Jack McKinney
October 22, 2006 – Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost
Texts: Job 38:1-7, 16-21; Mark 10:35-45
Divine Sarcasm
The book of Job is one of the bravest pieces of literature ever written. The book’s courage is not rooted in the fact that it tries to answer the eternal question, “Why do we suffer?” No, if anything, the audacity of Job is that it debunks some of the traditional answers to that question. What I love and admire about this story is the daring the writer shows in simply taking on the issue of unjust suffering. And at every turn in the story there are surprises.
The plot of this drama is revealed in chapter one where God and Satan enter into a grand wager. God is convinced of the righteousness of Job, while Satan believes Job’s faithfulness is based on the fact that Job enjoys all the best things in life. So, in order to determine who is correct, God allows poor Job to lose everything but his life. Here is how Margaret Hess portrays the unfolding of the text from that point forward:
As the story of Job begins, the curtain rises and we look upon a drama that is as old as the hills and as new as the last bad thing that happened to us. The first few scenes move swiftly as Job is stripped of all his attachments in life. Wealth and possessions, the lives of his sons and daughters, his health--all fall away from him as leaves from a tree in autumn. Only a shred of faith is left like that last small leaf that clings, swinging bravely in a wind that never seems to stop blowing. After the ravages of suffering, it seems that all that remains of his former life is a wife who dares to voice the searing possibility that Job could curse God and call it quits. Oh yes, and let us not forget that this man still has friends. As it were.
The friends come creeping forward after the blast, hesitant to get too close yet curious. At first they can only stare, not daring to believe that this figure hollowed out by loss is indeed their old friend Job. Even their weeping recedes into a stunned, blessed silence as they look upon the sunken-eyed Job, this specter of a worst-case scenario.
The friends are a study in how people come to terms with their own helplessness as they bear witness to the suffering of another. They cannot sit still for too long, and soon move into a litany of well-intentioned attempts to provide a structure of meaning for Job's experience. (Margaret B. Hess, “The Labyrinth of Life, Christian Century, June 4, 1997)
And this is the part of the story that interests me. Job’s friends start off well enough. They sit in silence with their friend as he writhes in his grief and pain. But as Job moves from silent suffering to loud complaining, the supportive friends become the voice of the righteously indignant. How dare Job question the ways of God, they state. After all, the friends are absolutely certain they know why Job is suffering. Their theological explanation is as old as Adam and Eve, and as contemporary as Pat Robertson. What is that explanation? Simply put, we are all sinners and God deals justly with those who have gone astray. Job is not as upright as he thinks he is according to his friends, and even if he can’t remember what grave sin he committed to produce this divine retribution, the friends are clear that is the only acceptable answer.
And Job, God bless him, won’t have any of it. He refuses to accept this traditional theology and cave to his friends’ demands that he simply confess and be done with it. Job is defiant and indignant, and even if it costs him his life, he will not confess to something he did not do. Listen to his self defense against his accusers:
As God lives, who has taken away my right,
and the Almighty, who has made my soul bitter,
as long as my breath is in me
and the spirit of God is in my nostrils,
my lips will not speak falsehood,
and my tongue will not utter deceit.
Far be it from me to say that you are right;
until I die I will not put away my integrity from me.
I hold fast my righteousness, and will not let it go;
my heart does not reproach me for any of my days. (Job 27:1-6)
What a heroic statement that is. Here is a man standing up for himself in the face of a religious tradition that says he must be wrong, in the face of his friends who insist he must be wrong, in the face of his terrible suffering that suggests he has done something wrong. But Job doesn’t care because he knows he hasn’t done anything wrong to deserve what has happened to him. “I will hold fast my righteousness, and will not let it go,” he says. And, of course, the important point to remember is that Job is right. He hasn’t done anything wrong. The old, simplistic theology that says suffering is always the result of our sinfulness is shot full of holes in this story. We are told in the opening prologue of this play why Job is suffering and it doesn’t have anything to do with the man’s lack of purity.
But it takes a strong person, indeed, a gutsy person, to stand by your truth when everyone says you are wrong. When the church, for centuries, said God only wanted men in the pulpit, it took gutsy, faithful women to say they were called by God just like men were. When the church, for centuries, supported racist policies in this country with a theology that said God favored white people over people of color, it took gutsy, faithful people to lead a revolution in the face of that kind of thinking. And today, as the church continues to say that gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender folks are an abomination in the sight of God, it takes gutsy, faithful people to stand up and speak another truth. Let us be like Job who held fast to his righteousness in the face of his critics, even when those critics were his family and friends. He knew he hadn’t done anything wrong, and he was right.
