Being in Conversation with God

In the last chapter of Job, Job speaks, recalling some of the words that God has spoken out of the whirlwind: “Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?”; “Hear, and I will speak; I will question you, and you declare to me.” In recalling these questions and declarations from God, Job addresses the God who has spoken out of the whirlwind. He enters into dialogue with God.

Job speaks a number of times throughout the book: to curse the day of his birth; to tell his friends that he would prefer that God would kill him; to resist entering into conversation with God about the justice of his situation; to complain about his torment; to suggest that perhaps if he could find God, he would argue with God; to capitulate, to back down before the God who speaks out of the whirlwind; and finally, finally…

And there is our problem… What does Job finally do? The end of the book of Job continues to be an enigma, a puzzle for scholars and ordinary people of faith alike. Is it a bid to repentance? Is it an admonition to silence? Or is it something else…? What does Job really do?

In order to think about that question, we need to re-visit the speech of the God who speaks out of the whirlwind and to have a bit of a conversation with that God ourselves.

Who measures the dimensions of the earth? Who knows on what its bases were sunk? Who knows what it was like “in the beginning”? God inquires of Job.

Let’s see how we would respond: Well, actually God of the whirlwind, we have a pretty fair idea what the beginning of the universe was like and what we don’t know, we probably will one day. It’s only a matter of time.

Who causes the floods? Who is able to send forth lightning? Who can number the clouds and shift the waterskins of the heavens?

Well, actually God of the whirlwind, we’re not bad at affecting the weather and the climate either, and pushing around or hoarding water supplies willynilly is something you’d have to say we’ve excelled at in recent times, even if on some days, we’re prepared to admit that more in shame than in honour.

Who provides for the wild beasts? Who knows what endangered species need? Who seeks to provide for their wellbeing?

Well, actually God of the whirlwind, we do. Yes, actually, we do.

The questions that the God of the whirlwind asks aren’t questions that frighten us or drive us into submission or send us to our knees in awe and admiration any more. In fact, they spark our imaginations and scientific inquiry. We know so much, and what we don’t know we expect that we will some time. We know that we are doing things that once were thought of as only belonging to God. And what’s more, we know that we can no longer shrink away at that reality, or shrug our shoulders at that possibility, or even act as if it somehow were an act of defiance against God. It’s just our reality: that we play God and know that we are doing it. That we offer answers to God’s questions out of the knowledge and skills we have been given; and we seek out the possibility to respond to yet more difficult questions. But Job did not get to that point until the very end of the book.

The blind man by the roadside at Jericho who called out to Jesus was there. He was certain that Jesus could do something about a situation that was patently unfair: “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” You who represent God, you who stand in the line of the God’s chosen ones, you who understands the ways of God, surely you will look at me and see that I am in need of mercy. I need help. It is not just that I am this way; and furthermore, it is just that I should challenge God on this situation.

The people around him are not so sure that this is a conversation that should happen. They want the man to be quiet. But Bartimaeus, the blind beggar, does not cease wanting to enter the conversation with Jesus. He persists: “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” And eventually, Jesus hears him, continues the conversation with a question “What do you want me to do for you?” and acknowledges the faith of this one who has dared to enter into conversation with God.

Surely, God does want to engage us. God does want to be in conversation with us. And God does want us to be real conversation partners. God asksquestions not to belittle or silence us, not to gobsmack us or smack us into submission, but to be in conversation, to be in dialogue, to be a part of our world, our work and our play. When I was a small child, my mother used to read me a story about that: The Way of the Whirlwind by Mary & Elizabeth Durack

Nungaree and Jungaree had a baby brother called Woogoo. One morning, Nungaree and Jungaree decide that Woogoo “was old enough to go with them on their walk-about to the river”. They had a lovely time playing together and feasting on bush foods. Early in the afternoon, they “curled up in the shade of the river trees and went sound asleep”. When Nungaree and Jungaree awoke, Woogoo was nowhere to be seen. They looked “for his footprints in the river sand, but they saw nothing, for a wind had come past as they slept and swept the sand clear of all marks”. They looked and looked along the river, “but Woogoo was nowhere to be found”.

