This sermon was preached on the 6th of October 2024, the Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost, in the Anglican Parish of Kalamunda-Lesmurdie
Texts:
We have just heard the conclusion of the Book of Job.
It all sounded pretty clear cut, didn’t it? Job, addressing God, repents. Job has lost his property, his family, his social standing… he has even lost his health. And for Job and his three friends, dire consequences only ever follow after dire actions.
For Job to have lost so much, he must have committed some great sin. But Job did not believe that he had sinned.
And so Job began to question the very nature of the world, the very nature of God…. and a sort of poetic duel broke out. Three times, Job and his friends speak to each other in verse, arguing about God’s justice.
Eventually the argument becomes repetitive, and peters out. Job’s interest in the words of his friends wanes… but their debate with him kindles a new idea. Job will bring his questions, and the pain and distress that undergird them, to God Godself. Job will bring a lawsuit against God.
What an idea! Who could dare to do that? Who could dare to say to God: you’re meant to be running the universe according to the theology of my religious tradition, according to my ourstanding, our undestanding… and you haven’t, and so… I’d like to make a complaint.
It’s the ultimate “I’d like to see the manager.”
As Job builds his courage to address God directly, he states also a fear… that God will not understand him, will not listen to him… but will instead overwhelm him… terrify him… dwarf him… maybe even squash him like a bug.
Reading the conclusion of the Book of Job, it all seems very clear indeed. God has spoken out of a whirlwind, and Job has been overwhelmed. God has shown Job the scale and wonder and magnificence of the cosmos, and asked Job just who he thinks he is to be making a complaint.
And so, it seems, the story wraps up quite neatly: Job admits that he was wrong, wrong to question God, wrong to challenge the ordering of the cosmos.
Job was wrong. Job repents and says sorry. And Job is restored. Neat and tidy.
Or is it?
What we’ve just heard from the Book of Job is translated from poetry written in Hebrew that is perhaps two and a half thousand years old.
“therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” (Job 42.6)
It sounds so clear in meaning. Stark almost. I despise… I have done the wrong thing. I repent in dust and ashes…. I am sorry, please forgive me.
And yet those very same Hebrew words could be translated:
“therefore I retract, and repent of dust and ashes.”
I retract… I withdraw my lawsuit. I repent of dust and ashes… I will get up and return to life.
That translation of Job 42.6 comes from the noted Australian scholar Norman Habel, and has considerable academic support. And the apparent meaning is so different. In this translation, Job decides to withdraw his lawsuit against God: and to repent of dust and ashes… that is, to get up off his ash heap, arising from despair and living once more!
This is huge: almost the whole meaning of the Book of Job, it’s whole message, hangs upon this very verse… on one verse of a thousand in the whole book.
So, was Job wrong, presumptuous, errant, to bring a lawsuit against God? Or did Job’s offering of his anger, his despair, and his pain to God, receive an answer: an answer which lifted him up, freed him, and restored him?
Well, I know that we have at least one English teacher in the room. And at least part of the answer is that this is poetry. This is poetry, and it plays with words. It embraces ambiguity, it challenges with multiple meanings. And that is very hard to translate.
I’ll give you an example. The English word ‘eternity’ can mean timelessness; it can mean the whole cosmos; it can mean entering into that which comes after death; it can be an allusion to love, to perfection, to sanctification… it can mean all of these things and more.
And poets writing in our language make great use of these meanings, inviting us to wrestle with possible meanings… it’s one way in which really good poetry confronts us with big existential, metaphysical questions, theological questions, questions that we could we wonder at for a lifetime.
But good luck finding a word in another, unrelated language, with that same range of possible meanings. And this is the problem faced for translators of the Book of Job. You just can’t find English words with the same range of ambiguity as the Hebrew. And so, you are forced to pick a narrower meaning. Every translation is an interpretation.
What are we do with this? How are we, then, to seek meaning? Well, we can make use of the work of scholars. We can even learn the original languages of the Bible, Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek.
For me, right now, Norman Habel’s translation of that one key verse speaks to me most clearly. It makes sense to me, it encourages me in my faith. It discloses to me a vision of the same God who became incarnate and entered into the world in the person of Jesus Christ.
A self-sacrificing God, a humble God, a God of love and reconciliation and forgiveness. God who can handle a challenge, God who is willing to bear pain, God who is willing even to feel pain, for us, upon the Cross. God who will make haste to help you, and to help me, when we ask in faith.
Job and his friends want a rulebook for the world, a rulebook for God. They are sure that the world operates upon clean, rational lines… lines that they understand. They desire this orderly world, this orderly God, so much that they will give almost anything else.
Job suffers, and believes he is innocent of sin, and so he responds by challenging God. Job believes that God has broken the rules, and so Job, in a way, for a time, gives up on God.
And Job’s friends also believe that in the same system of the world… but they won’t give up on God. And so they infer that Job has committed some secret or unknown sin… they give up on their friend.
And God: God knows all. God loves, God loves Job and God loves Job’s friends. And so God doesn’t give up on Job, or his friends… no, God offers Job a new perspective: a vision from a whirlwind, of a world beautiful but broken, wondrous and complex, a creation that is good… but which defies Job’s philosophy.
And so Job is healed and lifted up. Job lets go of his preconceptions, repents of ashes, and returns to life, restored.
All of this moves me deeply, and I hope it moves you too.… but maybe, just maybe, at some other time in my life, this meaning won’t be the one that speaks to me. Maybe I’ll have some new insight. Maybe events will challenge my understandings, and things won’t seem so clear-cut.
And that is the point. The Book of Job doesn’t tell us what to think: it tells us what we ought think about. The Book of Job invites us to take up Job’s mantle, and wrestle with God.
We can bring our joy, our despair, our wonder, our confusion… we bring all of these things and more to God with open hearts. And God, through the Holy Spirit, will make haste to us.
We can be a community that wrestles with God together, just as Job and his friends did. It happens every week at the door as we leave this place, every week as we gather for a cup of tea and a bit of cake in the hall.i
And so - dare to look for God in the world, in your lives, with faith and with an open heart. Embrace renewal and rebirth: embrace death, and resurrection.