Job. Reflection 2

 

 

‘If God loves us so much, why does he allow us to suffer?’ It's the problem of suffering and it’s certainly one of the great challenges that Christians have always had to face either from the opponents of faith as well as from our own feelings of disheartenment as we, each one of us, to a varying degree must suffer the trials and tribulations of life. There appears to be no limits to the suffering we might be expected to endure. And occasionally we will hear that cliché that ‘there are worse things than dying.’ Job, as he suffered, began not only to wish that he’d never been born but began to long for death, to go down into his own grave, so to speak.

 Job cried out:

 Oh, why give light to those who are in misery, and life to those who are bitter? They long for death and it won’t come. They search for death more eagerly than for hidden treasure (4:20-21)

 As we begin to consider again the opening chapters of this wisdom story from the Old Testament, we will remember that (from the first part in this series) we left Job surveying the wreckage of his life, the deaths of his seven sons and three daughters and all his worldly wealth, his 7000 sheep, 3000 camels, 500 teams of oxen, and 500 female donkeys and nearly all his servants; everything gone; either killed, stolen or murdered.

Omitted in the first instalment of this series, was that Job seemed to have instituted his own insurance policy with God. Well, it was an insurance policy for his children really, because in the first chapter starting at verse five it reads that:  

Job’s sons would take turns preparing feasts in their homes, and they would also invite their three sisters to celebrate with them. When these celebrations ended sometimes after several days - Job would purify his children. He would get up early in the morning and offer a burnt offering for each of them. For Job said to himself, ‘Perhaps my children have sinned and have cursed God in their hearts.’ This was Job’s regular practice. (1:5)

Now we have all heard the phrase ‘burnt offerings’ and as we’ve just heard Job would offer a burnt offering to God. Now a ‘burnt offering’ is not a Sunday joint or some roast potatoes that have been left too long in the oven and then offered to you for dinner. The burnt offering is of course a kind of sacrifice to God. The first mention of a burnt offering in the Bible is found in Genesis 8:20 and this burnt offering was a thanks giving to God from Noah after the Flood had receded and his family were once again able to resume their lives on dry ground:

Then Noah built an altar to the LORD, and there he sacrificed as burnt offerings the animals and birds that had been approved for that purpose. And the LORD was pleased with the aroma of the sacrifice and said to himself, ‘I will never again curse the ground because of the human race, even though everything they think or imagine is bent toward evil from childhood.’

Now, in the story of Job we are told of the feasts held at the houses of his sons. And these feasts were not just simply occasions for a casual barbeque or an evening meal, but rather, much more than that, they were lavish affairs of eating and drinking stretching out over several days. We can assume that Job wasn’t present at these extended parties and it would be hard to imagine that they were events that Job would have entirely approved of. Rather such occasions for Job come across as being problematic to say the least. Job as we have already seen was a highly respected man, a man who had found favour with both God and man. We have these words from God himself saying:

Have you noticed my servant Job? He is the finest man in all the earth. He is blameless – a man of complete integrity. He fears God and stays away from evil (1:8)

Yes, ‘Job fears God and stays away from evil’. Here we come to the nub of the problem, let’s look at that statement again, ‘Job fear’s God and stays away from evil’. The story of Job is supposed to be a wisdom story. How do we square the problem of evil and suffering in a world created by a loving God? How do we do it? We all want to be in control of our own lives, because at the very least we would wish each one of us to be secure or at least to be prepared for some sudden misfortune or a foreseeable eventuality. But as Job found out, and as experience shows us, forces outside of our control often impact on our lives and our plans. As Robert Burns famously wrote:

But Mouse, you are not alone,

In proving foresight may be vain:
The best-laid schemes of mice and men
Go oft awry,
And leave us nothing but grief and pain,
For promised joy!

And so, we have it from the pen of Scotland’s greatest poet, the best-laid schemes of mice and men often go wrong. Let’s hear these words of grace from God as he speaks of Job:

He is the finest man in all the earth. He is blameless – a man of complete integrity. He fears God and stays away from evil (1:8)

How hard it must have been for Job to live up to such standards of holiness as he faced the unholy problems of day-to-day life, like:

‘Hi dad, just to let you know I’m having another feast at my place’

‘Right son, are you celebrating anything in particular?’

