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Pentecost 20, Proper 24 Lesson: Job 38:1-7, 34-41
October 18, 2009 Psalm 104:1-9, 25, 37c
The Rev. Karen Evans Epistle: Hebrews 5:1-10
St. James’ Church, Marietta Holy Gospel: Mark 10:35-45
I speak to you in the Name of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
It seems to me that while I was looking at today’s lessons that we have basically heard the Gospel story several times in the last few months, so I thought I would take on the Book of Job. The Book of Job asks a very few simple questions: Why do bad things happen to good people? Is God fair? What have I done to deserve my misfortune? Didn’t he/she/they bring it upon themselves? Where is God in everything that is happening to me and to the world? Nothing complex in that, right? It is part of what is called wisdom literature in the Hebrew Bible, and the questions that it attempts to answer are not just questions for back then, but I hear them in my office every week, when the teenager comes in to talk about her beloved grandfather who died. Or the person comes in to talk about marital difficulties, or a lost job, or a diagnosis of cancer. The issues and the questions are just as much mine and yours as they were of the people of the time the Book of Job was written.
As I said, there are several sets of questions. The first set asks about reward and punishment in this life. Does the fact that we are prosperous and everything is going well for us mean that we are righteous? It was a very popular understanding in ancient times, and I think it is alive in our world as well. We hear the gospel of prosperity often by the TV evangelists, that if you are righteous everything will go well; therefore, if everything is going well you must be righteous. It does not quite follow.
The flip-side is does illness, poverty or misfortune mean that we have sinned? Is there such a thing as unconditional piety: that is, can we stay related to God, believing, trusting and even praising God when everything in our lives is horrible?
The second set of questions move beyond this level. They have to do with the nature of God. Is God cruel or just? Does God send suffering and, if so, why? How can we explain God’s decisions?
It should only take about six hours to go through these and explain them fully. Shall I, or would you rather go to lunch? Let me tell you briefly about the Book of Job leading up to today’s lesson and then we will explore the lesson itself. The Book of Job is really in two parts: the beginning and the end are prose and are like a folk tale; the middle is poetry. In the introduction, God is hanging around heaven talking with the various heavenly beings, and gets into a conversation with the satan, who functions as a kind of prosecuting attorney. It is not the same understanding of Satan who will come later in the Scriptures in the tradition, but one of the heavenly host who has this particular role.
God points to Job as an example of a man truly blameless and upright, who fears God; this is, is obedient to God’s will and recognizes God’s sovereignty. Well, the satan says, “Of course, why shouldn’t Job be blameless and upright, He has everything: wealth, position, family, friends, health. Job is blessed in all things; why wouldn’t he praise God? But what would he say and do if things weren’t going his way?”
God agrees to let the satan take away all Job’s blessings to see what he will do. I think you will recognize some of Job’s responses. “the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” “Shall we receive good at the hand of God and not receive bad? O the one I can certainly identify with, “I wish I’d never been born.”
Three of Job’s friends come to comfort him. We all have such friends, I am afraid. What they said was, “You must have sinned or God would not be sending these hardships. So figure out what you did and repent, and maybe God will make things better for you.”
But Job dies not know of any way he has sinned. He is innocent and believes that one day he will be vindicated. He says, “I know that my Redeemer lives and that at the last he will stand upon the earth; and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see on my side…”
The satan said that if Job was pushed far enough, he would curse God to God’s face. Today’s lesson presents the moment when that face to face encounter happens, but it does not play out either the way the satan or Job expected it to.
First off, God reframes the whole issue in a series of questions. “Where you there at creation? Can you make the sun rise; can you recreate life each day? Have you the power to keep the sea in check, or can you keep the primeval chaos at bay?”
The obvious answer is, “no.” God underscores the inability of created beings to understand the complexities of creation. The wonder of creation was one of the major themes of wisdom literature. It was a reminder that God is far more than our minds can grasp. There is much more going on with God than God’s willingly causing any individual suffering, or even adversity to punish us or to help us grow. We cannot understand the mystery of God’s divine planning any more than we can understand God.
That could be seen as a cop out. But there is something else that happens. In the description of creation, in all its majesty and wonder, Job finally sees God. Later he says, “I had heard of you by word of mouth, but now my eye has seen you.” The vision of God is enough. Job is changed by the encounter, he is transformed, and his relationship with God is restored.
Why do bad things happen to good people? What did I do to deserve this misfortune? Am I being punished for my sins? God does not answer those questions directly. Rather, God seems to be saying that they are the wrong questions. God is the author of all creation and creation is inherently good. That there is evil in the world is beyond doubt, but even in the midst of it, God is with us in ways far beyond our senses or our imaginations. The Book of Job invites us to recognize that, and then to join the chorus begun when “the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy.” Amen.
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