Job Part 2

The Story of Job Part 2

It is always inevitable. For each natural disaster it seems there is at least one Evangelical Pastor who claims to know who is responsible for it. Hurricane Michael is not the exception. Self-appointed Christian “prophet,” Mark Taylor tweeted: “Does anyone else think it's strange that Justice K is sworn in and we have a major hurricane inbound? DS [Democrats] scared? They should be. Retaliation? Absolutely. We will not be intimidated! Warriors arise, time to go to work! You know what to do. … — Mark Taylor (@patton6966) October 9, 2018”

To understand chapter 23 of Job one needs to hear chapter 22 in which his friend Eliphaz, in the spirit of Pastor Taylor, also attempts to assign blame for all the bad things that have happened to Job. Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered:

2 “Can a mortal be of use to God?

    Can even the wisest be of service to him?

3 Is it any pleasure to the Almighty if you are righteous,

    or is it gain to him if you make your ways blameless?

4 Is it for your piety that he reproves you,

    and enters into judgment with you?

5 Is not your wickedness great?

    There is no end to your iniquities.

6 For you have exacted pledges from your family for no reason,

    and stripped the naked of their clothing.

7 You have given no water to the weary to drink,

    and you have withheld bread from the hungry.

8 The powerful possess the land,

    and the favored live in it.

9 You have sent widows away empty-handed,

    and the arms of the orphans you have crushed,

10 Therefore snares are around you,

    and sudden terror overwhelms you,

11 or darkness so that you cannot see;

    a flood of water covers you.

To sum up Eliphaz, “You are obviously not as good as you think. It’s your own fault for not taking care of the widows, orphans, strangers and resident aliens whom God commands us to care for.” Strangely, this still seems to assign Job’s situation as “an act of God,” while the reader already knows it was Satan who brought this calamity on. Further, as I read it, I am not so sure that the author of this poetic fable is not aiming his charge at one and all who are listening or reading this story. What are we doing for the weary, the thirsty, the hungry, the widows, the strangers who by virtue of national policy are being warehoused, imprisoned, families ripped apart, people losing their homes while “the powerful possess the land, and the favored live in it?” More than a fable, the speech from Eliphaz is more like a prophetic critique of the status quo that seems to stretch on for centuries and even millennia to this very day.

Job holds steady and agrees that God is Just and what’s more our God is reasonable and merciful. If only he could find God to lay his case before him. “Oh, that I knew where I might find him” This is the lament of all faithful women and men in every age who experience undeserved suffering. Just ask the people of Mexico Beach, FL today. Just ask the women who were sexually assaulted yesterday. Just ask the LGBTQ community who remember that 20 years ago this week Matthew Shepherd was beaten, tortured and left to die near Laramie, Wyoming simply for being who he was – a young gay man. Just ask the 53,000 voters in Georgia, 70% of whom are black, whose registrations are being held up by the very man who is running for Governor and is also the official overseer of his own election. Just as #Me Too and #VeteransforKaepernick, and dozens of others raising all sorts of Justice and Peace questions.

It is here that the NRSV translation fails us in verses 16-17, making it sound as if Job is resigned to die. A more accurate translation, according to Walter Brueggemann, et. al., would be:

It is God who makes me fainthearted,

the Almighty who fills me with fear,

yet I am not reduced to silence by the darkness

or by the mystery which hides him.

That is, Job is resolute in his trust and faithfulness in his God, is not “reduced to silence,” and seeks even more so to penetrate the inscrutable presence of God. If he only knew where to look.

Job does not seek blame or explanations or theories or doctrines. He seeks a response. A compassionate response. And the opportunity to make his case; to tell his story; to get some sense that his case is being heard. This is what a lot of different people are asking for today.

Brueggemann, et. al., conclude, in Texts For Preaching:

“And here the matter is held in suspension. Job has confronted what is perhaps the most difficult question posed by Christian theology: How does one account for all the suffering that takes place in a world created and governed by a gracious God? When one replies, as Eliphaz does, that the answer lies in human sinfulness, there is ample evidence to affirm that Eliphaz is correct—but only partially so. Eliphaz’s views do not take into account all the innumerable instances in which suffering is inflicted on men and women for no apparent reason whatsoever, from the ravages of nature to terrible diseases that cripple and kill. There simply are those terrible moments when no human sinfulness lies behind our pain. In those moments, where is God?

“Job not only protests that Eliphaz’s views are wrong, but he also, in his stated inability to locate God, confesses his own partial agnosticism in the face of his pain. It simply is not possible to know the mind of God in certain situations of life. It is not possible to dialogue with God over this matter and to come away with solutions that are completely satisfactory. Job finds God to be simply unreachable!

“Job points to a dilemma whose solution he “cannot see” (v. 9b), but one for which Christian men and women find resolution in Jesus Christ (although Christians would also confess very imperfect knowledge in the matter). In Jesus Christ, God joined humankind in its suffering, both deserved and undeserved. The cross of Jesus Christ is that point in time and space where, more than any other, God identified with human suffering and experienced it to its fullest extent.

“Thus Job performs the enormous service of raising questions which he cannot answer and of pointing beyond himself to One who can.” On to chapter 38 and the Voice from the whirlwind. To be continued in two weeks…