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March 5, 2006: The Wager Job the book: from before Israel was
a nation; not even Jewish Sometimes a person is said to have, "the patience of Job." Given what we just heard about Job, I'm not sure I'd want that kind of patience! Job loses everything-children, possessions, livelihood-and just about the time he's consoling himself with, "Well, at least I've got my health," he gets shingles and is thrown out on the town dump to sit and scrape the scabs. His life partner, mother of his children, suggests he might as well be dead. He may look patient now, but wait until his friends start comforting him. Then we'll see a little less patience. Lent is an appropriate time to ask, where is God when people suffer? How do we talk about a God who allows innocent people to perish in mudslides and hurricanes? A God who didn't stop the Holocaust, who allows deserving people to remain childless while others abandon their kids to meth poisoning. It might help to remember Lent heads toward a God who suffered in the garden as he prepared for his crucifixion. But how do we reconcile a God who knows intimately the limits of being human, and who does nothing to intervene in their suffering? God bets on Job twice, and the next 40 chapters show Job's faith in this God deepening as he goes to hell and back. Job's story begins with a cynical scene. God and the Satan bet on whether Job loves God for God's sake, or whether Job loves God because of all the goodies. The story was written long before Israel was a "chosen people," let alone a nation, so he's not even Jewish. Job's name is ironic ("enemy"), and we hear that he is innocent and honest. "Innocent," as in an exemplary person, a finished or complete product. "Honest" meaning that he practices his faith beliefs about social justice. The guy is in right relation to both God and humans, and he's blindsided by a God who used to be a delightful companion. Not directly, of course. God doesn't personally pull the plug on Job. God lets the Satan do the dirty work. We have come to think of "Satan" as the devil, but in Job, his name is a title, like "the pastor" or "the police officer." We see them together in the heavenly court. The Satan not only has access to God's court, he is one of the "sons of God" and holds an important office. It appears that he is guardian of religiosity, God's master spy. He is literally "the accuser," what Gutierrez calls "the obstacle." God is not the naive victim of the devil's wiles. God brings up Job, allows what he knows will happen to Job. Who is this God we're dealing with? Which is pretty much the point of the book. Our glimpse of God in these first two chapters lets us in on the cause of all Job's misery, and then we get 36 more chapters of other people talking about God, attributing motives, before God even gets another speaking part. In the meantime, we're left with the memory of a God who eggs on the wager over the life and well-being of an exemplary human. If this is how God treats his friends, no wonder he has so few! What sort of God is that? My Reformed Theology professor claims this is the only meaningful question about God. Job's friends have the religious answer to his problems: he must have done something really bad. This is the Punitive God explanation of suffering. But it begs a few questions, given that Job is portrayed as innocent and honest. Maybe God can't stop suffering-a Weakling God. Or maybe God doesn't care-an absentee landlord or a dispassionate scientist fiddling with variables. We know God isn't naïve, that he didn't know the Satan was gonna do all that. So maybe this is a manipulative God, one willing to sacrifice an unimportant human to protect his own honor, the Divine Trickster. You've heard these excuses for God before. God doesn't love non-Christians, which is why the earthquake in Pakistan killed so many people. Or God can't love us when our lives are messy, so straighten up and fly right before you come back to church. Or God can't be bothered with my little problems. Which is what makes the bet between God and the Satan so cynical. It's a wager about religion, the connection between God and humans. The Satan contends that humans love God for what's in it for them. Maybe, as the keeper of religious right-ness, he's looking for a less manipulative devotion to God, something less utilitarian. Not, "I love God because I'm afraid of hell." And the Satan hasn't even heard yet about the televangelists who promise God's gonna give you a Cadillac, if you only call in your pledge now. God thinks Job loves him without looking for a return on his investment. The Satan doesn't question Job's innocence or honesty. The Satan thinks Job loves God because everything is going his way. Like the story of the 7-year-old who hasn't said a word, so his parents bring him to every specialist to find that nothing's wrong with the kid. One morning at breakfast the kid looks at his plate and asks, "Are we out of syrup?" The mother gasps, "You can talk! Why didn't you say anything before?" and the kid says, "Up 'til now, everything was OK." The Satan thinks Job's life is too rosy for him to love God without an ulterior motive. In the first human speaking part, Job breaks a seven-day silence with his three friends. His first words don't curse God, just that he was born. Pointing to the chaos of the universe, Job comes to the conclusion that God cannot be present. It's not that Job would prefer death to life, it's that, if this is the way it's going to be-the chaos, the torment, the absence of God-he would rather not have been born. While "talking about" God is at stake in Job's story, a living encounter with God is the goal. Christians are supposed to follow Mother Teresa's model of seeing the face of Christ in the faces of the poor and suffering. Give your loose change, not to an object lesson, a failed social system or a systemic evil, but to a human being with dignity and worth. That may make it easier to see the face of Christ in the panhandler, but the Mystery of God is that right now we can only "see in a mirror darkly." The Mystery is not clear, even in the face of the panhandler. As we struggle to love God just for being God, we have to rely on concrete things in order to experience that connection. Not just "giving out of our abundance" as we bring food to the Resource Center, but giving because these are human beings, God's children, struggling as we struggle to make sense of life, just trying to keep body and soul together. Job's story is not simply the tale of the suffering of one individual. It is about the suffering and injustice toward all innocent poor, the people who don't deserve what they're getting. The notion of, "I'm OK, even if you're not, because I've got mine" is a lie. There is "enough" food in the world, Lloyd is fond of telling us; it's a distribution problem. Especially when we realize the people without are our brothers and sisters. If that's true, is it enough to change the situation one soup can or peanut butter jar at a time? The point of suffering isn't punishment. The point of God-talk is not our heads. The genius of the Bible is that it's story. We are supposed to read it with our story, with our deepest, most pressing needs right at the front. We're supposed to bring more than our heads to it. We're supposed to bring our hearts and guts, and all of the suffering that goes with it. Job has been relevant millennia after millennia because it's a story in which humans recognize themselves. This Lent, may we do more than recognize ourselves. May we do more than learn correct God talk. May we encounter the living God. May we encounter a God who invites us to go beyond "what's in it for me." May we find ourselves, like Job, loving God. For God's sake. |
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