Sunday, October 28, 2018

Job 42:1-6, 10-17




Job 42:1-6, 10-17 (NRSV)

Then Job answered the Lord:
2 “I know that you can do all things,
and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.
3 ‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’
Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand,
things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.
4 ‘Hear, and I will speak;
I will question you, and you declare to me.’
5 I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear,
but now my eye sees you;
6 therefore I despise myself,
and repent in dust and ashes.” 

10 And the Lord restored the fortunes of Job when he had prayed for his friends; and the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before. 11 Then there came to him all his brothers and sisters and all who had known him before, and they ate bread with him in his house; they showed him sympathy and comforted him for all the evil that the Lord had brought upon him; and each of them gave him a piece of money and a gold ring. 12 The Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning; and he had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand donkeys. 13 He also had seven sons and three daughters. 14 He named the first Jemimah, the second Keziah, and the third Keren-happuch. 15 In all the land there were no women so beautiful as Job’s daughters; and their father gave them an inheritance along with their brothers. 16 After this Job lived one hundred and forty years, and saw his children, and his children’s children, four generations. 17 And Job died, old and full of days.

In the Epilogue of Job 42, we find the theme of theodicy continued. The literal rendering of the project of theodicy is to justify the ways of God to humanity. It specifically addresses how suffering and evil can become part of the ways of a good and just God. For a human being to offer a conclusive theodicy is impossible, since that human being would have to see matters the ways that God does. Theodicy also continues the questioning of the human mind. We ask why and thank God that we do. Yet, the question seems to have no answer when it comes to relating suffering and evil to the ways of God. This dramatic climax — the Lord’s first direct address to Job and Job’s only direct response to the Lord — has been anticipated by much of the content of the book, but especially by the prediction of the “satan” (the adversary) in 1:11 and 2:5 that, given the chance, Job would curse the deity to his face in response to Job’s travails. Job’s railing has led one to anticipate such a possibility, but the actual response turns out to be quite different, one of the many unanticipated twists in this story.

Then Job answered the Lord (yahweh[1]). The Lord has just asked Job, in two detailed speeches (38:1-40:5 and 40:6-41:34), whether Job’s knowledge and abilities extend to the creation and management of the natural world, elaborately (and sometimes whimsically, 41:5) described by the Lord. The purpose of the speech(es) is to confront (and crush) Job’s sense of moral outrage at his treatment with the larger, cosmic framework in which Job’s life runs its course, and in which Job’s perspective is painfully constrained. 2 “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. Job affirms the omnipotence of God, meaning that the divine power knows no limits, unlimited and infinite.[2] 3 ‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’  We have here a near quotation of the words of the Lord to Job in 38:2, a rhetorical question that needs no answer. Therefore, I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. Elihu made the same charge in 34:35.  Job acknowledges the truth that he does not understand the mysteries of creation. Yet, he does understand that he did not deserve his sufferings. 4 ‘Hear, preparing the reader for the response of Job in verse 5, and I will speak. I will question you, and you declare to me.’ See 38:3b and 40:7b for a duplicate of this statement.[3] The Lord refuses to submit to the questioning of Job. He also refuses to list the sins of Job. In speaking about the wonders of nature and control of the world, Job sees the folly of questioning the wisdom and justice of God. He has challenged the goodness of God. The speech from God at the end reaffirms the parental care of God for all creation and by implication for human beings. In his act, Job reveals that through his experience of suffering and evil, he becomes a person worthy of us remembering and from whom we can learn. The story of Job invites us to relate to the world of suffering and evil in the way Job did. We can become such persons worthy of remembering if our experience of suffering leads us to a deeper encounter with the Lord. (Stump 2010). 5 I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear[4] (hearsay). Its use here seems to describe unreliable or unconfirmed information, such as rumors or secondhand reports (cf. also 28:22 and Psalm 18:44; the phrase “in the hearing of” ordinarily simply means “in the presence of” or “overheard by”; cf. Genesis 23:10, 13; Exodus 24:7; Numbers 11:1). However, now my eye sees you (he has personal experience). To see the divine with the eyes was a privilege rarely accorded individuals, and was thought to be accompanied by mortal danger (cf. Hagar’s statement in Genesis 16:13; Moses’ request to see God in Exodus 33:12-23; and Isaiah’s fearful temple vision, Isaiah 6:1; in contrast, see Exodus 24:9-11). Thus, he contrasts his hearing of the Lord in the past with his seeing of the Lord now. There are a number of ways to interpret this exchange, but the most likely seems to be that Job has come to an awareness of the divine he did not have before. The contrast Job seems to be making, then, is that he once heard of God’s ways (from his friends and from his religious tradition, both of which conflicted with his lived experience), but now he has indeed “seen” (i.e., experienced) how God actually operates, and now he understands. In other words, now Job gets it. Job becomes convinced of the providential care of God. God has met the demands of Job, for something had to convince him that God was on his side and would vindicate him. It seems as if we have reached the culmination of the entire of saga. Yet, what does Job see? He sees that he does not see. The ways of God are beyond his understanding. His desire for God to vindicate him reduces God to little more than an idol created by human imaginings. 6 Therefore, I despise (ma’as) myself,[5] and repent in dust and ashes.” Of course, according to 2:8, Job is already in ashes. The phrase, “dust and ashes,” can describe the human condition in general, especially human finitude (e.g., Genesis 18:27), or it can also describe being placed in abject humiliation or degradation (as appears earlier in the book of Job, 30:19). Job may be repudiating the human perspective he brought to divine mysteries, or he may be affirming his newfound awareness and denying the need for further humiliation. The ambiguity of these, Job’s final words, is almost certainly deliberate. Job repents, something his friends had recommended throughout their dialogue. Does he reject his former speeches and attitudes? What Job might repent of is the desire to occupy the place of God so that he could justify the ways of God to himself. Of course, he will never occupy that place. Job acknowledges his finitude and the limits of his wisdom.  Why the change?  He experiences God in the whirlwind, in the turmoil.  He does not regret what he has said.  Rather, this experience of God has changed his perspective. He cannot know what only God can know.  Job recognizes human limits and accepts the power of God. Thus, the epilogue acknowledges that 1) one comes to this point only through struggle, 2) Job was right to be angry, 3) This may be all that human beings can say. God can do all things, but we cannot comprehend God's purposes.

