October 25, 2009 - Proper 25, Year B (RCL)
It’s the end
of the fairy tale.
Chapter forty-two
of the book of Job.
A fairy tale that began
back in chapter one
when we first heard of a man
called Job,
who lived in the mythical
land of Uz.
He was a lucky man, some would say,
wealthy,
well established,
with houses and farms,
servants and livestock
and a large and happy family.
And a good man, respected in the community
and a pillar
of his faith.
Until the day
when disaster struck.
Raiding tribesmen, stealing cattle and donkeys and camels,
and massacring the servants who looked after them.
Then a lightening fire
hitting the sheep.
And a tornado
swirling around the house
so that it collapsed
on his children.
And finally, when he thought
that it couldn’t get
any worse,
a skin disease,
sores erupting
from the top of his head
to the soles of his feet.
Itching and scabs,
and rejection by those
he used to call his friends.
And even his wife
abandoned him.
And Job struggled, struggled against the so-called friends
who
told him
that it was all his fault
and struggled against his wife
who just wanted the suffering over
and struggled against God
who seemed to be ignoring him.
But now we have reached the end of the story, the end of the fairy tale,
and so it has to end as all fairy tales do,
“and they lived happily
ever
after.”
And happily ever after for Job
means restoration
of all that he has lost.
Job is given
fourteen thousand sheep
to replace the seven thousand he has lost,
six thousand camels
to replace the three thousand he has lost,
a thousand yoke of oxen
to replace the five hundred yoke he has lost,
and a thousand donkeys
to replace the five hundred he has lost.
And the friends and family
who had abandoned him in his suffering
shower him
with gold rings and coins.
And then God gives him
a new family,
seven sons and three daughters,
just as he had had before,
not double this time, because we know
that children
can never be replaced.
But a new family, to bring
new joy.
It seems like the ultimate
vindication,
Job
restored
to the kind of prosperity
that he once had,
the kind of prosperity
that we all dream of.
Wealth, family,
and a long, healthy life.
God is generous.
But while the happy ending in fairy tales
seems to wipe the slate clean,
we all know
that in real life
it doesn’t matter how wonderful the restoration,
the mark of suffering
will always remain.
And because of that,
if we really believe that God has something to say through Scripture,
then rather than getting carried away
by the happy ending here in Job,
it’s worth take time
to examine this last chapter
a little more carefully.
And when we do, we discover,
that it’s not as simple as the traditional fairy tale.
Because it seems
that this change in Job’s fortunes
is not simply restoration
but something much greater.
First of all,
we have Job’s declaration to God.
‘I know that you can do all things,
and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.
“Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?” you said.
Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand,
things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.
“Hear, and I will speak;
I will question you, and you declare to me,” you said
I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear,
but now my eye sees you;
therefore I despise myself,
and repent in dust and ashes.’
Until this time of suffering
all he Job known about God
has been second hand.
He has heard about God,
heard about God
the same way that we hear about God,
from other people,
whether it’s the stories of God
that they wrote down long ago
or the ones passed on
from parent to child to grandchild.
But it’s always been
secondhand
at best,
always someone else’s
experience
of God.
And you know,
that sometimes
when you rely on other people’s ideas of God
it’s easy to get it wrong.
In Job’s case, it was probably hard for him to imagine God
outside of the small clay and bronze idols
that dominated the religious experiences of his culture.
If you were used to them,
gods that were responsible for particular families and territories,
and required constant offerings to appease them,
even if you knew that your God
was different,
it was still hard to get away from thinking
that what everyone else thinks,
that’s what God
is like.
But now
things have changed.
Because now, in the middle of all his suffering,
now Job
has met God
face to face
and that has made all the difference
in the world.
Job realizes
that he has underestimated God,
that God is no mere idol,
but the one, holy and living God,
great and glorious.
It’s as if Job
has been looking at one corner
of a photograph,
and thinking that that is all there is
to know about God,
and then suddenly, incredibly, realizes that there’s not just a whole photo, but a whole reality behind the photo.
