Two of our texts present the preacher with
an opportunity to engage in a preaching series – not a topical series, but a
series on a biblical book. I love this
(as topical series, for me, wind up forced, and more about some stuff I want to
say than what God might be saying to us – although I’m sure others do this very
faithfully). I’ve done series on a
Gospel, starting at Advent and running through Easter, and on Acts, Psalms,
Philippians and some others. It gives
people a chance to work through a book themselves (hopefully reading during the
week, laboring over the book in classes, etc.) – and reminds our people there
are actually books, longer contexts, a beautiful and deep sea of material,
instead of the shallow dives we take week to week. I’ll take up Hebrews first,
but then my personal preference, Job, second.
Hebrews runs through seven Sundays in the
RCL! Hebrews is a tough book – unless
you’re like the early Christians, who seemed to groove effortlessly with
Melchizedek! I adore Luke Timothy
Johnson’s commentary above all others I’ve read. He says “Hebrews proposes as
real a world that most of us consider imaginary.” Who wrote it? Johnson avers
“It was the sheer usefulness, the sheer truthfulness of Hebrews that ensured it
place in the canon, despite lingering and never-resolved doubts about its
authorship.” Noting its refined Greek, and that it was written to be read
aloud, in toto, in one sitting, he
reminds us that as Scripture, Hebrews isn’t an ancient text “that throws light
on the present, but the voice of the living God.”
How God speaks is clarified wonderfully in
this Sunday’s text (1:1-4, 2:5-12). After speaking in many ways, “in these
final days, God has spoken to us in a son.”
Boom. The Gospel.
Scripture as God’s Word is a bunch of words
of immense value; but the real speech is the Son, Jesus. Hebrews could not have
a higher view of Jesus – reminding us of George Lindbeck’s “rules” regarding how we do
Christology. Scripture, theology and the
church delineate that we say maximally amazing things about Jesus – and
Hebrews, not after centuries of theologizing, but within a couple of decades of
his execution, ascribes to Jesus the creation and shaping of the world. This is
God. He is the imprint, the radiance of
God’s glory, bearing all things.
The sermon can just bask in the wonder
that is God in Jesus. There’s no
take-away, except perhaps amazement and awe.
We extol God in Jesus, as Hebrews does, and the sermon has achieved more
than a thousand with little trite to-do lists. This God above all gods, the one
language fails to depict except with embarrassed but amazed fumbling, makes us
holy but calls us brothers and sisters.
Wow.
I so wish more sermons would
dare to do this (as I argue constantly in The
Beauty of the Word). I call it Transfiguration Preaching. When Jesus shimmered and glowed, the
disciples didn’t start a mission program or decide to go on a diet. No, “they fell on their faces in awe”
(Matthew 17:6). Many think the first readers of Hebrews were second generation
Christians who were exhausted. We preach to exhausted people. What they need
isn’t more stuff to do – but to be caught up in something way larger than
themselves, to be lost in wonder, love and praise.
Back to the OT: Job offers us four Sundays
for a potential series – and given people’s constant questioning about the
problem of evil, the sufferings of today’s world, and the bogus views of God Christians
carry in their souls that are exposed and overturned in the book, Job is well
worth preaching through. The lectionary
choices are curious, skipping most of the momentous chapter 1, and skipping
entirely Job’s conversations with his “friends” (maybe the most important
portion of the book). I’m going to
adjust, preaching on Job 1-2, then 3-14 or 15 which probes the lousy theology
of the friends who aren’t friends after all, and then poke around in God’s
whirlwind speech in 38-41.
Job works for World Communion, as the book
is ultimately about relationships and God (see next week’s blog!), problems of
evil in the world – plus Job is a foreigner, and the story takes place outside
the Promised Land, and treats universal problems.
For this week’s reading (and including all
of chapter 1, without which chapter 2 makes zero sense…), here are some
thoughts from a commentary I am writing just now on Job.
The opening phrase of the book, “There
once was a man,” tips us off that we have come upon a folktale. This fable-like
story takes place in a strange place, the land of Uz, which isn’t in Israel or
anywhere else we can pinpoint on a map. Vaguely to the east, Uz is a foreign
place, and Job is a foreigner too, not an Israelite at all.
