Office Hours
8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday-Friday
Phone: (608) 838-3586
Fax: (608) 838-6685
E-mail: secretary@hope-in-action.org
to have your information updated or added!

FIFTH SUNDAY IN LENT

Good For Nothing?

Job

Today is the last sermon in the series, “Developing a heart for God.”  Let’s turn to the book of Job:

            There was once 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.

            Any of you know where Uz is?  That’s OK.  Nobody else does either.  But that’s still important because, even if we don’t know where it is, we know where it’s not.  We know that it is not Israel .  This story does not take place in the story of Israel and so it does not take place within Israel ’s relationship to God.  It applies to all of us.  It is a universal story and, in that way, is unique in the Bible.

            What do we know about Job?  Job was rich and he was righteous.  He had seven sons and three daughters.  He had more sheep and camels and oxen and donkeys than you could shake a stick at.  He was the most influential man in his part of the world.

Job was so righteous that he made sacrifices for each one of his children, so that if they even unknowingly did something sinful at one of their parties, God would not punish them.

            The scene is set for the story of Job.  But it is not the only scene.  The other scene where action takes place is in heaven.  The angels are reporting to God.  The one called Satan is the local district attorney. 

            God says to Satan, “What have you been up to?”

            “Oh, you know, the usual.  Going about here and there on the earth, sniffing out wrong doing,” Satan says.

            “Well, then,” God says, “Have you noticed my servant Job?  He never does anything wrong.  He is always doing right and he is totally devoted to me!”

            “Of course, he is,” says Satan.  “You treat him so well!  Better than anyone else on earth, I expect.  I’ll bet if you took all that from him, he’d turn on the spot and curse you to your face!”

            “OK,” says God, “it’s a bet.  You can take everything he has, but don’t touch him.”

            Not long after, the oxen and the donkeys and the sheep and the camels are all set upon by thieves, who take everything Job has and leave the servants for dead.  At the same time, all of Job’s children are having one of their parties at the home of the oldest son.  A tornado sweeps in off the desert and strikes the house.  It collapses killing all ten children.

            When this is all reported to Job, he grieves, but he also worships.  He falls to the ground and says, “Naked I came into this world and naked I shall depart.  The Lord gives and the Lord takes away.  Blessed be the name of the Lord!”

            And, in all this, Job did not sin.

            The story could end there, but it does not.  God brags again to Satan about his servant, Job.  “You really did a number on him, but he is still faithful to me.”

            “Sure,” Satan replies.  “But I’ll bet if you took away his health, he’d turn on you and curse you to your face.”

            “OK,” God says, “it’s a bet.  Only don’t take away his life.”

            So, Satan strikes Job with terrible sores.  He is covered with ulcers and scabs from head to foot.  He sits in a trash heap, scraping his skin with a piece of broken pottery.

            His wife says, “Still holding on to your precious faith?  Curse God and die!”  But she really isn’t saying anything that hasn’t occurred to him.  And she has lost nearly as much as he has.  In fact, once he dies, she will have nothing.

            And Job replied, “Will we take good from God and not bad?”  And he still said nothing against God (although who knows what he was really thinking!)

            Now, let me pause here and let me say that there are two things going on:

            From an earthly perspective, the question posed in the story of Job is the problem of suffering.  How can a good and powerful God allow suffering?  This question is as old as faith.  And it is as relevant today as this morning’s newspaper.  Or maybe you don’t even need to read the newspaper.  You only have to look at your own life.  If God is so great and so good, why am I suffering?  But this is not the only question of the story of Job.

            From a heavenly perspective, the question is, “Does Job fear God for nothing?“ (1:9)  Are human beings self-serving or are they capable of self-giving?  Satan’s charge is that Job, like all human beings, is only acting in his own self-interest.  That is why he is so faithful.  Humans will believe in God as long as it benefits them.  They will pray and make sacrificial offerings and read the Bible and be good to others, as long as there is some payoff for them.  This is Satan’s position.  But it is not God’s.  God believes that humans are capable of self-giving.  That is really what their wager is about.

            Now the scene changes.  Three of Job’s friends hear of his troubles and come to visit him – Eliphaz from Teman, Bildad from Shuhah, and Zophar from Naamath.  When they see him, they are shocked.  They can’t believe their eyes.  The richest and best and most powerful man they know has been reduced to sitting in the ashes of the garbage heap.  They cry out.  They grieve.  And they sit in the ash heap with Job.  They sit with Job in silence for seven days.

