Continuing on the Book of Job
By Janet Marsh
JOB 4 - Job 42: 1-7 + 10-17
INTRODUCTION
Last week my husband Alex preached here; apparently it went very well and he strongly encouraged me to continue the theme today. Now being an obedient wife I immediately warmed to this idea - on the condition that he lent me his sermon notes. He willingly obliged. So here it is - with a few minor adaptations. His sermon on Job and the question of suffering is on the website - but let me briefly recap some of his points.
RECAP
Firstly he looked at the question of the genre of Job:
The land of Uz - no one knows exactly where this is.
The perfect or well rounded numbers. (Note must be taken of the numbers of animals at the beginning and at the end of the story – exactly double)
The ‘stage managed’ calamities – 4 messengers with exactly the same ending, ‘And I alone have escaped.’
Two natural disasters and two by human hand.
The Sabaens were feared warriors from the South The fire from heaven – lightning from the West
The Chaldeans were feared warriors from the North.
The great wind from the desert – disaster from the East
The book of Job is an extended parable, a bit like an ancient equivalent of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. Don’t take it literally or it is reduced down to a ‘how can I prove Job was true’ exercise - and the point is missed altogether.
He then moved onto the vexed question of suffering: What causes suffering, why do we suffer and do innocent people suffer? One of the key points we noted was that there is not a clear link between suffering and doing wrong, in other words, bad things do happen to good people – the rain falls in the just and the unjust.
POINT 1
This morning I want to talk about our image of God as we consider the Book of Job. Before I do that I want to comment briefly on the character of Job and then draw your attention to an intriguing mystery right at the end of the Book.
The character of Job. In the first two chapters we see a man who lives a life of integrity and uprightness - Job is portrayed as an almost perfect person. In the middle of this portrayal of Job we do detect a certain nervousness you might say. Remember how Job would pray especially for his children after each of the feasts they held in case any of them had unwittingly offended God? It would seem that for Job, life was rather like walking a tightrope - one slip could bring about all kinds of difficulties.
At the end of the Book of Job we come across that wonderful declaration where Job says, ‘I have heard about God by the hearing of the ear but now my eye sees God’. This seems to indicate to me that something that was remote, fearful and impersonal has now become closer, more understandable and perhaps more comfortable to live with - we seem to be seeing a more relaxed Job. There has been a paradigm shift in Job’s understanding of God. He saw God differently and he saw himself differently. Now what about the intriguing mystery at the end of the book? The mystery relates to how Job’s family are described. In the first chapter it seems that Job’s sons are given prominence. We are told that they held feasts and invited each other to those feasts, as a footnote we are told that they also invited their sisters to join them. When we get to the end of the book we learn that Job has a new family - has seven sons and three daughters just as before all his troubles began.
The interesting thing about this record at the end of the story is that now, in contrast to the beginning of the book, the daughters now are given prominence.
Firstly, the daughters are named - we are told their names. At no time are the sons ever named. This is very significant especially when you think that this took place in what we would call a patriarchal age, it normal for women to drop out of sight but here they are named. Secondly, we are told that they were the most beautiful women in the whole world. Why are we told this? We are never told anything about the qualities of the sons; there is no description of the boys. Lastly, we are told another highly unusual thing; the girls are given a share of the inheritance along with the boys. What are we to make of all of this? What do you think? (Feedback) I want to make a suggestion about this near the end of the sermon - I think it is related to Job’s new understanding of God.
Now that we have dealt with the introduction to the sermon let us get on with the main points. What do we learn about God in this marvellous story? I want to suggest that four views of God are dealt with. Three of these views are telling us what God is not - we learn that God is not like that. The last view of God is only hinted - we really can only guess at it as it is seen in Job’s reaction to what he discovered.
