This morning we have this lesson from the book of Job. Now, Job is not one of those books of the Old Testament that we usually hear much of on Sunday mornings. But the Revised Common Lectionary we use gives us several weeks’ worth of Job this October, and so I wanted to take the opportunity to do a little exploring of this particular character from our holy scriptures.
What we start with today is a little deceiving, in the sense that we don’t get the full context of how Job gets to the place where we find him. We only get the first verse of chapter 1, but there are some important things we need to know. Like that Job had a big family – seven sons and three daughters, we’re told. He had thousands of sheep and camels, hundreds of ox and donkeys, and a number of servants. He was, we’re told, ‘the greatest of all the people of the east.’ Job had it good. And he was grateful. He loved and respected and worshiped God, made sacrifices to God. So Job is there, enjoying his life, his family, his wealth, his God. When, unbeknownst to Job, God and His cabinet are having a conversation. The Satan – and this is not the devil as we may think of it, the personification of evil, which is a concept that develops later. Satan is a word from Hebrew, which means Accuser or Adversary – the Satan is the one on God’s cabinet whose job it is to prosecute those who have gone against God – but only with God’s okay. So God and the Adversary are having a conversation, and God is bragging about what a wonderful person Job is – blameless and upright, one who fears – that is, awes and respects – God, and turns away from evil. Now the Adversary’s job is to be an adversary – the phrase ‘devil’s advocate’ comes to mind – and he says, sure, Job is this great guy who loves and worships you. Why wouldn’t he? You’ve given him everything. All he has to do is be grateful. If he didn’t have all of those things that made him happy, just see what would happen and how he would turn on you. If you take away all he has, he will curse you to your face.
It’s hard to know why God responds the way He does here, because God says okay to this little experiment. So we see in quick succession how Job loses everything – his animals are carried off, his servants are killed, his children die in a freak accident. All wiped out, just like that. And Job responds by going into mourning. He tears his robes. He shaves his head. He falls to the ground – and he worships God. He says, the Lord gives, and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. This is where the rest of our reading this morning comes in. God again points out to the Adversary what a person of faith and integrity Job is. The Adversary says sure, that’s because you left him untouched. Attack his body, and see how quick he turns on you then. So the Satan inflicts sores all over Job’s body. And Job – he is beaten down, for sure. He goes to sit in the ashes – among the garbage, really – and sits and scratches his sores. At this point his wife – the lone surviving member of his family – has had enough. She says, what’s your integrity worth now? Curse God and let it be done with. But Job isn’t there. He is still faithful. He still has love and respect and awe for God. Three of his friends come to console and comfort him, and when they first see him they don’t even recognize him, so changed is his appearance from his grief and his sores. Scripture tells us that they had no words that could truly comfort Job and they knew it. So they just sit with him, in silence, in respect for his suffering, in solidarity. “They sat with him on the ground for seven days and seven nights.”
Job will speak, finally, and when he does his story gets even more complicated. We’ll hear more from Job over the next few weeks. Today what I want to focus on is what it is we see from Job here, in these first two chapters. Besides seeing his fortunes turn, that is. What do we see from him as a person – as a man of faith and a person of integrity? Why does he respond the way he does, and what can we learn from him?
There are a few things that I see which I think are worth exploring. I see this story as being about convictions, for one thing. God’s conviction that Job is blameless and upright and faithful, no matter what. More importantly, Job’s conviction that what he has comes from God, when he has much and when he has nothing. Either way, he knows the source of all that he has, and has nothing bad to say about God even as he sits on a dung heap and scratches his sores, having lost everything. And I think these convictions make sense for Job only because of his relationship with God. That’s another thing that I think this story is about: relationship. The relationship Job has with his wife runs into some complications as he loses all that he has, and as she encourages him to curse God and be done with it. The relationship he has with his friends starts out promising, as they sit in solidarity with Job and his suffering – but it soon goes the other way as they start to offer counsel which is less than supportive or helpful. But his relationship with God is his rock, and what he clings to, even when he’s lost everything and is lying face down in the dirt. Blessed is the name of the Lord, he says. Scripture makes it clear that ‘in all this Job did not sin with his lips’ – did not curse God, did not blame God for all of the suffering he was experiencing. His circumstances change, but his faith in God does not. As we will see in the next weeks, Job’s relationship with God will change, but it will not end; in fact it will even be strengthened. So conviction, and relationship are some of what this story is about. And then the third thing is generosity.
