Job 38:1-7, 42:1-9

19 October 2003

“Now My Eye Sees You”

            I want to begin the sermon by confessing my sin.  I have to admit that I’ve done an injustice to the book of Job.  And following the principle of guilt by association, all of you are implicated in my crime!  During my first sermon on Job this month, I said that it’s a story that almost requires being told all at once.  The hodgepodge way that I’ve admittedly had to go through the book hasn’t done it much justice.  Picking and choosing pieces from one of the world’s great pieces of literature is like being a vulture, scavenging through the bones of a cadaver.

            So much of the book is taken up with the cycle of speeches by Job and his friends.  First it’s Job, then Eliphaz, then Job, Bildad, Job, Zophar, Job, Eliphaz, Job, Bildad, Job, Zophar, Job, Eliphaz, Job, Bildad, Job, then a new voice, the young whippersnapper Elihu.  It’s understandable if some people find the whole thing more than a little tedious—especially regarding the friends, since they seem stuck in one gear.  There doesn’t seem to be much progress, as far as they are concerned, anyway.

            They keep repeating the same basic argument.  And for those who missed the first two installments in this mini-series on Job, that argument would be:  the disasters that have befallen Job are due to some sin he has committed.  Everyone knows that God rewards the righteous and punishes the wicked.  If Job will only confess his sin, everything will be all right.

            It seems—to me anyway—that by having Job’s friends repeat the same message, though dressed up in ever-changing language, the author wants us to see how ridiculous and empty they are.  I just spoke of the book as “one of the world’s great pieces of literature.”  What Job’s friends lack in substance, they more than make up for in style!  There’s more than a little humor in this book, though it tends to be of a distinctly sarcastic nature.

One quick example is in chapter 16.  In the previous chapter, Eliphaz has indirectly accused Job with the question, “Should the wise answer with windy knowledge, and fill themselves with the east wind?” (15:2).  He’s referring to the scirocco, a hot wind that blows from the Arabian desert, which is to the east.  Job responds with this:  “Have windy words no limit?  Or what provokes you that you keep on talking?  I also could talk as you do, if you were in my place” (16:3-4).  Or in other words, “I’m not the only one here who’s full of hot air!”

Still, besides wanting us to see how foolish they are, I believe our anonymous poet has other motivations for including all those addresses by Eliphaz and the others.  The very repetition itself may indicate the depth of Job’s suffering—of human suffering.  Having to listen to that stuff go on and on would be enough to drive someone crazy.

We can even sense a comment about the quest for meaning and truth in the face of mind-numbing slogans and propaganda.  We ourselves are fed a steady diet of that stuff through advertising, pronouncements by the government, and sometimes even by the church.  So, by not deleting all those speeches, the author gives us just a little taste of what Job is going through.

As our reading in chapter 38 begins, the Lord has apparently heard enough foolishness.  “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?” (v. 2).  The New Jerusalem Bible says, “Who is this, obscuring my intentions with his ignorant words?”  It’s not entirely clear who’s being asked this question.  In the second part of our reading in chapter 42, Job, as he rephrases the question, takes the blame for himself.  He, at least, admits that he should have known better!  This goes along with the idea of Job’s journey of conversion, which I’ve mentioned the last two weeks.

Notice how the word of the Lord comes to Job.  Verse 1 reports that God answers Job “out of the whirlwind.”  Again, the New Jerusalem Bible reads, “from the heart of the tempest.”  In the midst of the storm.  That’s a very rich image, both literally and metaphorically.

Literally, when the wind whips up and stuff starts flying through the air—when nature reveals her fury—it’s not hard to imagine that God is speaking.  In fact, in the ancient world, the storm was one of the primary ways that God was believed to be revealed to human beings.  And as a metaphor, what better way is there to describe what Job has gone through than with the symbol of the whirlwind?  He who has felt the full ferocity of the storm encounters God deep in its heart.

Thinking of that image of storm reminded me of a scene in the movie “The Shawshank Redemption.”  For those who’ve never seen that one:  it’s about a quiet, reflective banker named Andy Dufresne, played by Tim Robbins, who is unjustly convicted of double murder and given a life sentence.  So we have something of a Job-like figure, in that an innocent man has had to endure the suffering that goes along with incarceration.  The film also co-stars Morgan Freeman, who plays Red, a man who has spent most of his life in prison because of a murder he committed in his youth.

Late in the movie, Andy is talking to Red, and he’s remarking on the course of events that have unfolded in his life.  “Bad luck, I guess,” Andy concludes.  “It floats around.  It’s got to land on somebody.  It was my turn, that’s all.  I was in the path of the tornado.  I just didn’t expect the storm would last as long as it has.”

The word “Redemption” in the story’s title is really portrayed for us in the unforgettable scene in which Andy, having escaped Shawshank Prison, lifts his hands up to the sky.  In the midst of a driving rain, he seems reborn, washed clean, baptized.  The image of storm is used for both suffering and salvation.

