I’ve never much cared for the ending of Job.
No, that’s not true.
I’ve really never been able to stand the ending of Job.
The first part, and the first part of our reading this
morning -- that’s ok. You recall that
three weeks ago, we embarked upon a journey with Job, a journey in which he
became subject and victim of God’s wager with the Satan, the accuser. Satan was sure that he could demonstrate that
Job, broken and injured and grieved, would turn away from God. God, who wanted Job’s love only if freely
given, only if it were not a response to all the privilege and prosperity which
had come Job’s way in life, was willing to risk finding out which way Job would
go. The initial result of their bet? Job
lost pretty much everything.
Two weeks ago, we listened to Job, who had had it with pious
mutterings about God’s will and with the so-called friends who told him that it
was all his own fault. Job began to pour
out to God his rage and pain and grief, becoming an example to us for the
reality that whatever it is that we have to say to God, God is here to
listen.
And then last week, we delved into God’s response, the God
of all creation, who reminded Job, and reminds us, that there is much more to
this universe than we can know or understand, and that we are part of a much
grander scheme: God’s entire self-gift, self-donation, which God is laboring to
redeem.
In the first part of our reading today, we hear Job’s
rejoinder to God, Job reflecting on his conversation with God:
I know that you can do all things,
and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted [ says Job, remembering God’s
question,] ”Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?” [Job acknowledges,]
Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for
me, which I did not know. [He thinks of God’s words,]“Hear, and I will speak; I
will question you, and you declare to me.” [and concludes,]I had heard of you
by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself,
and repent in dust and ashes.
This little passage presents some translation challenges
that will have to await another day; suffice it for us to say that Job’s words
echo God’s of the preceding chapters.
“Things too wonderful for me, which I did not know” – that’s what Job
sees now. Job has heard and seen God, God
in a voice of sovereignty and power, God in the vision of stars and thunder and
rains and animals and plants.
Has that ever happened to you? I remember a day, many years ago, on which a
devastating situation had presented itself in our family. I had to get up very early for a meeting that
morning, and I drove off in the dark, dejected and bewildered, not sure what to
do about all the problems that had suddenly landed on my doorstep. The meeting was on the top floor of an office
building of several stories, and when I got off the elevator into the reception
area and looked out the windows, there was one of the most astonishing sunrises
I had ever seen: all sorts of reds and roses and oranges and purples beginning
to break over the horizon. A sunrise which
was going to occur no matter what I was doing or how I felt; a sunrise that
would proceed with no involvement whatever from me. “Things too wonderful for me, which I did not
know.”
We should note that while Job repents, when he sees, he
repents – he turns, for that’s what the word “repent” means – to turn – he
turns from his lack of knowledge, from his failed vision, to something
new. There’s no evidence that he regrets
having sought to engage God, nor that God wants him to regret it. Job wanted to
see God, and God becomes present to Job.
Isn’t it interesting that our reading of Job today is paired
with Mark’s story of Bartimaeus? To start with, in the version I read, Bartimaeus
tells Jesus that he wants to see AGAIN. “Let me see again,” he says. Evidently,
he could see, he did have his eyesight, at some time in the past. And he wants his sight back – again. Once wasn’t enough.
We could leave it at that.
We could say that of course, it’s not enough, to have seen in the past. While
there are some people who tell us that blindness has made them who they are,
and that they would not trade themselves and their own lives for someone else
and his or hers, for most people, as a
purely practical matter, life without eyesight is challenging at best, and
often completely debilitating. It’s not
enough to know what things look like; most of us want to see and navigate our
way around the world for ourselves. We
could say that that’s all that Bartimaeus wants. An ordinary, sighted life.
But where Jesus, and encounters with Jesus are concerned,
the words “I want to see again” always mean so much more, whether the speaker
knows it or not. “I want to see anew.” “I want to see differently.” “I want to see things I have not seen before.” “I want vision, and not just sight.” Whether we expect it or not, when we tell
Jesus, or God, that we want to see – we WILL see, anew and differently.