More importantly, the theology of this
opening scene in chapters 1-2 is entirely foreign – and the preacher can and
must explain why. The God portrayed here is not the God we believe in, not the
God revealed in the rest of Scripture, not the God whom Jesus intimately called
Abba. This folktale’s god is moody, capricious, with henchmen prowling around,
a bit of a gambler, thrown off balance by a snarky remark from an angelic
being, a god who rolls the dice. Chapters 1-2 give us a caricature of God, a
straw man that will be exposed and torn down by the rest of the book. We
needn’t be flummoxed and ask why the God of grace and goodness would behave so
sophomorically. The point of the book is to correct such a flawed notion about
God.
Job’s god is a braggart. The Job character
in this folktale is as good as humanity can get. He is good, holy, and pure.
Job “fears” God – not meaning he’s scared, but that he is reverent, devoted, in
awe of and entirely latched onto God. Of course, the small-minded god of
chapters 1-2 is flattered by such obsequious devotion, and boasts – but to
whom? God here has a heavenly host attending in heaven, a divine entourage, a
squadron of advisers and assistants. And at least one of them is nosy:
Herodotus tells us about “the eyes and ears of the king” of ancient Persia,
secret police ready to tattle on anything they might find. One of this god’s
entourage is called “the satan.” Many translations use the name Satan, but the
Hebrew has “the,” and it’s not the devil, God’s evil and implacable foe we know
from later centuries. The word satan means something like prosecuting attorney,
adversary or intelligence agent. His mission is to find fault.
Knowing the satan has just returned from
some surveillance, this god preens a bit and asks if he’s noticed Job, his most
spectacular specimen. The satan’s cynical reply? “Does Job revere God for
nothing?” – which is a pivotal question the book asks all of us. Do we serve
God for what we get out of it, whether it’s health or success now or eternal
life later? Do we love and adhere to God even if the hoped-for benefits seem
lacking, or if we’re taking it on the chin all the time?
Job, after all (as the satan points out),
could be the poster boy for a “prosperity Gospel” message. He seems “blessed”
(which we’ll see isn’t the right word at all) with dizzying wealth and a
giddily happy, healthy family. The satan accuses this god of doing all of this
for him as a reward – or as a motivator! Of course, the book will eventually
show what we should know: the true and holy God doesn’t lavish favors on some
and not others, and certainly not as a reward for righteousness.
The satan proposes a wager, a game of
sorts: take it all away, and see how devoted Job will be. God agrees to this
vicious gambit. This is not prevenient grace, but prevenient caprice,
prevenient fickleness; such a god is devoid of love. And so the Lord tells the
satan (whom the fairy tale writer assumes has unlimited power!) to do with him
as he wishes – with the lone proviso that he not harm Job himself. Leslie
Weatherhead, in his classic Will of God
book, ventured the idea of God’s “permissive will.” But if Job could lose
everything, and learn this god only permitted it but didn’t do it – would he
find solace in such a thought?
The dramatic skill of this folktale author
is impressive. Instead of narrating the onslaughts live, the storyteller plops
us down next to Job as wave after wave of terrible news rolls in. Each
messenger is breathless. One hasn’t finished his bad news when the next rushes
in and blurts out even worse news. They barely survived themselves, so swift
and violent was the terror. How many great stories in history and literature
repeat this theme? In Moby Dick, all
on the Pequod was lost, only Ishmael survived. John Wesley, the proverbial
“fire plucked from the burning,” barely survived that rectory fire at Epworth.
Of course, the greatest horror, the
grotesque climax to the satan’s ruthless attack, is the slaughter of Job’s ten
children. Unspeakable. To lose a child is the most numbing sorrow. But ten?
Again, it’s a folktale, so we expect that story to be of grandiose proportion.
The richest, best man ever loses the most ever. Worst of all, the folktale
pictures a sham of a god who could, after the pointless murder of a holy man’s
ten children, beam with pride over his unfaltering piety.
