Posts Tagged ‘Job’

Day 217: Job 28:1-28 – Where is Wisdom?

Thursday, August 5th, 2010

All my life I have been confronted with the question – Where is wisdom? Is it in experience or is it in our education? Needless to say, I have not found it in our experiences because we keep making the same mistakes and the educated that I have encountered are often as smart as their sheep skins they show off (including myself). So, where is wisdom? In Job 28:20, Job asks the same question. At the beginning of the chapter, Job illustrates man’s ability to mine the earth. He goes on to say in Job 28:7-8 that the birds and animals have no skills like man to mine. It is ironic that even today; we can drill for oil in the ocean depths and create gigantic messes as well. Job goes on to say that wisdom is more valuable than the world’s economic systems. We do not have enough currency to understand the worth of wisdom (Job 28:12-19). Job’s conclusion (Job 28:23-28) is that God understands wisdom and knows how it is acquired. Why? Because God made it. God says, “Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to turn away from evil is understanding.”

Job and his friends have been seeking wisdom in terms of a way to explain everything. Their efforts have failed. Neither experience nor education answers the tough questions of life. They do not explain the atrocities of war, death, abuse, or evil. Yet, Job is proclaiming that wisdom is revealed by God and is in God. Wisdom is not a principle of explanation but Job explains it is a means of participation in the world God created. Job identifies participation in wisdom with two phrases “fear of the Lord” and to “turn away from evil” (Job 28:28).

The “fear of the Lord” is a general term for piety. It is an orientation to God developed and nurtured to remind us of God’s continual presence. “Turn away from evil” is an expression for the moral capacity of human beings. It is another form of participation in divine creativity. Love does not exist without someone who will love. Justice does not come into being without someone to do justice. We decide to do what is right in God’s eyes. To do right or to be wise is to turn from evil acts. Within us is the ability to do well or to do evil. So, where is wisdom? It is in God and it found through the “fear of the Lord.” If we are to achieve any aspect of wisdom, we might should look at the evil in our lives and turn from it.

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Day 215: Job 21:1-34 — Why do the wicked prosper?

Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010

Have you ever looked around the world and noticed that sometimes the wicked succeed and sometimes good people suffer? If you haven’t noticed, you are not living in the world I live in. I appreciate so much Job’s questioning (Job 21:7) because it will make us think about whether there is really a moral order in the creation. I always liked Job because he insists on looking at what actually happens in the world and is a practical sort of guy. Yet, this practicality leads to skepticism of the notion that people regularly get what they deserve and deserve what they get. Sometimes people bring trouble upon themselves; just as often it seems to be a random fate of suffering. Job seems to be right and there is no moral order in the world. However Job and his friends (and by the way, us too) have all been assuming that a moral order operates automatically. We think God is our cosmic “Bell Hop” who is supposed to produce a Walt Disney “happy-ending” story in every life. I call this the “Mickey Mouse Theology.”

God brings moral order to the world through His creation and continually sustains it. God commands persons to live morally but leaves humans free to obey or disobey. Yet, there is more. God brings moral order through His valuing the life of every person and his judgment that His creation is “good.” Thus each being is a center of value that must be treated with respect. Moral order requires relationships of “rightness” with others and especially with God. These relationships are in part a matter of mutual limits that secure a place for each being. As creatures endowed with freedom, human beings have to choose to perceive and embody such an order of rightness and respect in community. To covet, to steal, to commit adultery, to bear false witness, to kill—all such actions violate the integrity of a fellow human. To honor one’s parents and to respect God enhance the cooperative bonds that form community. To keep the Sabbath, the sign of God’s creation, is to recognize the close relationship between the order of rightness personified in creation and the order of rightness embodied in the moral law. We can’t have the “happy-ending” story because we have so often chosen to reject God’s moral order. Our only hope is that God will restore His creation. The sadness of it all is that God does give us a happy-ending story through the suffering of His Son on the cross because we can’t get the moral order right in our own lives.

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Day 211: Job 10:1-12:25, Acts 19:13-41 — Who Curdled My Cheese?

Friday, July 30th, 2010

I’m writing this after returning from a short business trip. Most of these thoughts came from my mind after as we descended from 30,000 feet into the Austin airport. I had just endured a 2 hour delay in the Chicago airport (stunning I know) after my previous flight had also been delayed. I began to wonder why the airline seats can wreak such havoc on my skeletal system and whether if I sat just the right way the seat could actually put my spine back into place.  If it can move my bones one way, why not the other? The problem is a little thing called entropy and the second law of thermodynamics. Without specific corrective care (energy put back into the system) my spine will continue to get worse, not better, especially in the closed environment of an aircraft hull.