‘No, not really Dad, it’s just that it’s been a few weeks since we had a get together, plenty of good food and plenty of booze; you can come if you like’.

‘Erm, well, no thanks son, I’d rather not, it’d be a bit much for me and your mum, but you go ahead and enjoy yourselves.

Here we go again, Job’s sons and daughters, getting ready for another round of good old-fashioned debauchery. The old fellow doesn’t know exactly what they are all getting up to at these parties but I should imagine that he’s got a good idea. Then in the Bible we have Job saying:

Perhaps my children have sinned and have cursed God in their hearts. (1:5)

Do us a favour Job, if you’re having to get up early in the morning after your adult children have indulged in one of these week-long pleasure-seeking parties, to offer a burnt sacrifice to the Lord as an atonement for each of them for their probable sins, like it’s some kind of pay off to the Lord, some a sort of holy insurance policy - I would rather get the impression that perhaps Job, you are trying too hard. Trying so hard that you are even trying to take responsibility for the possibility that your grown-up children are not right with God.

It all sounds a bit manic to me because it just can’t be done, we can only live the one life, actually our own life, we can’t live another person’s life even to help them, and once our children have grown up, they have to be free to live their own lives and free to make their own mistakes if that’s what they want to do. I’m not saying that Job shouldn’t have prayed for his children, of course he should, but it’s clear from the text Job was going further than that. If we look at the text again, it says:

Job would purify his children and offer a burnt offering for each of them.

But suppose that this ritual of Job is just that: a ritual. Suppose that once he’s done that, he thinks he can tick that job off his ‘to do list’ until his sons decide to have another party where again they may potentially sin, then old Job will have to have another early start so that he can put things right with God on their behalf. The question is, can anyone really buy their children that kind of indulgence from God? What kind of God do we think we are dealing with anyway? We should bear in mind the words of Thomas Merton who once said that:

What is serious to men is often very trivial in the sight of God

And Job certainly had no insight into the mystery of God. That’s the whole point of the story. We might remember that scene in the heavenly court, God asking Satan where he had come from and Satan’s answer that he, Satan, had been wandering round the earth watching everything that had been going on. Now in the story as we have it, we can read that it wasn’t Satan that brought up the question of Job, it was God. It was God that exposed Job to Satan’s attention in the first place and it was God who gave Satan permission to test Job and to make him suffer. And It’s only natural that we ourselves should seek to understand, to explain and interpret this story for ourselves.

In the Book of Proverbs, we are told that, ‘Pride comes before a fall.’ Could it be that in spite of Job’s protestations of innocence that it was true, as Satan implied, that Job really was taking God for granted? Or could it be that Job was trying too hard to be a favourite of God and as such was, he beginning to display some kind of inverted pride, a sort of spiritual pride hidden behind a mask of piety or humility? Or is the point of the story simply that we should take the Book of Job at its word, that God really meant it when he said that Job was a ‘blameless man, a man of complete integrity, a man who feared God and stayed away from evil’ and that we should just accept that God has his own reasons for all that he does and it simply is that we are not privy to the deliberations of his wisdom, his judgements and his plans. And that ultimately, we are led to conclude that we must live by faith, to trust in the Lord our God, and not to lean on our own understanding, but in all our ways to acknowledge him and know that he will direct our paths.