So Job and Bartimaeus – they both want to see. To see what they have not seen before. And see they do.
We can understand from that one parallel why these two
stories have been placed together for us. But there’s another interesting connection
between the stories, and it’s what tells us that God is not angry – that God
delights, in fact – in those who turn to God.
In Job, it comes in a short passage that’s not part of today’s official
reading, so I’ll read it a sentence of it
to you now: “[The Lord said to one of Job’s friends, ““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. . .”.
God is not happy with those three friends, who have spent so
much of their time with Job engaged in commentary. They’ve told him what God is like, and
they’ve told him that he must have deserved what he got. But not once have those friends talked to
God. Not once have they prayed for
Job. Not once have they prayed with
Job. Not once have they even attempted
to dwell in the stillness of God, to listen to God, to seek God for themselves
or on behalf of Job. And they are the
ones – not Job – whose conduct God condemns.
Let’s look at the gospel story again. Bartimaeus is calling out through a large
crowd on the edge of Jericho, calling for Jesus’ attention. And how does the crowd respond? Do they help him, support him, make way for
him? No, the gospel tells us that they
“sternly” order him to be quiet, until Jesus asks that he be brought
forward. Sternly. The pew Bible translation says that they
“rebuked” him. Here is Bartimaeus,
recognizing in Jesus’ voice and presence someone who changes lives, and longing
to reach him, and his friends do everything they can to stop him. Do you suppose that his friends are direct
descendants of Job’s friends?
Now these are the two sections of Job’s ending that have
seemed to me to make some sense. Job
understands that his vision has been limited and has now been expanded. And we are assured that Job, in all his
questioning, has had it right, and that his friends, in their smug
self-righteousness, have not. I think
we’re good so far.
The problem for me, and I would guess for many of you, lies
in the third section, the end of our reading today and the end of the Book of
Job. What happens?
The Lord blessed the latter days of
Job more than his beginning; and he had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand
camels, a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand donkeys. He also had seven sons
and three daughters.
Suddenly, the story seems to have switched course. Suddenly it seems that maybe the friends were
right – perhaps Job did deserve for bad things to happen to him, and now that
he has properly repented, good things come his way.
What has happened here?
Do we throw out all the genuine, unanswerable questions raised by the
lengthy poem in the middle of the book in favor of a pat and easy ending? A prosperity gospel ending? An ending that says, “Turn to God, and life is
guaranteed to be good again.”
Do we just live with the likelihood that the ending and
beginning, the prose sections, were written long before the poem of depth and
mystery, and eventually were made into a sort of framework for the poetry? That we have before us nothing more than
a problem of literary history?
Do we just accept something completely unacceptable to us sophisticated
21st century folks, that a new life obliterates the trauma of the
old, and worst of all, that ten new children easily replace those who were
lost?
Try telling that to the woman on Staten Island whose little
sons were swept away from her in the hurricane flooding this past week. Try telling it to the parents of the young
police officer who died trying to help his father to safety above the waters
engulfing their neighborhood.
No. We all know that
children are irreplaceable. People are irreplaceable, and whether we have lost
spouses, or parents, or siblings, or children, we know: New ones do not
substitute for those who are gone.
That’s why I’ve never had much use for this ending of
Job. It did not seem to me to speak to
real life. There was no way to make it
work.
But in preparing these sermons, I read some material that
offered me a slightly different take on matters. I am much indebted to a couple of
commentators[1]
who suggest that we think about what would have been involved for Job in
starting over.
And so that’s what I have, indeed, been thinking about this
month. What does it cost Job to start
over? Job knows now, better than most of
us may be required to, the price of love.
The risk of love. The potential
for great suffering inherent in love.
And yet he accepts new children and new opportunity from God.
I expect that it took him a long time. The Bible, you know, often describes in a few
words something that takes years to unfold.
