July 18

Job’s Friends

          Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered:

                “If one ventures a word with you, will you be offended?  But who can keep from speaking? See, you have instructed many; you have strengthened the weak hands.  Your words have supported those who were stumbling, and you have made firm the feeble knees.   But now it has come to you, and you are impatient; it touches you, and you are dismayed.  Is not your fear of God your confidence, and the integrity of your ways your hope?”

                “Think now, who that was innocent ever perished?  Or where were the upright cut off?  As I have seen, those who plow iniquity and sow trouble reap the same.  By the breath of God they perish, and by the blast of his anger they are consumed.”

Job 4:1-9

           

            Throughout his life, Job has made many friends.  He has gone to those who were suffering and extended words of comfort and words of instruction.  He has built up those who were faltering and helped people get back onto their feet again.  Now, in Job’s time of suffering and need, he has three friends who come to visit him…and they offer some advice.

            The first one to speak is named Eliphaz.  All three of them tend to share the same sentiments: God only inflicts punishment upon the wicked.  So since Job is clearly suffering, he must have committed horrible sins against God.  It is the Just World Gospel of the Ancient World.  Their thought is that those who are wealthy and in good health are favored by God and those who are poor or disabled are cursed because they are paying for their sins.  Their evil has brought this suffering upon themselves and if they would just get right with God, their lives would be as good as the righteous.

            I have so little patience with this paradigm.  It is, at the very best, a poor and selective reading of scripture.  At its worst, it is a demonizing of those that Jesus went out of His way to identify with.  Jesus became homeless.  He spent more time with the sick and the poor and the addicts and the sin-filled than he did with the rich and the powerful.  Some of those people were in those positions because they made bad choices.  Some were in those positions because life rolled over them and they were desperately struggling to survive.  None of those people were in those positions because God hated them.

            The rich are not more loved by God, in fact Jesus said that it was incredibly hard for any of them to get into Heaven.  The healthy are not more loved by God.  God sees the sick.  He sees the disabled.  He sees the very young and the very old.  He sees those who have been pushed to the fringes of society because their bodies don’t work or their viewpoints are too weird or they are just too different.  He sees them all.  He loves them all.  Job was not suffering because he was evil and God was lashing out at him.  Job was suffering because events beyond his control had crashed down on him.

            I look at our kids.  They are not paying for their sins and mistakes.  What could a fetus have done to warrant spina bifoda or Downs Syndrome?  What could a child have done to make God say that they would not have use of their arms or their legs until they repent and learn their lesson?  Eliphaz says that only the guilty suffer.  No.  No.  No.  A thousand times, no.  Suffering comes to all.  Pain and loss and rejection come to all.  Some have an extra portion that they have to bear.  The hope of the Gospel and the call of God is that they will not have to bear it alone.  The hope is that those of us who are healthy or have some resources will see those with extra burdens and come alongside our brother or sister in order to help them along.  The Just World Gospel says that if we see others who are groaning under an incredible burden, it is because they have sown evil and are now reaping the same.  We should avoid them because they are contending with God and if we really want to be on God’s side we should make their life even harder. 

            It is wrong.  It is evil and it breaks God’s heart to see his children who could be helping instead piling heavier burdens on their suffering siblings.

A moment to reflect:

Where do you see the Just World Gospel today?