The Book of Job: What do you believe about God?
February 15 , 2015 | Anita Retzlaff and Edna Froese
ANITA
Once upon a time there lived "a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job. That man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil." (Job 1:1) The story of Job and of his suffering is fairly well known even among those who do not consider themselves religious. "The patience of Job" is a common and not particularly sacred expression which implies that one has lots of patience and endurance in difficult circumstances. Those of us who know at least a little about Job's trials and encounter with God envision an emaciated and boil-infested body sitting atop a heap of rubble, scratching at his sores and questioning the meaning of life: his life in particular. This is a story not so much about patience but about Job's persistence and tenacity. It is a story about God; a tale that eventually comes around to encompass our story too. Once we have journeyed a little way with Job we are confronted with some pretty pointed questions about God, about who we are as human beings and how this all works together - or doesn't.
Edna Froese and I have considered together this story of Job. The Women's Bible Study group has been reading through the Book of Job and we have not quite finished it yet. Many questions have surfaced over the last couple of months and Edna has graciously contributed to this morning's project of discerning the ways of God and the human condition in a story of suffering and redemption.
EDNA
The Book of Job opens with a hypothetical case study: suppose that there is a completely righteous man. Then imagine a heavenly court scene in which the designated prosecutor suggests to God, who’s just been boasting about this one good man on earth, that that good man is simply in it for the benefits. This career cynic is not an evil agent, just someone whose job it is to look for authenticity. So God agrees to the proposed test: “Go ahead. Do what you want to Job but don’t kill him. I believe he’s genuine.” And out of that heavenly conversation comes a succession of catastrophes that leaves the once wealthy, successful Job impoverished, bereaved, and ill. The surface question the story poses is whether Job will manage to function and maintain faith.
The question for his friends, on the other hand, is far more frightening. They are friends, so presumably they know Job well, and they should know that he’s a good man. All they would have to do to confirm that would be to talk to his servants; underlings usually know what kind of master they have. However, and this is a huge however, if they accept the fact—and the opening story makes it clear that it is a fact—that Job has done nothing at all to deserve or provoke the calamities that have befallen him, then a) they have no explanation for how the world works except that stuff happens, and b) there is absolutely nothing they can do to prevent similar catastrophes from happening to them. For all they know, they’re next in line to lose their children, their herds, their houses, their wealth. Such a conclusion is so terrifying that Job’s friends, who have arrived presumably to offer comfort and lend a hand (maybe a few animals so Job and his wife can still eat), forget their mission entirely and just focus on making sense of it all.
To do that, they simply have to blame Job for everything. If it’s all his fault, then they can prevent disaster from falling on their own heads just by avoiding whatever it was that Job did. Their God, as they have conceived Him, is in control of everything and acts justly. Justice, for them, means that the bad die young and miserably and the good prosper and live long. Therefore, since Job obviously isn’t prospering any more, he must be bad. Given their assumptions, their conclusion is logically correct. It doesn’t seem to matter to them that their actual observations of Job and of the world around them don’t fit their theology. After all, Job can’t possibly be the only good man on earth who suffers, and they must have seen some real crooks die comfortably in their beds at a ripe old age. Yet they are prepared to “adjust” their perceptions to fit their theology. Even if that means failing their friend in his greatest hour of need. In speech after speech, they describe in poetic detail how the evil will be punished and the good rewarded. Eliphaz even accuses Job directly of “great wickedness,” of “stripping people of their clothing, withholding water from the thirsty, and sending widows away with nothing.” At least, Eliphaz agrees with the prophets, including Jesus, about what actions God condemns, but you’d think he would have noticed before this if Job really behaved that way. He just can’t let himself see the obvious contradictions.
The dilemma of the friends is the dilemma that we likewise face whenever what we see and feel does not fit what we think we have the right to expect. It is often easier to re-interpret, even falsify our experiences, than to change our worldview and re-imagine our God. For if bad things are truly random, then I could be the next person to contract some vile new plague, and then what possible meaning can there be in life? The real question in the book is not whether Job is patient or whether he’ll end up cursing God. It is “what is God like?” The answer to that question will determine, to a large extent, how we then live.
ANITA
And so Job remains insistent throughout the story; he did nothing wrong. He does not deserve the suffering that has come upon him. If God has purposely chosen to make him suffer, this is a betrayal of a faithful relationship and if this suffering is punishment for a particular offence then God isn't all-knowing. God has made a mistake. Job maintains his innocence. He has lived a righteous life. He wants a hearing in God's presence and he is some upset by his friend's attempts to make this all go away.
