Job, the Man of God

Job, the Man of God

Grace, mercy and peace be unto you from God who is Creator, Christ and Comforter.  Amen

Today we begin a 6 week study of the Book of Job.  You are very blessed because you will hear not only from me, but from Pastor Carole and Aaron as we journey through this book together.   I know it’s not a very Lutheran thing to do, but if you would like to, bringing your own Bible each week, to write in the margins wouldn’t be a bad idea.  Today, we offer you a blank page in the bulletin to take notes, should you wish.

If you don’t have your Bible with you, pull out that pew Bible in front of you and let’s look at this story together.  The book of Job is on page ­­­­_______.

The story of Job has been called a folktale by people, and quite honestly, in chapters 1 & 2, there is a real degree of a folktale in it.  And, the character of Job is not solely a character known in Israel, but in many traditional folktales.  The plot is very similar, too.  Who here can tell me a story from another culture of a person being tested, who doesn’t know that they are undergoing a test?  Of course you can, if you remember in school all the Greek and Roman and Native American, and African folktales you studied. 

But, the similarities stop there.  Job is really best understood as a didactic story…which means it’s a story that is intended primarily to teach rather than to entertain.  We have another classic didactic story in the Bible that has to do with King David – and Nathan the prophet – who told the story about a rich man and a poor man’s lamb. 

Back to Job.  Didactic stories are told to help people make sense of apparent contradictions in values or beliefs within a community.  What is the contradiction here?  I lost count as to the number of times people of faith would come into my office and ask this question, “Why has ­­­_____ happened to me?  What have I done to deserve this?” 

Know the feeling?

So does Job! 

Job doesn’t live in the Promised Land.  He lives in Uz.  His name isn’t even Hebrew!  What he is…is a man who worships Yahweh, the God of the Hebrews, the Israelites. 

Job was a man who followed God – to the point of perfection!  He had the perfect number of children – 7 sons and 3 daughters.  In Hebrew numerology the numbers 3, 7, 10 and 12 represent perfection and completion.  You see the 7’s and 3’s again in the number of sheep and camels.  And then come the 5’s…in oxen and donkeys which added up, equals 10 again. 

Does Job just happen to be rich and have a large family, or does he have these things because he is a man of exemplary piety?  The narrator of our story doesn’t come out explicitly and say this…but we are led to assume that the reason Job was blessed so richly was because he was “blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil.”

Job’s sons live like kings!  It’s pretty unheard of that a son would have their own place in the Old Testament.  They each have their own homes and celebrate their birthdays with the appropriate feasts.  They are very considerate of their sisters, too, and include them in these celebrations.  These brothers and sisters get along!  This is very unlike some other Old Testament siblings – Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau, and Absalom and Amnon.  They even let the old man in on the feast-time celebrations, so he can at the end of the feast days, offer sacrifices “just in case” one of his children has sinned…not outwardly necessarily…but “in their heart.” 

Beginning in verse 6, we have an interesting story.  Like its ancient neighbors, Israel imagined that God would hold court, taking counsel from the angels, and rendering judgment about certain matters – heavenly and earthly.  So, God calls a counsel, and the heavenly beings assemble.  And now, we get to talk about  the Satan. 

Also, I want to point out the use of the word LORD here.  You can see that this word is all capitalized.  This helps us who are reading in English to understand that this word LORD is the substitute for the most holy name of God. Yahweh, we think.  YHWH is the way it was written, and whenever that word came up in reading, any Israelite would instantly substitute “the Lord” for that name.  It was not to be spoken – except on the Day of Atonement, by the High Priest, in the Holy of Holies.  The reason we don’t know?  When the Temple was destroyed for the last time, there was no longer a need for the High Priest to know the name…and it has been lost to us…just like the musical settings for the Book of Psalms.  So, we here in the 21^st century, we make our best scholarly guesses and pray we aren’t offending God! 

It is very important to understand something here.  This is not Satan-the-devil that we know that name to represent.  To do this, is reading into the story something that is NOT there.  ‘ha satan is simply “the accuser” a heavenly being whose job it was to seek out and find people disloyal to God. 

There is ambivalence between God and the accusing angel.  This angel is subordinate to God…and NOT God’s adversary, but the adversary of sinful and corrupt human beings!  The Accuser is very smart and witty and is able to stand ground when talking to Yahweh. 

God talks about Job as “none greater in all the earth,” to The Accuser.  The Accuser shifts the focus and asks the question: which came first, the blessing or the piety?!?!   Let me have him for a while and we will see! 

And then?  All of the disasters happen!  Sheep gone…camels gone…oxen gone…donkeys gone…all but four servants - gone…and worst of all…children gone.  Job and Mrs. Job are left with virtually nothing except grief upon grief upon grief.  What does Job do? 

Then Job arose, tore his robe, shaved his head, and fell on the ground and   worshiped. ²¹He said, “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.” ²²In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong-doing.

His shaved head shows a visible sign of grief and mourning.  He has much to mourn.  And he has every right to ask that age-old question, “WHY ME?!?! What did I ever do to deserve this?” 

Several years ago, before I went to seminary, Dave and I went through a terrible time in our life.  It was devastating to Dave’s future as an engineer; and horrible for our children to live through.  Job became my best friend.  I read this book over and over struggling to hold onto my faith.  I learned in this time of intense trial that it’s okay…

·        to question – everything!

·        to be angry with God (believe me, God’s big enough to take it!)

·        to feel alone!

·        to feel that my prayers bounce off the ceiling all the while knowing that the rope that I’m clinging to is being held on the other end by God who listens to every prayer!

·        to accept the help of those who love you (probably the hardest lesson of all – I want to be the giver, not the receiver)! 

·        to realize that God is right there with me, catching every tear, and holding my broken heart in nail-pierced hands.

Rabbi Harold Kushner in his book When Bad Things Happen to Good People put it this way: The painful things that happen to us are not punishments for our misbehavior, nor are they in any way part of some grand design on God’s part. Because the tragedy is not God’s will, we need not feel hurt or betrayed by God when tragedy strikes. We can turn to [God] for help in overcoming it, precisely because we can tell ourselves that God is as outraged by it as we are.

I love serving a God who is with us…in everything! 

What will happen to Job?  Come back for the next five weeks and find out! 

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen