Job: Which god is God?

Yesterday I participated in a two man dramatic reading from Job 1. I read excerpts from the scriptural text, while the other actor played the role of internal cynic. The ultimate problem presented was the question of how a god of love could hit Job up with such catastrophe, or even allow it. Interestingly, while that's the problem we moderns tend to see with catastrophe, it was not the problem that Job's friends presented.

Job's friends saw god as the one who blesses the righteous and punishes the wicked. The catastrophe that fell upon Job was not a problem in and of itself. Rather it was just the normal result of wickedness -- the fact that Job gave no appearance whatsoever of having shifted in any of his behaviours or attitudes from righteous to wicked, notwithstanding. If anything, Job's response to the catastrophes gave ample evidence of his continued righteousness -- or it would have to anyone except those whose god was simply about rewarding the good and punishing the bad.

I find it curious that Job, who was able to continue to trust in God throughout catastrophic loss, ends up arguing against the same simple god that his friends present. It is that god that Job challenges to come and explain himself, to give an account of just where it is that Job has so grievously sinned so as to deserve such judgement.

But the friend's god doesn't show up to answer Job's challenge. Instead the true God shows up, and Job's arguments cease. God never gives Job the answers to the challenges he posed to that lesser god. Rather He gives Job a real encounter with the true God, and that is more than enough for Job.

Then Job replied to the LORD: "I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted. You asked, 'Who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge?' Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. "You said, 'Listen now, and I will speak; I will question you, and you shall answer me.' My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes." After the LORD had said these things to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite, "I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has. So now take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and sacrifice a burnt offering for yourselves. My servant Job will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer and not deal with you according to your folly. You have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has." Job 42:1-8 NIV

Job's friends accused him of gross sin against a god that was far smaller than the true God who showed up to vindicate Job. Job's compaint against that small god of his friends was valid -- it just wasn't relevant when faced with the true God.

I wonder if today the small god of Job's friends hasn't shifted to an equally simplistic idea of a god who loves everyone and blesses everyone. IF so, it is no wonder the world complains that the catastophes we experience, whether natural like hurricanes Rita and Katrina or the Boxing day tsunami, or manmade like 9/11 or the Rwandan genocide, demand an answer from such a god -- an answer that cannot be given. The ultimate answer lies not in better arguments for or against the existence of such a god. The ultimate answer lies in what Job received: a real encounter with the true God, who is so much greater than any simplistic moralistic god, that the whole issue becomes irrelevant.

I hope that's what people experienced yesterday, to some measure at least. SDG