POINT 2
The first view of God is what we might call the domesticated God or God in our own image. When we domesticate an animal, we essentially train the animal to suit our own purposes and to satisfy our own needs. It is interesting to notice how we talk about pets in human terms. I have met people who would swear that their dog smiles. We are told in ads for pet food that cats and dogs love variety in their diet. When we domesticate God, we talk about God in human terms; we make God a projection of ourselves. Gentle people have a gentle God; angry and aggressive Christians have an angry and aggressive God. Christians who hate homosexuals have a God who hates homosexuals. Of course each group can back up their view of God with suitable scriptures. Job thought that if he was a nice man then God would be nice to him - we see this in his lifestyle and certainly in his ‘covering’ prayers for his children. We see this view of God in the advice given Job by his friends - most of their advice was centred on the idea that if Job had been good (nice) then God would be good (nice) to Job. This view of God says that God behaves just like us - that God fits in with our norms and rules - we think the norms and rules come from God but in fact they are OUR rules projected onto this God made in our image. God is not like that.
POINT 3
The second view of God that surfaces in Job is God as a tyrant - a God who rules with divine mandate. This view of God sees human beings as less than worms - cosmic playthings of little value in the scheme of things. This of course is another, albeit different, projection of human notions onto a view of God. This view comes from the way many human rulers act. For much of human history kings and sovereign have claimed some kind of divine mandate. Think of the language of royalty - you have kings and subjects - the word ‘subject’ is interesting. Life and death were in the power of the king. Think of the story of Esther. She was considered very brave because she went into the presence of the king without permission - to come in unannounced was to face certain death. No one thought this was strange because kings are allowed to do that sort of thing. Kings could order the destruction of villages and people to advance some pet project. Kings were allowed to wipe whole peoples especially those who were not on their side. This is the God that the Children of Israel claimed as their God when they took over the Promised Land. They claimed that God had told them to destroy the inhabitants utterly - babies, children, women and men. One of the most powerful groups in modern Israel are the Ultra Orthodox Jews - they seem to have a similar view of God. We don’t have time to look at the passages in this book that point to God as a tyrant - Job wrestles with this in the later chapters, he feels that God is a big bully and that Job has no hope. God is not like that.
POINT 4
The third view of God is related to a perception of some of the activity of God. In this view of God we have the idea that there is some kind of cosmic struggle going on out there. A battle between good and evil, between light and darkness. The combatants in this struggle are called God and Satan. This battle is rather like a boxing match with each round being fought out - we know that God wins in the end but at times it appears that Satan is ahead on points. This view is as old as human history. As human beings pondered life and observed nature they could see a great struggle taking place. Wild animals, floods, lightning, thunder, famine, earthquake, storms. The sea was a mystery, full of monsters - if you went too far you fell off the edge. Under the ground, where earthquakes happened, there was a great struggle too, out of the ground came hot material - so below us is hell. So we have this notion of a cosmic struggle. In the story of Job there is a creature or monster called Leviathan mentioned in chapter 3:8 and then again in chapter 41. Leviathan may have been an actual animal perhaps a crocodile but this animal was usually a symbol of something far more sinister even than a crocodile. Leviathan was a mythical dragon known as the dragon of chaos. This dragon, was extremely powerful, even able to swallow up the sun. Of course, if the sun was swallowed up you were left with the ultimate horror - utter darkness - evil has won! Notice what we are told about Leviathan in chapter 41-the message is simply this - there is no contest - there is no struggle between God and this monster and all it represents. As far as God is concerned, this monster is like a pet bird, like something to amuse your servant girls. Suffering and evil it seems to me are not some kind of collateral damage in a barroom brawl between God and someone or something else. Suffering and evil just happen.
POINT 5
The final thing about God is seen in Job’s statement about the change that had taken place in his understanding. Job has heard about God and now he sees God with his eyes. Hearing and seeing are code words for understanding - to add seeing to hearing is to say I now understand far better than I did before. Job has left behind the domesticated God, the one who was like him, he has dealt with the tyrannical God and realised that to see good and evil as some kind of battle is a limited view of God. We still don’t know nor do we see the God Job sees - the mystery remains and so it should, if God could be contained in words what was contained would not be God.
CONCLUSION
All we can see of Job’s new understanding of God is hinted at in his treatment of his daughters - perhaps he saw all humans as just that - human beings - more important than some social stratification.
We can see Job’s new understanding in the way he treated his friends, these people who were close to Job yet who failed him in his time of need - we are told that he prayed for his friends.
This book ends with a huge party. All Job’s brothers, and sisters and former friends come to visit him and to feast with him in his house. Something radical yet subtle has taken place in Job’s relationships and in that we catch a glimpse of God.
Amen.
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