Job 42:10-17, part of a segment that began in verse 7, has the theme of the restoration and enlargement of the fortunes of Job. Readers and scholars alike have found the epilogue, by turns, perplexing, consoling, unsatisfying and frustrating, and whatever comments one makes about it one must make with due regard for the provisional understanding that attends the work as a whole, and the relation of that work to the broader context of theological and philosophical literature in general. Indeed, when we examine opinions regarding these final verses, they seem to relate more to whether one thinks of human life as a fundamentally tragic or comedic structure.[6]  Thus, many readers (and, presumably, hearers) have found this section of the book deeply unsatisfying, as it appears to confirm the central theological tenet espoused collectively by Job’s three friends: The righteous receive reward and the wicked receive punishment. Such a view, foundational to Deuteronomistic and prophetic theology, is extremely difficult to reconcile with the deity’s statement to Job’s friends in 42:7, that they “have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.” Scholars have offered various proposals to smooth the rough edges, usually involving a “history of composition” of the book approach. In such cases, the conflict is the result of two different, incompatible theological perspectives from two different periods and authors. While such an approach resolves the conflict, it avoids the problem of the canonical text as we have it.

Admittedly, we may have preferred that the story of Job end with his final speech. Job demands an explanation for his suffering. The Lord appears from out of the whirlwind, swats away the questions of Job, and affirms divine majesty. Job responds with humble contrition. His words seem appropriate to all that has gone before. The text puts everyone in their place. It exalts the Lord. It humbles Job. The painful questions regarding believing in the goodness of the Lord in the presence of so much suffering and evil receive no easy answer. If it ended here, it would not attempt to explain the mysteries of the purposes of the Lord. Such an ending would seem true to the rest of the book. It would be a realistic conclusion regarding the experiences of those who suffer. Yet, the epilogue that concludes the book of Job as we have it seems like prosaic prose. We have the happily ever after ending of a fairytale. We like such happy endings. Yet, we tend to be suspicious and skeptical of them as well. This ending seems as jarring as a conventional Hollywood happy ending would be at the end of King Lear. The temptation is to follow the course of many others and ignore it or skip over it as quickly as one can. I would like to consider the benefits of doing neither.

