At our church we're continuing our series on "Heroes of the Faith" in which someone from the church community suggests their favorite Bible Hero or story. Inspired by my mania for the TV Show Heroes, it's our way to reflect on heroes and heroines of the faith and how we're called by their example from story texts to participatory action.
This week it's Job. Not a part-time or full-time gig, but a man who's story is the ultimate story of suffering, and looking for sense in the chaos, crap and challenge of life.
Here's the Monteskewed-notes to bring you up to speed. Job is a good, faithful, God-fearing man. He is pursued and tormented by the devil; losing all that he has - wealthy, power, status, land, family, wife, and health. He refuses to curse and blame God for all the *%$# that has gone down. His three good friends come along and try to convince him that it's his fault: he's been bad, been a sinner so he's gotten what he deserves. In the end Job asks, "Why?" God responds (our reading for Sunday) saying basically, "Who the hell are you to question me? Where were you when the universe was made? Who are you to think yourself that important? Don't you see my love for all things. I make it rain on the good and the evil, on the rain forest and also the desert." Job realizes what God is saying, repents of his arrogance, and is commended by God.
Did it happen. Maybe. Scholars say that it most likely is a long philosophical poem written as a way to question the theological ideas of the day (about 2,300 years ago), which are still the questions we face today:
1. Why do bad things happen to good people?
2. Why do good things happen to bad people?
3. If God is so loving and all-powerful how come the world is so %$&*#$ up?
I first have to say, "Who I am to answer these questions?" I haven't lived a life of tremendous suffering like some friends I know, captivity in the Middle East, homelessness, abandonnement. So I can only answer based on my experience and faith journey and relationships with others.
Classic theology calls this the question of Theodicy. We basically have 3 options (this comes from Kushner's book When bad things happen to good people.)
1. God is all powerful but not all-loving. He can do anything but doesn't love us enough to be kind to us all of the time. So bad things happen because of him.
2. God is not all powerful but all-loving. She loves us so much, wanting to do anything for us, but she can't. So bad things happen despite her.
3. God is all powerful and all-loving. God loves us so much, wants to do anything for us, and does but somehow bad things happen. Evil is. God could overcome it completely in a petrelli-power-move of omnipotence but doesn't. It's a mystery that we have to accept.
If you choose 1, then God is a jerk.
If you choose 2, then God is a joke.
If you choose 3, then God is an unknowable mystery that chooses to make himself known.
I choose 3. But that doesn't make it any easier.
I think we get screwed up as followers of Jesus because we expect God to answer our questions on our terms and in our contexts. "Why do you let my ennemy win?" "Why do you let evil continue in Darfur?" "Why didn't you help the Raiders to win?"
Yet what I fathom in the testimonies of the Bible and glimpse in my own life experience is that God speaks another language. God doesn't exist or relate to us in order to answer our questions like ask.com or google. Jesus never really answers the questions that he's asked with a straight-forward multiple-choice kind of answer. Instead he says, "Come and see." "Follow me." "Get up and walk." He always turns it around, not to make fun of the question or to be elusive, but rather to invite the question-asker to action, participation and movement. It's not a static tit-for-tat question-answer session. It's something else. A mystery, sure. And also more intimate than a mystery. As Job learns and confirms, there is no answer there's only what the Bible calls obedience, Paul Ricoeur calls moving from text to action, and what I'd call following in faith.
One thing that comes to mind is a quote that I often see on the internet these days and another from George Eliot:
"PEACE: It does not mean to be in a place where there is no
may well be called a baptism,
a regeneration, the initiation into a new state."
6 comments:
I view things slightly different because I believe in reincarnation. I think we come back to this physical world to experience worldly emotions like suffering and loss because it is hard to remember those emotions in the the spiritual realm. God does not forsake us. He is with us but it was us who wanted to come here to learn or relearn. Then we die and go back with Him. I suppose I don't technically qualify as a Christian any more, but I know some and like them. Does that count?
According to the doctrine, I may be destined for hell when I die. My brother, the Baptist, tells me I am. I am stuck between the doctrines I grew up and what I now believe to be true. My God has never changed though.
Hey Corn Dog,
Well all I can say is that you know me...so maybe I'm not on the right path either...:)
Interesting thoughts about reincarantion. In thinking about it I have a question. Why do we come back to suffer and experience loss again? What's the point? How do we need to remember that? (I'm looking for some enlightment.) I think we're talking about the same God he/she is pretty big, defintely bigger than I can describe or put into words. I'm not sure what a technical Christian is....if there is such a description, I have a suspicion that I may not be one either....hmmm.
Searching actively to receive illumination....
Monte
I am actively searching for illumination too. Maybe that is the definition of a Christian. I'm not sure why we come back here. It is rather much a theory I have made up about suffering. I want to think of it as a learning experience. I think we forget on the other side what emotions are like - maybe? I don't know. I do know I don't feel like this is my first time to be here. I feel like I have been on this earth before. Sounds crazy. I know. Like my Hindu friend says, we select suffering to learn more. It seems like an odd selection when we are in the spiritual realm but I do feel like I have learned 10 times more about tolerance, patience and understanding when I have suffered. If nothing had ever happened to me on this earth, I would have left as I came in, spoiled and unchanged. I think my eyes have been opened to some things I never would have seen. It is a hard lesson, but some, like me, are hard headed and the lessons have to be hard. Sometimes I can almost hear God saying, "THAT is what I was trying to tell you."
Hey Corn Dog,
Thanks for the clarification...I think I see what you're saying. It makes me think - and ponder some more - the quote that I put on the bulletin cover of our church bulletin this past Sunday....“Deep unspeakable suffering
may well be called a baptism,
a regeneration, the initiation into a new state.”
- George Eliot
What a great quote and so succinct. I want to think God and I filled out a learning plan for me in the spiritual realm to achieve a higher state of being (understanding?) because I don't think souls can suffer in the spiritual realm. It's funny how I make God "all about me." The egocentricity of my God. I am arrogant about it too. My God. I'm sure I have a lesson around here somewhere about that too.
Sometimes I think about my atheist friends and how much time they must save not thinking about things like this. Easy. No God. No problem. No worry. You die - zippity do da. Sometimes I think you are what you believe.
Post a Comment