Readings: Job 1:1-22; Job 38:1-11; Luke 8: 22-25
10. Job contradicts Proverbs. The writer of Proverbs offers the hope and consolation that people who live wisely and faithfully, according to the will of God, will flourish and prosper. The very first chapter of Job says: it ain’t necessarily so. You may well live righteously and with great integrity and, still, terrible things may happen. A faithful life is not an automatic buffer to calamity. Due to this contradiction between the books, both of which are categorized as wisdom literature, we are reminded of all those who have gone before us who tried to make the Bible speak with one voice. It doesn’t. The Bible has many voices, some of which are quite dissonant together, but they sing one song about the presence and providence of God.
9. Job is an old story, but a young book, relatively speaking. Since Job doesn’t mention Abraham or Moses or the laws or the Temple, some interpreters have considered it the oldest story in the Bible. Not, of course, older than the creation story, but a story that predates the famous men of the Hebrew scripture because otherwise they would surely be mentioned. The story of human suffering is timeless, but vocabulary isn’t. We can tell from the written forms of Job- its style and word choices that it is probably from after the exile (post-exilic), between the years 540-330 BCE, in the Persian period.
Discerning why bad things happen to good people would have been a significant item of contemplation following both Assyrian and Babylonian exiles, even though there were many prophets who explained to the people what the consequences of their choices would be. Innocent people suffered alongside those who committed wrongdoing.
8. In Job, the Satan is not who you think it is. At the time of writing, Satan was not a proper name, it was a title- Ha Satan. The first chapter of the book tells us about the being who hold the title, ha Satan, or the Adversary. In the first chapter, the Satan functions like a prosecutor or challenger, perhaps to people and to God. Job gives us a complicated, and indigestion-inducing, picture of the Satan as a member of God’s heavenly council, with an advisory role. This does not line up with later images or understandings we have regarding the forces that oppose God. The role of the Satan here is upsetting and frustrating. Why don’t we know more about this character? The Bible gives us what we need, and it does not give what we do not need. We do not need to know more about the Satan than they are the adversary. That’s all we need to know for interpreting Job and, frankly, all we need to know for our daily lives. Where people and actions oppose the will of God, the adversary is likely at work- sometimes actively and sometimes passively. The Satan is active in causing Job’s suffering. The Satan is passive in watching humans make bad choices all by themselves, which lead to situations of grief, suffering, and destruction.
7. We don’t have a good answer as to why bad things happen to good people. Why would God enter into a bargain with the adversary? How do you know God did? There is no heavenly court reporter who sends down transcripts of holy shorthand for people to interpret and know for certain what happens in the heavenly realms. The celestial scenes of Job come from someone’s holy imagination. The writer cannot say that God caused the suffering of God’s own accord because that violates what will be revealed in the end about the nature of God. The writer cannot imply God does not know about the suffering. The best the writer of Job can do is imply that God permits but pays close attention. This is still somewhat unsatisfactory, but the best of the available options.
6. Don’t be a bad friend. Job has 42 chapters. Chapters 1-2 are the prologue and set up what happens to Job. God starts talk to Job in chapter 38. Chapters 3-37, so thirty-four chapters, have a very specific aim. These chapters teach how not to be a bad friend in a time of suffering. Job’s friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, start out well- sitting with him in his grief. This is the right thing to do. Then they start to talk. Eliphaz is certain that Job must have sinned, since God is always righteous. Job has brought his suffering upon himself, according to Eliphaz, and if he confesses, things will improve.
Bildad thinks similarly but tells Job that divine justice is always clear. If one suffers, says Bildad, God’s retribution is obvious. Bildad notes that Job’s children must have sinned and so had Job.
Zophar tells Job that his suffering is less that what he deserves since God is righteous, justice-minded, AND merciful. Zophar urges Job to repent before the suffering becomes worse because why should God hold back forever.
When God eventually speaks, God excoriates these three friends for talking about what they do not know. So not only did they increase Job’s pain, but they also weren’t even right. In your friend’s time of suffering, show up and shut up. Do not speak about what you do not know. Do not make it worse.
5. A lot of wise-sounding words and quoting of Bible passages can still be wrong. After the three friends, a young man, Elihu, comes. Elihu does not believe Job's suffering is necessarily punishment for sin, but rather a way for God to correct, teach, and purify the soul. He asserts that God is not obligated to explain His actions to humans and that suffering can be a means of spiritual growth. When someone is suffering, they do not want to learn about how their soul might be being corrected. They need casseroles, coffee, and company- not philosophical reflections. God says Elihu also was speaking out of his… elbow (not the place of wisdom).
4. God cares about the fullness of creation. When God finally addresses Job, God points to the wide spectrum of all that is and tells Job that everything that exists is part of the Divine awareness. There are not small things happening in the depths of the sea or in the crevices of mountains about which God does not know. Not only is God aware of all these things, but God also cares about them. Job has not languished outside of God’s compassion. God provides for all of creation, including the long-suffering Job. God does not delight in pain, but in the ordered functioning of everything the Holy has put into place. God’s on-going work within all of creation is to restore order where disorder has occurred because of the adversary, because of sin, because of the forces of this world that oppose God’s designs and will.
3. God does not create drama in order to be a hero. Even with Job in hand, as disciples of Christ, our clearest revelation of God’s way of being in the world is through Jesus. If we are unsure about how God operates, we look to the life of Christ for clarity. If we believe that God creates suffering in order to heal it, then we would say that Jesus made the storm in order to calm it. Remember Jesus is God. Would you ever say that Jesus made people hungry in order to feed them? Let their bodies be broken in order to heal them? Let demons run rampant just to exorcise them? Regardless of human interpretation through the ages, it does not make sense for God to create pain in order to reveal holiness like a superhero. Jesus shows forth God’s power and compassion, mercy and inclusion, justice and peace. If Jesus wouldn’t, God doesn’t. If Jesus did, God does.
2. Lament and honest prayer help. Job grieves. Job gets angry with God. Job is frustrated. Job prays everything he feels. He is not punished for his honesty. The most obvious tools can be the most helpful. Do not neglect them.
1. If you don’t know, admit it, but when you do know, speak up. Many times, people have told me, “I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything.” It is indeed better to remain silent than to turn out to be one of Job’s friends and to speak wrongly about God. There are many things, however, that can be said that we trust are true about God- what has been shown forth in creation, through the healing words of the prophets, through Jesus, through the Spirit’s sustaining of the community of Christ, through faithful people today. You will not be a bad friend to someone or to Jesus when you speak of God’s love (1 John 4:8), God’s mercy (Psalm 103:8), God’s inclusion (Galatians 3:28), God’s provision (Matthew 6:26), God’s power (all the resurrection stories), and God’s abiding presence (Romans 8:38-39). God’s words to Job remind us that God’s knowledge and ways are not our knowledge and ways, which is a blessing for everyone.
Job is a wisdom book, not necessarily giving us tidbits for how to live or how to be smarter, but granting us a bigger picture of a God who knows more than we can imagine and is present in height and depth and breadth greater than our comprehension. This was the good news for Job, even before the restoration of his life, and it is the good news for us and all people. May our words and our lives reflect our faith in this truth. Amen.
