Lectionary
reading for Holy Communion today: Job 19.21-27a
The
book of Job tells one of the oldest stories in the Bible, of a man who has lost
everything in a series of tragedies. Job himself is what we might call an
unreliable witness, or an unreliable narrator of the events he is living
through. That does not mean that we cannot believe anything he says, but it
does mean we need to weigh his words carefully. And it is incredibly important
that Job’s story is given to us in the Bible, because we are all unreliable
witnesses to and narrators of our lives. We all arrive at conclusions on the
basis of insufficient information, conclusions we may need to revise later.
Job
has lost almost everything, including his children. His life, as he has known
it, has come to an abrupt end. He is overwhelmed by all the competing feelings
and emotions—including what we would call survivors relief and survivors guilt;
a sense of massive injustice; anger—some of which he can articulate, for some
of which the words elude him.
Job
believes that God has pursued and touched him, for ill, or loss, or tragedy.
God has, in fact, pursued and touched him; but has pursued and touched him to
shield him—though it does not feel that way. And both the ‘objective’ reality
and the ‘subjective’ reality matter. Job does not need correction, or answers,
as much as solidarity, a comforting presence. He needs a safe space, to release
his emotions.
Where
I believe that Job is absolutely on the money is in asking his friends to have
pity on him. The word translated ‘pity’ means ‘to bend or stoop to show
kindness.’ This is what God does, in response to tragedy, and what we who are
created to reflect God’s nature are invited to do also.
In
the face of tragedy, we can harden ourselves, in the hope that tragedy will not
touch us; or we can allow ourselves to bend, stooping to show kindness.
God
does not will tragedy. God permits tragedy, in this world—and we might well
find ourselves wanting to take that up with God, to be indignant that God does
not intervene to prevent, for example, our human tendency to rush to experience
things we are not ready to experience (a tendency the Bible acknowledges up
front, in the very third chapter). But in every circumstance, however tragic,
God works to bring the most possible good out of the times our lives are
touched by evil. Does that make the cost worthwhile? No; but the cost has
already been paid. It does mean that lives, even cut short far too soon, are
not wasted.
Job,
the unreliable witness, nonetheless has an unshakeable hope that, one day, God
will make all things right. That even death will not rob Job of seeing God
beside him and for him. The God who pursues us even to the grave and touches us
to shield us from harm. For Christians, that hope has a name, given long after
Job had died: the name he saw with his own eyes is Jesus.
This
week, three teenagers died when the car they were in went into the river here
in Sunderland. I cannot imagine how afraid they were in those moments. But I do
not believe that they were alone. I believe that God moved heaven and earth to
be with them, and to shield them. They were not rescued, and we will have to
live with that for as long as we live. But we, too, are pursued and touched by
God. Held by love, and light in the darkness.
May
we bend towards one another, and all who are most affected, with kindness.
And
may we hold on to hope, trusting in Jesus’ victory over the grave for us.
Job
19.21-27a
21 Have pity on
me, have pity on me, O you my friends,
for the hand of God has touched me!
22 Why do you, like God, pursue me,
never satisfied with my flesh?
23 ‘O that my words were written down!
O that they were inscribed in a book!
24 O that with an iron pen and with lead
they were engraved on a rock for ever!
25 For I know that my Redeemer lives,
and that at the last he will stand upon the earth;
26 and after my skin has been thus destroyed,
then in my flesh I shall see God,
27 whom I shall see on my side,
and my eyes shall behold, and not another.
My heart faints within me!