The poetic section of the book is concluded, and the prose framework that opened the tale (1:1-2:13) resumes. Beginning in verse 10, the Lord restores and enlarges the fortunes of Job. Job receives comfort from his relatives and friends and the Lord restores double his wealth and family. Like the disasters in the prologue, the blessings of Job in this life have no explanation. We might assume that his repentance is the reason, but the text does not say this. The Lord simply decides to bless Job in this life. As the Lord took away the blessings of this life in the beginning, the Lord brings beatitude in this life at the end. The Lord does not explain suffering, but neither does the Lord explain beatitude. They are twin mysteries. The reason for either one is beyond our view or understanding. Suppose at the beginning of the story, before the tragedies, Job demanded an audience with the Lord so that the Lord could explain why he had so much in contrast to what other people had. The answer of the Lord would have been the same. The speeches of God would be the same. Yet, as the story ends, now we want to know why Job experiences so much beatitude in this life. When we do, we must realize that beatitude in this life is equally as much a mystery in this life as is evil and suffering. It has the feel of “and they lived happily ever after,” fairy tale ending. Job had raised such large, penetrating, existential questions, only to cave in at the end and submit to the traditionalist view that God is good and always rewards good people with good things. 10 The Lord restored the fortunes of Job when he had prayed for his friends; and the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before. Job's prosperity brought back friends and family. The Lord does not simply restore the fortunes of Job; the Lord doubles them. Job’s family and friends also return to him, overcoming the alienation that had proved so bitter to him earlier (19:13-22). I invite you to consider whether this was an easy process for Job. Was it easy to pray and make offerings for the friends who made accusations against his character? I suspect it was not. 11 Then there came to him all his brothers and sisters and all who had known him before, and they ate bread with him in his house; they showed him sympathy and comforted him for all the evil that the Lord had brought upon him; and each of them gave him a piece of money (qesitah[7]) and a gold ring. Persons who had abandoned him become friendly again, now that the Lord has restored his good fortune in this life. Was this a happily ever after ending? I think it was not. I suspect this involved much forgiveness from all sides. It also required the recovery of trust. Anyone who has been through that process knows how hard that can be. 12 The Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning; and he had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand donkeys. The herds of Job also flourish. Such rebuilding of the family business undoubtedly took years of faithfully engaging the normal work of everyday life. 13 He also had seven (shib`ana[8]) sons and three daughters. People of that culture would view the surplus of girls as a calamity, but they are more prominent. 14 He named the first Jemimah (dove is a symbol of female beauty), the second Keziah ("Cassia" is cinnamon used in perfume), and the third Keren-happuch (Kohl was paint for around the eyes). 15 In all the land there were no women so beautiful as Job’s daughters; and their father gave them an inheritance along with their brothers. His daughters were beautiful and given an equal share of inheritance. Women did not receive an inheritance unless there was no son.  This is unique in Old Testament and elevates status of women within patriarchal society. 16 After this Job lived one hundred and forty years (twice the normal life span; cf. Psalm 90:10). This number amounts to three lifetimes for Job, fitting nicely into the theme of the Lord restoring double to Job. Further, he saw his children, and his children’s children, four generations. The epilogue makes no mention of the removal of the physical affliction or the appearance of his second wife, since Job’s first wife was the mother of 10 grown children at the beginning of the book and it seems unlikely that she remained fertile long enough to bear 17 children more.  These quibbles bear little on the text, however, which is folklore and not history, and the point, regardless of the specifics, remains that Job’s latter days more than compensated for his earlier suffering, not necessarily as a reward for his faithfulness, but simply as an unmerited blessing. We learned in the final speech of Job that he has learned repentance and humility before the majesty of the Lord. We have now learned that he had to live this new posture toward life. He has reunited with his wife, had many children, and revived his cattle business. After all that happened, imagine the difficulty of reuniting with his wife. Such reconciliation must not have been easy. Actually, such results are far from the conventional happy ending. He will live his daily life out of the new perspective on the Lord, self, and the world that he has gained. What may strike us as a happy ending may be more like an extraordinary act of faith. After such tremendous losses, he does not end his life. In fact, he resumes his life as it was before, willing to risk losing it all again. To have twice as much as before is to double the risk. To embrace his wife is to embrace life, in spite of potential suffering and unanswered questions.[9] To have many children, which every parent knows is a lot of work in the daily grind, and no answers or assurances is a profound expression of humility, trust, and even hope.[10] 17 Further, Job died, old and full of days. Such a statement is an echo of the formulas designating a blessed life (Genesis 25:8; 35:29; 1 Chronicles 29:28). To the modern mind, a quick reading seems to take away whatever gains one might have thought one had in the dialogue. I like to think I have shown, however, that read another way, this ending is fitting to Job as a faithful witness to the Lord. Further, given the cultural context, this conclusion is quite natural, for it shows that the Lord has accepted Job completely. In fact, I wonder if some asceticism does not get in our way here. Before Job died, the Lord allowed him to enjoy the pleasures of this world. We too often fail to enjoy them. Yes, a form of holy abstinence may bring us closer to the Lord in certain circumstances. However, can we also admit that the failure to enjoy the pleasures of this world may lead us away from God? Job now met the Lord in the beauties and pleasures of life. From this perspective, the world is not an obstacle on the way to the Lord. Rather, the world is the way to the Lord.[11]

