Job 1:1, 2:1-10

There was once a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job. That man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil.

One day the heavenly beings came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them to present himself before the LORD.

The LORD said to Satan, "Where have you come from?" Satan answered the LORD, "From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it."

The LORD said to Satan, "Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil. He still persists in his integrity, although you incited me against him, to destroy him for no reason."

Then Satan answered the LORD, "Skin for skin! All that people have they will give to save their lives.
But stretch out your hand now and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse you to your face."
The LORD said to Satan, "Very well, he is in your power; only spare his life."

So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD, and inflicted loathsome sores on Job from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head.

Job took a potsherd with which to scrape himself, and sat among the ashes.

Then his wife said to him, "Do you still persist in your integrity? Curse God, and die."

But he said to her, "You speak as any foolish woman would speak. Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?" In all this Job did not sin with his lips.

I stopped naming my sermons years ago because I ran out of catchy titles and I got tired of trying to work the catchy title into the text somewhere. But I have a couple of unused titles still in reserve that I have never written a sermon for. One of them is, "My Buddy God." I thought this title up several years ago, in Virginia, when a lady of my church was convinced she would win ten million dollars in the Virginia lottery because she believed, somehow, that God owed her. She had done the right religious things and had even promised to double tithe it after she won: two million for the church, eight million for her. How could God pass up a deal like that? My buddy God.

A man I knew thought that his buddy God provided him close-in parking spaces at the mall during Christmastime. "My buddy God" is perhaps a stage some Christians go through when they discover they really can have a personal relationship with the Ultimate Person. I had a fling with my buddy God too, years ago, but it didn't last because God isn't my buddy after all. God isn't Job's buddy, either. By the time we join Job's story in today's passage, Job has lost his wealth and his children have been killed. Then Job's very body is afflicted. All this has happened with God's permission.

It's been said, "God may not give us what we ask for, but God does give us what we need." Not here. Job is a blameless and upright man, according to God himself. The awfulness of the book of Job is found in the fact that Job neither needs nor deserves what God gives him. Job is purely a victim.

Christians are in persistent peril of mistaking God for a buddy who doles out secular successes in exchange for religious piety. It's easy to fall into a contractual relationship with the Almighty, and it's quite understandable, since our other relationships are based on a contract of some sort, in varying degrees. The early Hebrew Scriptures not only reflect a contractual religion, they actually endorse it, being full of "if-then" propositions. For example: "If you pay attention to these laws and are careful to follow them, then the Lord your God will keep his covenant of love with you, as he swore to your forefathers" (Deut 7:12).

Eventually this kind of religious understanding resulted in a sort of prosperity religion among some Jews, from which some TV evangelists derive the "prosperity Gospel" they preach. That can be found in the Bible, too: "Honor the LORD with your wealth, with the first fruits of all your crops," says Proverbs, "then your barns will be filled to overflowing, and your vats will brim over with new wine." In this scheme, wealth is the sign of divine favor and poverty the sign of divine curse. God is seen as a dispenser of rewards and penalties distributed according to how worthy persons are to receive them.

Well, that's just plain nonsense, as the Jews later came to understand. Jeremiah accosted God thus: "You are always righteous, O Lord, when I bring a case before you. Yet I would speak with you about your justice: Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do all the faithless live at ease?" (Jer 12:1).

The justice of God is the inquiry in the book of Job. In today's passage, Satan nudges God that the covenant of the people with God in which they flourish has led them basically to barter with God. Satan is implying that this corruption is so deeply ingrained that even the most religious people are not aware of it until they are stricken down. Crises have a way of bringing out what people really believe. Most of us have seen it. A marriage crumbles, a child is crippled, a career is lost – and God is rejected by spouse, by parent, by worker. But Job renounces the idea that God is simply some sort of cosmic favor-giver or withholder.

The book of Job asks whether God is bound to protect people from tragedy because they have been good or simply because they belong to God. The tension in the story between Job, his wife and his friends who later come to visit is precisely because they have this belief while Job does not. Job is quite aware that people tend to see their religion as a divine guarantee of security. Job's wife is irritated by Job's refusal to admit that the religious contract has been violated. "Do you still persist in your integrity?" she asks incredulously. "Curse God, and die." She doesn't understand her husband's faith. She thinks his integrity is clinging to religious norms even when they no longer apply. Speak what's on your heart, she urges, and get out of your misery.

Job tells his wife she is talking trash, which is just as good a translation of the Hebrew as "foolish." Job insists that people have to be willing to take the good and the bad from God. Job's faith does not rest on a contract with God.

We know Job. In many ways, we are Job. He prayed for his children's safety and well being, but he lost them; he lost the security of his herds and business assets also. Job can let go of them because he takes the apparently outrageous position that all things, good and bad, come from God. Job has moved beyond simple cause and effect. The writer of the book has, too, and that may be why he presents a ridiculous God. His picture of God as a cosmic dickerer purposely makes God petty and foolish, so much so that we scornfully, angrily reject it. And reject it we should. Near the end of the book God is portrayed altogether differently as Job probes the profoundest questions of suffering, loss and divine justice.

Job does not see the hand of God in simple terms of cause and effect. Job is coming to terms with his profound loss and the heartbreaking fragility of life. To exist at all is to be vulnerable. God has made us capable of love, but we are "also susceptible to disease, accidents, violence. In this sense, it is God who gives and takes away, from whom we receive both what we yearn for and what we dread. There is a tendency to want to associate God with only what is good. If one does that, however, then when trouble comes it is easy to feel that one has fallen into a godforsaken place. At the time, when one most needs the presence of God, there is only the experience of absence. The wisdom of Job's stance is that it allows him to recognize the presence of God even in the most desolate of experiences. Job blesses God in response to that presence." (NIB)

There is more to the story, of course. The book continues on for many more chapters, but the lectionary includes a passage from the New Testament book of Hebrews. Part of the passage says,

2:9 but we do see Jesus, . . . now crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.
2:10 It was fitting that God, . . . in bringing many children to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings.
2:11 For the one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one Father. For this reason Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters . . ."

Perhaps the ultimate question for Job is not how suffering can happen in spite of God's goodness, but where is the goodness of God to be found when there is suffering? Where is the justice of God to be found? Where is the power of God?

Christian faith answers: there is the goodness of God, hanging on the cross. There is the justice of God, and the power of God, hanging on the cross. Christ is the pioneer of our salvation, a trailblazer for us into the Kingdom of God. By his suffering, death and resurrection, the work and power of Christ is made perfect because, as Paul pointed out elsewhere, Christ's power is made perfect in human weakness. "In this world you will have trouble," said Jesus. "But take heart! I have overcome the world" (John 16:33b). Christ who sanctifies us, and we who need to be sanctified, all have one Father. So Christ claims us as his brothers and sisters.

Suffering and evil are real but cannot prevent God from bringing creation to its final, good fulfillment. The present life of both good and evil is eventually resolved "beyond this world and beyond the enigma of death" (John Hick). The Kingdom's fulfillment does not bring a point-for-point reward for suffering, but "an infinite good that would render worth while any finite suffering endured in the course of attaining it."

A note:

"Satan" in the Hebrew is not a proper name in the book of Job. It is a job title: "the adversary." In this book the satan works for God and does nothing without God's permission.