JOB Then and JOB Now
Part 2.
The End is in the Beginning.
Why do I blog?
‘JOB Now’, meaning we and our world, is entering a ‘JOB Then’ situation, indicating cosmic disasters. Scientists these days are talking about tipping points and planetary boundaries, about human activity pushing the planet beyond its limits. In a recent study, 22 leading scientists warned that “humans likely are forcing a planetary-scale transition with the potential to transform Earth rapidly and irreversibly into a state unknown in human experience.”
In plain language it says that our biological resources – water, trees, soil, air – which we now take for granted, will be subject to sudden and unpredictable transformations probably sooner than later.
That means we, personified in ‘JOB Now’, are in deep trouble, something the church can no longer ignore, because that trouble plays out in a world chockfull with the inequalities that flow from deeply entrenched power structures, both within individual countries and between the so-called developed and developing worlds. Stir in the ecological crises which will greatly exacerbate existing problems rooted in the unjust distribution of wealth and power, and our troubles are likely to magnify exponentially. I see it as the role of preachers and self-appointed bloggers like me to warn our society that we are in deep denial, denial that is especially anchored in the relatively privileged sectors, such as organized religion where our affluence insulates us from the immediate consequences. Bonhoeffer’s advice to the Church of Christ, in his introduction to Creation and Fall, is: “To witness to the end of all things, to live from the end, to think from the end, to act from the end, to proclaim its message for the end.” In this the church fails miserably.
Therefore I see it as my duty to sound the unpleasantly loud alarm that we must drastically change the way we think, move, worship, especially the latter, because only as a community can we prepare ourselves for the future.
What has this to do with JOB Then?
The Book of JOB is all about personal catastrophes that represent global happenings. JOB’s friends, in their out-dated ideas, are part of that as well. JOB’s friends are the typical, judgmental know-it-all believers, be they Christians, Muslims or Jews who know exactly why JOB is in this deplorable state: it is God’s punishment. We too, in our out-dated orthodox religions, often see the law, traditions and ecclesiastical confessions as more important than love without preconditions. When JOB was rich and healthy, his friends valued his opinion (being rich always gives enhanced credibility) but not anymore. Now something has changed and it is not they. It’s JOB. His suffering has made him a different person. Now the God JOB relies on is a totally different God. Who is right? JOB honoring a mysterious, unknowable God or his companions who revere a God about whom they know everything?
Eliphaz bluntly tells JOB in Chapter 15: “JOB, you are undermining religion and crippling faith in God.” Sounds familiar to me! Buddy Bildad dooms him to hell in Chapter 18: “Brimstone will be strewn on your household.” But JOB stubbornly clings to his faith when he says in Chapter 19:25: “I know that my Redeemer is alive and that in the end He will stand upon the earth. He will plead for me in God’s court; he would stand up and vindicate my name.”
Amazing words. Unbelievable what suffering can do to people. It can totally change them. The Satan had not counted on this sort of conversion, a conversion brought about by the suffering God inflicted upon JOB. He had figured that JOB’s theology would be stagnant, a theology teaching that religion never is for nothing. I once heard a radio preacher say that the road to prosperity is simple: “start everyday with prayer, go to church, tithe, of course give to his radio or television program and read the bible.”
The Satan wanted to score a fast one with God, and prove once and for all that JOB would deny God as soon as he had become a welfare bum. But he failed in JOB, because this sort of tit for tat is the theology of the devil.
JOB’s story tells us that there are no immediate rewards to religion and by this I don’t mean that being religious does not benefit people now. It does. Religion gives people, in general, a moral focus, stability, security and a purpose in life.
Suffering can teach us wisdom. Faith can find expression in wisdom and in Chapter 28 we see the continuation of JOB’s conversion, because conversion is always a slow and never-ending process, just as acquiring wisdom is. Here JOB confesses his basic ignorance. He, who once was very rich, now confesses that being well-off can hinder the development of wisdom, something we, prosperous Westerners, forget at our peril. In his suffering JOB’s conclusion is wonderful: “Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to shun evil, that is understanding.”
What next?
After all these torrents of words, silence. “What next?” these former friends wonder. Then the Lord spoke to JOB out of a whirlwind. God Himself answers JOB personally. The Hidden One remains hidden, but not completely. God addresses Himself to the one person who has asked constantly “Why”. The other four men knew the answers, gave the pious platitudes, were comfortable, and avoided the touchy issues, reminding me of most of the sermons I have heard all my life. God did not direct himself to the four men but to JOB, who had suffered, and was puzzled by it all.
The curious thing about the Lord’s sayings is that they all come as questions. “Where were you when I founded the earth? Who determined its measurements – if you know? Do you know the seasons of the mountain-goats? Have you marked the calving of the deer? “Do you give the horse its strength” Do you cloth his neck with thunder? Do you understand the sea and can you grasp from where all these waters come and what purpose they serve? Have the portals of Death been rolled back for you?”
