Arguing With God

Poor Job! Have you ever heard such a sad story?

From what I understand, Job was quite a man. It's quite possible that he was the richest man around in his time. All it took was one single day for him to be completely wiped out. Most of his animals were stolen from him, lightning struck a sheep barn and he lost just about his entire flock. Then a devastating hurricane hit killing all his children. One writer observes that the destruction was so complete that there weren't enough pieces left in the wreckage to identify them. Finally, as if Job hasn't suffered enough, Job came down with leprosy.

Job was so distraught by all this tragedy that he actually cursed the day he was born. If he had his way, that day would simply be stricken off the calendar once and for all. The thing is, life doesn't always turn out the way we want it to. Job's life actually went on! He prayed to die but his heart continued to beat. He prayed for the sun to go out like a match, but it continued to shine.

Of course his friends weren't any help, were they? "hey, old pal, what on earth did you do to make God so angry that you have to suffer like this?" we sometimes call that kind of question, "blaming the victim." but that was the prevailing wisdom, you see. Bad things happen to bad people, good things happen to good people. I wonder how many people today use that kind of reasoning?

Getting back to Job, after he'd finally pulled himself together, Job had a chance to ask some very important questions, not the least of which was: where is God? There was a time when he and God would seem to have been the best of friends, "when (God's) lamp shone upon my head," Job says, "and by his light I walked through darkness." (Job 29:3, 5) now Job's lament is, "God throws me into the mud, and I am reduced to dust and ashes. I cry to you, o God, but you do not answer; I stand up, but you merely look at me. You turn on me ruthlessly; with the might of your hand you attack me." (Job.30:19-20) Cleary, Job is in terrible shape! Eventually, it is God's turn to speak. In fact, that's the title for this 38th chapter of Job in our pew bibles, the passage we shared this morning: "the lord speaks."

God does indeed. I came across a writer who describes God's words to Job as "the most gorgeous speech that God makes in the Whole old testament, and it is composed of the most gorgeous and preposterous questions that have ever been asked by God or anyone else."

"who is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge?" God asks Job. Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me. Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation? tell me if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it?"

Bang! Bang! Bang! the questions just keep coming, don’t they? It’s as if God is asking, “Who are you to be questioning me, the God who put everything you can recognize in its place, not to mention some things you haven’t even discovered yet! Where were you when I did what I did? Did I ask you for advice? Do you think that I ever really needed to explain myself?" On the one hand, you can understand how God would want to put Job in his place. Yes, Job has been suffering. Surely God knows this. But who Is Job To Question God, to Put God On Trial, as it were? In Job's defense, I suspect we can understand how he might feel as bitter as he appears to be.

I think it may be a truly human trait to want to rear up, to fight back, to demand answers when life begins to crumble around us. If we really believe that life has somehow victimized us, don't we want to hold someone accountable? I think I would. That's what I hear in Job's laments. Job is just beside himself because he believes he has been as faithful as he could be, so why is God doing this to him, turning his back on him the way he seems to have done? How much is one man supposed to endure?

The problem with Job's situation, as tragic as it is, may be that just because of his troubles, he may have lost some perspective. God is, indeed, debating with Job because somewhere, somehow, Job seems to have lost sight of the fact that the creator of the universe is still in control, no matter what Job may think.

There is a divine design to our world and our life. Contrary to Biblical wisdom at the time, it's not merely a matter of bad things happening to bad people and vice versa. As we learned from Rabbi Harold Kushner's book some twenty-five years ago, bad things do happen to good people. God is our benevolent Creator and wants only the best for us in this life, but this life is fraught with danger and challenges. These events are not meant to imply that God's Power and ability to save and sustain is threatened in any way but, instead, offer us opportunities to be drawn even closer to God, the one true source of hope and strength in our life.

At its heart, that is what this passage from Job is all about. Job has lost his ability to trust in God. He cannot seem to realize there is divine design and that he has a place in that design.

there's a story of a clergy couple who adopted three small children who had come out of an abusive family situation. Because of the way their parents had treated them, the children had trouble believing there was anyone or anything of goodness in their life.

On their first evening together as a family, the parents sat down with their newly adopted children and read to them from the Bible, from the first chapter of the book of Genesis. As the father said later, "The children had experienced such trauma in their life, it was important for them to experience the hope in God's word, in all its measured tones and themes, in the presence of someone who loved them very much and who would never abandon them." (new i.b., Job, p.615)

A good part of God's conversation with Job has to do with God trying to convince Job that, yes, life can be chaotic, but this in no way means that God does not care or that God is not still in control.

I suspect that's where many of us can also get hung up from time to time. When we are up against it, we also want to be assured that God is not going to abandon us. Like Job, it is likely that we want to ask God some difficult questions. "God, where are you when I need you? I thought you loved me. Why are you letting this happen to me?" For myself, I think it's okay to ask these questions, to lay it right out there.

Arguing with God? Getting angry with God? Railing against life's injustices? I think almost anything is possible because I also believe that God's shoulders are broad enough to take whatever we might like to lay on him. If I didn't believe that, then I would have to conclude that it is not the almighty God to whom I am speaking and praying and in whom I have placed such confidence and faith all these years.

Yes, I believe that God can most surely take whatever we want to throw at him. But, by the same token, I think that God would like us to remember that He is still trustworthy, even in the midst of the most tragic circumstances of life.

Just this last week I was told a story about how a 54 year old man died suddenly, and how his widowed mother was just heartbroken, as any parent would be. The day after the man's funeral, the mother also died. What grief and sorrow must the rest of the family be experiencing? How much loss can they be expected to take? My faith in God tells me that even now, especially now, God is present to them. I have to believe that at one or both of the funeral services, the minister read from psalm 23: yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me." Life will not always be kind to us. It is the nature of human life that not everything will go as we had planned or desired. Sometimes life is just too hard. We may indeed, want to hold God accountable, and that is quite understandable. My prayer is that, with patient faith, we can experience God's grace in the midst of our problems and tragedies. My prayer is that we can come to understand that, for reasons which are not clear to us, what is happening to us is a part of God's larger plan for us or our world.

We know that, at the end of the story, God restored Job with new life and renewed hope. I believe that, with patient faith and a courageous confidence in God, we too can experience new life as well.

May God bless us this patience and confidence.