are actually quite clear. Near one in five Americans lives with deep mental anguish with what medical community professionals call ‘mental illness.’ A condition that disrupts our thinking, our feeling, our mood, our ability to relate to other people and sometimes even our daily functioning.”
Berg described many forms that mental illness can take and how it affects people from all walks of life. “Depression is now the most common serious medical or mental health disorder in the entire country,” he said, “and according to the World Health Organization, depression is the leading cause of disability worldwide.” One in six Americans, or 16%, will have a major depressive episode at some point in their lives. Six percent of Americans suffered from major depression last year, a staggering 14 million people. “And the numbers are increasing markedly,” he said.
Berg explained that “we know that COVID-19 still exists,” but he believes that historians will look back at this time as “the plague of melancholy.” He underscored this by repeating, there is always someone playing the part of Job.
What are the sources of mental illness? Berg described a range, from traumatic events — like in Job’s case — to genetics and brain chemistry, to environmental exposures. “One of the myths about mental illness is that it’s just a personal illness.” But mental illness, Berg shared, is social. “What affects one, affects so many of us.”
He then told the congregation about Louis, a resident of central Florida in 2004, who related the story of the two hurricanes that swept through that summer within three weeks of each other. At first, neighbors were generous and supportive, “they offered each other hot coffee from their propane cooker or extension cords from their generator.” As days went by, the trauma of the devastation eroded people’s mental health. Stripped of comfort and convenience and forced to fend for themselves, “the neighborly veneer cracked.”
This is how mental illness is a communal problem. “When one person gets dragged down by mental suffering, the family is dragged down, too,” Berg said. “Coworkers and neighbors follow next. If we could track it, we would see how the illness of one person becomes the illness of an entire community.” Berg cited a number of ways families are affected by mental illness, from struggling to make a living, to children running away, to the void left by the suicide of a loved one
“Today I am speaking about mental illness for all those who love someone whose lives are darkened,” Berg said, “and I am speaking because I don’t believe that any of us should have to suffer alone or in silence, afraid to reveal their truth or their pain.”
In Job’s case, he had a community, but their support was misguided. “The story of Job is a textbook case of how a community should not respond,” Berg said. “When life tumbled in on him, when he was thrown into despair, his friends came around to offer advice, but what absolutely terrible advice it was.” Job had three friends who supported him in his time of suffering. “Each of these friends,” Berg continued, “is a picture of the wrong response to suffering and mental distress.”
Eliphaz, the first friend, chastised Job. He believed that Job’s suffering was from a flaw in his character and his suffering was deserved. “That’s some friend,” Berg remarked. The second friend, Bildad, comes with the same view as the first. Bildad, however, says that Job did not have a chance, that depression runs in his family. “Sorry about your family, Job. You have bad DNA,” Berg said. “Some friend.”
The third friend, Zophar, said that Job was suffering because of a moral transgression. He believed that God was punishing Job because he was a bad person. These three friends came to Job at his lowest and offered only chastisement and scorn.
“With friends like that, who needs enemies?” Berg asked. It is not surprising that Job categorized his friends as mischievous supporters. Berg hoped that, when our friends are in need, “we don’t ever come across like Eliphaz and Bildad and Zophar.”
What support did Job need from his friends, and what kind of support do our friends and community members suffering from mental illness need? Berg said, “Job and all who suffer from mental distress need friends who understand that feelings of anxiety and sadness and depression are real, and they are common.” He continued: “They need friends who will listen without pointing fingers to others when they are in mental anguish.”
Unfortunately, often in our world, mental health is still stigmatized. Berg related a story he read about a person who shared their mental health struggles with their friends and was shocked to learn that many of them were affected by their own mental illnesses. In every conversation, warmth and understanding were central, even by those unaffected themselves.
Mental illness is not something that can be wished away. Berg pointed out that “we would never tell someone with cancer to just deal with it, nor would we suggest that someone who had a stroke did not try hard enough.”
“Depression,” he said, “is a failure of chemistry, not of character.”
We all need friends who understand. People who suffer from mental illness especially need friends who understand that their suffering can make them ostracized, mistreated and misunderstood.
Berg emphasized this point with two stories. The first of a woman who was suffering from depression. “Why is it,” her friend asked, “that we can laud cancer survivors for how hard they fought, but we don’t think about mental illness in the same way?” The second story is of a man who told his friends of his bipolar disorder and then never heard from them again. Berg asked the congregation to recall a line from the movie “Good Will Hunting.” In the film, Robin Williams said, “I used to think that the worst thing in life was to end up alone. It’s not. The worst thing in life is to end up with people who make you feel alone.”
Berg related another example of a man who committed suicide by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. His last journal entry said that if one person smiled at him on his way to the bridge, he would not have done it. Susan, a woman from New York, said that on a hard day, a smile from a bank teller brought her to tears. “If the care of strangers can mean so much, how much more valuable is the care of friends?” Berg asked.
“Job needed real friends gathered around him,” Berg said. He finished with the words, “We all need real friends who pay attention. Let us be here for each other, not like Job’s friends, scolding, accusing and blaming. But like the friends that he really needed. Friends who understand. Friends who listen. Friends who encourage. Friends who pay attention. May we be here for strength to let the light shine through the cracks of darkness, healing our souls with joy and with laughter. Amen.”
Renee Andrews, who serves as a commissioner on the Falls Church, Virginia, election board, presided. Esther Norman, who was the former president of the Chautauqua Hebrew Congregation, read the scripture. The prelude was “The Aeolian Sonata: II. Shalom,” by Dan Forrest, and was played by Laura Smith, organ scholar, on the Massey Memorial Organ. The Motet Choir sang “Heal Us Now,” by Leon Sher with Cantors Roy Einhorn and Jodi Sufrin under the direction of Joshua Stafford, director of sacred music and the Jared Jacobsen Chair for the Organist. Smith accompanied on the Massey organ. The postlude, performed by Stafford, was “Toccata” from Symphony No. 5 by Charles-Marie Widor. Support for this week’s chaplaincy and preaching is provided by the Harold F. Reed Sr. Chaplaincy and the Samuel M. and Mary E. Hazlett Memorial Fund. Mary Lee Talbot will return to her morning worship column during Week Seven.