To cut a very long story quite short, a crocodile takes Nungaree and Jungaree to Old Father Bremurer, “the spirit father of all the children of the dream country” who suggests that the wind that wiped away Woogoo’s tracks was the Whirlwind who actually took Woogoo away. Now they must find “where in all the world … the Whirlwind [goes] to sleep”.

“Here-and-there [the Whirlwind] was one of the most unpopular sprites in the whole of the dream country. He was a thief and he was a tease and he carried his mischief far beyond even the dark people’s idea of a joke.” “Even though he had never been known to steal a child from them before, they always believed him quite capable of doing so”. So Nungaree and Jungaree set out to find this much feared and illusive baby thief.

As one does in stories such as this, they consult many other of the dream country inhabitants on their way: grandfather flying-fox; the stick-man; the brolgas, Bubba Piebi “who fished by night to feed the terrible spirits, and had the power of turning human beings and animals into fish”; Mother Mopoke; an old lizard; kangaroos… Until, at last, Father Bremurer, the rainbow serpent, provides a rainbow bridge to the end of somewhere where Here-and-there the Whirlwind sleeps.

There, they find Woogoo, but not sad, afraid and crying, gurgling, chuckling and playing with Here-and-there the Whirlwind. They discover that Here-and-there is lonely, not scary, and that Here-and-there really only wants to play and be loved. Nungaree, Jungaree and Woogoo cannot stay in the place at the end of somewhere, but they promise to play with Here-and-there whenever the Whirlwind comes “twirling and twisting … whirling and swirling … laughing and rustling and hissing with joy in the long yellow grasses”. Because it is play, not fear that is the way of the whirlwind.

In his book, Playing God, Andrew Dutney reminds us that we live in a “risk society”: a world where we know a lot about the challenges that confront us, where risks “can be predicted, calculated and, consequently, reduced or possibly even eliminated by the decisions we make now”. Whatever their probability, those risks require management because of our knowledge. Our knowledge calls us into a different relationship with the world around us. In the past, the kinds of things we do to “manage risks” have been called “playing God” and the term has been used derogatorily, as if “playing God” is a bad, unfortunate, even sinful thing. In our contemporary context, for Dutney, it is simply what we must do, what we do do and what we are able to do. Dutney writes his book out of the background of the death of his and his wife Heather’s only child in very early infancy from a disease that is not yet preventable, not yet curable, but can be managed to a certain extent.

Because of the knowledge we have and the ability to make choices that comes with it, we do play God, but play, in this context, for Dutney:

is not a frivolous waste of time or simply a rest from work, but a necessary part of the way we fit and re-fit ourselves for effective living—whether or not we know we are doing it. In play we take the exercise we need—physical, emotional, intellectual, creative, social and cultural—to tone and maintain the selves we become through the living of our lives. In play we also tend to our abused or damaged selves, finding comfort and healing. In play we keep our selves open to inspiration, experiment and new growth, making us ready for the unforeseen developments and unprecedented challenges of a life and a world that is in constant change (p. 27).

Play demands relationship with our world, with other people, with God. We cannot rehearse who are in the world without a world. We cannot rehearse who we are in relation to others without being in relation with others. We cannot rehearse who we are in relation to God without being in relation with God. When we dare to respond to God’s questions, we dare to enter into play with God. We dare to be in relationship with God and to be adults in that relationship, not simpering children, or submissive slaves, or spineless lackeys. We dare to prompt hard questions and to respond as best we can, even when we may not know all that our response will entail. We dare to enter the way of the whirlwind, out of which our God speaks. And that just might be what Job actually does at the end of the book, to turn towards a God who wants to be in a real relationship with him. Is this not what God wants for us too?