 

 

Job. Reflection 1

I gave a friend a copy of the Bible, the NLT, the New Living Translation version. The week after that he told me that he was reading the Book of Job, which is one of the wisdom books of the Old Testament. A wisdom book it is indeed. Later the following week, I was asked to sum up the theme of a planned sermon in one sentence. In answered that quetion in one word: Theodicy. But then the questioner went  on to ask, ‘Theodicy, what does that mean?’. Theodicy means (two words) God and Justice; it's the attempt of an explanation of why a perfectly good, almighty, and all-knowing God permits evil. In other words: ‘If God loves us so much why does he allow us to suffer?’ Thus, we come to the story of Job. If we look at the first two verses of the first chapter of the Book of Job, we will read:

There was once a man who lived in the land of Uz. He was blameless - a man of complete integrity. He feared God and stayed away from evil. He had seven sons and three daughters. He owned 7,000 sheep, 300 camels, 500 teams of oxen and 500 female donkeys. He was, in fact, the richest man in the entire area. (1:1-2:

This is the story of Job, a man living the good life.  As most of us know, the story of Job is the story of a man who lived a blameless life and had certainly found favour with God when for no reason apparent to himself, he suddenly suffered a series of terrible misfortunes on quite a shocking scale: In the depths of his misery Job would look back and say:

Those were the day when I went to the city gate and took my place amongst the honoured leaders. The young stepped aside when they saw me, and even the aged rose in respect. All who heard me praised me.  All who saw me spoke well of me. (29:7-11)

 But now I am mocked by people younger than I, by young men whose fathers are not worthy to run with my sheepdogs. (30:1)

Let’s look at the text again from 1:13-22

 

Job 1:13-22                                                                             New Living Translation

One day when Job’s sons and daughters were feasting at the oldest brother’s house, a messenger arrived at Job’s home with this news: “Your oxen were ploughing, with the donkeys feeding beside them, when the Sabaeans raided us. They stole all the animals and killed all the farmhands. I am the only one who escaped to tell you.”

While he was still speaking, another messenger arrived with this news: “The fire of God has fallen from heaven and burned up your sheep and all the shepherds. I am the only one who escaped to tell you.”

While he was still speaking, a third messenger arrived with this news: “Three bands of Chaldean raiders have stolen your camels and killed your servants. I am the only one who escaped to tell you.”

While he was still speaking, another messenger arrived with this news: “Your sons and daughters were feasting in their oldest brother’s home. Suddenly, a powerful wind swept in from the wilderness and hit the house on all sides. The house collapsed, and all your children are dead. I am the only one who escaped to tell you.”

Job stood up and tore his robe in grief. Then he shaved his head and fell to the ground to worship. He said,

“I came naked from my mother’s womb,
    and I will be naked when I leave.
The Lord gave me what I had,
    and the Lord has taken it away.
Praise the name of the Lord!”

In all of this, Job did not sin by blaming God

So, here we come almost to the beginning of the story, it’s a story that in all its tragic circumstances as in the past and in our present time, raises the question of suffering in the world, in a world that is supposedly unfolding as it should in accordance with God’s divine plan. But why, if God loves us, we ask, do such awful things happen, what is the point of all this suffering? There are forty-two chapters in the Book of Joel, beautifully written and the Book of Joel is probably one of, if not the most poetic books of the Bible, it’s a book that can be dated to around 500 BC but its original form of the story is reckoned to be much older. The Biblical story of Job that we have, does not specifically answer our question of suffering in the world, but in the initial throes of loss and bereavement Job offers a faithful, stoical perspective:

I came naked from my mother’s womb, and I will be naked when I leave. The Lord gave me what I had and the Lord has taken it away. Praise the name of the Lord. (1:21).

We, the readers of this story are in a privileged position, we can be likened to an audience watching a Shakespearean play in that we are privy to the machinations, and the asides of the actors as the story unfolds, but this story is multi-dimensional it plays out both in the heavenly realm as well as on earth and ultimately it plays out in heaven and earth coming together through God’s discourse with Job. Our privilege is that we are presented with an early opening scene with words from the text that are so sparse that they seem descriptively, hardly adequate until the imagination takes flight: The text is at 1:6-7 it reads:

One day the members of the heavenly court came to present themselves before the Lord and the Accuser Satan, came with them. Where have you come from? the Lord asked Satan. Satan answered the Lord, ‘I have been patrolling the earth, watching everything that has been going on.’ (1:6-7)

If we were to turn to the King James Version of the Bible the translation reads:

And the Lord said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.