At the start of today’s reading, it’s the Lord’s turn to give a speech, and this one takes up four chapters.  These chapters expose the ignorance and impotence of Job.  Over and over, we see things that Job can neither understand nor accomplish.  Our bulletin cover is again borrowed from the artistry of William Blake, who illustrates verse 7, “when the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy.”

As I’ve indicated previously, God’s response to Job is very unsatisfying if we’re looking for some real answers.  That is, answers to questions like:  why does Job suffer?  Why does anyone suffer?  Why does evil exist?  People get irritated at God’s so-called “answer.”  It seems like it’s nothing but a way of putting Job, and us, in our places.  So okay, I’ll grant you, I wasn’t around when God “laid the foundation of the earth” (v. 4).  And no, I’ll admit, I’ve never “entered the storehouses of the snow,” nor have I the foggiest idea where to find “the storehouses of the hail” (v. 22).  With the questions God asks Job (and indirectly, us), it seems that the Lord is just being evasive!

Richard Rohr, who I mentioned two weeks ago, speaks of these same feelings in his book, Job and the Mystery of Suffering.[1]  He says that when we give a logically rational answer to one of those deep questions I mentioned a moment ago (one of those questions that the book of Job seems to gloss over), it doesn’t really work.  “People seem actually disappointed that you have defused their underlying alienation with a logical response, and they invariably pick at something else because the heart and soul are unsatisfied.”[2]

            Fr. Rohr suggests that a more creative answer to such questions is found in “an openness to the other—as other.”  [That is, the other person, especially the one who is different—leading ultimately to the Absolute Other.]  “Without the other, we are trapped inside a perpetual hall of mirrors that only validates and deepens [our] existing worldviews.”  If we never let ourselves be put into an encounter with the other that is uncomfortable, then we’re probably not following Jesus.  “We need practice in moving outside of our comfort zones.  It is never a natural response.”[3]

            And while explaining, he also picks up this theme of whirlwind, of storm.  “The God who speaks to Job out of the whirlwind is not an answer giver or a problem solver.”  To which I say:  I don’t think I like that!  I don’t like having to deal with the often difficult and uncomfortable task of encountering the other!  If I had my way, God would just give me the answers and solve my problems—no muss, no fuss!  Fortunately, “God does more than that.  God frees Job and every believer from their hall of mirrors, their prison of self where they cannot see or understand.”[4]

            It’s only when we reach the final chapter of the book that we realize that Job has been freed, that he has been liberated.  Verse 5 really stands out:  “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you.”  As I told the people on Wednesday night, this is a powerful statement of communion with God.

            It was believed that to see God would mean death.  When Moses asked to see the glory of God, he was told that “you cannot see my face; for no one shall see me and live” (Ex 33:20).  God’s glory is too awesome, too holy, too pure for humans to withstand.  Regardless of what Job actually perceives, the point is that he senses a whole new world opening up.  Job reaches a stage of enlightenment, one that his friends have yet to attain.

            What can we learn from the book of Job?  If the usual questions put to it—why do bad things happen to good people?…why do people suffer?…why is there evil?—if these questions don’t have clear answers, what does Job tell us?

            Last week, I said that, as the church, we are to see Job through Christian eyes.  We are to see suffering summed up in the cross of Christ.  Our tendency is to race ahead to resurrection.  Victory is better than defeat, isn’t it?  Nobody likes losing!  Still, there can be no resurrection without crucifixion.  That’s the part no one likes.  We have to remember that before Job says, “now my eye sees you,” he first says, as we heard last week, “today also my complaint is bitter” (23:2).

            Richard Rohr tells us that God holds up the crucifixion “as a cosmic object lesson, and [says]:  ‘I know this is what you’re experiencing, what you’re in the middle of.  Don’t run from it.  Learn from it, as I did.  Hang in there for a while, as I did.  It will be your teacher.  Rather than a losing of life, it is a gaining of life.  It is the way through.’

            “The human question when we are hanging there is first, ‘Why is my life like this?’  (We all probably start there.)  But grace leads us to an amazing and startling recognition, ‘My life is not about me.’  Think about that for the rest of your years.  My life is not about me—this is the great and saving revelation that comes only from the whirlwind, and we are never ready for it.”[5]

            As I finish my mini-series on Job, let me leave you with this thought:  if we’re looking for black and white answers to the deepest, darkest questions of the human heart, we will find that there are none.  That is Job’s discovery, for which he is commended by God.  Notice what the Lord says to Eliphaz:  “My wrath is kindled against you and against your two friends; for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has” (42:7).

In the midst of our quest, what we are left with is the Mystery of Love, which teaches us that we are not alone—neither will we be left alone.  Our lives are not about us.  As hard as that is to swallow, it’s nonetheless true.  We belong to another.

If we choose to live in the Mystery of Love, we find that we are a part of a community created and re-created to embrace “the other,” with its vulnerabilities, faults, mistakes, with its questions, joys, sorrows.  We find that we are truly the body of Christ.  You and I, flesh and blood creatures that we are:  we are the body of Christ.  Suffering comes to us all, but is it suffering for the other?  It is only in that body in which the evil of suffering can be redeemed.

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