“Job had seven sons and three daughters” – that’s all it says – and as
sort of an afterthought. But if we
ponder that sentence for even a couple of minutes, we know: Ten years, at least. Maybe twenty. That’s how long it takes to have ten children, A decade or two of recovery time. And surely as long to rebuild the flocks and
herds of animals. And with each stage of recovery: anticipation, apprehension,
memories of past loss. This is not an
easy fix for Job and his wife. This is
not a fix that you would casually suggest as a possibility to someone who has
just suffered great loss.This takes time.
Lots of time.
And yet, it happens.
Not the same as before. Not the
same children, whom Job no doubt mourned for the rest of his life. Not the same
servants, many of whom must have been his friends and close companions. Not the same animals, not the same appearance
to his land and property. When we look
at the pictures of the hurricane devastation in New York and New Jersey, we comprehend,
a little bit: Not the same. Never the
same again.
But resurrection can happen.
We are offered new vision. New
possibilities. New ways forward. God took a great risk with Job. Way back at the beginning of our tale, God
took a chance on the Satan’s wager. God
took a chance that Job would rise above the conventionalities of his friends;
God took a chance that Job would stick with God. God’s love for us is so great that God is
willing to risk disappointment on our behalf.
As it turns out, God is even willing to risk the life of God’s own son
on our behalf.
By the end of both of our readings today, we see that genuine
entanglement with God demands an acceptance of risk on our part as well. Job says that “now my eye sees you,” and he
risks a new future, one upon which he embarks with the sure knowledge that all
that he holds dear, all except one thing – the presence of God – can be taken
from him. Bartimaeus, who regains his
sight, acquires new vision and becomes a follower of Jesus – and if you know
your Bible at all, you know that following Jesus is not a risk-free
endeavor.
Risk – and love.
That’s why Job is a great work of literature. That’s why Job is a great book of
Scripture. All great books, and all great
lives, are about the same thing: Risk, and love. All great lives emerge from the willingness
to risk seeing God, and God’s love, in all things. In all circumstances. At all times.
What do you see? If
you are Job today, if you are struggling with tragedy and loss, perhaps you see
God in the whirlwind of all creation, in a force far beyond your comprehension.
Perhaps even in the hurricane. If you are Bartimaeus today, if you are
longing for a chance at seeing anew, perhaps you see God in the lone figure at
the side of the road from whom you seek healing, and whom you begin to follow in
the ordinary life given you each day. The
one you follow when you are in your kitchen, missing someone you love. The one you follow when you are at school or
work, trying to meet challenges that seem beyond you.
God says to Job, See my love in all grand things, and risk
life anew. Jesus says to Bartimaeus, See
me standing before you on this ordinary day, and risk life anew.
No matter who you are, no matter where you are
in life, you are called to risk encounter with God, and to risk the new life
God sets before you. Thanks be, and Amen.
[1]
Kathryn Shifferdecker, who mentions Ellen Davis in workingpreacher.org.
(Preaching WAY out ahead of myself tomorrow.)
Praying for you as you preach this prophetic sermon tomorrow. Love and risk.
ReplyDelete"Risk life anew". Yes, that is what we are called to do each and every day. Please know that this is another excellent and challenging sermon. Prayers for you also.
ReplyDeleteI read this yesterday, and then again today. I've always struggled with Job and that ending myself.
ReplyDeleteYet a certain truth remains - the one at the end of your sermon, which resonates deeply in my own heart. The risk of encounter with God is what we are called to. And reluctantly or not, I know that I keep trying to show up for it. Risky, yes. Necessary? Without a doubt.
Prayers for you always!
Thank you all so much for reading and commenting and praying.
ReplyDeleteI cantored the psalm this morning (18 -- I love you, Lord, my strength...) and began this morning by reflecting on this sermon and then practicing the psalm with Job in mind -- and praying for your preaching!
ReplyDeleteI have to say, having had my own Job moments, I've always read this ending as a mix of the sweet and the bitter. The joy of the here and now, the pain of the here and now. I looked at my son last night, thinking that except for the horror of an April night twenty-five years ago, he would not exist.