Over the past weeks, the Episcopal Daily Office has featured the Book of Job for its Old Testament readings. Although many scholars agree that the events in this book never actually occurred, Job’s story is famous, often referred to and frequently invoked when people experience difficulty and despair.
“Think of Job” we are told when we feel aggrieved. Job
suffered and never denied God. And, of course, Job was rewarded in the
end. Even so-called non-believers remind
us and themselves of this long-suffering hero who loses everything and then
gets it back again.
The story of Job has no key part in the story of the Jewish
people. Job is related to no one in Jewish history, he does not seem to have a place
in any tribe. Perhaps he was one of the ones warning Pharaoh of impending doom,
or perhaps he wasn't. He is not the link in any narrative thread. He is an
outlier, a stand-alone.
But you can’t keep a good story down, so this wonderful book
is part of our Canon and is told, albeit in a shortened version, in churches today.
Job is wonderful. He’s George Clooney, Bill Moyers and Elizabeth II all
rolled into one. He’s generous, fair, loving and rich. Everyone who encounters
him, even briefly, goes away blessed. Until it all ends.
Job loses everything and can’t understand why. He suffers for
no cause that he can discern. His friends urge him to look within for his fault.
His own wife advises him to curse God. These supporting characters are almost
comical in their blindness. They can see only one reason for Job’s suffering.
He must have done something. God rewards the good and punishes the bad.
This thinking is not so far off from the prosperity gospel
that is preached in far too many churches today. The purpose of religion is to
win God’s approval which is worth actually very little intrinsically but is
extremely valuable in the benefits that accrue to the believer. Job’s earlier
life attested to this. His virtue and wealth were in balance. If one of these
goes south, the other must have diminished as well.
Job’s search for
answers is heart breaking. He sifts through every aspect of his life, every shred
of doctrine known to him but finds nothing to explain what he sees as God’s
sudden change of heart. “I know that my redeemer lives” he claims, and this
famous sentence is prayed at our funerals to this day. His love for God and his
faith in God’s goodness stand firm. He feels that God is far from him in his
suffering, but he knows he has nowhere else to turn. Where else can he go? Just
as Peter said when some followers turned away and Jesus wondered if they, too, would leave, “Lord, to whom shall we
go?” (John 6:68), so does Job know that God alone can satisfy him.
Finally God comes to him. “Dress for action, like a man”
demands God. “I will question you and you will answer me.” And thus begins one
of the most powerful discourses in all of Scripture.
After a stream of rhetorical questions, such as “Where were
you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me if you understand” to which he
has no answer, Job capitulates to God’s eternal wisdom and power. God then restores Job to his former wealth and
status. In fact, he gets twice what he
had before.
To satisfy his readers, Charles Dickens added a second
ending to Great Expectations in which
Pip, the hero, marries a kinder gentler Estella. The first ending had them
parting cordially and was, for me, much truer to character and story. In my view,
someone did the same thing to the Book of Job. Someone’s idea of a happy ending was totally
earth-bound.
I do not begrudge Job his newly restored riches and
reputation, but I do begrudge the story’s abrupt ending and the implication that wealth is reward for suffering. In my opinion, the reward for Job's suffering is the magnificent one-on-one with God that
Job was granted. God spent 125 verses speaking with Job. The entire discourse
takes up 135 verses. What would you endure for 135 verses with God?
I ask myself what did Job value after all this torment? Did
he look with pleasure on his riches, his flocks, his charming new family? Or
did he recall with joy and awe his 135 verses with the Almighty? What had the
real value for him, his vast estate or his intimacy with his Creator?