March 26, 2006: The Two Freedoms Eileen Parfrey-Springwater Presbyterian Church

Enmeshed as I am in the book of Job, it seems that everything I run across these days is about Job. This week, I listened to part of a press conference, in which a government official claimed that democracy means people are free, the implication being that "free" means people can do whatever they want. This isn't exactly what my Civics and American History teachers taught me. What I learned from them was that democracy required a mutuality of concern by those being governed, and that justice emerged through a give and take of differing opinions, functioning as it did from a premise that the good of the whole supercedes private self interests. Was it a coincidence that this was the week I was trying to make sense of God's freedom meeting human freedom?

Job's friends have carefully explained to him that the meaning of human pain is to teach us a lesson. To find meaning in suffering, they tell him, find where you were wrong and correct it. Punishment. Job doesn't agree with this theology of retribution, since he can't believe he has done anything that wrong, to deserve all this. As Job dares challenge the Almighty, God steps into the witness box.

Hoo boy. God's testimony is poetic, but its rhetorical questions critique Job himself as much as his friends. God's first speech asks, "Everything is created by and through my extravagant love, simply out of delight. All is based on my plan. Do you understand my intentions well enough to question my justice?" God calls as witnesses for the prosecution the marvels, mysteries, and delights of creation, the point being that creation is not utilitarian, for the sake of human use. The message is, "Don't limit me, boys." Job's friends have been clinging tenaciously to their retributive theology, saying suffering is God's punishment, implying they can predict God. God rips this theology apart, peppering Job with questions he can't answer. Dripping with sarcasm, God shows that human beings are not the center of the universe. In fact, everything was not created to be domesticated by them. Since everything was not made to be useful to humans, creation may not be judged from the human point of view. God creates, not because it is something useful to humans, but because the diversity and variety of creation delights God, who creates for sheer joy. Water can move from the Cascades to the sea without the extravagance of Multnomah Falls, but what a delight that this is part of how it gets there! The ocean krill population could be balanced without whales, but the world would so much the poorer for it! The continuation of human life would be more expeditious if humans were more developed at birth, say, if we'd been born as teenagers, but then there would be no toddlers or preschoolers. God's love is steadfast, but God's actions are not predictable, let alone manageable by humans. God's personal revelation to Job describes his delight in the ridiculousness of the ostrich and camel and duck-billed platypus, his joyous playfulness at the variety of flowers and the ability of berries to hybridize, his pride in the ferocity of level 3 rapids and explosive volcanoes.

And Job gives up. You could have blown him over with a feather. To be heard by God was supposed to be is his redemption, not his surrender. He'd had a shock. It's humbling to learn you're not the center of the universe, especially when that has been how you coped with your pain. But now, if the reward/punishment explanation is proved false, if the retribution theology of suffering is down the tubes, well-then what? No wonder Job claps his hand over his mouth. "Never mind." Well! Job has been asking for God to listen to him, and now that he has tangible proof of being heard, he gives up.

What God reveals is that all this is created with no "so that" in mind. Nothing utilitarian, no "we can use this for something later." Genesis tells us, "God saw everything he had created, and it was very good." Simply, "it is very good," and the desire that we will also delight in creation. The invitation to delight with God is made so respectfully. So magnificently powerful is our God, even though that invitation may mean destruction of ourselves and creation, God is willing to risk creation for the sake of our freedom. The front page of The Oregonian today features the headline, "Mount Hood Meltdown." God knows how completely and absolutely off-track we can get, but God allows our opinions-about God and the universe and ourselves-because of a love so deep that it only desires our love in freedom. Love is only free when it can also refuse to love.

Of course, God has more to say after Job surrenders. In the second speech, God directly addresses Job's concerns about divine justice, ending with rhetorical questions on the subject. These easy explanations-the ones given by Job's friends, with their theology of God's retributive justice-aren't they essentially un-freedom, for both God and humans? Does Job still dispute God's right to control what happens to him? Is Job trying to imprison God's free and gratuitous love with theology? Are humans the appropriate judges of God's actions?

If the answer to any of those questions is "yes," that's idolatry-replacing God with a human construct. I'll get to heaven faster if I don't eat meat on Friday and give up chocolate for Lent. Putting up with abuse from others is the Christian thing to do. If I volunteer to help hungry people, that will make up for my other sins. I'm more holy than the so-called church-goers because I work for peace. Humans limit God's freedom when we try to impose on God even religious expectations of what God oughta do. God is always faithful, always just, within the context of God's plan for creation. But God is never predictable.

The little dialogue between Job and God today cautions us against getting too narrow a view of how God's love and justice can be expressed. God is utterly free. And the implication of God's freedom is that God is neither predictable nor manageable. God may withhold judgment from welfare mothers and Republicans and the liberal media in the hope they will repent. But God is also not the Great Trainer in the Sky, giving us M&Ms every time we do good to encourage us to keep on. God's plan for creation begins and ends in gratuitous love. Love, with no strings attached. Love with no expectations. Hopes, yes, but no coercion.

God's love is not satisfied without our freedom as well. God never coerces our love or obedience, or even our attention. To understand that is freedom-God's as well as our own. Free, not "to do whatever we want" or to avoid the consequences of our actions. But free in the security of God's steadfast love, free to delight in God and creation, free to experience God's delight in us. No strings attached, only extravagant and abundant love.

Someone once said that the freest person is the one with nothing left to lose. Joan Sauro writes, "Go to the place called barren. Stand in the place called empty. And you will find God there. . . . God always breaks through at your weakest point, where you least resist. God's love grows, fullness upon fullness, where you crumble enough to give what is most dear." Embrace your freedom, friends. Come to fullness of life in the love which comes with no strings attached.