No Matter What

Based on Job 1:1; 2:1-10

Over the next few weeks, we will be dipping in and out of the book of Job. This book is one of the better known and appreciated books in the Bible. Considered one of the wisdom books, Job has been a source for reflection on the big questions of life, especially the question of suffering. Specifically, why do innocent people suffer? The book raises questions about justice and about whether a big family, wealth and health are proofs of being blessed by God. The book even raises questions about God’s character. How God is portrayed in Job in some ways leaves us feeling a bit uneasy. When it comes to the book of Job, a lot of questions can be asked but definitive answers are hard to come by. This book has a way of prompting us to a deeper reflection on the mystery of God, of evil, of suffering, of justice, of the human experience.

The book of Job has a straightforward layout. The beginning and the end of the book is a story about a man named Job who lived in the land of Uz, which is in the territory of the Edomites, located southwest of Israel. Job is not an Israelite. That in itself sets the stage for this book to be dealing with the broader human experience, not limited to Israel’s relationship with God. The main part of Job are poetic dialogues that go back and forth between Job and his three friends. Then, near the end, a fourth person shows up out of nowhere to put in his two cents. Finally, God speaks. Scholars suggest that the poetic dialogues were inserted into the middle of the story of Job and written by other people so that the book of Job has two or even more authors. How ever it came to be, it is before us. Let’s dig in.

As I said, Job deals with several aspects related to the human experience. Two of the main issues has to do with suffering and the motivation to be devoted to God. In other words, why should we worship God when we suffer profound tragedy and loss? These two issues are combined in this opening story. As the book of Job begins, we read of two episodes in which God and Satan talk to each other, then Satan harms Job in a shocking and devastating way, having received permission from God to do so, and Job responds to the suffering. We only had read for us the second episode. Let’s get a quick review of the first one.

In the first episode, we have God mingling with other beings in the heavenly court. Satan comes along and he and God have a conversation, in which God brags about how no one on earth is more pious and loyal than Job. But Satan doesn’t buy it. Now this is a good time to notice who Satan is in this story. Whether we want to label this being as the devil or not, let’s be clear what role this being plays in this story. The word “satan” means accuser or adversary. We shouldn’t necessarily understand Satan here as the lord of evil or God’s enemy. Perhaps you have been in a meeting where there is a discussion about how to respond to some issue. An idea is presented and people are getting behind it. But you or someone else has some questions or want to test this idea. So, you say, “Playing the devil’s advocate, I wonder…” The devil’s advocate isn’t your enemy. They just want to test the assumptions, go a bit deeper, raise doubts. That’s how we should understand the role that Satan is playing in this story of Job. He hears God bragging about how pious Job is and Satan is not convinced. He doesn’t believe Job’s piety is as sincere as God thinks it is. He is suspicious and wants to have the opportunity to prove to God that Job isn’t all that. God takes the bait. Rather than blowing Satan off, God gives Satan permission to take away all that Job has, to remove his prosperity and kill his servants and children just to prove that Job’s piety is not dependent on all of his blessings. Now, this in itself raises questions about God. Why would God allow all those people, including Job’s children, to be killed just to prove a point with Satan? I’m going to flat out ask it: is this a god that anyone would want to be devoted and loyal to, who would allow such loss of life to win an argument? You could say that if God had not given permission to Satan to go cause all that suffering then we wouldn’t have a story. But this is what the book of Job does. When you stop and think about what is happening, some deep and somewhat disturbing questions rise to the surface.

At any rate, the second episode is a continuation of the first. God and Satan have another conversation. God brags about Job again and, in fact, says that his allowing Satan to cause all that suffering was for no reason. God admits that it was unnecessary suffering. But Satan, the accuser, still is not convinced. He believes that if Job lost his good health and was struck with a miserable disease that his piety toward God would evaporate. God gives Satan permission to harm Job however he wants to, just not to take his life. Which makes sense. Job needs to remain alive so that God and Satan can observe how he responds to this unnecessary suffering. And Satan does a number on Job. He inflicts on Job a skin disease. That is the worst of all. To be inflicted with a skin disease not only is physically painful but everyone can see your disease and most people will not want to be near you. To have a skin disease, like leprosy or what Job has, pushes you to the margins. No one wants to be near you. A skin disease makes you socially isolated. In those days, it’s the worst disease you can have. If there was any disease that would test someone’s faith in God, this would be it.

In both conversations between God and Satan, Satan questions Job’s motives for being so devoted to God. He basically says to God, “Of course Job is pious and devoted to you. Look at all his blessings. He is prosperous, healthy and has a large family. Take all that away and see how much devotion Job gives you then.” Satan thinks that Job’s relationship with God is transactional. Satan thinks that Job’s relationship with God is like this: if I demonstrate to God my piety and devotion, then God will assure my blessing of a large family and a life of prosperity. Everyone knows that God blesses the righteous and punishes the unrighteous. So, if I want a blessed life, then I need to be devoted to God. That is a transactional relationship. You demonstrate devotion to God and in return God pours down blessings on you. That’s the kind of relationship with God that Satan believed Job had. Take away the blessings and see what happens.

