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“The
Questions of Job”
A
sermon preached by William D. Allen –
The story of Job is one of the
most read books in the Bible. I would suggest it is also one of the most
misunderstood. I just want to say a little bit about the structure of this
Book. It is 42 chapters long, but for me the most critical parts are in the
first two chapters (in which the entire premise of the story is set) and the
very last chapter (in which everything comes to an end). Everything between is
based on an incorrect premise that I’ll talk about in a minute. A lot of the
discussion of Job is based on those 39 chapters in the middle where Job and his
friends, and later Job and God go back and forth about the nature of God, and
about Job’s righteousness or sinfulness. You need the patience of Job just to
get through all that! In a way, the ending to the Book of Job is a little like
an episode of your favorite show that you know has to end in the next three
minutes but you still don’t have the answer to the most important questions it
raises: in this case, the same questions Job raises. “Why do all these bad
things happen to Job?” “What is the point of all his suffering?” “What is God’s
relationship with humankind?” But I am getting ahead of myself, so let’s take a
closer look at this story.
The Jubilee Singers have given us a
great synopsis of the story: Job is a nice guy. No, he’s more than a nice guy;
he’s a great man. Job is one of those guys who works hard and plays by the
rules, and it has paid off handsomely for him. He’s prosperous and healthy and
popular with everyone. Most of all, he is popular with God who clearly favors
him.
As the story continues, God has a
great gathering, a big party to which all the angels come. It’s like church bar-b-que
with God as the chef at the grille. God notices that Satan is one of the guests
at the party, and he asks him, “What have you been up to?” Now I don’t know
about you, but I didn’t realize that God and Satan had that type of casual
relationship. As a child I was taught that good and evil were diametrically
opposed, like light and darkness, hot and cold. But if you had any doubts about
the nature of the relationship, consider the following dialogue. Satan answers,
“I have been walking up and down in the earth and to and fro in it”. Basically,
he’s saying “I’ve just been hanging out, you know, chillin’…” There is a casual
familiarity about this exchange that should give us all pause.
But getting back to the story, God
asks Satan, “Have you checked out my man, Job? There’s no-one like him. He’s
blameless and upright; a credit to his race!” In human terms, it sounds like
God really loves Job and is proud of him. And Satan answers, “Is Job such a
fine, upstanding guy for nothing? Look at all you’ve done for him? Sure, he’s
pious cause you’ve set him up for life! BUT, mess with his stuff and watch out!
He’ll curse you to your face.” And God says to Satan, “OK, he’s yours. Do
whatever damage you want in his life, but don’t put your hand on him.” Satan
challenges God to test Job’s faithfulness. And God seemingly accepts the
challenge.
Of course, Satan runs out and
destroys Job’s life; he murders almost everyone in Job’s family and ruins his
property and businesses. Messenger after messenger comes to Job bearing more
and more bad news until Job literally collapses in tears and utter despair. He
cries, “I had nothing when I was born, and now I have nothing again!” But he
also says the famous words that form the refrain of the spiritual we just
heard, “The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the
Lord!” And it is here that I find the essence of the story of Job, in his
ability to simultaneously express his pain along with his faith. People talk
about the “patience of Job” but as we’ll see, Job is not patiently silent about
all the bad things that eventually happen to him. However, he has this uncanny
ability to balance his honest expression of pain and despair with his steadfast
adherence to his beliefs that God is as real as his pain.
Then, the story seems to repeat as
God has another party and again, guess who shows up? They go through the same
peculiar dialogue except this time, God adds, “And you see, even after you
messed with him, he remained faithful to me.” This time, Satan says, “You’re right,
he stuck with you, but you realize, humans will give everything to stay alive.
But you put the hurt on him, on his body, and then, you’ll see…(he’ll curse you
to your face)”. And God says, “OK, his life is in your hand, only don’t kill
him”. Of course, Satan attacks Job and makes him deathly ill, so ill that his
friends can’t even recognize him at first. When they realize who it is, they
too, collapse in tears and despair. And that’s how this whole things starts…
In the following chapters, Job’s
friends start out trying to be supportive of him, but they gradually become
intolerant of his complaining about his situation. They don’t start out by
saying, “Ah Job, Quit your whining!”, although they eventually get there. It
starts with them gently suggesting to Job that he must have done something to
justify all this suffering. “I don’t want to make you feel bad, my friend, but
let’s face it, God is good and rewards the just. I wonder if you haven’t done
something, maybe even something you can’t think of right now, that is the cause
of all this…” There is a kind of dichotomous thinking here that undermines the
entire story of Job: in other words, Job cannot be righteous if all this bad
stuff is happening to him. Conversely, if Job suffering is unjustified, what
does that say about the nature of God, and God’s relationship with humans?
At first Job tries to stay with his
friends’ arguments. He examines himself and tries to see what he could have
done to trigger all the tragedies that he’s experienced. He even agrees with
his friends at first about God’s infallibility. But he begins to question his
situation more, asking how can it be that sin and righteousness appear to
coexist on Earth, and how good things sometimes happen to bad people just as
bad things are now happening to him (a good person). And it is here that Job
and his friends start to fall out. The more he tries to stick up for himself,
the more they see this as evidence of his sin and justification of his
suffering.