How does this relate to our scripture? Like I said, it’s late and so this may make no sense at all.  But we don’t live in a closed system. God lives outside of the universe he created and can provide the anti-entropy medicine that we need so often. Job constantly reminds us of this as he is reminded of it himself.  I was particularly struck by Job 10:10 “Did you not pour me out like milk and curdle me like cheese?”  Now, Job is a book of poetry but I don’t think we’ll be incorporating this line into our praise songs anytime soon. I mean just finding words to rhyme with “curdle” and “cheese” would take a stroke of genius (or maybe just cheese). But it reminds us along with the rest of the passage that God is the one who created and is in control of it all.  And this is even a more personal creation. It reminds me of the book (which I have not read but need to) “Who Moved My Cheese?” The book discusses how we deal with change.  Rather than asking who is to blame (as Job’s friends are doing), ask what we can do in spite of the situation to survive and make the best of it. Job’s handling of the situation puts into perspective my complaints of airline delays and hard seats.

Another verse that is intriguing but I can’t fully comprehend in my current state is Job 12:11 “Does not the ear test words as the tongue tastes food?”

And speaking of entropy…

How about those Ephesian riots in Acts 19:23-41? A mob mentality is no stranger to us.  We’ll riot if our team loses the championship. We’ll riot if our team wins the championship. Luckily it only took a little common sense injected into the situation to calm things down and disperse the crowd. “Does not the ear test words as the tongue tastes food?” Maybe, but I’ll have to think about that some more.

Thanks to the Southwest pilots who provided us safe travel and to the stewards on the flights who provided an entertaining take on the security policy.  And thanks to our God who gave me safe travel and who reduces entropy by curdling my cheese.

Mmmmmmmmm cheese.

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Day 210: Job Chapter 7 — “God why are you after me?”

Thursday, July 29th, 2010

My mom had schizophrenia and our family struggles were great and compounding our struggles came the day when it seemed as if God was piling on greater suffering upon suffering. As a young teen, I was informed that my seven year old brother was run over by a truck and would not live. I understand Job’s bitterness. I have expressed some of the same words Job penned. Job and I and maybe you too have succumbed to the unchallenged worldly assumption that extraordinary suffering is to always be understood as the action of God, specifically a response to sin (Job 7:20-21). For a woman at our church reminded my mother and I that our sins caused the death of my brother. We are often left to conclude God is after us and it is unfathomable.

Job models for me a deeper theological reflection that begins by reminding us of the realities of life. Job models a realistic but incorrect view of God who provides inexpressible suffering. These issues have always left me wondering why God would ever inspire a book to be written that would in so many ways possibly make Him look bad. Yet, I have come to the conclusion that God is helping us process the pain of suffering and He acknowledges our pain and bitterness. How does someone who is angry and feels alienated speak about God or to God? If you have experienced excruciating pain, you too know the difficulty in talking calmly to God, praying, singing cheerful songs, or dealing with a friend who has no idea what you’re going through, while commanding you to repent of your sins. God is not so shallow and He provides us with Job chapter 7. It is honest, realistic, and provides me with catharsis. It does not satisfy all the questions but nothing ever really does. Sometimes venting helps.

So Job is suffering and he expresses himself. Yet, in this uncomfortable speech we overlook an important verse. Job acknowledges that God will search for him (Job 7:21). Job makes a dig at God that he may not be there when God finds him but he knows God will seek him out. Job may not be using what we may call Christian language and it may even be seen as blasphemy. Yet, his words show that his conversation with God is far from over. Isn’t this the beginning of restoring a relationship? We all know God will come after us. We know God is not finished with us yet.

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Day 208: Job 1:1-3:26 — There is more here than the “patience of Job!”

Tuesday, July 27th, 2010

In our reading today, there was once a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job. We are beginning a journey in Job that will travel past the iconic cliché of a sufferer who endures without complaint. Yet, focusing on just the “patience of Job” may limit our understanding and thwart our reflection of a more complex figure. The book begins with just such a portrayal of Job as the pious, who patiently endures calamity. Remembering the type of wisdom literature provided us by God may help us recognize that Job provides us with contrasting characteristics when he rebels, confronts the piety of his friends, and boldly accuses God of injustice. Traditional interpreters have often been embarrassed by Job’s unrestrained blasphemies. In modern interpretations, our culture focuses on the dreadfulness of the suffering and adds fodder to a mindset that wants to blame God for allowing these atrocities — which is often just a projection of blame because of our own struggle with suffering. Yet an attempt to proclaim Job as the patron saint of religious rebellion creates further humiliation when God questions Job at the end of the book and Job recants his blame against God.

Job is a complex book and does not provide simplistic answers. Our job (no pun intended) is to explore the issues of the motivation for piety, the meaning of suffering, the nature of God, the place of justice in the world, and the relationship of order and chaos in God’s design of creation. Are you up for the challenge? As we begin, please read with reflection, take your time, spend a lot of time in prayer, and remember God is not giving us some easy explanation of suffering but something really to think about.

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