Therefore, before we get too skeptical of a fairytale ending, I invite you to consider another approach. Maybe sometimes, good things happen to good people. Maybe sometimes, bad things happen to bad people. Of course, not always, but sometimes, the world is like that. A man told William Willimon a story.

There was this person in my town. We grew up together. He was smart, good in school, never had to open a book. He was good at sports. All the girls loved him. He was a born charmer. Naturally, he figured that the rules were for other people rather than for him.  We lost touch after high school. I heard that he got married to the best-looking girl in the class. They divorced a couple of years later, due to his repeated infidelity. He roamed about a good deal. Married again, but the marriage lasted only for a while. He was in and out of one shady business deal after another. He took advantage of his few friends. His own kids turned against him, because he had disappointed them so often. Just last year I heard he was dying. Liver disease. It was the alcohol and the drugs, best I could tell. I wrote him. We resumed our friendship. He was a rather sad sight by this time. Last week I went to his funeral. I was one of the two people there. Even his own children refused to come. It was a sad ending to a life. My point, Preacher, is that God does not always punish us for our disobedience. There is not always a sure retribution for our sin, but sometimes, sometimes there is.

By the grace of God, bad things do not always happen to bad people. Good things do not always happen to good people. However, sometimes, as in the case of this man’s friend, judgment crashes upon the heads of the unrighteous. Moreover, sometimes, as in the case of Job, there is a happy ending. The innocent suffers receive blessing. Not always, but sometimes, good things eventually do happen to good people. Not always, but sometimes, bad things happen to bad people. Life is not always that way, but just enough to keep us nervous. Thank God.

