The Complete Book of Job (Abridged)
Act 1: Wisdom in the Balance
The wise, those who trust
the book of Proverbs completely, and all that it affirms, say:
Don’t you know, creation is set up to reward the good
and the wise, and to punish the wicked and the fools…
Go either “the high way”—trust and obey the LORD,
seek his path and you will find his
favor!
Or “My Way”—Uphold only self, ignore God, be filled with pride,
praising perversity and spreading lies—if
you do so you will find only punishment!
To this the book of
Ecclesiastes questions: “What if rewards aren’t as fulfilling as expected? What
if our mortality makes the
rewards of morality moot? (Never seen a hearse with a trailer hitch)
To this, today,
the book of Job questions: “What if
there is no discernable connection between reward and punishment?”
Act 2: The Test
Once upon a time, there
was a man named Job, the best of men—Wise and Good, and blessed for it. (Exit pulpit)
Inspector: Let me test this theory, let me question this
system of rewards and punishments—after all, are folk good on account of
goodness, or good because they know they’ll be rewarded?
-Let us strike down Job’s
children and wealth—does he fold?
Hmmm, lets go further
still, let us take his health and make his spouse forsake him…
-Look he holds on even
without any reward…
-Oh look, his wise friends, they sit with him, and
say nothing… \
…thank God, sometimes
people hurting, as Job hurts, need silence, just being with them and nothing
more, the wisest thing possible, a ministry of presence.
Act 3: The Worst Friends Ever
Scene 1: Eliphaz
Job:
Truly, in a million different ways, in the midst of all the suffering I’ve
experienced, I wish I had never been born.
Eliphaz: Hold up? You’re Job, aren’t you?
You teach Wisdom’s ways to people, you have been telling folk that if they are
innocent they will not suffer, haven’t you? Now that you are suffering, you’re
going to renege on that proposition?
Job:
Dude! You are about to make it worse, just shut up. You’re not helping!
Eliphaz: No, Job, let me finish. You are a
wise teacher, you know that the foolish are a danger to themselves and to their
kids. Haven’t you taught that a fool’s children will be crushed, just as your
children were crushed? This is your teaching, now you are experiencing it
firsthand.
Job: Eliphaz, do you know why you aren’t helping? Because I didn’t ask for your help, let alone ask for your explanation of human suffering wrapped up in a bow.
Job: Eliphaz, do you know why you aren’t helping? Because I didn’t ask for your help, let alone ask for your explanation of human suffering wrapped up in a bow.
Eliphaz: Job, chill! This suffering you are
experiencing is just correction.
Job:
I don’t think you get how painful God’s “correction” is, how horrible it is to
have your children crushed!
Suffering is so strange,
you experience the pain and the horror, but also the long boring bland moments,
time elongating before you forever.
At this point I just want
God to finish the job he started on ol’ Job here—kill me!
Eliphaz: Be of good cheer, my man. God will
strengthen you! Surely you will recover!
Job:
Why would I want to recover? To be strengthened by God? What would I have to
look forward to?
Eliphaz: Like you said before this pity
party of yours started, isn’t it right that we receive both good and bad from
God? Good when you are good, and bad when you are bad.
Job:
How does blaming the victim help the victim? Huh? I bet you’d kick an orphan
while he’s down and think you’re doing the kid a favor!
Scene 2: Zophar
Job:
At this point, it feels like you all are just harassing me. So, let me say it
plainly. God has wronged me and won’t answer for the wrong.
Heck, to me, God is an
oppressive force, an army besieging me.
Everyone sees me as a
stranger.
I’m sick! Why won’t you
pity me?
God has struck me,
shouldn’t that make you sad… or even afraid… you might be next!
Yet, perhaps… even in all
this pain, someone will redeem me, someone will write down all these wrongs and
represent me against all my accusers!
Don’t act like
dispassionate scientists watching a frog getting cut up in a lab, you are next
to be pithed! You will be unjustly punished just as I have been!
Zophar: You’re words shake me, friend, and I feel insulted.
It is my duty to respond
as best I know how.
The wicked have a short
life!
They will be ignored and
forgotten!
This is because they
followed the wrong path, they should have lived righteously instead of
wickedly, but they didn’t, and are suffering for it!
God is sucking up all
their unjust gains!
All that was taken
wrongly is being taken back.
Heaven has exposed their
guilt, and by extension, your own!
Job:
Oh Lord! Just listen to me Zophar, please! Just close your damn mouth for a
moment, tape it shut if you have to!
Look around at the world
as it is, the wicked prosper! I don’t think you get what I’m saying.
You think I’m proscribing
things, but I’m describing them, pointing out the way the world really is.