As Edna said, "It is often easier to re-interpret, even falsify our experiences, than to change our worldview and re-imagine our God." Most of us in our lifetime have had to face situations that force us to rethink some of the beliefs that we grew up with. We have to make adjustments in what it means to be faithful and what we think about God. There are times to let go of unsatisfactory theology; to admit that there are just some things that we cannot know and that the ways of God are the ways of God and defy the knowledge of human understanding. Job's friends are having a dickens of a time trying to make sense of Job's tragedy and in the end they protect themselves by turning God into a monster and effectively turning their backs on their friend.
"Look Job," they say, "in the past you have been the one to offer consolation to others, now it is your turn to receive. Just be patient." Then there is the argument from tradition: "Trust the past, Job, others have been through this before you and the world keeps turning. It can't be that bad! You are not that special or unique. Suck it up." And when the going gets really tough the friends indeed falsify their experience; they deny what is real. Job has lived well and with integrity and yet the only way to stop the pain of the suffering they see is to accuse Job of sinning. "If you had lived properly God would not be punishing you now. God does not do this to a blameless person. Reach out to God and confess! Only the wicked suffer. You must have done something wrong. Submit to God, admit it and get it over with."
Job responds, "I will NOT!" In the horror that has unexpectedly become Job's world his friends adopt a terribly negative view of everything. Even the light of creation is dim in their estimation. Such a depressing scenario Job will not adopt. And so he rails at God to give him a hearing so that he may make his case and clear the air. Job wants to understand God and he wants God to understand him. In painful and lengthy discourses Job describes the abandonment he feels, the loathing he experiences at the hands of acquaintances and friends; the cold shoulder from God. Job curses the day of his birth and even the moment of his conception but he will not curse God. He will not distort the wonder and possibility that is God's.
Suddenly out of the chaos and confusion of painful moments and painful arguments God answers Job from within the whirlwind. As the story draws to its conclusion Job gets the answer that he has actually been hinting at. God is power and possibility not punisher and predator. The ways of God who flung the universe into being will never be fully understood by dust and ashes, the medium from which humanity was made and to which humanity will return. Even so, the relationship between creature and Creator is one of trust and covenant. What is humanity but the creation of a loving God? What is God but the creator of goodness and light? God is not made from dust, and humanity did not bring the world into being, but God and humanity are made for each other.
EDNA
For me, the Book of Job offers no resolution, either to the story itself or to the central problem. The adversary’s question in the opening story is “Doesn’t Job serve you, God, because you bless him?” So the blessing is removed. Yet Job still clings to his relationship to God, although he does demand a hearing. After all, Job also believed that prosperity was a benefit conferred on the righteous; that’s why he’s so outraged now. His theology had been no different than his friends’ theology. Then, after God speaks and makes Job feel thoroughly small for having dared to claim justice from the Almighty, Job simply repents for having yelled at God. He might as well, because he’s not given any kind of explanation.
I could live with such a non-ending. It seems fitting, because neither the friends’ explanation that Job must have deserved all his pain and loss nor the actual explanation in the opening story—that God just wanted to test Job’s genuineness—is acceptable. I don’t want to imagine God like that; I’d rather not be a pawn in some heavenly court case or serve a ruthless taskmaster. The ending that we do get, however, that fairy-tale ending in which Job now gets double the wealth, double the children, double the respect from everyone, just seems to underline what the friends believed all along, that prosperity is a reward for good behavior. Sure, the ending vindicates Job, but it’s really a non-answer.
Instead, I see Job as a man prepared to reject the usual canned meanings on offer, no matter how authoritative, and to seek his own meaning (or wisdom or understanding) through his experiences and his relationships. In Chapter 28, Job concludes that wisdom cannot be bought with silver or previous jewels, cannot be simply dug out of the ground, already formed, like gold, but it can, and must, be lived. And so Job concludes, “The fear of the Lord—that is wisdom, / and to shun evil is understanding.” If God’s stunning descriptions of the natural world fit into this theological discussion at all, they do so as part of a developing covenant of trust between Job and God. Job has spoken freely and honestly from his heart, and now God does the same. After their terrible conversation of hard questions, Job will remain loyal to God and will continue to feed the hungry and cloth the naked and seek justice in human interactions, whatever the consequences. In dust and ashes, in birth and death, in the midst of unknowingness, whether he suffers or whether he prospers, Job will live out his discovered meaning, according to his covenant of obedience to a God he now trusts. That is all that can be asked, and it is enough.