Carl Jung wrote a book, Answers to Job (1952) on Job that he admits gives an account of the development of symbolic entities that corresponds to a process of differentiation of human consciousness. In essence, he puts God on the couch and analyzes the process of God learning who He/She is. Deity is an archetype of the psyche, and is as real as any other psychic form. For him, the Deity we find in Job shows divine darkness, savagery, and ruthlessness. He thinks of the book as a paradigm for a certain experience of God. Why was Job wounded? What consequences have grown out of this for Yahweh as well as for humanity? His basic point is that this Deity is easily provoked. Job wants to meet God on the basis of justice and morality. Job is certain that Yahweh is arbitrary and contains an evil impulse, but he is just as certain that good is there as well. God is an antinomy, a totality of inner opposites, which is indispensable for divine dynamism, omniscience, and omnipotence. Job is pious and faithful. Yahweh is the one who easily and without reason allows a doubting thought concerning the piety of Job to enter the divine mind. Removing the blessings of life from Job, including the death of the family, God shows no remorse. The friends of Job do not offer him the last comfort of sympathetic participation and human understanding and warm-hearted support. The point Jung keeps pressing is that the divine mind contains an inner antinomy. Thus, Job realizes God is powerful, and can only hope that God is good. Doubt enters the divine mind because Yahweh contains darkness. What Job discovers is that Yahweh is less than human. One submits to such a God with fear and trembling, not with trust or moral satisfaction. Yahweh will not destroy humanity, but will save humanity. In Job, with the acknowledgement of Satan as part of the heavenly council, we learn that God is not sure what He/She thinks of creation in general and humanity in particular. One reason is that Job showed greater moral clarity than did God. Monotheism, then, must grapple with the idea that opposites must remain within God. Yet, monotheism tries to smooth out the metaphysical disunity. To do so, Yahweh must neutralize Satan. Jung will offer a reflection on the divine collective unconscious. Christ is a myth that overcomes the darkness within the divine. As Jung sees it, the danger of this approach is that it overlooks the necessary irrationalities of his psyche, and of imagining that the divine can control everything by will and reason alone, which he sees in socio-political movements as well, such as socialism and communism. Christ shows divine love of the heavenly Father and keeps at bay the fearful side of God. Yet, Christ has some misgivings, recognizing that at his death another comforter, the Holy Spirit, will need to continue the work of Christ and do greater things. Jung offers a reflection on Sophia, the feminine form that symbolizes Wisdom, and therefore love for humanity. Christ in the Incarnation symbolizes this Wisdom and love for humanity that God steadily has. The Logos of the Gospel of John is embodiment of this Wisdom. The development of the dogma of Mary is another Incarnation of Wisdom. The coming of the Holy Spirit is the Incarnation of the divine in humanity. In fact, God continues to want to be human. Of course, the Incarnation will never be complete for an enlightened person remains what he or she is, and is never more than a limited ego before the One who dwells within. The result is that everything depends on humanity. The question is whether humanity will use its power for good or ill.

Karl Barth briefly refers to the book as throwing a good deal of light on the psychology of the professional psychologist. It does not consider the book of Job that we read. His book offers little insight into what the book actually teaches.

Instead, let us consider the obvious. Job questioned the goodness of God due to his experience of suffering and evil. As the story ends, the invitation contained in the text is to relate to a world of suffering and evil in the way Job did. We become worthy persons, even worth remembering, if our experience of suffering leads us to a deeper encounter with the Lord. In that way, the prologue and epilogue reflect upon Job as the pure form of the true witness. Who is Job? He is among those witnesses in the Old Testament who are outside the covenant of Yahweh, but who still arise and work as true witnesses as prophets of Yahweh. Although he is an Edomite, the Lord refers to him as “my servant Job.” Since there is none like him in piety, sincerity, the worship of the Lord, and hatred of evil, he is a unique figure in relation to whom the Lord is quite sure of the divine cause will be successful in him. The Lord will pledge the divine honor against Satan and entrusts it to Job. The Lord has confidence in Job. He will not curse Yahweh. He will not say anything concerning Yahweh that implies separation from Yahweh. He will say what is right concerning Yahweh. We see the attitude of the Lord toward Job in the external blessings the Lord gave to him. He maintains the positive character of his life with the Lord with an unparalleled confidence. Job will assert his practical commitment to the Lord. Armed with his own declaration of his innocence and righteousness before the Lord, he calls for the corresponding accusation against him. Where is it? He wants to see and read it. He wants to lift it on his shoulder like a trophy, and wind it round his head like a crown or turban. It will prove to be untenable at every point, and will thus speak more strongly for him than anything he might say. Adorned with this writing, he will meet the Lord like a prince. His relationship to the Lord is not just personal, but is priestly on behalf of others, for his children and for his three friends. Job made this intercession, Yahweh accepted it, and in response, the Lord gave him twice as much as he had before. The true witness does not merely unmask them, but also effectually intercedes for them. The relationship between Yahweh and Job has the character of freedom rather than caprice. How does Yahweh come to be the Partner of the Job in the drama of this history? The basis is the good-pleasure of Yahweh. The basis is not a moral or judicial law secretly presumed as existing above God. The basis is divine fidelity, and in one sense, free and royal conduct. The Lord appears to Job to be an enemy and persecutor. The Lord does not owe a favor and can allow disaster to fall upon him. He can also end the experiments of Satan. W. Vischer who commented on 1:9 and the little phrase, “Does Job fear God for nothing?” In this “for nothing” is the righteousness at issue in Job. God would not be God if God were not able both to give and take away. Job would not be Job if he were not free to receive both evil and good from God. He fears and loves the free God, and concerns himself with God and not any divine gifts. In the rest of the story, he will move through temptation to this goal in a new offering of himself and under a new blessing of God. In all of this, Job prefigures the true witness we find in Jesus Christ.[12]

What are the three most important words in the English language? "I love you." Perhaps. "I forgive you," or "Please forgive me." Maybe. Certainly, at the top are the words, "I don't know." How would the world be a different place if people would simply say, "You know what? I do not know. I do not have enough information. There may be more to this than meets the eye." There is a saying in the Talmud, "Teach thy tongue to say 'I don't know.'"