Now it dawns on JOB that his suffering, which he had made the central point of the universe, is nothing compared to God’s greatness, to his over-arching wisdom. While God hurls these questions at JOB, a strange peace descends on him. He starts to realize that part of the secret of salvation is that God does things just for the sake of doing things. He now starts to see that all of life is a miracle which needs neither a reason nor a cause but no other ground than God’s creative act, no other purpose than His own glorification, in which salvation is included.
JOB’s suffering has sharpened his thinking and he discovers to his amazement that in and above all other useful, moral, beautiful goals, rises the one great given that God be known, be lived, be confessed, and believed as the only Divine being. His Essence is nothing else but to live and to give life.
God’s aim for us humans is to have all living entities participate in His fullness. We, humans, are not the only focal point. We are not the totality of creation, although we often think so. John 3:16 explicitly says: God so loved the world, the cosmos that He sent His son. In the world we ask for reasons, but when ask for a reason for the world there is only one answer: the answer is that the pivot of life is God and God alone, who can only be approached through Jesus, who calls himself “The Son of Man”, humanity personified, who wants us to be nothing else but be fully human too, earthly as the earth is earth. We may think that we are powerful with our tools and brains. We are not. Says one of the greatest minds in science, John Wheeler of Princeton, in a book called The End of Science: “As the tiny island of our knowledge grows, so does the great shore of our ignorance.” We, at the height of our scientific powers, are discovering that the more we know, the more we discover we don’t know. The real Answer, the key to the Universe is now as elusive as ever and more and more scientists are admitting that. What God wants JOB to understand is that God is Infinite in His creative powers, Infinite in the beauty of creation, Infinite in the design of His work of Art. God wants ‘JOB Then’ and ‘JOB Now’ to marvel at His ingenuity. He wants both JOBs to be astounded by the revival of nature in the spring, by the multitude of flowers which adorn the landscape, by the erratic flight of the swallows, the steaming heat of the summer, the almost plaintive sounds of autumn, the stark dignity of the winter landscape. He wants JOB Then and JOB Now to affirm that their first duty in life is the enjoy God forever, and this pleasant duty starts with marveling at his creation.
When God is finished, all JOB can do is to exclaim in utter surrender in Chapter 40: “How can I reply to you? I lay my hand on my mouth. Once I have spoken, but I cannot answer; even twice, but I can no more.” His conversion is affirmed when he confesses in chapter 42:
“I know you can do all things and nothing you wish is impossible.
Who is this whose ignorant words cover my designs with darkness?
I have spoken of the unspeakable and tried to grasp the Infinite.
Listen and I will speak. I will question you: please, instruct me.
I heard of you with my ears; but now my eyes have seen you.
Therefore I will be quiet, comforted that I am dust.” That last word ‘dust’ means earth: earth we are and to earth we shall return.
JOB did not find a solution for his questions, but he did find deliverance from his questions. JOB never saw God but his new-found comfort was that God saw him, because JOB came to Him with questions: “Why did you do this, Lord? Why did that happen to me, Lord?”
The meaning of the book of JOB is not that JOB could solve the problem of his suffering in his life or that we can solve the pain and injustice in our lives. We, as JOB Now, are starting to realize that, for the time being, yes, till the very end of time, until the Lord returns, we are on our own. God is testing us JOB Now as he did JOB Then. We now experience what God predicted in Deut.32: 20, “I will hide my face from them and see what their end will be; for they are a perverse generation.”
This perversity applies to us all. The newest Climate Change report, on page 4 of March 31 Globe and Mail and front-page news in the New York Times, cites the risk of death or injury on a wide scale, probable damage to public health, displacement of people and potential mass migrations. That same New York Times issue, on the editorial page, contains a scathing report on Canada’s (read PM Harper’s) disastrous environmental record in connection with the Alberta Tar Sands. It makes me ashamed to be a Canadian citizen. We are on a treadmill to death and nothing will stop the disasters that face us, as JOB Now.
JOB’s Basic Truth
The basic truth of the book of JOB is that we must not take generally accepted truths for granted but that the most basic ideas about God and religion have to be probed and questioned without ceasing. We never arrive; we never can say: we know enough. As long as we live we have to keep up our search for Truth, and we joyfully must accept this. As long as we live we must probe for wisdom.
Fact is that we need a radical conversion. Many of us are shuttled by way of cheap gasoline from climate-controlled house, to an artificially lighted work-place, to a prepackaged supermarket, to a night in front of electronic amusement, and there is little, in all this, to shock one’s level of energy and material use out of the unconscious realm. Just as JOB Then, we need a totally new way of life, not just ‘brother are you born again?’ but consciously trying to live a God- that means Cosmos- pleasing existence.
Next week: The End is in the Beginning: Conclusion of JOB Then and JOB Now.