If you can’t tell yet, I’m a big fan of this man Job. I think he is a marvelous example for us to follow. And not just because he stands up to his friends; Job also gives a piece of his mind to God. He reminds me of Robert Duvall’s character, Sonny, in the movie The Apostle. Sonny is an evangelist whose life has hit the skids. In one memorable scene Sonny stays up all night shouting at God because he is furious that his life is falling apart after all the faithful service he has given God. And while Sonny is not quite as blame-free as Job, I still love the picture of this man whose faith drives him to confront the Almighty with honest questions and complaints. That feels like real faith to me.
And yet, having affirmed Job’s courage and faithfulness in this story, and having admired his refusal to accept the easy explanations for his suffering, we come to chapter 38 which we heard earlier. Job has been demanding a meeting with God. He wants an audience with the Almighty, as he puts it, because he is certain he will win his case against God. Finally, in this dramatic passage, God shows up in the whirlwind to engage Job. Only God hasn’t come with an apology. If anything, God shows up with attitude. There is not a single attempt on God’s part to explain or justify what has happened to Job. Instead, God has questions for Job who has been demanding an opportunity to cross examine God. Listen to God’s interrogation of Job:
Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding.
Who determined its measurements—surely you know! (Job 38:4-5)
Where is the way to the dwelling of light,
and where is the place of darkness,
that you may take it to its territory
and that you may discern the paths to its home?
Surely you know, for you were born then,
and the number of your days is great! (Job 38:19-21)
Do you recognize the tone attributed to God in these questions? It sounds a lot like sarcasm to me. As God peppers the stunned Job with a series of inquiries about how the world was formed, the phrase “surely you know” is thrown in for emphasis. And, of course, Job doesn’t know.
Sarcasm is rampant in our society. It is the preferred form of humor for many. And, I confess, I am prone to it myself. Yet, there is something distasteful about sarcasm. The target of a sarcastic comment is often made to feel silly or stupid. And because sarcasm is rooted in the idea of saying the opposite of what we mean, there is often a problem of interpreting our true intention. After a sarcastic comment is uttered it is not unusual to hear the response, “Did you mean that or were you just being sarcastic?
So what does it say that God’s response to Job comes wrapped in sarcasm? After all, hasn’t Job been justified in his complaints? If Job knows he hasn’t done anything wrong, why is God’s response so biting and even belittling? The answer, I think, is found in the sarcastic phrase God employs—“surely you know, Job.”
Throughout
the book of Job the main character knows one thing: he didn’t do anything to
deserve what happened to him. His determination to stick by that truth is
admirable. But as Job grows in his confidence about his case, he begins to
assume he knows other things. He assumes he will win an argument with God. He
assumes he knows more about the nature of the world than he does. He assumes
God doesn’t care about his plight. In the end, Job makes the mistake many a
good person has made. He moves from what he does know, to what he doesn’t know,
and he isn’t even aware when that shift happens. It’s kind of like when Larry
King interviews someone famous. The other night he was interviewing Donald
Trump and asking Trump about how we fix our problems in
And if there is value in a sharp, sarcastic comment it is that it can quickly remind us that we are presuming too much. There is a painful knowledge that comes with a well placed barb in our direction. Suddenly we recognize there is a lot more going on than we realized, or there is a whole other side of the story than we knew. In other words, we are put in our place in a way that doesn’t feel good but is sometimes in our best interest.
There are plenty of examples in the Bible of people presuming they are deserving of something or other. In our Gospel reading this morning, James and John assume their sacrifice to follow Jesus should guarantee them the best seats in heaven (Mark 10:35-45). Jesus quickly sets them straight and reminds them that such perks have nothing to do with being his disciple. That couldn’t have felt good, either, but it was a lesson they needed to learn.
It would be
nice if our faith journey required us only to encounter the gentle side of God.
And while God’s mercy and compassion are the dominant divine traits according
to our faith tradition, sometimes it is merciful and compassionate for God to
remind us we don’t know everything. Many of the problems in our world right now
are the direct result of faith-motivated people in places of power assuming
they know more about the mind of God than they do. And when those people have
control over armies, or suicide bombers, the results are devastating. A
pointed, sarcastic comment from God in the direction of
In the end, Job is an example for us both in what we should do and what we should avoid. We should stick by our truth even when it flies in the face of conventional wisdom and theology, even when our friends and family criticize us, even when it makes us stay up late at night shouting at God. But we should also be honest about the limits of our knowledge. There is far more mystery than certainty in the life of faith, and when we lose sight of that, we may need to hear that divine question: “Who determined the world’s measurements—surely you know?” We don’t know, and the humility to admit the limits of our knowledge may be our ultimate salvation.