Let’s imagine we are sitting here, watching from the comfort of our Shakespearean theatre seats, watching a play, watching a cosmic drama unfold. And from our seats we can see the lit stage presenting to us the drama of the heavenly court. We know that the heavenly court is really situated in a timeless eternity but to help us to grasp the story we are given the mundane expression: ‘One day.’

One day the members of the heavenly court came to present themselves before the Lord and the Accuser Satan came with them. (1:6)

In the theatre of our minds, we can see the Lord our God sat on his throne surrounded by the heavenly host, cherubim and seraphim, angels and archangels. And, there’s God, centre stage, it’s not been a bad day so far, but today is a court day, perhaps it’s like being a Prime Minister at Prime Minister’s question time - and in the heavenly parliament we know who the dark leader of the opposition is! But maybe for God it’s more like being a Judge in the days when the subjects brought matters of justice before the king and sought his adjudication. We may remember the case of the two women contending for the maternal custody of a child at the court of King Solomon and his ensuing judgement and we may correctly suppose then, that some cases are easier to handle than others.

But this is not an earthly court, it’s the heavenly court and there assembled amongst the crowd, the opposition benches, you could say is the Accuser himself, Satan. We all know this fellow, and he never has anything nice to say about anyone. We all know his brooding personality, he’s never happy unless he’s finding fault, Mr Negative who will be your best friend if only you will go along with him and do as he says. Again, the text at verse seven says it all, ‘Where have you come from?’ the Lord asked Satan. As we sit and watch this scene, we see God looking straight at Satan who is seated amongst the crowd, God saying in a bored and perhaps irritated way, ‘Where have you come from?’ Everything was going well, but now we have Satan’s evil, depressing, presence in the court but the Lord as they say is omniscient, He absolutely knows everything, and He is wise. He knows the script and knows that justice has not only got to be done but it has to be seen to be done. Satan answered the Lord. ‘I have been patrolling the earth watching everything that is going on.’ Satan has been watching everything, and remember in this story he is Satan the Accuser, and nothing is ever right for him. What perverse and wicked delight he has in seemingly being able to force the creator God, the Lord our God, to look at the imperfections, the folly and the sins of humanity, knowing that all of humanity is the very thing that God loves most. But there is Job, of course, of whom God says, ‘He is the finest man in all the earth. He is blameless – a man of complete integrity. He fears God and stays away from evil.’ But as we will see, Satan the Accuser is not satisfied and thus begin the trials and sufferings of Job. I will close with these words from Proverbs, another wisdom book of the Old Testament; they are definitely words to hold on to as we will continue to ponder the story of Job and the problem of suffering even in our own lives. Now hear these words of comfort.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. (3.5)

Photo:  https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:William_Blake_-_Satan_Before_the_Throne_of_God.jpg

 

A Message from the Early Church: Why Have You Let Satan Fill Your Heart?

 

 

The story of Ananias and Saphira as told in the fifth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles is for me, a surprising story indeed in some ways I think it is a very odd story; even more, that that particular story should be accorded such significance within the history of the early church. To sum it up briefly, a married couple, Ananias and Sapphira, members of the church in Jerusalem, sell some property and then, Ananias presents the proceeds of the sale from this property to the apostles, as we understand it, declaring it to be the full amount of the money they received from the sale. The leader of the Apostles, Peter, somehow knows that this is a deception and informs Ananias that in attempting to deceive the Apostles, that in fact, Ananias wasn’t deceiving them, but rather, deceiving God.

 

In the face of this exposure, Ananias dropped dead. Some young men then came in, wrapped his body in a sheet, carried him out and buried him. Three hours later Ananias' wife, Sapphira, appeared before Peter and she too, when questioned by Peter stated that the money presented to the apostles was indeed the full amount received from the sale of the property. When Peter revealed that he knew she was lying and that she had sinned by lying to the Holy Spirit, and that her husband, Ananias had paid with his life for that deception and that she would also die, it came to pass, that she dropped dead and as Peter predicted the young men came in and carried her dead body out also. Then we are told that after that: ‘Great fear gripped the entire church and everyone else who heard what had happened.’

