Job 2: 1-10
Job is one of the most memorable characters of the Bible. Popularly Job is an icon, the sufferer who endures the unendurable without complaint. But the “patience of Job” has become so highlighted that it blurs the much more complex figure that follows: Job the rebel, who speaks against the piety of his friends and boldly accuses God of injustice. Twentieth-century readers, having experienced a century of unparalleled horror, identify with Job’s anger as a voice of moral outrage against a God who could permit such atrocities. However Job cannot be called a complete religious rebel too, for at the end of the book, after God’s speech from the whirlwind, Job withdraws his words against God. Neither the character nor the book of Job yields to an easy appropriation. If we are willing to look beyond simple answers, the book offers a challenging exploration of religious issues of fundamental importance.
The book of Job should be viewed in the context of Israel’s personal religion. From the very beginning, Israel’s God has dealt with the people on a personal level, speaking with them, admonishing them, directing them. This religion has twin focus with God as creator, and in humankind as the divine image. With respect to humans, there is twin emphasis on their finitude and on the royal vocation of their stewardship. The human vocation is to live loyally before God on earth and in the face of a temptation, to interpret that vocation wisely,even in the presence of analternate wisdom from a divinely given tempter. God calls individuals, makes covenant with people and also tests them from time to time.
The book of Job is understood as belonging in the main line of the evolution of this personal religion. Reading it, we can discern a spiritual journey which Job is made to undertake. The book of Job begins with a simple prose story (chapters 1 and 2) describing Job’s piety, the conversation between God and the satan, which leads to a decision to test Job, and the disasters that befall Job. Abruptly, the style of the book changes in Ch. 3, as Job and his friends who have gathered to comfort him begin to debate the meaning of what has befallen him and the proper attitude Job should assume toward God. This section consists of 3 cycles of dialogues in an elegant, sophisticated poetry. The climax of this section is the long speech of God from the whirlwind and Job’s brief reply (38:1–42:6). At that point, just as abruptly, the style again shifts back to simple prose for the conclusion, as Job’s well-being is restored(42:7-17). These various elements have usually been interpreted as evidence that the book of Job grew by stages, the various parts attributable to different authors working at different times. The book of Job as a whole is best taken as a composition of the early post-exilic period (6th-5thcenturies BCE).
I would like to emphasize on the transforming picture of Job through the book. His experiences of abundance, loss, doubt, restoration lead to his reformation and a transformed idea of relationship with God. It finds relevance in our lives too as we move on in our spiritual journey. The intention of our spiritual journey is to draw us ever more closer to God with passing time. We are not meant to be stagnant, but our being must constantly grow and evolve in our relationship with God. This can be achieved only through the realization of God’s continual role in our lives. With this in mind and studying the read portion I would like to title my sermon as ‘Growing in relationship with God’.
The read portion is from the introductory prose and towards its end it also forms a transition for the next section. The first 2 chapters present four alternating scenes on heaven and earth. The scenes in heaven show God to be boasting about Job’s character to satan. Satan, better called the accuser is a member of the divine council whose role is to point out the negative characters in human beings; as against today’s popular understanding as the evil devil. Job is repeatedly said to be blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil. In the read portion, the progression in the scene in heaven is exactly the same as in Ch.1: 6-9 until God talks about Job persisting in his integrity in the latter half of v.3 of Ch.2. Further in the passage in v. 9, Job’s wife also talks about his integrity. The role of Job’s integrity is very integral to this passage.
Hence, I elaborate my first sub theme with the title‘Integrity shaped in God experiences’. (‘Growing in relationship with God with Integrity shaped in God experiences’)
As I had mentioned earlier, this second scene in heaven transpires in words identical to those in the first scene in heaven, and the change occurs to give significance to what has occurred in the previous scene on earth. Job has lost all his possessions and his family, which were great blessings from God. But Job still does not sin or charge God with wrongdoing. God says to satan ‘he still persists in his integrity (tumma), although you incited me against him, to destroy him for no reason.’ The keyword tumma (Hebrew for integrity) is important because of the way it has previously been used. God began in Ch. 1: 6-12 by drawing attention to the fact that Job was blameless (tam in Hebrew). The expression feared God in Ch. 1:1 is synonymous with tam. Tumma and tam come from the same root. Now God owns responsibility for the calamity. Yet Job maintains his integrity. ‘Integrity’ can be expounded as a) the quality of individual wholeness, b) expressing itself in acts of piety and straightforward conduct. This quality does not merely characterize Job considered in and by himself. Rather Job’s own integrity or wholeness arises in and from his relation to God.
