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March 19, 2006: Contending With God My favorite story about Job concerns a friend of mine, whose medical practice was the target of a large-clinic take-over. Questioning the developments and wondering about his professional life, he tried something his wife said worked for her. He turned to the Bible. Sure enough, here was the right title-job. It turned out that the story wasn't about vocation but a guy whose name was Job, but my friend kept reading because this guy's experiences seemed to be like his. He'd lost his son to drug addiction, experienced financial disaster and failing health. As a Catholic with questions, he went to the priest, but the priest told him to leave that Bible nonsense alone and start coming to mass more. Left to his own devices, still intrigued by this story of someone else's misery, my friend kept reading. Which is how he found God. Without the benefit of teachers, my friend discovered that, regardless of whether he deserved it or not, God already loved him. This is called "gratuitous." Today we find that "gratuitous" is a two-way street. God's gratuitous love toward humans. The gratuitous faith of humans in God. Which means we're going to have to know more about "gratuitous" than just how it's spelled. Gratuitous love is given regardless of whether it has merit or is paid back. When Job believes that God's love toward him is unwarranted and excessive, Job's faith is said to be gratuitous. But gratuitous also means we make no further demands of it. Gratuitous faith expects nothing in return, having already received so much. The three scripture passages today are milestones on Job's journey of deepening faith, as he grapples with the realities of suffering and God's gratuitous love. Because Job's contending is with God. Like Jacob, whose wrestling match is a lonely, midnight affair that leaves him limping for the rest of his life. Job's match, however, uses words and takes place in front of his friends, perhaps because they have baited him. His moves highlight the fine line between passive and gratuitous. Many Christians are told they mustn't doubt or question either their faith or God. It's what Job's friends argue. "Just take what you're given, don't ask whether or not it's fair." People remain in abusive relationships because, "This is all I deserve or can expect." Job's road to a deeper relationship with God is not passive and is cantankerous-sounding enough that many people feel uncomfortable by it. Job's insistence that God justify what's going on makes folks want to step back, just in case the lightning strike is off target. Just so you know, God can take our anger, though. Job's anger, his sense of injustice, because it is directed at God, equips him to reconcile the reality of pain and a loving God. His first decision, then, is to ask for an arbiter, someone who will at least allow him to speak with God, not about God. His friends have only talked about God-a God who is distant and abstract-but Job wants a face-to-face conversation with God. This reminds me of a situation at my family's cabin. After five generations of summers at the lake together, we're a tight-knit community. Once in awhile, someone new will move in and do something no one has thought of doing in 75 years. A couple of years ago, a new family offended everyone by having their lot surveyed. In most places this is standard real estate practice, but our cabins were built in the '30s, and everyone agrees that the lawn edges that evolved over the years are the "real" property lines. The new people brought in an outsider and announced that the place next door had actually been built on what was their property. Technically, just the kitchen and biffy, but those can be sensitive areas. The established family thought by-gones should be by-gones, but the new family insisted they move the cabin and outhouse. People have spent the last three years talking about the new people, resenting their presumption, assuming their motives, judging their actions, refusing to speak to them. Dynamic combination-gossip and silence. An arbiter might have helped, a person to intervene and arrange face-to-face discussion might have halted the hostilities. By this time, though, as with Job, an arbiter isn't enough. As Job's friends bait him, Job demands a witness. Someone to appear before God on his behalf. Someone who, "a" would be credible and "b" would dare appear to argue his innocence. Only God fits that bill. This doesn't make rational or logical sense, of course. God the defender, appearing on Job's behalf against God the accuser, before God the judge. But such is Job's faith. It would be as if the new cabin neighbor files a lawsuit against the established neighbor, so the established neighbor hires the new one to represent him in court, where the judge and jury are also the new neighbor. If we follow Job's line of thinking, the new neighbor would then re-write the deed to reflect existing conditions. Which brings us to Job's final piece in today's readings. You may be familiar with this as an oratorio in Handel's Messiah. "I know that my Redeemer liveth!" The Hebrew word is "goel." Spell check hates this word, but it means both avenger and redeemer, and it comes out of Hebrew family solidarity. The nearest relative has an obligation to help when another is in danger of losing possessions, life or freedom. The term morphed into covenant theology and the depiction of God's justice. God as goel for humans. This is why God can be accuser, defender, witness and judge for Job. Job's faith (against all reason) is that God is his goel. His rescuer. God, the one whose bet with the Satan starts Job's road of misery. American Christians do not have such a visceral context for goel, but it's one way of understanding Jesus and salvation. Jesus doesn't take away the consequences of our bad choices (what we might call "sin"). The surveyor did come out, the stakes and flags put in the ground. I'm not saying a legal survey is a bad choice, just that it doesn't reflect conditions on the ground. When Jesus acknowledges our bad choices, we are already forgiven. We aren't rescued from the consequences of those choices, but this is where "gratuitous" comes in. We are loved, with no payment, no deserving, no "in exchange for," no "I love you, too." Just loved. The truest meaning of goel. Which means that Job's friends had it wrong, as do armchair theologians. It's no sin to demand, "Where in God's name is God when I suffer?" Far from being a denial of God to ask "why" or even "what," doubt is (as Hans Kung says) "the shadow cast by faith." Besides, God can take our anger. Job's story reminds us that struggling with God about our suffering, and the suffering of others, is part of the journey to God. Some separation from and returning to God is necessary. Someone said no one truly leaves home until they can come back with the freedom to go away again. Having been to hell and back, Job knows how he is going to be received when he turns to God. He is no longer confident in his own innocence. He is confident in the One Who Judges. Like Cesar Vallejo, Job can say, "Whatever be the cause I must defend before God after death, I myself have a defender: God." God passes judgment on human behavior, but God's mercy is greater than God's justice. [End with, "Wild Geese" by Mary Oliver,
from Risking Everything, Roger Housden, ed.] |
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