Missing the Point

So here it is. The long promised "real" post about Job, Brennan Manning and God (and it's really long...just a warning).

First a confession: I've never been a fan of Job. When I realized that my "Read Through The Bible: Chronologically" took me there a mere eleven chapters into Genesis I flinched a little and started counting down the twelve days until it would be over.

For those of you who don't know, Job is a book about God taking a bet, of sorts, with Satan. The book starts out with Satan approaching God after "roaming through the earth and going back and forth in it" and God asks Satan if he has thought about the most righteous man upon the earth, Job. Satan then says that Job would curse God's name if he lost everything, and God says try him, just don't kill him. So Satan does. When Job is at his lowest point--after his wife leaves because Job will not "curse God and die"--his friends come around and blame Job for the things that are happening to him. In the end Job asks God why He did it, and God tells him not to question the Almighty about things he won't, can't or shouldn't understand. The reason why I have never liked this book is that it seems so incredibly cruel, and in the end there are no answers. (Kind of like applying for jobs...coincidence?).

It was somewhere in Chapter 19 it hit me. Maybe I'm missing the point of Job. Maybe I get so wrapped up in this "innocent" man suffering at the hand of Satan on a bet with God that I miss the rest of the story. Maybe the story isn't about action or inaction, but rather about reaction. After all, God only speaks for 4 chapters out of 42, the rest of the book is dialogue--glorious poetry of God's greatness and man's weakness and wickedness--between Job and his friends. But the thing that really stuck me is how Job pleads with his friends to have compassion on him, while his friends hold that Job must have done something wicked to be in the situation that he is currently in. As I was reading the other day I realized how familiar Job's friends' thought process was to the excuses commonly made today for not reaching out in compassion towards others. Maybe they should work harder, maybe they should have paid attention in school, maybe they shouldn't take drugs, maybe their dad should have stuck around, maybe, maybe, maybe...

...maybe we don't get what we deserve...

You see, it had already been established that Job was a righteous man. He even sacrificed for sins his sons and daughters might have committed, he took care of the poor and the orphans...he did it all, folks. And yet his friends, looking for a response, can do nothing but blame Job for the trouble that has come upon him. And I can understand this response...being, well, human, I want to find reasons as well. Reasons for suffering and pain. Maybe there isn't always a reason. Maybe the reason for one's suffering and one's pain is to give me the opportunity to sit down and talk about their suffering with them, or to give them a hug.

I am not good at this. In fact, I think more often I act out of guilt rather than joy or compassion. And yesterday was a prime example.

I was walking to an Immigration Policy seminar. Crossing the street, I looked up and under an overhang between two stores was a homeless woman huddled over. She stood up and it looked like she was pulling up her pants. While I was still a few feet away she tossed a bag out onto the sidewalk. It smelled. Really bad. She had just finished using the bathroom. I was confused and sickened as I looked down at my feet and hurried by--unsure of what to do or how to respond.

For the rest of the day I felt guilty. I couldn't stop thinking about this woman--and I still wonder what the correct response should have been. I like to tell myself that I passed quickly by in order to give her her privacy--in order to not embarrass her.

Really? I probably passed by in order to maintain my own privacy--in order not to feel embarrassed myself.

This is where the wonderful prose of Brennan Manning comes in. The Ragamuffin Gospel is about grace. Undeniable, passionate and loving grace. The grace that I so often neglect to give myself or others, let alone accept that maybe Jesus wants to give me (or others) some grace too. I beat myself up, I get angry and I'm confused about the way I am to live my life. Even when it comes to accepting grace I find my journal full of "Why can't you just learn to accept grace!"--a statement hardly full of the grace I should be learning to accept. This is not what Christianity is about...and it's not what Jesus came for. Jesus wants us to experience joy. Not happiness...but rather a joy that cannot be repressed that is evident in all situations--good and bad. This joy comes from knowing there is a Father in Heaven, Savior of the World who loved you...me...everyone. And then this knowledge brings us joy...that joy then moves us to REACT to suffering with love, compassion and awe of the Almighty.

This is an ongoing struggle for me...it's a learning process that I can't learn, that has to be taught to me. My prayer is that I would find joy in the struggle.

Elihu is Job's youngest and wisest friend. He speaks at the end of the book out of, what I perceive, to be compassion and with the full knowledge of the power and greatness of the Almighty. This is one thing that he says:

But those who suffer, He delivers in their suffering;

He speaks to them in their affliction.
(Job 36:15)

Notice God does not take away their suffering, but rather meets them in it.

Grace is found in Job too, when Elihu reminds Job that neither goodness or sin matters to the Almighty. Why would he punish us for things that hurt us far more than Him.

Do you think this is just? You say, "I will be cleared by God." Yet you ask Him, "What profit is it to me, and what do I gain by not sinning?"

I would like to reply to you and to your friends with you. Look up at the heavens and see; gaze at the clouds so high above you. If you sin how does that affect Him? If your sins are many, what does that do to Him? If you are righteous, what do you give to Him, or what does He receive from your hand? Your wickedness affects only a man like yourself, and your righteousness only the sons of men.

While I would also like to point out that our wickedness, as well as our righteousness, can also affect others, I think this is something I need to take to heart. You see, we don't do good works on earth in order to earn brownie points, or to have things go right for us, or to stop feeling guilt. We act out of knowledge and joy (as mentioned earlier). And we're not always going to get things right...and probably seldom will.

...Imagine a little boy trying to help his father with some household work, or making his mother a gift. The help may be nothing more than getting in the way, and the gift may be totally useless, but the love behind it is simple a pure, and the loving response it evokes is virtually uncontrollable. I am sure it is this way between our Abba and us...Our sincere desire counts far more than and specific success or failure...(The Ragamuffin Gospel)

I don't really know what else to say. I didn't mean for this post to go on so long...maybe if I would have written it sooner...

Like I've said already...it's a complicated struggle for me...and my guess is that it will be forever. In the meantime, I have the love and grace of Jesus, whether or not I accept it...thank God...for real.

There are so many beautiful passages in Job and I wish I could share them all with you.

But I can't. So you should read it. But don't miss the many points--all of the beautiful, complicated and life-changing points.