Job was a good man. The Lord says so in Chapter 1. He was an exemplary man of his community. At the end of story of Job, the Lord tells the friends to ask Job to offer sacrifices for them and pray for them. Job receives double in the end in comparison to what he had in the beginning, an unmerited blessing of grace from the Lord.

However, the story of Job poses the question of the moral structure of the world. The accuser of Job before the Lord says that Job will curse the Lord and die if circumstances remove the good things of this world from him. Enemies killed his children. They destroyed his property. Finally, disease attacked his body. He carried on a dialogue with his three friends, later joined by a fourth, concerning why such suffering attacked his life. In order for the story of Job to be a moral story, surely he must have sinned, the friends argued. If he only repents, God will bless him. The argument Job has is only in part with this friends. His primary argument is with God. He demands an audience with God. He questioned the wisdom and justice of God. He has moral outrage concerning the story of his life.

Finally, the Lord speaks to Job from out of the turmoil. The Lord says that Job, a good man, but speaks out of ignorance. He needed to learn that it was OK to say, to some questions we human beings have, “I do not know.”

The Lord refuses to submit the questioning of Job. Job wanted to turn God into an idol he could manage. The Lord does not list the sins of Job. The Lord is the one who made the world and offers providential care for the world. As the Lord speaks to Job, Job receives his audience with God.

The perspective of Job changes. Job realizes that his story, as painful as it has been, is part of a much larger story that he does not comprehend. The story of Job is not a moral story because Job was a good man. Rather, the story of Job is moral because of the much larger canvas our lives are part of, a canvas of which we do not see the totality. The Lord puts Job in his proper place. In that place, Job has found freedom and peace. He had heard about the Lord from others. Now, he has experienced a reality of the Lord that he had not understood before. The ways of the Lord are beyond human understanding. Job acknowledges his finitude and the limits of his wisdom. He recognizes human limits and accepts the power of God. Yet, Job comes to this point only through struggle. He cannot know what only the Lord can know. Human beings cannot comprehend the purposes of the Lord. Job repents of his human perspective that he had sought to impose upon the divine mysteries.

Bruce Almighty, a 2003 movie, stars Jim Carrey as Bruce, Morgan Freeman as God, and Jennifer Anniston as his girlfriend Grace. A washed-up television reporter blames God for his misfortunes and then gets a chance to do God’s job for a week. Throughout the movie, there are signs, signals, and a homeless man that show Bruce the way but it takes a long time for him to realize that the signs are for him. In one scene, a homeless man has a sign that says, “Are you blind?” Another sign says, “Life is just.” When things were going badly, Bruce did not want to hear that. After Bruce loses his job and everything is going badly that day, he claims God is out to get him. He says, “I have a mediocre life,” which is not what his girlfriend Grace wanted to hear. As he drives along, he sees a sign that says, “Caution ahead,” and another that says, “Dead End,” all the while praying for direction from God. He wants God to answer him, so he gets a call on his pager. Even when a car has crushed the pager, it still gives him a message. He then receives an address, and thus begins Bruce’s journey to see what it is like to be God. In fact, if you have seen the movie, in a humorous way, Bruce will have a meeting with God that leads him to the same point to which the Book of Job comes. He eventually learns that God has a different perspective than does Bruce. He also discovers that he has the simple gift of making people laugh and a wonderful girl who loves him.

Even when the signs are obvious in our emotional life, in our personal relationships or in our relationship with God, we may not read them. 
How do you find your way through a confusing relationship conversation? 
How do you find your way through the confusing realities of life to discover the will of God for your life?  
The theme song to the classic sitcom, Cheers — popular in the ’80s — says it well: 

“Making your way in the world today takes everything you’ve got/ 
Taking a break from all your worries sure would help a lot.”

