Today's sermon is a deeply personal narrative into the myth and manna of the Book of Job of the Old Testament. I say myth because while I don't think this book is from the hand of God, or even necessarily divinely inspired, I do think its message is inspirational. This is humanity's attempt to come to terms with our collective unconscious. And it is m-a-n-n-a, not manner, because my soul is nourished through this journey; my mind is enriched, my spirit enlivened, yet I am also humbled by the enormity of the task. I think this attempt to plumb the depth of Job is reflective of an agonizing universal attempt to understand and know God. It may be a journey without an end. So ultimately, we all must live with uncertainty, as Job certainly did.
His is more than one man's struggle to come to terms with a seemingly capricious God. In a cosmic sense, it is the story of humanity's quest to understand the nature of faith and the need to come to terms with the existence of evil in the presence of a supposedly loving, omnipotent, and manifest God. Theodicy, from the Greek roots theos (God) and dike (justice) is an attempt to vindicate God in the face of evil in the world. As you might be, I was angry with a God who could allow the crematoriums to exist, or, worse yet, cause the killing of the Jews to take place. Was this God's retribution for the apostasy of a chosen but stiff-necked people? I could not accept that possibility, and certainly could not believe in Job's God, who gave agency to such evil.
Job's trials and tribulations forced me to confront the nature of God, evil and suffering. After Auschwitz, it seemed that if God existed at all, s/he could only be a moral monster. I resisted that interpretation too, for to reject or deny the existence of God in the face of Auschwitz would, in the words of Emil Fackenheim, be to grant Hitler a "posthumous victory" of the destruction of faith of the Jews and others beyond Hitler's own lifetime.
I yearned to believe in a loving and compassionate God, just as Job did, but I could not reconcile God's silence in the face of such evil. Why would God abandon humankind to silence so deafening, or to absence, or non-involvement, or worse yet, callous indifference? When Job is confronted with such immediate, personal and devastating suffering, he is forced to reassess and ultimately abandon the foundations of his faith. God had boasted that Job was a blameless and upright person. If that is so, what did he do to be punished so? What could so estrange him from God? The answer is nothing, and that is the pivotal reality of this story. In the depth of despair, Job addresses God. You have turned cruel to me; with the might of your hand you persecute me. You lift me up on the wind, you make me ride on it, and you toss me about in the roar of the storm. I know that you bring me to death, and to the house appointed for all living. Surely one does not turn against the needy, when in disaster they cry for help. Job 30:21-24
As this story unravels, Job is forced to re-imagine God as limited in power, but craving relationship. This new rehabilitated God is not omnipotent and does not voluntarily estrange herself from humanity. Job, now a reformed Jew, at the same time is required to accept humankind' s responsibility for the presence of good and of moral evil in the world. The question he must face ultimately is whether or not to continue to worship this God of retribution, or to abandon faith entirely, or to demand a more worthy God. He must answer the question: Are we to worship a cosmic puppeteer who defines all our actions, provides all our words, and knows the outcome of this morality play before it begins? If that is the case, it would seem to be a dull and pointless existence not worth living.
Considering all of this, Job, in his time of trial and quest to understand evil, is still faithful but defiant, destroyed yet resilient, hopeful, yet driven by a passion to know God and to be known by God in a more meaningful way.
Job challenges and ultimately destroys the God of retribution, replacing her with one of mutuality, and love. This is to be a new paradigm of love. Humanity is now to have free will accompanied by a demanding responsibility to choose good over evil.
In this relationship of mutuality and free will, we are given the ability and power to redefine and transform the image of God from one of anger and vengeance to one of all-embracing love, radically unambiguous, clear and strong not indifferent to human evil and suffering. This radical love could only exist if there was created space for human freedom, nourishing human growth into goodness or by its own actions sinking into despair and evil.