            Regardless of what Job’s friends will say when they eventually open their mouths, this to me is one of the most astounding things about this book.  They sit in the presence of grief with their friend for seven days, without offering advice, without trying to make it better, without running off and hiding.  Seven days in silence.

            It is Job who finally breaks the silence.  Job does not curse God, but he does the next best thing – he curses the day he was born.  And, in the chapters that follow, Job pours out a level of bitterness, confusion, sorrow and anger towards God that is staggering.  It’s amazing that it’s in the Bible.  “The day God created me was a black day.  I wish I had never been born.”

            His friends beg to differ.  They each make their own speech, but they essentially say the same thing – Job, we love you, but you need to look in the mirror.  God does not punish innocent people.  You must have done something to deserve this.  Your children died.  They must have had it coming.

            Job’s friends are not being cruel.  They are articulating the philosophy that was prevalent at the time – the doctrine of retribution.  Goodness brings prosperity and blessing; wickedness brings suffering.  God (or the gods) treats people they way they deserve.  If you treat others badly, you will be badly treated.  Anything else and the world wouldn’t make sense.

This is what they believed at the time and it’s what we believe most of the time.  We believe it because it sounds so close to the truth.  God loves to bless obedience.  God does bring discipline sometimes.  We often bring suffering on ourselves.  And Job’s friends keep pounding on this.  You must have done something to deserve this, they tell him.

Job doesn’t say, “I am without sin.”  What he says is that before his life was blessed, and now it’s a nightmare, and there is no corresponding catastrophic sin to account for the catastrophe that his life has become.  Something else must answer – someone else must answer for this.  And that someone must be God.

Job finally places it at God’s feet.  “I wish I could take God to court,” he says.  “If only God would show up, we could fight – man-to-man.”

In chapter 38, Job gets his wish.  God comes down from heaven and says, “I will question you and you shall declare to me.”

God doesn’t answer Job’s question.  There is no easy answer to the question of suffering.  God could have said, “Well, Job, Satan and I were sitting around in heaven one day, and we made this little bet.  That’s all this is about!”  But God doesn’t say this.

God does not simply say, “I’m bigger and older and smarter than you are.  So, just shut up about it!”  God is pointing out that Job has a finite mind and a limited point of view.  But there is something more.

Old Testament scholar Ellen Davis points this out.  God’s questions indicate what kind of God he is – that is, God is an unbelievably generous God.  God gives and gives and gives for no apparent reason other than that God loves to give.

God brings rain to the wilderness, where no one lives, just to grow the grass.  God gives birth to wild donkeys that will never be ridden and wild oxen that will never pull a plow.  God has created the Behemoth.  The Behemoth was likely the hippopotamus.  It was considered one of the animals that had to be gotten rid of if a certain area was to be inhabitable by humans.

But what does God say about the Behemoth?  “It is the first of the great acts of God.”  Best thing I ever did, God says.

Why?  God delights in his creation.  God delights in creatures, even those who are of no apparent use at all.  No quid pro quo about it.  God doesn’t get anything for it.

            After hearing directly from God, Job says, “I had heard of you, but now I have seen with my own eyes.  I am a changed man.  I will never question you again.”

Then two things happen: Job’s friends are humiliated.  God tells Job’s friends off.  “You thought you spoke for me, but you don’t.   You don’t understand me at all.  You’re giving me a bad name.   I ought to punish you, but if your friend, Job, will intercede for you, I may change my mind.’  And that’s what Job does.

            Second, Job is restored.  In fact, he has more now than he had before and he got seven more sons and three more daughters.  But life does not simply return to the way it was for Job.

            Job names his daughters.  The names of his daughters are mentioned, but not his sons.  This would jump right out to any ancient reader.  And these are strange names.  Names usually express character or virtue or theological truth.  These three names are all about the beauty of creation.  Jemimah was a dove that was prized for its beauty.  Keziah was cinnamon, a rare spice.  Kerenhappuch is “horn of eye shadow” – make-up.  It’s all about beauty!

            Secondly, Job gives them an inheritance.  This is completely unheard of, especially for a man with seven sons.  There might not be enough left over.  Sons would take care of you in your old age; daughters would not.  But Job cuts his daughters in on the deal. 

Why is Job doing this?  Job is becoming more like God.  He is giving for no reason.  He is giving life to and delighting in the least strategic creatures.  Job is gratuitously good and uncontrollably generous and irrationally loving.  He gives for no reason at all.

            He does it because this is the way God is.  And God is extravagantly giving even to the giving of his own Son.