            I think Job is looking for that type of break. 
First, life became confusing for Job. He was not sure where he stood with God. The book captures the portion of the life of Job that is a test of who he is. He experiences a test of his character and commitments. Throughout the book, he has endured difficult trials and less-than-helpful counsel and explanations from friends. Therefore, he wants a break from it all in the form of a little divine clarity.
“Then call, and I will answer; or let me speak, and you reply to me” (13:22).
“Oh, that I knew where I might find him, that I might come even to his dwelling!” (23:3).
“Oh, that I had one to hear me!” (31:35).

Does that not reflect how we feel before God at times? We have questions about the fairness of life. Life seems so chaotic and sometimes violent. It seems as if life is a mess. What are we to do with God then? While the Lord’s ways have been mysterious to Job, God did not remain silent forever. In chapters 38-41, God gives Job an indication of where he is in his relationship with God.

Second, this story reminds us that between God and us are an infinite, qualitative difference. “Job, I am here. You are there. Don’t ever be confused about that difference.” Okay, here is a little Theology 101. Take a piece of paper and draw a thick line up the middle of it. On one side of the line, write “God.” On the other side, write “My world.” With that line, you have just drawn an important piece of the Christian worldview, because only one side of the line is subject to the other. This same line has always been since the Creation of the Universe. God always was. God made us, along with the world around us. That line will always run between Creator and created things. In his encounter with God, the simple sign he received was the reminder that a vast difference exists between God and us. 

By the way, if we can fully comprehend God, would God really be God? If we could fully comprehend life, we would no longer be human beings. We would be God. It may well be that our anger and frustration with life, our demand for God to answer our questions concerning the unfairness of life, are signs to which we need to listen carefully. We may well be wrestling with our limits as individuals and as human beings.

Some years ago in Vancouver, British Columbia, police arrested and charged one Morris Davie with setting a forest fire. While Davie was in jail awaiting trial, a police officer saw Davie drop to his knees and pray aloud, "Oh God, please let me get away with it, just this once."  Naturally, the police officer's testimony became part of the evidence against Davie. Davie's defense attorney tried to have the testimony thrown out, arguing that the prayer was a privileged communication meant to be heard by God, not the police.  The prosecution countered that under the law, the judge could consider communication privileged when it is between two people and that God is not a person in the human sense, but a spiritual being.  The court agreed.

"The word 'person' is used in the statutes of Canada to describe someone to whom rights are granted and upon whom obligations are placed. There is no earthly authority which can grant rights or impose duties on God."  

That is exactly right. God is wholly other than we are. Our limitations do not bind God. Since God chooses to be present with us, that means that when we trust God, we are in touch with One who has power and love beyond anything we can imagine.
            The book of Job reminds us of some basic realities concerning God.
First, let us explore the notion that God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and infinite; we are not. We have limits. Job lost his possessions, his home, and his children. He lost the support of his wife. We like the times in our lives when we receive. We do not like the times when life takes away things and people.  In Bruce Almighty, when Bruce became God for seven days, he thought he would answer Yes to the prayers of everyone. Later, God tells him, “Since when do people know what they really need?” In one of the deleted scenes from the movie, a young person prayed that God would give him the strength in gym class to go up the rope. Bruce figures, “Why not?” In the end, God says that the struggles of his life would make the boy, as an adult, a poet. The struggles and losses of life are painful. We would not choose them. In the song, The Dance, Garth Brooks imagines a relationship as a dance. He is glad he did not know at the beginning of the relationship that she would leave him, for,

“I could have missed the pain, 
but I would have missed the dance.” 

We will never have the view of our lives that God has. Pain and loss are part of this life. We will get angry at times. Yet, such anger can lead to increased openness to God.

Second, people will often take what they want to see happen, and rubber stamp “God’s will” language onto it. If you read carefully what the friends of Job say, you will notice that they are quite sure of what God wants to say to Job. The Book of Job would tell us that we would be better off if we have some humility in this regard, especially as we consider what we say to other people. The story of Job and his friends is that of several men trying to put together puzzle pieces to form a clear picture of God and to answer the question “Why?” Their problem is that they have not received all of the pieces of the puzzle. One lesson is that we dare not reduce the suffering of others to trite answers. 

