The story of Job is an extraordinary one. Job, “a blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil”, is tested by the adversary of God, the Satan, literally the devil’s advocate. And God allows it! God allows it.
The Satan is given permission to afflict Job—with the death of his family, with the loss of his livelihood, with terrible disease, and with taunts to “Curse God, and die” in the face of such calamity—and God allows it. God allows it. At least in the story, God allows it.
But even more unexpectedly, Job accepts it. Job accepts it. It is precisely from the book of Job, that we get such aphorisms as: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there; the LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.” (Job 1:21) and “Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?” (Job 2:10). And though nearly the whole book of Job is riddled with diatribes from Job’s friends attempting to get Job to “curse God”, blame God, give up on God, Job never does. Right to the very end of the book, Job remains faithful to God, and God “restores his fortunes”.
Now, I don’t know about you, but for me, the story of Job is very troublesome—how on earth can we human beings be expected to accept everything that happens to us? Did God intend that Samoa and Tonga would be devastated by a tsunami? Did God intend that a typhoon would hit the Philippines and earthquakes ravage Indonesia? Does God intend our loved ones to suffer and die, and for us to be afflicted by illness and disability? Does God really want to see children die of hunger, and crops fail due to drought? Did God engineer the global financial crisis? And does God enjoy seeing the rich third of the world getting its comeuppance? And even if God doesn’t want this, must we at least agree that God allows it? And if we did understand our God to be such a God, why would we want to trust in such a being?
And it’s precisely some of those sayings from Job that have been used so often and so glibly in the past to minimise the devastation wrought in people’s lives by death and disaster, damaging relationships and chronic and debilitating illness. Accept what you’re given and live with it. You made your bed, you have to lie in it. Even this will pass.
The book of Job is yet another one of those enigmatic books of the Bible like Esther which we looked at last week. If Esther never talked about God but was intent on God’s purposes, Job is always talking about God, but the book has almost nothing to do with God’s nature. Rather, it is all about the nature of human responses to the gift of relationship with God. It’s all about the way in which we, as humans, respond to God.
These first couple of weekends in October are big weekends for marriage services in Armidale—it must be Spring, or at least school holidays! Marriage services always confront the people involved with them with questions about human relationships, about the commitments we make to one another, about the hopes we have for ourselves and for each other. We know that if we enter relationship expecting that everything will be smooth sailing, we’re kidding ourselves. Life is not like that, or as one of our previous Prime Ministers said, “Life wasn’t meant to be easy.” Well, I don’t know about “meant to”, but it certainly isn’t easy. Being in relationship takes work. You can’t ever take relationship for granted, and yet equally truly, there are always moments when the delight of being in a loving, committed relationship is far more than we might ever have expected. So it is in relationship with God. If we think that committing ourselves to live a godly life, follow in the way of Christ, seek to respond to the wind of the Spirit, is taking the easy option, we’re going to be sadly disappointed. Being committed to God is not about getting rich, or being protected from bad things, or even living a quiet life. Being committed to God takes commitment. It does mean work.
But you know if that’s the only way that we understand relationship—as hard work—we’re going to get sick of it pretty quickly. Relationship is not simply about duty, about doing what you’re supposed to do, or at least not just because you’re supposed to do it. Relationship relies on us accepting the other in the relationship as gift, as something so precious and so providential that nothing can shake our desire to be in that relationship. In a very real way, it is only when we are able to welcome what comes to us as gift, that we are able to find the resilience to meet it, the generosity to share it, and the hope to live in and through it no matter what happens.
And that’s where we come to the Gospel reading and you’re probably all wondering what I’m going to do with it. It’s been such a problematic text for the church, for individuals, for society over the centuries.
If Esther never talks about God but is intent on God’s purposes, and Job is always talking about God but is basically about our response to God, then this text, which on the surface appears to be about divorce, has almost nothing to do with divorce per se and everything to do with the way that human beings can twist that which is given as gift from God.
It is, of course, a discussion about the nature of God’s law. The Pharisees are as usual in debate with Jesus, and Jesus acquits himself admirably as a good rabbi, arguing scripture for scripture and theological concept for theological concept.
“So on the matter of divorce, what is it that you think Jesus?” And Jesus cleverly puts the question back on them, “What does Moses say?”, i.e. “What is in the Torah, the Law, God’s Law? What is in the first five books of our Bible—Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy?” The Pharisees go to Deuteronomy: “Moses says it is lawful for a man to divorce his wife.” But Jesus is not stumped, “Ah yes, but what about Genesis? What about the gift of male and female in creation? We need rules because we do not live up to God’s dream for our world, because we do not receive the gift of relationship offered to us by God and through God. The Law is gift and the Law tells us of God’s gifts to us in creation. Look at the world around. Look at the gifts given to you. Better still: look at the way children look at the world. Everything is a big adventure; everything is to be explored. The very soil of the earth is stuff for testing out, in mouths and great building projects and simply in getting dirty because they can. The way in which children receive God’s world is the way in which we should receive God’s Law, God’s creation, God’s gifts to us—with wonder and delight, awe and astonishment. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it. Whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.”
So we are invited to received God’s creation, God’s world as gift—all of it—and maybe, just maybe if we are able to do it, we will discover how to care for it; and maybe, just maybe if we are able to do it, we will not be so worried about hoarding the resources we have, for surely the best gifts are to be shared; and maybe, just maybe, if we are able to receive God’s world as gift, we will know how to respond to each other’s pain and grief, and the needs of our communities, and the needs of those who face such hterrible disasters as the Asia Pacific region has seen this past week.
The resources for Social Justice Sunday from the National Council of Churches this year remind us that “In times of crisis, we often turn first to consider our own interests.” Our fear drives us to fear for ourselves, to fear tat we will not have the resources for us let alone anybody else. “However, when most of us are asked, we say that we would prefer better healthcare, education, roads and public transport to a few extra dollars in our pay packets. This response reflects our understanding that taxation is what we use in our society to ensure the equitable distribution of wealth and the raising of public money, our “common wealth”, our common purse.” It reflects out understanding that everything we have comes from God; and that we are responsible to God’s Law, God’s way for what we do with the resources we have. “Christianity teaches us that we have a responsibility to care for each other and share what we have so that the most vulnerable are not left wanting.” And we can only do that if we are able to accept all that we have from God as pure gift. And perhaps that is only possible when we accept that God is on our side—God loves us, God cares for us and God wants the best for us. In the face of the generosity and graciousness of God, our only response can be gratitude and generosity in turn.
But most of us are not like Job, most of us need the rules, need to know something about what is required of us, because gratitude and generosity don’t come easily to us. Whether because we’re afraid or confused, or worried or in pain, our natural tendency is to think about ourselves, just us. God invites us to enter a world that is not about “just us”, but justice; to view what we have as children with delight and awe, wonder and astonishment—receiving all we have as pure gift and longing to share it with others.
(Some sections are sourced from Hope for the Common Good: Beyond the Global Financial Crisis, Resources for Social Justice Sunday 2009, NCCA.)
No comments:
Post a Comment