With such a God, we each, individually and collectively, become our own moral agents of good and evil. It must be understood that the existence of evil also created the possibilities of peace, love and goodness. For a person to strive for the good, the opposite must be available. Without this freedom, there is no real choice, and by inference, no moral behavior. Without that, we lose our humanity, which at its heart requires freedom and with it, requisite responsibility.
So, inherent in our very existence is the possibility of evil. Job discovers that, not only with the loss of his fortune and station in life, but also in the killing of his children. This misfortune comes as the result of Satan's challenge to God, a wager, almost, to test Job as that blameless and upright person of whom God had boasted. This test of faith and loyalty is to prove God's contention that "Job fears God and turns away from evil." At Satan's urging, God is goaded to continue to test Job's faith. He is further inflicted with physical pain, yet "Remains faithful and does not curse God."
As you might imagine, these repeated attacks drive Job into a state of spiritual despair. All that he believes of God is called into question. He seems to be mocked by the God he loves. whom he now needs more than ever. Job knows he is a blameless person, yet he suffers. He has become estranged from God because his faith system is in conflict with what he is experiencing. Not an enviable situation, which I suspect not a few of you may have had to contemplate personally.
This is not unlike the experience of the post-Holocaust Jews. As Eliezer Berkovitz points out in Faith After the Holocaust, the irony of this is that if God tolerates sin, it is at the expense of its victims. God's very mercy, forbearance, and her love for humankind necessitate the abandonment of some people to a fate that they well may experience as God's indifference to injustice and human suffering.
Job finds himself in this no-win situation. If he confronts God for his unjust punishment, he is guilty of the one crime, that of accusing his God of retribution of being unjust, and that, in turn, would justify his punishment. For you see, Job has not yet come to the theological understanding that the "essence of freedom is the ability to exercise decisions without continually being overwhelmed by the presence of God." God's part in this arrangement is that he must exercise self-restraint and absent himself to the needs and prayers of his people. Our challenge is the same as Job's: To pursue the theological question that permeates our experience of suffering, regardless of whether or not we find a meaningful answer.
For most of this story, Job debates with his friends over the nature of human suffering and retribution theology. His friends unshakably hold the belief that Job would not have suffered unless he had done something wrong, for God administers rewards or punishment based on human action. Suffering does not come without just cause. Think now, who that was innocent ever perished? Or where were the upright cut off? As I have seen those who plow iniquity, and sow trouble reap the same. By the breath of God they perish, and by a blast of his anger they are consumed. (4: 7-9)
With friends like these, who needs enemies? They turn a blind eye to their friend's suffering and to those less fortunate because they themselves prosper and do not suffer. Their theology renders the words of the 'desperate' into 'meaningless wind'. In his miserable state, Job cannot ignore the reality of his experience, as his friends have. In desperation, now convinced that he has nothing left to lose, Job does the unthinkable. He challenges God. I will speak in the anguish of my spirit: I will complain in the bitterness of my soul. 7;5,11
Now, his friend Bildad, reacting with righteous indignation at Job's disrespect, asks the central question of this text: Does God pervert justice? Or does the Almighty pervert the right? 8.3
If you accept a theology of retribution, the answer has to be a resounding "Yes!" After all, it was an ego-maniac who boasted to Satan that Job was without blame, leading to Job's current plight. While Job is unaware of these heavenly events, he is mad at God. Furious with his friends, he has resolved to ignore their advice to accept his guilt without complaint. He is resolved to confront God and be honest about his anger, for he has come to believe that this is the only true way in which he can remain loyal to God. He must confront God on the battleground of his earthly torment. Frustrated, knowing that he will gain no understanding or support from his friends, he demands a hearing from God. But I would speak to the Almighty, and I desire to argue my case with God. Job 13:3
Job has come to realize that the ultimate expression of faith is to articulate the truth about his experience of God. My sense is that he is on to something here. The quality of relationships with myself, others, and God does matter. I believe that loving, mutual, honest and incremental relationships are the key to a meaningful existence. Being inauthentic, in my theology, is the essence of sin. This new God of love, limited in scope, needs to know more of how Job, or any of us, experiences our misfortune. Our challenge is to speak our truth to God so that she can know, from our perspective, what we need from her.
Job is trying to learn a new way of interacting with his God. God, too, is having to adjust. This is a God who learns, although from our perspective, too slowly. God's initial response is to back away from intimacy by attempting to intimidate. He belittles Job by dazzling him with his awesome creative powers. God's use of sarcasm in relating to Job is calculated to put Job in his place. Where were you when I laid the foundation for the earth? Who determined its measurements? Where is the way to the dwelling of the light? Surely you know!
However, Job is interested in demonstrations not of power, but of the administering of justice, which, in his opinion, God has failed to address. Job's defiance, at this point, is magnified because he is confident of his innocence. He no longer fears God. Now he demands to know God. Amen to that!
God's initial, hesitant, negative response condemns him to his own defeat because, while a God of retribution can assert her indisputable power, she cannot answer adequately Job's cry for justice. Seen in this light, Job's experience is confirmation that he is right and God wrong. God's failure to answer the ultimate question of theodicy marks a turning point in the story.
God finally admits that he can only approach the forces of evil and chaos, not control or slay them. He tells Job that when the Leviathan and Behemoth, symbols of chaos and evil, rise up, the Gods are afraid at the crashing. They are beside themselves. Though the sword reaches it, it does not prevail. Nor does the spear, the sword or the Javelin. 41:25-26
So here it is, an admission from God herself that she cannot control evil. No one is so fierce as to stir it up. Who can stand before it? Who can confront it and be safe--Under the whole heaven, who?
What is so significant here is that God, vulnerable and naked, has finally and honestly leveled with Job. In so doing, she opens the road to a new relationship based on mutuality and trust. Both parties get to redefine the meaning and understanding of their relationship. Both are seen to be limited in abilities, but united in purpose to build a new and better understanding of each other. Job has successfully challenged God in a new and demanding manner; God, in his turn, has forsaken retribution and must now face Job on Job's own ground, the ground of justice. God is finally willing and able to admit that Job did not deserve what he got.
As this morality story draws to a close, all of the characters must make amends. Having admitted that Job is innocent, God can now, at long last, show compassion for him. In so doing, God calls on Job's friends to pay homage to him and to give up their own faith in a God of retribution. In this moment, Job experiences an epiphany that his condemnation of God is also unjust. He now realizes that God is not to blame, and that his fate is out of God's hands. Job is sorry for blaming God. Consequently, he can enter now into a more honest, authentic relationship with the loving God who now stands before him. Job has found that hidden underneath a facade of wrath waits the true God, a more humble God than the God of retribution could ever have been. This is a God aching to love and willing to be more accessible and loving in return. While God's omnipotence has crumbled, his love has endured to this time. What God really wants, I now believe, is an intimate, loving relationship that does not require blind faith based on fear. Both humanity and God are winners in this most hopeful of the Old Testament books.
My reading of Job and a new understanding of what God is about, have shown me the way to a deeper faith based on love and relationship. I now, at long last, can believe in a God who is ever present, if sometimes unheard or unseen, hurting when we choose evil and suffer the consequences of our bad choices. This newly imaged God, this God of history, is present, but not manifest; absent, but no longer hopelessly inaccessible.
When evil thrives, it is not God's doing. It is ours because we let it happen. That is the real lesson we can all take home with us to ponder anew.
This new reality has also allowed me to reformat my understanding of the Holocaust. The evil of the Holocaust for which I blamed God is what kept me from faith. Now as co-creators with God of our world, the rest of us and I share responsibility for our own fate. In this new relationship, it is in the choosing of good over evil that is the hope and promise of humanity and of our relationship with God. After all, our free will does not come without a price. We are called to responsibility. We must relinquish blame and finally, if we dare, Damn the God of Retribution.
Amen!
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