Yes, I said generosity. Job knows that he is blessed, back in the time before. He knows that he owes all that he has to God. He knows that his only responses to what he has are to love God in return and say thank you to God for all that he has. And even when he loses everything, he does not lose this sense of love and thanks – even when we see him later get angry with God, and demand an audience, a face-to-face with the Creator, as he tries to make sense of his world as it stands now, and the changes he has had to deal with. He knows that all that we have comes from God, that God is the giver and that sometimes we lose what we had. And yet what does Job say? He says, blessed be the name of the Lord. When his wife says, just go curse God already, this is not what Job does. He instead says to her, you know, we can’t respond in love and thanks only when things are good. The measure of our faith may be how we respond when things are bad. I find in Job here a certain generosity of spirit, a generosity back to God, not blaming God for what has gone wrong but responding in thanks for all that God had given him before, and for the continuing relationship that still exists between them. Maybe Job thinks about it this way: I might not have anything else, but I still have God’s presence, no matter what. And what Job knows is that all of the things he had – wealth and status, those animals and servants and property – it was never really his to begin with. It was only on loan, from God to Job, so that Job could do his work and in the process glorify – praise and give thanks – to God. Job was a good steward of what God had given him, and when he lost it all he knew he had not lost what was most important – his faith, and his relationship with God.
So I see something truly spiritually generous in this person Job, and I know it’s a generosity that I know I don’t always possess. I know that where Job lives is not always where I live, even though I want to truly live that kind of generosity. That attitude – all that we have is not ours, but is given to us in trust by God so that we may praise and thank God for what we have, and give back what the Old Testament calls the ‘first fruits’ of our labors – it’s tough to get there. But for those who do, and even those of us who are working on getting there – it’s a pretty remarkable place to be. There’s another story that comes to mind about great generosity. It comes from Luke’s gospel, a story Jesus told, which we know as the Prodigal Son. Remember that story – the son gets his inheritance, takes off from the family farm, engages in loose living and fast living, and wastes it all, fritters away all that he had been given. Eventually he ‘comes to himself,’ as the scriptures put it, and he vows to return home to his father’s house even to work as a servant. He’s on the road home, all set to repent of his wrongdoing – but in the end he never gets the chance. His father sees him coming and welcomes him home, even without the ‘I messed up and I’m really sorry’ speech. Interestingly, it’s the older brother who has the difficulty in this story – the good one, the one who stayed home, the one who does the right thing. I think the part of the story that’s most powerful for me comes when the father is talking to his less-generous older son. The father, in all of his love for his children, says to his older son, All that I have is yours. But we have to celebrate because your brother has come home. Now, the older son doesn’t say thanks, Dad; I know that you have given me all that you have, and it is now all that I have. He says, don’t give any more to my brother. It’s the father’s response that’s striking. The father says, but I love him as much as I love you. The embodiment of love is striking, but also that statement, all that I have is yours. God says that to us – all that I have is yours. All of my love, all of my gifts, all of myself. It’s all for you. And we are to say and live this back to God. All that I have is yours, God. And how I show that to you is in my own generosity and my giving to others.
And Job - you know, he has everything, he makes his sacrifices to God in thanksgiving, he knows to whom he owes all that he has and all that he is. He would understand the father’s statement from Jesus’ story. Even, I think, when he has nothing.
And what about us? Do we understand? Do we get it? Do we approach our giving this way – not as, I guess I have to or I should, but God, here’s what I’m giving back to you. It’s what is all yours already. I’ve tried to use what you’ve given me to your honor and glory, and here I give back, to honor and glorify you. Can we find, or develop, the same kind of generosity in ourselves that we see in Job? That we see in the father in Jesus’ story? Maybe that’s what we should reflect on this week. Because our generosity back to God in response for all of God’s generosity to us, that’s what stewardship is about.
Amen.