A Fresh Perspective

Job believed God was responsible for the good and the bad that happened to people on earth. So after the first series of catastrophes where he loses family and fortune he says, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there; the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” When Job is afflicted with painful soars all over his body and when his wife questions his loyalty to a God who would do this to him, he says, “Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?” When Job’s friends first hear of his troubles the text says “they met together to go and console and comfort him. . . They sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great.” If only his friends had continued that course. If only they would have absorbed some of Job’s frustration and anxiety without trying to correct him or set him straight. But when Job opens...

This is a strange story to say the least. Terrible things happen to Job because God gets in argument with Satan. Satan here is a member of the heavenly council, not the symbol of evil we come to know later in the New Testament. With God’s permission Satan inflicts great disaster. In most of the Old Testament God was believed to be the cause of both good and evil. For example, Amos who prophesied in the first half of the eighth century B.C.E. asks: Does disaster befall a city, unless the Lord has done it?” And the implied response is: Well, of course God has done it. God brings blessing and God brings disaster. That’s what God does. Satan says to God: “Have you not put a fence around Job and his house and all that he has?” This is why he is staying the course, suggests Satan. So God decides to let Satan go after Job to prove Satan wrong. I hope you understand that this story is fiction. Scholars would call this sacred myth. It is a kind of extended parable. Job is actually ...

Who best represents Jesus? Those who profess Jesus as Savior, but side with the elite, the powerful, the rich, the oppressors? Or those who stand up for and stand with the little ones?  Who is actually for Jesus and who is actually against Jesus? It may not be the persons we think. An episode in the Synoptic Gospels of Luke and Mark bear this out. Luke’s version reads: John answered, “Master, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he does not follow with us.” But Jesus said to him, “Do not stop him; for whoever is not against you is for you” (Luke 9:49-50). The key word here is “us.” The disciples are offended that the one engaging in works of healing and liberation in the name of Christ was not sanctioned or credentialed by their group. Their interest seems to be one of control, gatekeeping, and promoting group exceptionalism. Jesus challenges them (and us) to think in terms of a larger story and in broader patterns. Ther...