 

This story of Ananias and Sapphira is told in eleven short verses and that is all we have. The writer of this story, Luke, is the same Luke who wrote the story of Jesus’ Parable of the Prodigal Son. When the Prodigal Son returns to his father’s house he says: (15:21) ‘Father I have sinned against both heaven and you, and I am no longer worthy of being called your son.’ And we know that the Prodigal Son was forgiven, we know too, that right at the heart of the Christian faith is that as we pray to be forgiven our trespasses it is really on condition that we must also forgive those that trespass against us.

 

In the Gospel of Matthew (18:15-17) we are given a model for resolving offences or dealing with sin within the Church, Jesus said: “If another believer sins against you, go privately and point out the offence. If the other person listens and confesses it, you have won that person back. But if you are unsuccessful, take one or two others with you and go back again, so that everything you say may be confirmed by two or three witnesses. If the person still refuses to listen, take your case to the church. Then if he or she won’t accept the church’s decision, treat that person as a pagan or a corrupt tax collector.

 

The fact is that we are not given any run-up to the story of Ananias and Sapphira, and there's no indication that they were given the opportunity to make amends or to confess. And let us not forget also, that it was the same Peter, the Peter at the centre of this story who once asked: ‘Lord how often should I forgive someone who sins against me? Seven times? ‘No not seven times,’ Jesus replied, ‘but seventy times seven!

 

But in spite of all this Christian commitment to forgiveness, we have this brutal story of a couple dropping dead, that leaves the entire church in the grip of fear. Surely the Church is to be built on love and not on fear, for example in the First Letter of John, John writes, ‘perfect love casts out fear’. (4:18) I’ve done quite a bit of thinking about this story of Ananias and Sapphira and I’ve tried to put it into some context. We could say that Peter was acting in a sadistically judgemental way or alternatively we could say that he was merely observing a process which was taking place before his eyes.

 

After all, Peter said that there was no compunction on either Ananias or Sapphira to sell their property and even after they had received the cash they could have donated as little or as much as they wanted. Nobody was asking or forcing them to give. Peter’s key question to Ananias was, ‘why have you let Satan fill your heart? Fundamentally, we are left with the nub of the problem. We are faced with the age-old problem of sin. Ananias and Sapphira desired the approval and the accolade of the Church for what they were hoping would be seen as their unbridled generosity and their commitment to the spiritual life. They sought to buy status for themselves both in the secular world and in the Church but as Jesus said in the Gospel of Luke (16:13) ‘No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and be enslaved to money.’ 

 

This is really what Jesus' overturning of the money changers tables in the Temple was really all about; corruption. How Satan gets into the minds and hearts of individuals and thus into the Church. Great vigilance is required, ‘Why have you let Satan fill your heart? Said Peter. Satanic inducements often seem to offer a convenient and comfortable, even compassionate and spiritual solution. We should not forget the truth of that saying that, 'The road to hell is paved with good intentions'. But in the book of the Prophet Jeremiah, we are reminded that, ‘The human heart is the most deceitful of all things.’ We can deceive ourselves but invariably there will come a reckoning.

 

None of us are without some regrets or things in the past that we are ashamed of. To be publicly shamed can lead to death. In researching this sermon, I heard of a bishop who had been having an affair. When his wife discovered this and confronted him, he had a heart attack and died. Such emotional stress is known as stress cardiomyopathy, it can be fatal and it most certainly killed Ananias and Sapphira.

 

Again, Peter pointed out to Ananias that he and his wife were under no obligation to do what they did. We on the other hand are obliged to conclude that they both wanted to be ‘someone’ but as we have also seen today (Reading from: Light Upon Light by Andrew Harvey: No ‘Above’ or ‘Below’ page 226) the really holy ones just want to glorify God to let their light shine and wherever they are placed in the scheme of life they do not look to be revered by others. Ananias and Sapphira didn't need to seek to become 'somebody', because, like you and me, they already were somebody. How to live? Be humble, be yourself and in the words of Jesus: ' Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.'

 

Photograph 
Attribution: Classical Numismatic Group, Inc. http://www.cngcoins.com