I wonder how common it is for people to understand their relationship with God as transactional? Maybe we look to the purveyors of the prosperity gospel, that idea that you don’t have material blessings because you have not asked God in faith. We see those prosperity gospel preachers with their fine suits and private jet planes promising that you can be blessed like this as well if you just had enough faith. Millions of people literally buy in to that thinking.

But digging a little deeper, I think there are a lot of people who have this idea that being devoted to God somehow protects you from needless suffering and loss, and then experience profound disappointment or even lose their faith in God when that protection isn’t there. I still remember one of my boys, when he was young, saying to me one morning that he didn’t believe in God anymore because he had prayed for God to do something and it didn’t happen. That’s an understandable faith for someone who is eight years old. But I know a lot of people who were taught that God is all powerful and all loving. So why did God take my daughter? Why does God allow widespread famine? The number of people who abandoned belief in God all together in Europe as a consequence of the Holocaust was massive. That question of why there is evil if God is all powerful and all loving is a question that has plagued humanity for thousands of years, a problem that the book of Job addresses in different ways. But the point I am making here is that for many people they understand their relationship with God to be a transactional one. I will be devoted to you and in return you will bless me.

There is this monastery in Conyers, Georgia, not far from Atlanta that I went to every fall when I was in seminary. The monastery was founded by Catholics who came home from World War II. As the story goes, all these monks were fighting in the war and made a bargain with God. They said, “God, if you get me out of this war alive, I promise to become a monk.” Now, I don’t know if that’s true. But that does sound transactional, doesn’t it? You do this for me, and I’ll do this for you. You know, I wonder if for all of us from time to time our motivation to be devoted to God could be characterized as transactional. I think there is something about the relationship between God and humanity in which this motivation pops up. In fact, it may be the most common motivation for being devoted to God. Satan, in his testing of God’s belief in Job, had this in mind.

Job’s responses to his tragic suffering demonstrates that his motivation for being devoted to God is not transactional. At the end of the first episode, as he grieves the loss of his herds of animals, the deaths of all his servants and all his children, he is mourning in deep sorrow as we can imagine. And he says, “Naked did I come into this world and naked I will depart. God gives and takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” And later, when he is sitting on the ash heap, scraping his sores with the shard of a broken pot, his wife suggests to him that he should just curse God and die. And Job calls her a foolish woman. Not his best self. And he says, “Should we accept good things from God and not the bad things God sends us?” Good or bad, receiving blessings or sufferings, Job remains devoted to God. No matter what. He proves Satan wrong that his devotion to God is not based on a transaction. God does not have to bless him and can even allow him great and, as God said, unreasonable catastrophe, and it will not change his unswerving loyalty and devotion to the God who allows such suffering and death just to prove a point with Satan. Amazing. Some might say even a bit pitiful. Honestly, does a god that allows a bunch of people to be killed, including all your children, and then be struck with a painful skin disease, just to prove Satan wrong…is such a god worthy of unwavering devotion? Some may wonder if Job’s dedication to this god is a bit misplaced.

As the story has developed so far, we are satisfied that Job’s motivation for being devoted to God has nothing to do with what he gets out of the relationship. Good or bad, he is with God. But what is Job’s motivation? We don’t know. We know what it isn’t, but we don’t know what it is. Job isn’t even an Israelite. This isn’t the god of his ancestors. So, what is it? Is it out of fear of what might happen to him if he cursed God? How worse could it be? That’s basically the point his wife was making. So, fear can’t be a motivation. Tradition I don’t think would be the reason since he isn’t even an Israelite. Why this unwavering devotion? The answer is not obvious.

As we ponder what might be Job’s motivation for remaining devoted to God no matter what happens, we are invited to ponder for ourselves what our motivation might be. Let’s say we want to affirm Job’s position and conclude that devotion to God should not be based on a transaction. Our motivation to be devoted to God is not based on the promise of blessings in this life or protection from unjust and unreasonable suffering, meaningless suffering. We have determined to be faithful to God no matter what. So, what is our motivation? Why have we decided to follow Jesus? If we say it is because we don’t want to go to hell and instead want to go to heaven, that sounds a little transactional to me. Would we follow Jesus even if our salvation wasn’t guaranteed? I wonder.

Maybe your motivation is because this is how you were raised. It is the faith of your family. Or it is the faith of your community. What I mean is, this church is like a family to you. This is your community. It is here that you find support in the hard times and people who celebrate with you in the good times. Maybe your motivation is because of the community that comes from being a devoted disciple of Jesus and a lover of God. There is a sense of greater purpose, of belonging to something bigger than yourself, connection with a community that has existed for 2,000 years and that includes the whole world.

It is this global community of faith that we acknowledge and celebrate today. World Communion Sunday, which occurs every year on the first Sunday of October, is an annual opportunity for churches around the world to participate in Holy Communion. Especially today, as we receive communion together. Let us be mindful that Christians all around the world are receiving communion with us. And as we receive this morning as one global community of people who are devoted to God, let this be our motivation, to claim this global community of Jesus followers as our own, no matter what.