How did Job come to have such integrity? Job’s integrity up to now is grounded in his sense of dependency and gratitude. Job is who he is because of experience of God’s benefits in his life.His piety is grateful acknowledgement of God as the ground of who he is.
To explain this, Gerald Jansen in his commentary on Job makes use of a theory on the stages of human growth in love toward God. One begins by loving oneself for one’s own sake. Not the highest degree of love, it is nevertheless the necessary starting point. Becoming aware that one is not sufficient unto oneself, but depends radically upon God, one begins to love God for one’s own sake. This is the loveof dependence and gratitude and expectation. This expectation need not be calculative or manipulative, but God who has given life may be trusted to nurture, sustain and guide it. In the course of loving God for one’s own sake, one may discover the intrinsic worthiness of God apart from all interested considerations; or rather the nature of one’s interest begins to shift, so that one begins to discover an interest in the love of God for God’s own sake. Finally, it may happen that one begins to love oneself for God’s sake, in the awareness that one’s own beingis of importance to God. These are God experiences which develop our being.
Job was abundantly blessed by God. He had become the greatest man in his land. He knew this to be God’s love and care towards him. He is seen reciprocating this love through his righteous and upright life. His piety is seen in his worship, his sacrificial offerings for sins which might have been committed. His piety is not limited to these blessed experiences from God. Even after the great loses in life, he still worships God. In the face of tragedy, what comes from him is still a liturgical language ‘the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord’. Here, he can be seen as having grown a step further in his spirituality. He can now understand God as more than just provider of gifts. His understanding is now rooted in his integrity, about which God has spoken.This integrity has developed because of Job’s love for God in response to God’s love for him. He no longer loves God just because he had sustained him all these years, but because he understands it as a natural action of his very own being.
Growing in our spirituality requires us to look at experiences beyond the viewpoint of blessings and prosperity, and punishment and grief in our lives. There are tendencies to always limit God experiences to merely the happiness or sadness in our lives. We should not stop at praising God or complaining to him. There is always need to go beyond the general human tendencies of thanking and asking for more. Our prayers must reflect a desire to grow closer to God. Our worship and liturgy must always be attempts to grow more in knowledge of God and of ourselves. We should be able to reflect the love of God through our being. Our integrity shaped in God experiences help us grow in relationship with God.
When God has affirmatively spoken about Job persisting in his integrity, Job’s wife in v.9 is seen asking him a provocative question ‘Do you still persist in your integrity?’ I now come to my second sub theme ‘Integrity which chooses God over self’ (Growing in relationship with God with Integrity which chooses God over self)
In response to God’s affirming opinion about Job, satan says that all that people have, they will give to save their lives. ‘All that a man has’; Ch. 1:10 speaks about a fence about Job, his house and all that he has. God has put a fence on every side. This 3 fold repetition suggests a concentric and widening character of the fence, moving out from Job to his house and then to all he has. One’s family and one’s possessions are attached to one as many layers of skin. A person’s consciousness can also be understood as embodied consciousness. One understands self with the realities surrounding him. Consciousness does not stop with self, but goes beyond the self to the physical body one has, to one’s family, possessions and the society one lives in. One is also always conscious about the reality of God. Job explores this gift and burden of consciousness. Job had said ‘naked I came, naked shall I return’; it shows his awareness of his naked individual self. The fence around him had been drastically thinned. And now satan has moved to touch his bone and flesh, only sparing his life. So his body, which is part of his social identity, has been affected and not only that his most intimately embodied self too must be breached to know what he would give in turn for his life?
Tracing the evolution of human consciousness shows that the post-exilic period of Israel marks the rise of individual consciousness in the ancient near east. It could be seen that the discovery of the individual self and the community self tended to give them prominence over God. The question that satan here raises is whether the individual consciousness of Israel will affect its loyalty towards the covenant of God. Job’s wife tries to make Job aware of the fact that he has the freedom to make a choice. Satan says that in order to rescue his self, Job will forsake God, that he will choose his individual self and its existence over God. Gerald Jansen says this question already lies in all individuals within their semi-awakened consciousness. But it is only when we become aware of the possibility and our freedom to choose our self over God, that we are ready for maturity. How one decides determines whether one affirms and establishes one’s integrity at a new level or whether one denies one’s integrity and leads oneself to deterioration and loss.