And because Job has seen God
in all of God’s glory,
has seen what God
is really like,
Job sees himself differently.
Our translation puts it this way:
“therefore I despise myself,
and repent in dust and ashes,”
but other experts say it should be something more like this”
“therefore I know how small I am in comparison
and turn towards God
in humility.”
Job sees God and discovers himself
to be relatively insignificant,
and yet, and yet, God has taken time to argue with him,
God has paid attention
and blessed him.
But that’s not all. Because then we hear God again,
and this time
God is speaking
to Job’s so-called friends.
His friends
the ones who through the whole of this ordeal,
confident in their own righteousness - because after all, nothing bad has happened to them - confident,
they have been offering their supposed good advice, trying to convince Job
that he must have done something wrong,
that God must be punishing him for it,
that he has to repent.
But now God declares
that it is Job’s friends
who are at fault.
They are the ones who should repent,
they are the ones
who have to offer sacrifices and plead for forgiveness.
And it is Job who they are to ask
to pray for them.
Job is vindicated.
His suffering
has nothing - nothing - to do
with his sin.
It is not
his fault.
His friends
are wrong.
Job is righteous,
and God hears
his prayer.
Let me say it again.
Job’s suffering
has nothing - nothing - to do
with sin.
We live in a world
where most people still
think like Job’s friends.
They still assume
that if you suffer
you must somehow
have deserved it.
And if you succeed
you’ve somehow deserved that too.
But God is saying
that that
is not true.
There is no simple equation:
sin equals suffering,
righteousness equals prosperity.
We live in a fallen, broken world.
Bad things happen.
And the reason they happen, at least some of the time
is nothing to do with the actions of the people they happen to.
It is not necessarily
their fault.
Yes, sometimes people suffer for their own bad decisions.
And sometimes people do well because of their wisdom.
But it’s not that simple.
Suffering
is not always
a punishment
for sin.
Blessing
is not always a reward
for righteousness.
But always, always
we are called, like Job,
to have faith
in God. Because there was never a time
when Job was ignored, never a time
when God was not listening,
there is never a time
when we are ignored, never a time
when God is not listening.
And finally,
the end of the story.
Finally,
Job is restored,
and all that he once had
with him.
But it isn’t just as if the suffering had never happened,
it’s not just like waking up from a nightmare.
Because Job
has been changed.
He has met God, and discovered himself
to be perhaps less important
than he once thought.
He has met God
and been vindicated.
He has met God
and been blessed.
And now it’s time
to pass that blessing on
to others.
Job
has ten children,
seven sons
and three daughters.
And by the traditions of his society
it is his sons
who will inherit his wealth
when he dies.
But Job has discovered something
about blessing;
he has discovered something
about grace.
Grace is going beyond
what is lawful, what is fair, what is expected.
That’s what he’s experienced
in God’s blessing.
And so he decides
to do the same.
He declares
that not only his sons will inherit the gifts God has given him, as the law provided,
not only his sons, but his daughters too,
Jemimah and Keziah and Keren, given equal shares with their brothers.
They will all
be blessed.
The story of Job
is a story of great suffering
and a story of great blessing,
and above all
the story of someone
who met God
and was transformed beyond all his imagination.
And the promise of Job
is that when we least expect it,
when we wonder what’s going on,
when we wonder
where God is, when we feel like God
might have fallen off the job, maybe,
just maybe
it’s not our fault.
And maybe, just maybe, God is waiting in the wings
ready
to bless us.
Maybe not how we expect. Maybe not when we expect. Most likely not because of anything we’ve done.
But because that’s who God is, a God of blessing.
God will bless us.
And we are blessed
when we meet God -
and we meet God more often than we think, week by week in scripture and in the Eucharist.
We are blessed
when God hears our prayers -
each and every time that we pray.
And we are blessed
when we choose to bless others.
We are blessed.
© Raewynne J. Whiteley 2009