23rd Sunday after Pentecost – Ted Hackett
Lessons 10: 6-27
Job and Evil
The last four Sunday’s Hebrew Bible readings have been from the Book of Job.
In those four readings we have pretty well covered the Book …
Hebrew Scriptures…our Old Testament…
Have four parts…
The Law…the first 5 books, the Prophets, and then pretty much everything else … called the “Wisdom Literature”…
Wisdom contains a lot of good sage advice about how to live….plus some stuff that doesn’t fit any particular category.
The Book of Job goes here.
You all know poor Job…and the saying : “The patience of Job”…and of course we have read selections from it over the past four weeks.
So basically…you know the story…
but let’s review…
It’s a very theological story!
Job is a good and righteous man…
He is generous…supporting widows and poor people…making civic gifts..
He is so well respected that when he goes to sit among the men of the community where they gather by the front gate of the city…that the other men do not speak…out of respect.
And Job was very prosperous…
Property, crops, livestock, Sons and Daughters
And in his time and place…
According to orthodox theology…
Such success was proof of his righteousness…
A leader, a philanthropist…
Respected by all…
Job had everything…
And he deserved it!
Meanwhile…
In Heaven, God is sitting in his omnipotent majesty…
Looking down on Job with some pride!
Job is pretty much what God intended us to be…faithful and righteous.
But then…the plot complicates…
In comes Satan…
Satan….the “adversary”…the “accuser”.
Now, you may ask: what is Satan doing in Heaven…
And how come he and God seem like pals?
Good question…
No one seems to have come up with a good answer as to why evil exists…
Why God allows it to exist…certainly I don’t!
But…there it is…
Evil is a reality!
Well…Satan has been, he says, patrolling earth…
Checking things out.
God asks if he has observed Job…
God is proud of him…he’s so good!
Satan says: “Of course he’s good…why shouldn’t he be…You’ve given him everything!” “But”, says conniving Satan… “take away his prosperity and he will curse you!”
God takes the bait…
He’ll strike him with all kinds of misfortune and bet Job will remain faithful.
And he does!
To make a long story short…
Job does not curse God in his misfortune…
Satan insists…hit him with more misfortune…
Take away everything except his life!
In this long agonizing process…Job’s friends and even his wife…give him advice…
The leading theory offered to Job is that he must be hiding some secret sin…
God knows about it and Job must confess!
But Job is truthful…
He is not hiding a secret sin!
Even Job’s wife…who is tired of his misery…
Tells him: “Go ahead…Curse God and die!”
But Job has too much integrity to do that!
So, sitting on a dung-heap, in misery, scraping scabs off his body with a potsherd…
He dares God to meet face-to-face…
He asks God to explain his unjust suffering.
Now, Job is speaking for all humanity….
WHY IS THERE UNDESERVED SUFFERING? Why are innocent Palestinians and Jews dying?
Why are children starving?
Why do corrupt politicians get power and grind down the needy?…
For that matter…why are there natural disasters?
Earthquakes, forest fires, landslides, plagues…
Only part of this can be laid at the feet of such as humans misusing nature…
Job is wrestling with the problem Dostoevsky put this way: “The death of one innocent child refutes the goodness of God!”
So Job challenges God to a face-to-face meeting…
And surprise!…God agrees…which is unusual!
But when God appears…what happens?
God makes a power-play!
Who is Job… measly, powerless, just human, Job?
Did Job create the mighty seas?
The stars…sun, moon?
The vast array of animals and the
Other miracles of nature?
Next to God, Job is a puny moment.
Next to God…
Humans are like dust!
And of course, confronted with the infinite, omniscient power and majesty of God…
Confronted with glory of God…
Poor human Job cannot stand…
How does one argue with the omniscient creator and sustainer of all that is or ever will be?…
There is no way…
Job caves in and says:
“I see you and I repent in dust and ashes!”
God has pulled a power-play and simply overwhelmed poor Job…
But notice….Job has never retracted his complaint…
Job has submitted to power…
But he has not taken back his accusations…
He has been treated unjustly.
The final act of the Book of Job has God restoring him with even more goodies than he had before…more animals, more crops more children and more public esteem…
Seems it is “happily ever after”ending…
The idea is, God is fair and just after all…
Though I wonder about those dead innocent family members…
But probably a scribe added this ending to square with the theology of the time
Probably the original left things up in the air…or there may have been a less “Happy ever after” ending.
But the question in Job…which is our question too is not answered…
How is it that bad things happen to good people?
That innocent children are bombed and their parents maimed or killed?
Job’s God has no personal experience of the plight of we little human beings…Of a mourning Jewish or Palestinian mother…
But Jesus was different…
God may have been moved by Job’s argument…and decided to share our human experience.
We know he changed his mind and healed an unclean Gentile child.
Because he had compassion…
God changed God’s mind!
Think of it…
God changes the Divine Mind.
Of course in the Hebrew scriptures, God changes his mind all the time…
For instance when God is angry at Israel sometimes someone like Moses cleverly talks him out of destroying his people…
It happens several times…
God even repents…spares wicked Nineveh for instance…
But in most of the Old Testament God still acts like an all-powerful dictator.
But something happened around the time of later Judaism…
Around the time of Jesus…
God….who had been the omniotent ruler of all…
God…who conceived, created and sustains all that is or ever will be…
God who is infinite and above all the messiness of human life…
Decided…maybe after his encounter with Job…
Decided he really could not fully understand us…
Could not understand we humans…from the infinite distance of eternity…
So God….became incarnate from a human Mother…
For us humans and our salvation…
Became one of us….became human!
As Paul says:
“Emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born human…”
And then…He suffered and died…
Pinned to a criminal’s cross for hours of agony…
God knew…
God lived though human pain and doubt and fear…
And God…I dare say it.
God died our human death!
So now there is nothing in our experience which God does not know from God’s own experience!
So…then…
Why doesn’t God “fix” it and get rid of sin and suffering and death?
I don’t know…
No one does I suspect…
But we do have a promise…
A promise from one who knows…personally…
What it is to suffer helplessly…
To die our death…
But then…to rise victorious…
God died a human…a human like you and me…
In order that we might become like Him…
And live forever in the fullness of love!
So now even in the face of death…
We can sing: “Alleluia! Alleluia….Alleluia!