Job’s pious oath, his persistence in
devotion to this awful god, rings hollow, and is a comic-book perversion of
what prayer and a real relationship with God are about. Fortunately, chapters
3-41 were added by the far wiser poet, or Job would be a cardboard spirituality
of absurd denial, so much garbage. Job’s words, reminiscent of “You can’t take
it with you,” are true, and yet ridiculous, and utterly inhuman. Yes, Job’s
alleged patience and forbearance have been held up as the ideal of piety, the
gold standard of faith. But as we will see, the larger book of Job has a far
better and profounder idea.
And the bell rings for round two. The
folktale resumes in heaven. The satan has again been out on patrol. God, with no
trace of grief or compassion, brags even more cockily about Job. Again, this is
not the God Jesus tenderly called Abba. Refusing to concede, the satan points
out that perhaps Job’s piety is only skin deep. Go at his skin, afflict his
body, the satan suggests. The logic seems to be Job doesn’t mind losing his
vast possessions, or even his children; but the health and comfort of his own
body? This he will cling to, or abandon his faith. What a low opinion of Job
this satan has! Even the most pedestrian parent would prefer to suffer in place
of their children. And think of the martyrs, and Jesus himself, who bore
physical harm willingly, even eagerly.
And so the macabre test intensifies. Job
is struck with “severe sores.” And it’s not just his back or legs, but the
burning is all over, “from the sole of his foot to the top of his head.” He
couldn’t sit, or stand, or get any slight moment of relief. Entirely pathetic,
and barely alive, Job is reduced to scraping himself with a potsherd – to
relieve itching? to release pus? or lacerating himself in a ritual of grief?
The cameo appearance of Job’s wife is
puzzling. She’s like a Rorschach test: is she overwhelmed by sorrow, sharing in
her beloved’s agony? Or is she a nag, blaming the victim, sure that her husband
who was to protect her and her children has violated the order of the universe
somehow? Does she want him to curse God and die to escape his and her misery?
Why was she spared when everyone else was
killed? St. John Chrysostom suggested that she was yet one additional curse,
one more burden for Job to bear! St. Augustine called her the devil’s
assistant. And in the Qur’an, she was in cahoots with the devil, who promised
to restore all she had lost if she would only worship him. Job’s wife, never
mentioned again in the book, is forced to share in suffering Job didn’t
deserve, but neither did she. Collateral damage: we fixate on the suffering
victim, but then there are other victims, as the agony ripples out to the web
of family, community, and world.
Still he persisted. With a superhuman, or
utterly unhuman dint of will, Job refuses to curse God. The folktale does shift
an inch though, adding that he didn’t curse God “with his lips,” making you
scratch your head and wonder if some cursing was welling up in his heart. Jesus
would be fascinated by inner, attitudinal sin, diagnosing anger as a kind of
psychic murder, and lust as intangible but very real adultery, dreaming of
liberating us from what ails us not just in word and deed but also thought. Was
the editor of the larger book of Job preparing us for Job’s cursing to come? Or
was he meeting a sufficient standard simply by keeping his mouth shut?
The whole premise of chapters 1-2 is the
mistaken belief Job, his wife, and a great many Christians today share: that
God is the great inflicter, the heavenly smiter. As we’ve seen, it’s too flimsy
a defense of God to pigeonhole suffering as something God even permits – as if
we could peer into heaven and learn that God didn’t do it, God just allowed it,
and we’d find solace? We lunge toward half-truths and bogus lies, like Everything happens for a reason, or God doesn’t give us more than we can bear.
Have you read Kate Bowler’s book, Everything Happens for a Reason - and Other Lies I've Loved?
For now, two aspects to that grappling
emerge. After both rounds of the satan’s attacks, the narrator declares that
Job did not sin by cursing God. But would it be sin to curse God? Job is about
to sin repeatedly, vehemently and unrelentingly – and frankly with good
company. The Psalms, Jeremiah, and Jesus himself do not shy away from railing
against God in prayer. The folktale seems to feel the darkest sin would be to
curse God. The rest of the book will debunk this. The greater sin would be the
cover-up, pretending, or perhaps just refusing to talk to God at all.
***
Images: Job & friends, by William Blake; Job and his wife, by Georges de la Tour.
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