Introduction to Job
I want to take a few minutes to talk about the book of Job before we begin reading it. I think that will help us understand what is going on in it and have it make more sense.
No one knows who wrote Job, or when it was written, or where it was written. Biblical scholars are all over the place when it comes to answering those questions. They do agree on a few things. First, as we have it today, Job is written by at least two different people and at two different time periods. And second, it is written in a style older than its actual date. Perhaps think of it this way. Imagine a play-write of today writing a new play using the style and language of Shakespeare. It would use archaic words and sentence structure even though it was written now. That seems to be case of Job. My best guess is that it is written in the 6th Century B.C.E. using language and styles from several centuries earlier.
Job is an epic poem. The beginning and end are prose and read like a fairy tale. No scholar that I read even dreams that Job is an historical account. It is not, and you run into big problems fast if you try to interpret it as a real story. It does not begin with the words, “Once upon a time…” but it does begin with, “There once was a man…”
The book is complex. It is deliberately crafted to be inconsistent and even self-contradictory. Sometimes people talk about the patience of Job. In the New Testament the book of James references Job saying, “You have heard of the endurance of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.” But we will find that in part of Job, he is quite patient and enduring. And in other places he is angry, impatient, and basically throws a temper tantrum that would be fitting for a two-year-old.
Overall, Job wrestles with the idea of suffering; and why bad things happen. Or more specifically, why do bad things happen to good people? The answer to that question is very complicated. Using all of those inconsistencies and self-contradictions Job engages that question with equal complication.
Let’s be clear from the beginning, Job does not give the right answer; although it gives a lot of wrong answers. Job will, however, be a faithful companion to you when you find yourself wrestling with those issues.
Before we begin there is one character we should discuss. Satan. In the Old Testament Satan is not synonymous with bad or evil. Satan is not the devil. Those connections come later, especially in the New Testament. Satan only shows up three times in the entire Old Testament. In the Old Testament Satan is part of God’s court whose basic duty is to “accuse” humans before God. The name means, “The Accuser.” But again, do not think this is a being looking to make people guilty. Satan is more of being whose purpose is to ensure people’s authenticity. Perhaps think of Satan as being the head of God’s CIA. He gathers information on enemies and also gathers information to make sure allies are reliable. With that, we begin the text.
Read Job 1-2
I suppose you could say that Job has had a couple of bad days! I hope you have never experienced anything like that! All in one day Job loses pretty much everything he has. His herds are killed. His possessions are destroyed. His servants all die. And his ten children are all killed. But Job does not complain. He simply says, “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”
I like the old joke where someone says, “Everything was falling apart and I was feeling depressed. Then someone said to me, ‘Cheer up, things could be worse!’ So I cheered up, and things got worse!”
Next Job loses his health. He is covered in sores. Every moment of existence is pain and agony. Job’s wife says that he should curse God and die. But Job replies, “Shall we receive the good at the and of God and not the bad?”
Thus far Job is indeed the model of patience and endurance. If the book of Job ended here we’d be left with the idea that whatever happens, it is God’s will. We should not only endure it, we should accept it with silence. But this is not the end of Job. In the next few weeks we’ll see that Job does not sit in silence and just accept it all. But that is for the weeks to come.
The text we read today gets at the underlying question that needs to be addressed before you can ask the question, “Why do bad things happen?” That underlying question is, what is the purpose of faith? And what is the nature of faith? That is what Satan is testing Job over.
It starts out with God pointing out to Satan how perfectly faithful Job is. Satan points out that of course Job is perfectly faithful. God is providing for Job’s every whim and need. God protects Job from anything bad ever happening.
Is our faith transactional? Is our faith based on keeping God happy with us so that God will then bless us and make our lives easy? Indeed, many people believe basically that. They think that God likes the model of godliness they embody and rewards them for it. This is heresy, but many people believe it.
A variation on the same theme is the person who asks why does God let bad things happen to faithful people? I encounter many people today, especially those of younger generations, who refuse to believe in a God who would let bad thing happen. They ask how can God be supposedly good and loving and allow there to be so much suffering in this world?
Those are all fair questions. They are valid questions. And yet, they expect there to be some quid-pro-quo in a life of faith. Or, and we’ll get into this more in the next two weeks, they expect God to operate by their idea of justice. But we’ll explore that more then.
What is the root of our faith? Are we faithful in hopes of blessings and protections from God? Are we faithful now because we think a life of faith will get us to eternal life with God? Is that the deal we make with God? “God, I’ll live according to the way you want so that I get to go to heaven when I die?”
That’s another fair perspective.
The way I put it may seem too business-transactional, but let’s push it further; even to the absurd.
If there was no promise of eternal life, or threat of some sort of punishment, would you live by faith now?
If everyone goes to heaven regardless of how they live, would that affect your faith now?
Let’s make it really messy. Would you have faith if a life of faith meant you go to hell, and if you lived like a faithless hedonist, you’d get to have eternal life in heaven with endless indulgence?
Okay, that one goes too far. I’m getting ridiculous. But it does make us consider why we have the faith we do. Are we expecting something from God? How does it impact our faith if we don’t get it? Where do our ideas of fairness and justice, as limited human beings, intersect with God’s idea of fairness and justice, from an infinite divine perspective?
We just finished reading Mark’s gospel last week. Perhaps the way Mark depicts Jesus is the purest expression of faith that there is. Biblical scholars point out that the way Mark depicts Jesus, Jesus did not die on Friday knowing that he’d be resurrected on Sunday. He does not say to his disciples, “Don’t worry. I’ll see you Sunday.” No, as Mark depicts Jesus, Jesus is hanging there on the cross and all is lost. His disciples have failed and fled. He’s been rejected by the religious leaders. The Romans have given him a sham of a trial and are executing him for expediency sake. Everything Jesus did and taught will die with him. Was it all worth it? Will he stay faithful to God in the midst of total loss and unfairness?
Thanks be to God that the answer is yes!
I don’t believe any of us have perfect faith. We all want or expect something from God for believing in him and living according to his expectations. We all know that life isn’t fair. We know that bad things happen to good people. We know that good things happen to bad people. We do not impose our idea of justice upon God. We are okay with some measure of unfairness. But ultimately we want our right relationship with God to have some benefit for us.
We were all born into this world without our consent. We have simply come to exist and have consciousness. We have decided that we need to have God’s help and accompaniment for life to make sense, and have meaning, and have hope. Those are all good reasons for faith. But they are not perfect reasons for faith. And so even as we have good reasons we recognize the imperfections. We realize that we ultimately need God’s grace, God’s unmerited favor; and through that we can live in confidence.
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