Job’s wife asks him ‘do you still persist in your integrity?’ Integrity would have meant the quality of individual wholeness, arising in and from relation to God and expressing itself in acts of piety and straightforward conduct. But in a context in which individual self-consciousness is being affirmed, one may also read the wife’s question another way: do you still possess your own integrity as an individual? If you really want to keep your integrity, you will wake up to the fact that your integrity arises only with you and has nothing to do with God, and you will curse God, even if that means you die.
Job’s response here seems positive. But when compared to his stronger response in Ch.1,it is very ambiguous. Closely studying his response, it can be learnt that his faith here has started losing some hold; and so follows his arguments in the coming chapters. He questions his friends’ understanding; he questions God and his ways. But after God’s speech from the whirlwind, he decides to persist in his integrity to choose God.He in fact realizes that to accept God over self leads to a transformed self. It transformed his idea about God. This only led to the strengthening of his relationship with God.
We too may face situations where it would be difficult to give God importance over ourselves. We may want to hold onto our existing identities, individuality, areas of comfort, our conceptions; but ministry of the Lord is sure to require an integrity which would choose God’s will over others. This is also bound to cause some turmoil in our spiritual journey but ultimately will lead us to gaining transformed ideas of God, our self and our ministry.
As the title suggests, we are all on a journey,with the intention of ‘growing in relationship with God’. And this journey becomes meaningful when our growth is with an integrity shaped in God experiences and an integrity which persists to choose God over the individual self. Our being should always be open to divine activity. It is only when we are tuned to God’s will, we can see purpose in all situations of our lives. Job is no longer the person he was in the beginning. As Bildad says in Ch. 8: 7 Job’s latter days are very great compared to his beginning. This greatness comes not only with his newly gained possessions but also his new sense of God and his life. May we too experience such growth in our lives.
Job is one of the most memorable characters of the Bible. Popularly Job is an icon, the sufferer who endures the unendurable without complaint. But the “patience of Job” has become so highlighted that it blurs the much more complex figure that follows: Job the rebel, who speaks against the piety of his friends and boldly accuses God of injustice. Twentieth-century readers, having experienced a century of unparalleled horror, identify with Job’s anger as a voice of moral outrage against a God who could permit such atrocities. However Job cannot be called a complete religious rebel too, for at the end of the book, after God’s speech from the whirlwind, Job withdraws his words against God. Neither the character nor the book of Job yields to an easy appropriation. If we are willing to look beyond simple answers, the book offers a challenging exploration of religious issues of fundamental importance.
The book of Job should be viewed in the context of Israel’s personal religion. From the very beginning, Israel’s God has dealt with the people on a personal level, speaking with them, admonishing them, directing them. This religion has twin focus with God as creator, and in humankind as the divine image. With respect to humans, there is twin emphasis on their finitude and on the royal vocation of their stewardship. The human vocation is to live loyally before God on earth and in the face of a temptation, to interpret that vocation wisely,even in the presence of analternate wisdom from a divinely given tempter. God calls individuals, makes covenant with people and also tests them from time to time.
The book of Job is understood as belonging in the main line of the evolution of this personal religion. Reading it, we can discern a spiritual journey which Job is made to undertake. The book of Job begins with a simple prose story (chapters 1 and 2) describing Job’s piety, the conversation between God and the satan, which leads to a decision to test Job, and the disasters that befall Job. Abruptly, the style of the book changes in Ch. 3, as Job and his friends who have gathered to comfort him begin to debate the meaning of what has befallen him and the proper attitude Job should assume toward God. This section consists of 3 cycles of dialogues in an elegant, sophisticated poetry. The climax of this section is the long speech of God from the whirlwind and Job’s brief reply (38:1–42:6). At that point, just as abruptly, the style again shifts back to simple prose for the conclusion, as Job’s well-being is restored(42:7-17). These various elements have usually been interpreted as evidence that the book of Job grew by stages, the various parts attributable to different authors working at different times. The book of Job as a whole is best taken as a composition of the early post-exilic period (6th-5thcenturies BCE).