Don’t you get it, I’m
with you, let the wicked burn! Punish the children of the wicked. May God never
be late in punishing the wicked, make them suffer now! Because…
Because… have you noticed
the existential truth of it all? The wicked die and so do the righteous, and
guess what, they are both dead!
I truly understand your
position, good people ought to be rewarded for their goodness, and bad people
ought to be punished for their badness… but open a newspaper man! The wicked
prosper, no one can stop them. Making dogmatic, declarative statements to the
contrary does nothing… it certainly does not comfort the suffering!
Scene 3: Bildad
Job:
There is injustice everywhere, but God does not act.
Bildad: Surely that is not because God is weak… for God is,
ultimately, all-powerful.
No one is pure before
God.
Compared to God, humans
are so small.
Job:
Well! Aren’t you helping the hurting with such answers.
Bildad: Well, yeah, I am! Don’t you know that God’s power subdues
even chaos and death!
God’s mighty acts are so
loud we can barely hear a complete word about His wonder!
Job:
If God is so powerful, why won’t he give me my day in court?
I really can’t in good
conscience ask for anything else. I can’t claim to be wicked, that itself would
be wicked. The only right thing would be for every horror I’ve experienced to
be visited upon my enemies. God will only be just if he throws all that
powerful weight you talk about against those who are against me… including you
three.
Act 4: Wisdom and an Absent God
Scene 1: Wisdom’s Soliloquy
Where is Wisdom found?
You can find fruits in
trees,
You can dig and find gold
and silver and fossils
Heck, you can find
anything on Google!
But where is Wisdom
found?
You can cheat death or on
your taxes,
You can get through a war
zone or escape a prison,
You can sell high and buy
low,
But where can Wisdom be
found?
Look at Job there, he has
lost everything,
Any earthly wisdom gained
by experience,
He’s earned… and more…
But Wisdom, it is only
found in God
—only found when we are
struck by awe,
By the Fear of the Lord.
When we come face to face
with the living God, and live anew afterwards!
Scene 2: Enter Elihu
I may be young, but I’m
going to tell it like it is…
Look at all of you—wise friends, you need to press home
your attack, make Job pay! Anything short of that, you’re just as bad as him!
Look at all of you—Job, you need to shove it and shut up
before you make things worse for yourself.
Do you really think God
will show up for you? Who are you, royalty? A princess or president?
No, you’re just some guy!
You don’t want God to
speak to you—God’s only voice this side of the void is nightmares and
misfortunes.
What does God have to do
with humans? Its like an ant negotiating with a magnifying glass on a hot
day—it ain’t gonna end wel for the ant.
Just surrender Job, I’ll
fix your problems for you—don’t take it up with the guy up stairs and all your
problems will go away….
No, really, just take it
all back, you know God only hurts the guilty… you know that your guilt is
hurting everyone, not just you… think of that wife of yours! Your kids!
Okay, I’m only going to
say it one more time, Job… God is awesome, righteous, and inaccessible, there
is no way you will get an audience, the LORD will not answer you, so buzz off.
Act 4: God’s Response
And after Elihu affirmed
that the LORD would not answer Job, the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind
(and you can read along here):
"Who is this that darkens
counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up your loins like a man, I will
question you, and you shall declare to me.
"Where were you when I laid the
foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its
measurements--surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? On what were
its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone when the morning stars sang
together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy?
"Or who shut in the sea with
doors when it burst out from the womb?--when I made the clouds its garment, and
thick darkness its swaddling band, and prescribed bounds for it, and set bars
and doors, and said, 'Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall
your proud waves be stopped'?”
I suppose you know how to keep gravity constant? I
suppose you can ensure that the conditions needed to support life here on earth
will continue? You’re going to make sure the ozone doesn’t catch on fire,
right?
Or look up into the vast expanse. What do you know
about the Winds of Venus or the atmosphere of Pluto? Can you squish together a
million earths and create the sun? Have you heard the silence of space?
Oh, Job, what do you really know about the world around
you? Did you know that a shirmp’s heart is located in its head? That koala’s
have fingerprints indistinguishable from humans? That Elephants are the only
animal that can’t jump?
Job, come on then, take over for me…
hold back entropy,
continue to energize all of things the that wish to break down
help humans choose peace
in the face of war
help them care for each
other, when it is so much easier for them to be indifferent.
Job: I repent! I repent… But also, I repent of repenting, I throw dust
upon dust and ash upon ash
Act 6: It is a Wonderful Life
With that God turned to Job’s three friends, “As for
you! Your Reward/Punishment style of Wisdom, is wrong, look to your friend Job,
in his suffering he spoke rightly. Sacrifice, and ask Job, who was right, to
pray for you.”
And with that the three friends repented of their sins
and Job interceded for them.
And Job received back all those things that he had
lost, double in fact,
double wealth, double
health, and double family.
And they lived happily ever after.