Third, in 42: 5, Job is now convinced of God's providential care.  Job experiences God in the whirlwind, in the turmoil.  The experience has changed his perspective.  This recognition of his limits occurs because he has new knowledge of God. Before, he had only hearsay and religious tradition. Now, he knows God through personal experience: "now my eye sees you."  He knew God in his head, so to speak, but now, he knew God from the heart.

It may well be that the struggles and questions we have concerning life and God are there for us to see more clearly our limits and to trust the vast mystery that is God. Such experiences can destroy the idols we have made. The journey given to Job was not to understand God and the ways of God. His journey was to continue to respond faithfully to God even though he did not have all the pieces to the “Why?” puzzle.

The story of Job is a story with which any of us can identify, simply because tests and ordeals are part of a human life.  However, we might be frustrated by the end of the book. We probably like the idea that God tells the friends to bring a sacrifice to Job so that he can make an offering for them. We like the idea that God tells Job to pray for his friends. In fact, God stresses again that Job is a servant of the Lord. Job has received his test.  He began a servant, and he ends a servant. He becomes an encouragement to us to remain faithful. Yet, Job gets his wealth, family, health, and a long life all back. For some of us, it gives us something on which to hold. For others, we can think of too many times when that did not happen, either in our lives or in the life of a friend.

One of the persons who helped me with this was Søren Kierkegaard in his little book Repetition. How else would you like the book to end? It began with Job experiencing so much blessing and friendship with God. It has a long ordeal through which Job must pass where he feels alienated from God. Here at the end, we find the friendship and blessing of God at the end of his life. The book invites us to consider that while life will have its trials, we can come out on the other side with a deepened friendship with God. In fact, it may well be that the restoration of Job at the end is not so much a guarantee that our fortune will be restored, but that we will have a deeper appreciation of our friendship with God  and blessing from God.

If you are going through your own ordeal, please know of the promise at the other end. You too may have relied upon what you had heard about God from others. What you really need is your own personal relationship with God.
Let it be so.


[1] One of the noteworthy features of the book is its several designations for the divinity
[2] Pannenberg, (Systematic Theology, Volume 1, 416
[3] Some scholars will say this means this statement is the result of a gloss in the copying of the manuscript.
[4] A phrase unique to this passage.
[5] NRSV is supplying a direct object for the verb, “reject, despise,” that does not appear in the Hebrew text. Various proposals have been suggested (including taking the following set phrase, “dust and ashes” as the object of both verbs), resulting in a wide range of translations with an equally wide range of meanings. For a list of various translations of the verse, as well as a summary of the scholarly discussion of the grammatical and syntactical issues involved, see Newsom, 629.
[6] (Carol Newsom, in The New Interpreter’s Bible [Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1996], vol. 4, 637).
[7] An unknown term that appears to designate either an amount of money or a weight of precious metals.
[8] The word used for seven, however, is unusual, and may be a dual form, designating not seven but double seven, i.e., 14 (see also 1 Chronicles 25:5, where God exalts the temple official Heman with fourteen sons and three daughters). Fourteen sons, an exceptionally large number, would correspond with the exceptional nature of Job’s daughters (on whom the author dwells while supplying relatively little real information).
[9] In J. B., Archibald MacLeish’s play about Job, two characters stand apart from the drama and comment on it. Near the end of the play, the sardonic Nickles asks what happens to job in the end, and Mr. Zuss tells him that Job gets his wife back. Nickles says:
Wife back! Balls! He wouldn’t touch her.
            He wouldn’t take her with a glove!
            After all that filth and blood and
            Fury to begin again. After life like his to take
            The seed up of a sad creation
            Planting the hopeful world again           
            He can’t! . . . he won’t! . . . he wouldn’t touch her!
            And Zuss replies: “He does though.”
[10] Martin B. Copenhaver, The Christian Century, October 12, 1994, p. 923
[11] —Ron Miller, The Gospel of Thomas: A Guidebook for Spiritual Practice (SkyLight Paths Publishing, 2004), 18.
[12] Barth (Church Dogmatics, IV.3 [70.1], 384-388)

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