Job 23

If I seemed difficult to find this past week (I was only at the church on Monday!), there’s a good reason for it. The State of New York had other business for me: serving on a jury. Jesus might say that I was rendering unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s.

All of Tuesday was taken up with jury selection. I told Banu later that I was surprised at the considerable amount of griping and complaining I heard from people at the courthouse. I said to someone I’m glad we’re in a country with trials by jury; a lot of people in the world get dragged before some military judge. I was also surprised—and a bit dismayed—by the number of prospective jurors who claimed that they would be unable to have an open mind about the case. (It was a DWI case.)

I begin with all this because today’s reading in the book of Job is presented as though it were a court case. We have Job wanting to get some time on the heavenly Judge’s docket. He wants to plead his case! And as we saw last week and will see later on, we also have Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar playing the role of the closed-minded jurors.

We’re now into the main part of the book; this is the long section of poetry. Theories abound as to the identity of the book’s author. It is very possibly a poet who introduces his work by retelling “a legend that was already ancient centuries before he was born.”[1] As I mentioned last week, the prologue—the introduction—to the book is about a righteous man from the distant past who suffers almost unspeakable tragedy. This is a man who holds fast to his faith and to his integrity.

With chapter 3, and the beginning of the poetry, we’re transported far ahead in time. In the centuries after the exile to Babylon and before the birth of Christ, the Jewish faith is being exposed to many different cultures, philosophies, and theologies. We can see that evolution recorded for us in the books of the prophets. And we also see it here in Job. Some of the older ways and ideas begin to come under attack, among them, the one I spoke of last week: the unyielding assurance that the righteous prosper and the wicked suffer.

Thinking of the poet’s rejection of the old theology—it’s very hard for us to grasp how dramatically the exile affected Israel’s faith. Consider: the Temple has been destroyed by the invading Babylonian army. The system of sacrifices has come to an abrupt end. And for those sent into exile, even the land itself—the promised land—has been denied to them. Their entire way of life has been changed. It can’t help but have an immense impact.

Our anonymous poet portrays a man in whom the phrase “the patience of Job” finds no resting place. That phrase is taken from a line in the epistle of James (5:11). No, this is far from the kind of piety that takes a punch in the gut and says, “Thank you, sir. May I have another?”

Not quite. In the poetry, as opposed to the section of prose we looked at last week, we see a Job who is anything but patient. In our scripture reading, he howls, “Today also my complaint is bitter…Oh, that I knew where I might find him [that is, God], that I might come even to his dwelling! I would lay my case before him, and fill my mouth with arguments” (vv. 2-4). If the Job of the legend is a patient hero, an icon of self-control, then the Job of the poetry is one who thunders at the heavens.

The book of Job has been called “the central parable of our post-Holocaust age.” It’s been proclaimed “the great poem of moral outrage.”[2] It is the cry of all who have been falsely accused and viciously treated. I would say that Job is a good spokesman for the twentieth century. The problem is that the twenty-first century is already putting in its claim for that dubious honor!

We see the impatient Job right away at the start of chapter 3, where he curses the day of his birth. From there on, he angrily protests his innocence, something that gets his friends more and more upset the longer he goes on. They turn the tables on Job. They say to him, “You want to know why all this has happened to you? Do you want to know the source of your troubles? The three of us are looking at him!” Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar engage in an all-too-familiar activity. They blame the victim.

Notice the picture on the cover of today’s worship bulletin. It’s a work by William Blake, the English poet and artist, of Job being rebuked by his friends. With his friends on one side and his wife on the other, he’s getting it from all directions. The one to whom he appeals—God—is nowhere to be found.

Our presbytery has reminded us that October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. At the September presbytery meeting in Youngstown, domestic violence booklets were handed out. I took several of them with me, and I placed some in the literature rack here in the sanctuary. I put the others in the ladies’ rest room. (I made sure it was unoccupied first!) It’s important to have some there, so that they can be picked up without someone else noticing.

If there is one sin…if there is one crime…if there is one violation of human rights in which we more frequently blame the victim than in the case of domestic violence, I can’t imagine what it would be. Like Job’s thickheaded friends, people say stuff like: I wonder what she did to set him off. Why does she stick around? She must like it!

The church has a pretty crappy track record on this. Women have been told to be submissive to their husbands. They’ve been told to forgive the abuse just as Christ forgave from the cross—and, in the immortal words of Tammy Wynette, to “stand by your man.” (Okay, maybe we can’t pin that one on the church!)

It’s easier to blame the victim than to recognize our own complicity in the problem. It’s easier to project our responsibility onto another—especially if that other is the beaten down, the poor, or some group that society despises. Doing so shows an unwillingness to take steps for growth in our own souls, in our own lives. It can also be the sign of…refusal to question our own assumptions.

That’s how it is with Job’s friends. They start off with good intentions. As I said last week, they have the courage to go to him and just be with him. That isn’t easy. Then, as they start to clumsily offer advice, Job rejects it, and their courage is replaced by something else. Stephen Mitchell says of Eliphaz and the others, “In fact, they don’t speak to Job at all, they speak to their own terror at the thought of Job’s innocence.”[3]

For their belief system to function, the one thing Job cannot be is innocent. Remember, they know their friend. They know what kind of man he is! Despite all their protests to the contrary, deep down in their hearts, they suspect that Job has done nothing wrong. But if that’s right, then their concept of God will collapse like a house of cards. And that’s really it. They have a concept of God; Job has a relationship with God. There’s a vast difference in the two. His friends can’t understand his apparently inappropriate questions, Job’s seemingly blasphemous accusations.

But if one has not merely a concept of, but a relationship with God (like Job does), then one has the knowledge of not only being loved, but also of being liked. Of course God loves us, but have we ever thought that God actually likes us? Because he acts from that awareness, Job responds to the pain that exists only in love. He confronts God on those terms.

Job feels abandoned by his divine friend. Verses 8 and 9 read, “If I go forward, he is not there; or backward, I cannot perceive him; on the left he hides, and I cannot behold him; I turn to the right, but I cannot see him.” Job has journeyed with God to places his friends know nothing about, and they really don’t understand the true source of his pain. They don’t understand, and they lash out. They lay blame.

As with Job, there may be plenty of times in our lives when we feel abandoned by God. We journey with God to places that others know nothing about. We feel alone and vulnerable because we don’t know how to reach out and make others understand.

What’s more, we often fear encountering those around us. We may expect them to do an imitation of Job’s buddies—to lash out at us. We expect them to point the finger of blame. That’s why women who are abused often choose to live in the silence and shame of their suffering.

Something to consider: we have to remember to look at Job and his story through the lens of Jesus Christ. Through his life, death, and resurrection, he has given us an opportunity for a new life in a new community. In the community which we call the church, we are given permission to speak out about our pain and suffering without fear, without any sense of loss, because we know we are loved and accepted by God unconditionally.

Last week, I suggested seeing Job as a story of conversion. Next week, we’ll see how Job’s story turns out. (It is a happy ending!) Job isn’t able to see that now. What about us? Can we open ourselves to a new kind of…communion in which we patiently bear the burdens of one another without any blame or shame?

This is the challenge of Job! This is the challenge Jesus puts before us as a community.

[1] Stephen Mitchell, The Book of Job (New York: HarperPerennial, 1987), viii.

[2] Mitchell, vii, xvii.

[3] Mitchell, xiv.