Monday, June 13, 2005
LUKE 10:13-16
People think of Job as the perfect model for anyone who aspires to be a patiently-enduring servant of God. In fact, Job was just the opposite. He complained insistently against God because of what he perceived to be God's utter injustice in dealing with him. In the biblical account he's portrayed as an embittered, pessimistic old man who can see no good in life, who is angry with an unfair and unjust God. He's adamant in insisting that his sufferings are not punishment for sin but clear proof that God has dealt with him unjustly.
In today's reading God, having listened patiently to Job's persistent criticism, responds to him from the midst of a tempest. His words are full of irony and sarcasm. He overwhelms Job, presenting himself to him as a terrifying storm. God's voice thunders a devastating contrast between his eternal majesty and limitless might, his all- embracing intelligence and all-penetrating wisdom on the one hand, and, on the other, Job's limited physical and mental faculties.
"Have you," he demands of Job, "have you commanded the morning . . . have you entered into the sources of the sea or have you walked about in the depths of the abyss . . . have you comprehended the breadth of the earth . . . [do you know] the way to the dwelling place of light . . . [to] the abode of darkness . . . ?"
In effect, God asks Job whether he has any right at all to criticize his management of the world, his dealings with Job? God is telling Job that neither he nor any other human being is capable of discerning completely the mystery of life.
This is a truth we must continue to affirm today. Indeed we have far greater reason than did Job to make this affirmation. Job's experience of God was of an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-wise deity who asserted his mighty infinitude with withering sarcasm against any creature that dared to question it.
The God we know today is God who is love, who is vulnerable, who suffers in and with the creature his love has made.
In today's reading God, having listened patiently to Job's persistent criticism, responds to him from the midst of a tempest. His words are full of irony and sarcasm. He overwhelms Job, presenting himself to him as a terrifying storm. God's voice thunders a devastating contrast between his eternal majesty and limitless might, his all- embracing intelligence and all-penetrating wisdom on the one hand, and, on the other, Job's limited physical and mental faculties.
"Have you," he demands of Job, "have you commanded the morning . . . have you entered into the sources of the sea or have you walked about in the depths of the abyss . . . have you comprehended the breadth of the earth . . . [do you know] the way to the dwelling place of light . . . [to] the abode of darkness . . . ?"
In effect, God asks Job whether he has any right at all to criticize his management of the world, his dealings with Job? God is telling Job that neither he nor any other human being is capable of discerning completely the mystery of life.
This is a truth we must continue to affirm today. Indeed we have far greater reason than did Job to make this affirmation. Job's experience of God was of an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-wise deity who asserted his mighty infinitude with withering sarcasm against any creature that dared to question it.
The God we know today is God who is love, who is vulnerable, who suffers in and with the creature his love has made.
# posted by F O O D F O R T H O U G H T @ 1:45 PM 
