Job 42:1-6, 10-17
Proper 25 (30) - Year B
There are those who go back to the Hebrew language instead of the traditional rendering of verse 6. They would argue that a more accurate translation is, "I reject and regret dust and ashes."
This turns Job's recognition that G*D has not answered his questions from contriteness to simply accepting that G*D will not give the apology asked for. Job is not sorry for confronting G*D, but accepting of the impasse.
G*D does admit in the missing middle section of this lection that Job was correct in his accusations. But we can't have too much of that in public without leading folks to question additional ways in which the public face of G*D, the Church, might be queried about its behavior.
So we are left with a traditional culpa mea and a doubling of Job's former possessions. How many of you would be willing to take on Job's role if you had some sense of making a buck on it and being able to start your "family" anew?
In many ways this end of the story is one of its more troubling aspects. It is as if Job gets punitive damages over and above a regular settlement. Can this really make up for the loss of life and health any better than the cigarette settlement assisted those who died because of their addiction or benefited the state that frittered away such money?
The concluding description of the rest of Job's life is like unto that for Isaac and David, neither of whom had a particularly happy ending to their life. As the NISB comments, "Perhaps this is the storyteller's covert way of saying that although Job may have appeared appeased, he never fully recovered from his tribulations." How covert do we still feel ourselves to be in relation to G*D and Church?
You may want to join the New York Times free online readership to see where an editorial by Andrew Sullivan regarding gay Christians in the Church, Losing a Church, Keeping the Faith, fits into this discussion.
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Kent (Reader)
Wesley,
I often read your insights and enjoy them! Thanks for your work. I have long been fascinated by the Job text. Another way to read the whole book is that it is one long satire, a satire on the view of God as one who rewards faithfulness and punishes evil. In the ninth chapter Job says that IF God does show up, all God would do is ask him a bunch of questions that Job couldn't answer. Sure enough, out of the whirlwind comes a series of unanswerable questions .."where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth..."
By the end of the book Job is sure that God can't tell the good guys from the bad guys, which explains the out of place quotes form God after Job responds to God's speech. Read them again, dripping with irony. You can add the wink wink, nod nod, poke poke yourself, but it seems to me that Job is mocking God by saying that Job really didn't understand all the mysteries. Then he says that he had only heard about God, but now he knows for sure...(what does he know?) Then he repents wink, wink, and gets back everything, and then some.
Maybe the point is that if you have a God of divine retribution, you have a fool for a God. You only need to look around to see proof that evil often prospers and good people perish. Maybe, at its heart, Job warns us to be careful what we say about God. For what we say about God better make sense in the context of innocent suffering, starving children, violent bigotry, etc.
As satire, the ending makes sense.
My two cents worth.
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Wesley (Blogger)
Kent,
I have also appreciated your words and learned from them. Would that we could see more of scripture and life from the vantage point of satire and irony. When we are open to these, rather than being afraid of them, we are opened to have our hearts and minds transformed and to, in turn, open doors for others to come in and laugh.
Your comment brightened my day and is worth far more than two cents. Remind me the next time we are together that I owe you a cool glass or hot cup of something refreshing.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2003/october2003.html
Job 42:1-6, 10-17 or Jeremiah 31:7-9
Psalm 34:1-8, (19-22) or Psalm 126
Hebrews 7:23-28
Mark 10:46-52
So many cry out for mercy!
They cry here and there, directing their cry in the direction of their heritage (that which narrowly points a direction to a source of mercy). So some cry inwardly. Some to a process that may alleviate suffering, Some to Allah the Merciful, or YHWH, or Jesus. Some to some yet unknown over an invisible horizon.
Those of us who are not an ultimate source of appeal for mercy are caught in the middle. We hear the cry. We hear a response to go to the crier and carry them to the source of mercy they seek.
We are in a privileged position and need to find it in ourselves to behave honorably within such - responding to both calls with alacrity even when we are not part of the system currently at work. As a Muslim we might help a crier to the Mercy of YHWH; as a Christian, to Allah the Merciful; as a Jew to Buddha's Paths; as Wiccan, Native Person of any tradition, Atheist, Egoist, New Ageist, or whatever, to any other journey.
This position is one of friendship that goes beyond Job's friends who had their own agenda of how mercy might be engaged. We help folks move to an experience of mercy rather than convince them of some reason for their suffering.
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when our cries for mercy
found their source
and we were able
to cease our weeping
we were like those
who dream without
desiring to wake
our dream mouth
was filled with laughter
connected with joy
rather than irony
seeing new sources
for rejoicing
than our previous one
to find our dream
and our awaking
so closely allied
stunned our reason
into silence
weeping became
joy seed harvested
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_10_01_archive.html
The humanity of Job (dust and ashes) brings us ambiguity of what is being recanted, despised, relented by one who is suffering. This doesn't address the divinity of Job (made in G*D's image) that calls to be encountered on that level. A note in The Jewish Study Bible suggests verse 6 "may be a prosaic notice that Job feels this way while he is mourning on a dust-heap". Once off said dung-heap, Job's response may be different. How like ourselves.
In some sense all the poetry ends with Job vindicated against his "friends" who are caught falsifying the character of Job and the character of G*D. Likewise the prose ends with G*D vindicated against "The Satan". All the sturm und drang of Job vs G*D begins to take a back seat against these other level-playing-field debates.
Perhaps we need only focus on the debates we have with our family and friends regarding what we see as the nature of creation - a basic goodness begun. To expect privilege in a goodness-oriented creation is to expect too much and thus the importance of simply not blaspheming creation. We remember our beginning and know that we must stand firm in calling G*D to account - whether a desirable response comes forth or not. When so many false arguments about the worth of the least, the outcast, the closeted, the poor, the uninsured swirl around us, it is good to cut through them all with a clear perspective of basic goodness.
Job's daughters are a sign of what a new world we are in when we attend to clarity of goodness in this world. The women are named (not the sons) and given rights of inheritance - both contrary to usual patriarchal patterns. What sign will you give, will you be, of the value of this world?
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2009_10_01_archive.html
No matter what the apparent disadvantage, to thine own self be true lest you simply follow the money. This is no easy matter when an adversary cannot be thwarted. Whether we are talking blindness, happenstance, or a kingly god to deal with, the reality of honorable loss is an Eastern trait to be affirmed and nurtured.
The storyline is that one will literally get twice what was taken away. Blessed are the blind for they are such good musicians and blessed is parenthood a second time around.
It’s a nice story all too easily bought into. Somehow we keep ending up with a prosperity gospel which does not speak of reality rightly. Instead of this being a wonderful set-up for a punchline that G*D is Awesome!, we might more simply pay attention to what is available for us to do in any given moment. Claiming harm when harm is done is a righteous act. Knowing when we are in beyond our knowing is a grounding in the face of a tree of temptation. Track the process of yesterday’s blind man and Job, not some magical resolution.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2012/10/job-421-6-10-17.html