“The Eastering of Job”
Job 42:1-10
Allen Huff
Jonesborough Presbyterian Church
10/25/15
To begin to
conclude our study of Job, let us return to the opening lines of the story.
“There once
was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job. That man was blameless and
upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil.” (Job1:1)
And he has a
lot of stuff.
With the
implication that Job enjoys excess because of God’s particular favor, we meet a
very First World, Be Good-Get
Rich kind of god. But this deity quickly proves all-too-human. He brags on Job,
and Satan dares this god to test Job. What else can it be but pride the permits
this god to do something so un-Godlike as to accept Satan’s dare?
The story vividly illustrates the
way that humankind does, in fact, create all manner of gods in our own image.
And for 37 chapters the characters continue to assume this human-imaged god. Then,
in Chapter 38, something catastrophically glorious happens. As Forrest Gump
says when a hurricane hits his little shrimp boat, “God showed up.”
Last week, Lee Clements explored
God’s response to Job. “What may seem like a non-answer,” she said, “does
affect Job. He is awed…speechless…humbled…He is reminded,” she said, “of the
totality of creation, a world that is both beautiful and tragic.”1
Do you see what the story is doing?
It debunks the very existence of the impressionable, weak-spirited, small-g god of Chapter 1, and it introduces us
to Yahweh, the Creator, the capital-G
God.
Job answers this magnificent, terrifying
God, saying,
2“I know that you can do
all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.
3‘Who is this that hides
counsel without knowledge?’
Therefore I have uttered what I did
not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.
4‘Hear, and I will
speak; I will question you, and you declare to me.’
5I had heard of you by
the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; 6therefore I
despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”
7After the Lord had spoken these words to Job, the Lord
said to Eliphaz the Temanite: “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. 8Now therefore take seven bulls and seven rams, and go to my
servant Job, and offer up for yourselves a burnt offering; and my servant Job
shall pray for you, for I will accept his prayer not to deal with you according
to your folly; for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job
has done.”
9So Eliphaz the Temanite
and Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite went and did what the Lord had told them; and the Lord accepted
Job’s prayer. 10And the Lord restored the
fortunes of Job when he had prayed for his friends; and the Lord
gave Job twice as much as he had before.” (Job 42:1-10)
Now I know, Job says to God. You can be and do as you please. You will not
be hindered.
Job also confesses to having
overstepped his bounds as a human being. He realizes that all of his furious
ranting against God rose from an image and understanding of God based solely on
things he has heard – on mere rumors.
“But now my
eye sees you,” Job says to God. “Therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust
and ashes.”
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Having
desired death, Job has now experienced a death. While this death does not release him from life and its bitter
memories, it does give him a new lease
on life. And the urn for the ashes of Job’s old life is a whole new kind of
faith. He dies the death that all human beings must die in the process of
living into more mature understandings and authentic images of God.
Now I know, says Job. You are so much more than even now I can
imagine.
Job’s new
understanding of God is nothing short of an Easter experience, a resurrection. And
once Job staggers out of his tomb, God puts that new faith to work. Just like
Jesus forgiving the weak-spirited disciple Peter, Job finds he must forgive and
intercede for the three friends who abandon him in his hour of suffering.
To experience
resurrection here-and-now, we forsake all of our small, rational, vengeful,
Protestant-work-ethic gods. To live an Eastered life is to live sacramentally –
forgiving the unforgivable, loving the unlovable, and recognizing the real
presence of God in the created order. This
is to have our “fortunes” restored.
Now, the
restoration of Job’s fortunes becomes a list of material gains, but a freshly
Eastered Job handles his new wealth very differently. Verse 15 reads: “In all
the land there were no women so beautiful as Job’s daughters; and their father
gave them an inheritance along with their brothers.” Dismissing inviolate
tradition, Job treats daughters like sons. This detail may seem trivial, but
Job’s radically new generosity reflects the awareness of holiness and wholeness
in the Creation that a Chapter 1 god simply cannot offer.
In its
straight and narrow confines, human reason almost always tries to distort any
image of God into something logical and palatable. You do know, don’t you, that
the phrase God helps those who help
themselves is not biblical. In fact, it is antithetical to biblical
witness. That god, like all other genie-in-a-bottle gods, dies a long, painful
death in the pages of the Book of Job – and on the cross.
The God
revealed in Job’s story is incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth. Both Job and Jesus
live and die in such a way as to help those who cannot help themselves. They both reveal that to experience and to
know God, one must embrace suffering along with happiness. And they both reveal
that blessings, whether material or spiritual, are only truly blessings when
they are shared in humble and generous gratitude. That is especially true when
they are shared, like Job’s prayers and Jesus’ life itself, with people who do
not “deserve” them. And if that does not define grace, I do not know what does.
Richard Rohr
is fond of saying that Jesus comes not to
change God’s mind about us, but to change our minds about God.2 It
seems to me that the Book of Job has that same mission. Job’s story has become
for me a kind of cliff notes version of how individuals and faith communities
progress from manipulative Santa Claus and childish fairy godmother images of
God to images that inspire awe, humility, and hope – images that inspire us to
participate in God’s transforming presence in an all-too-real and
all-too-broken world.
If Jonesborough
Presbyterian Church is a vibrant, relevant faith community, it is not because
of good staffing and programming. Those things can help, of course, but the
difference is made when we choose, individually and corporately, to acknowledge
and enter the suffering of the people sitting next to us in the pews, and when
we choose to acknowledge and enter the suffering in our immediate community as
well as places far and wide.
Job and Jesus both tell us that God
is Eastering the Creation into the ways of Love and the means of grace. Through
many deaths and resurrections, God is transforming us into a people of
forgiveness, gratitude, and generosity in a world which sits among the ashes,
scraping its sores, and crying out for deliverance. We cannot do the
delivering. We can only be a sign of hope. And even now, whether through us or
in spite of us, God is making all things new.
1The Rev. Lee Clements in her sermon “Out of the
Whirlwind,” preached at Jonesborough Presbyterian Church on 10/18/15.
2http://www.azquotes.com/quote/798492
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