I would like to emphasize on the transforming picture of Job through the book. His experiences of abundance, loss, doubt, restoration lead to his reformation and a transformed idea of relationship with God. It finds relevance in our lives too as we move on in our spiritual journey. The intention of our spiritual journey is to draw us ever more closer to God with passing time. We are not meant to be stagnant, but our being must constantly grow and evolve in our relationship with God. This can be achieved only through the realization of God’s continual role in our lives. With this in mind and studying the read portion I would like to title my sermon as ‘Growing in relationship with God’.
The read portion is from the introductory prose and towards its end it also forms a transition for the next section. The first 2 chapters present four alternating scenes on heaven and earth. The scenes in heaven show God to be boasting about Job’s character to satan. Satan, better called the accuser is a member of the divine council whose role is to point out the negative characters in human beings; as against today’s popular understanding as the evil devil. Job is repeatedly said to be blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil. In the read portion, the progression in the scene in heaven is exactly the same as in Ch.1: 6-9 until God talks about Job persisting in his integrity in the latter half of v.3 of Ch.2. Further in the passage in v. 9, Job’s wife also talks about his integrity. The role of Job’s integrity is very integral to this passage.
Hence, I elaborate my first sub theme with the title‘Integrity shaped in God experiences’. (‘Growing in relationship with God with Integrity shaped in God experiences’)
As I had mentioned earlier, this second scene in heaven transpires in words identical to those in the first scene in heaven, and the change occurs to give significance to what has occurred in the previous scene on earth. Job has lost all his possessions and his family, which were great blessings from God. But Job still does not sin or charge God with wrongdoing. God says to satan ‘he still persists in his integrity (tumma), although you incited me against him, to destroy him for no reason.’ The keyword tumma (Hebrew for integrity) is important because of the way it has previously been used. God began in Ch. 1: 6-12 by drawing attention to the fact that Job was blameless (tam in Hebrew). The expression feared God in Ch. 1:1 is synonymous with tam. Tumma and tam come from the same root. Now God owns responsibility for the calamity. Yet Job maintains his integrity. ‘Integrity’ can be expounded as a) the quality of individual wholeness, b) expressing itself in acts of piety and straightforward conduct. This quality does not merely characterize Job considered in and by himself. Rather Job’s own integrity or wholeness arises in and from his relation to God.
How did Job come to have such integrity? Job’s integrity up to now is grounded in his sense of dependency and gratitude. Job is who he is because of experience of God’s benefits in his life.His piety is grateful acknowledgement of God as the ground of who he is.
To explain this, Gerald Jansen in his commentary on Job makes use of a theory on the stages of human growth in love toward God. One begins by loving oneself for one’s own sake. Not the highest degree of love, it is nevertheless the necessary starting point. Becoming aware that one is not sufficient unto oneself, but depends radically upon God, one begins to love God for one’s own sake. This is the loveof dependence and gratitude and expectation. This expectation need not be calculative or manipulative, but God who has given life may be trusted to nurture, sustain and guide it. In the course of loving God for one’s own sake, one may discover the intrinsic worthiness of God apart from all interested considerations; or rather the nature of one’s interest begins to shift, so that one begins to discover an interest in the love of God for God’s own sake. Finally, it may happen that one begins to love oneself for God’s sake, in the awareness that one’s own beingis of importance to God. These are God experiences which develop our being.
Job was abundantly blessed by God. He had become the greatest man in his land. He knew this to be God’s love and care towards him. He is seen reciprocating this love through his righteous and upright life. His piety is seen in his worship, his sacrificial offerings for sins which might have been committed. His piety is not limited to these blessed experiences from God. Even after the great loses in life, he still worships God. In the face of tragedy, what comes from him is still a liturgical language ‘the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord’. Here, he can be seen as having grown a step further in his spirituality. He can now understand God as more than just provider of gifts. His understanding is now rooted in his integrity, about which God has spoken.This integrity has developed because of Job’s love for God in response to God’s love for him. He no longer loves God just because he had sustained him all these years, but because he understands it as a natural action of his very own being.