Later, a young man from Job’s village
chimes in (or in this, case piles on) in the effort to discredit Job’s defense
of his innocence. These debates back and forth range from plodding monologues
to (on ocaision), very moving prose such as when Job declares the famous
phrase, “I know that my Redeemer lives”. Although many of us identify those
words with the aria by Handel after the Hallelujah chorus, fewer realize that
the context for those words was Job’s utter distraction and feeling of total
abandonment, abandoned by his friends and by God.
The majority of the Book of Job is
taken up in long dialogues between Job and his friends, but just before the end
of the Book, God reappears in the story. God speaks directly to Job and demands
to know who is it who dares to question God, or to ask God to explain him- or
herself. God has some great questions for Job, like “Where were you when I
created the Earth?”. “Where do you get off second-guessing me?” And then God
goes through all the things that he has created and continues to do in the
world. It almost as if after initially stating that he doesn’t have to explain
himself to Job, God proceeds to do just that in the next four chapters.
I am not going to say more about
these dialogues because I believe that this is where most of the discussion of
Job typically focuses. But I believe that this understandable focus on these
debates between Job and his friends, and between God and Job is a mistake, for one
simple reason. All the debate about Job’s righteousness (or sinfulness) misses
the point that God started the story declaring Job’s righteousness. For me, the
more intriguing question (and the more profound dilemma for us as Christians)
is why was Job put in this situation in the first place? But now, I am starting
to sound like Job…
The authors of the Book of Job
(like his friends, the young villager and God) seem to want to Job to shut up
and accept his suffering as well, as they devote the majority of the Book to
these debates. They end the story (abruptly) with Job capitulating to God in
the end, when he basically says, “Of course you were right all along, God. I
don’t know what got into me saying all those things I said…” Job seems to back
down, he submits himself (once again) to God’s authority. The string section
starts up and God restores Job’s health and his wealth, in fact he gives Job
twice what he had before. And the curtain comes down on the story of Job.
What about how all this started? Remember
God’s pride and confidence in Job? Remember Satan’s challenge from Satan? What
about what motivated Job’s friends to come to his aid in the first place? What
are we to make of this profoundly human, and yet celestial drama? What in the
end, is the true significance of the story of Job?
For me it is several things. A lot
of bad things happen to Job (a “good” person) and he takes it as long as he
can. But then he cries out in pain and feelings of abandonment. “Why is this
happening to me?” Job is just like you and me. He’s human. It is that human
reaction to sorrow and pain, and how it affects our relationships with God and
our families and friends that one of the real messages of Job. Throughout his
suffering, Job holds onto his faith in God. Throughout their questioning of his
suffering, Job tries to stay connected with his friends. In addition to the oft-quoted
patience, it is Job’s heroic courage and dedication to the truth of his
experience, a very human experience, that stands out for me. Here was a man who
stated clearly and honestly what he was feeling, as bad as it got, but still
held onto his beliefs.
I think the story of Job shows us
the problems inherent in reading the Bible too literally, or using it like a
cookbook. When you think about it, the story is kind of ridiculous: there’s
this great guy, and God and the devil have a bet to see if the devil can break
him down, and they torture him and at the end Job says “Thanks for sharing”. I
think we have to really wrestle with this story and try to find something
hopeful or redemptive in it. Job is an example of why we can’t just read the
words and leave it at that (taking the story at face value).
The story of Job demonstrates that
there is a much more intimate relationship between good and evil than most of
us might think. As Christians living in a modern age, many of us have
underestimated the power of evil. In fact the notion that Satan (or evil) is
real, often seems like an unsophisticated or primitive idea. But I was jolted out
of this misconception by the catastrophic events of
Job speaks to the nature of human
relationships. It explores the true nature of friendship and how hard that can
be at times. When terrible things happen, is it our role to explain them away
and to try to make people “get over it”. Or are we to try to stay with people
in their suffering.
In a small way, Job is about the
relationship between males and females. The Book of Job is not very friendly to
women. Job’s wife is an underdeveloped charicature, an echo of Eve in Genesis.
She seems to be used here as a proxy for Satan as she asks him “Why are you
sticking to your devotion to God? Just curse God and God will put you out of
your misery!” If you were a being from another galaxy and all you knew about
humans was what you read in Job, you would have a pretty dim view of females.
But this only reaffirms what I said earlier about going beyond the Bible’s
words and wrestling with its deeper meaning and contexts.
Finally, Job explores the
relationship between God and humans. Certainly there is love and reverence, but
there is also fear, anger and disappointment at times. There is room for all
kinds of emotions in us, and we have to believe that there is room in God’s
heart to accept whatever we can throw at him. I’d like to leave you with Job’s
ability to hold on to his hurt, frustration and at times his anger, even as he
held onto his faith, and his steadfast belief that “I know that my Redeemer
lives”… AMEN.