Growing in our spirituality requires us to look at experiences beyond the viewpoint of blessings and prosperity, and punishment and grief in our lives. There are tendencies to always limit God experiences to merely the happiness or sadness in our lives. We should not stop at praising God or complaining to him. There is always need to go beyond the general human tendencies of thanking and asking for more. Our prayers must reflect a desire to grow closer to God. Our worship and liturgy must always be attempts to grow more in knowledge of God and of ourselves. We should be able to reflect the love of God through our being. Our integrity shaped in God experiences help us grow in relationship with God.
When God has affirmatively spoken about Job persisting in his integrity, Job’s wife in v.9 is seen asking him a provocative question ‘Do you still persist in your integrity?’ I now come to my second sub theme ‘Integrity which chooses God over self’ (Growing in relationship with God with Integrity which chooses God over self)
In response to God’s affirming opinion about Job, satan says that all that people have, they will give to save their lives. ‘All that a man has’; Ch. 1:10 speaks about a fence about Job, his house and all that he has. God has put a fence on every side. This 3 fold repetition suggests a concentric and widening character of the fence, moving out from Job to his house and then to all he has. One’s family and one’s possessions are attached to one as many layers of skin. A person’s consciousness can also be understood as embodied consciousness. One understands self with the realities surrounding him. Consciousness does not stop with self, but goes beyond the self to the physical body one has, to one’s family, possessions and the society one lives in. One is also always conscious about the reality of God. Job explores this gift and burden of consciousness. Job had said ‘naked I came, naked shall I return’; it shows his awareness of his naked individual self. The fence around him had been drastically thinned. And now satan has moved to touch his bone and flesh, only sparing his life. So his body, which is part of his social identity, has been affected and not only that his most intimately embodied self too must be breached to know what he would give in turn for his life?
Tracing the evolution of human consciousness shows that the post-exilic period of Israel marks the rise of individual consciousness in the ancient near east. It could be seen that the discovery of the individual self and the community self tended to give them prominence over God. The question that satan here raises is whether the individual consciousness of Israel will affect its loyalty towards the covenant of God. Job’s wife tries to make Job aware of the fact that he has the freedom to make a choice. Satan says that in order to rescue his self, Job will forsake God, that he will choose his individual self and its existence over God. Gerald Jansen says this question already lies in all individuals within their semi-awakened consciousness. But it is only when we become aware of the possibility and our freedom to choose our self over God, that we are ready for maturity. How one decides determines whether one affirms and establishes one’s integrity at a new level or whether one denies one’s integrity and leads oneself to deterioration and loss.
Job’s wife asks him ‘do you still persist in your integrity?’ Integrity would have meant the quality of individual wholeness, arising in and from relation to God and expressing itself in acts of piety and straightforward conduct. But in a context in which individual self-consciousness is being affirmed, one may also read the wife’s question another way: do you still possess your own integrity as an individual? If you really want to keep your integrity, you will wake up to the fact that your integrity arises only with you and has nothing to do with God, and you will curse God, even if that means you die.
Job’s response here seems positive. But when compared to his stronger response in Ch.1,it is very ambiguous. Closely studying his response, it can be learnt that his faith here has started losing some hold; and so follows his arguments in the coming chapters. He questions his friends’ understanding; he questions God and his ways. But after God’s speech from the whirlwind, he decides to persist in his integrity to choose God.He in fact realizes that to accept God over self leads to a transformed self. It transformed his idea about God. This only led to the strengthening of his relationship with God.
We too may face situations where it would be difficult to give God importance over ourselves. We may want to hold onto our existing identities, individuality, areas of comfort, our conceptions; but ministry of the Lord is sure to require an integrity which would choose God’s will over others. This is also bound to cause some turmoil in our spiritual journey but ultimately will lead us to gaining transformed ideas of God, our self and our ministry.
As the title suggests, we are all on a journey,with the intention of ‘growing in relationship with God’. And this journey becomes meaningful when our growth is with an integrity shaped in God experiences and an integrity which persists to choose God over the individual self. Our being should always be open to divine activity. It is only when we are tuned to God’s will, we can see purpose in all situations of our lives. Job is no longer the person he was in the beginning. As Bildad says in Ch. 8: 7 Job’s latter days are very great compared to his beginning. This greatness comes not only with his newly gained possessions but also his new sense of God and his life. May we too experience such growth in our lives.