Who's Job?

I’ve got questions for God - questions that I would like answers for – some of which I already know the answer. But it is an answer that I’m not happy with. I want a different answer. I want an answer that perhaps lets me off the hook, or shifts responsibility, or makes things easier for me. I bet you have some of those kinds of questions yourself. However, questions often come with hazards.
It’s like when you ask a question of someone, but you’re not really asking him or her a question, you’re really just fishing and trying to get him or her to tell you what you want to hear. "Should you really eat that?" Do you really want to go there?" "How do I look?" We can really be quite manipulative with our questions – certainly, they can be used constructively, as a skilled pastor or counselor helps someone gain insight into their own thinking processes. But unless we’re careful, it can be used as a method of manipulation as we ‘guide’ a person to an answer, or a conclusion that we see as right. Additionally, if we hold any kind of position of power, it becomes even more complex. That certainly is not honouring or respecting or helpful to the other person, and it certainly does not speak for God. Sometimes I think if we spent less time talking about God, and more time listening to God we’d be far better off.
Some of the most standard questions I get as a Pastor is "Why do children suffer?" "Why does God allow sin and evil to triumph?" "Why do bad things happen to good people?" "Why, if God exists, does He not reveal Himself more clearly?" "Why did God let this happen to me?" "What does God want?" All great questions. The problem is not necessarily in the questions themselves – but in what we will accept as the answer. I’ve watched over the years and even engaged in it from time to time myself, trying to answer for God – filling in the blanks, so to speak – but, if we’re not careful, the answers can begin to sound like Job’s friends who constantly came back and said to Job in one form or another: "Obviously the problem is you, and you better figure it out!" – all the while, they themselves didn’t have a clue.
The problem is even how we think about answers. We approach it like a math equation. 1 + 1 = 2. Its answer shall always be 2. It shall not be 3, but only 2. 4 shall never be the answer and 5 is way out (say it a English accent and it sort of makes sense). Anyway, we want definitive answers -- and many times, there is just isn’t one to be had – and that ca n be extremely unsatisfying. Here’s the potential problem: we see the 1 + 1, but are we starting from the same foundation? For example 1 + 1 = 2 using decimal math, but when using a binary math approach, the answer is 10 – that’s one, zero, not ten – and the confusion begins, and that’s the point. We ask questions, and expect answers based on our own assumptions. It’s like when we come to a parent and ask "Dad, why can’t I have that, or do that?" and the answer is "Because I said so." - which is always followed up by the "But why?". We tend not to respond well to what we see as ambiguous, or incomplete answers.
This is somewhat the story of Job. Job was seeking specific answers to the ‘whys’ in his life. His friends were asking loaded questions, trying to manipulate Job into ‘revealing the obvious error of his ways’ from their perspective. They believed that all life was a matter of cause and effect: God rewards good behaviour, punishes wrong behaviour. Therefore Job was the cause of his own tribulation. As we read the story of Job we find Job’s three friends, who preached at him for 27 long chapters, trying to convince him that essentially the problem is himself. All the while, Job is sitting on the ash heap in pain, covered in sores. We do need to give some credit to the friends who came from some distance, and spent seven days in silence with Job -- which would have been incredible had they just shut up, listened, and found suave to put on his sores. Job’s in pain, physical and emotional, and they continue to bombard him with veiled accusations – "you did something wrong", "you don’t have enough faith", "it’s because there’s sin in your life".
Now certainly it is true that we can bring pain and suffering into our lives because of poor decisions and choices, because of sinful habits and behaviours. We cannot ignore the ramifications of our own making. But even here, Jesus has an interesting twist. I find the Jesus encounter with the adulterous woman (Jn 8) both spell binding and perplexing. You may have read the account. The "righteous" religious leaders drag this woman caught in an obvious sin before Jesus. Unlike Job, this was a situation of her own making. She had engaged in sinful behaviour – she had violated God’s law and intentions. She was not a stupid woman, she knew what she was doing, and she knew it was not the right thing to do. However, knowing nothing of the circumstances that brought her to this point, I’m sure it was not a matter of her waking up one morning and saying "Hey, I think I want to be a prostitute and violate God’s law". It’s quite likely that her life had been complex and ended up in places she didn’t expect and she felt forced into this bad decision - that she had no alternative. We must remember that the time and culture that this young woman lived in was not nearly as ‘open minded’ as ours today. To be open and defiant about sinful behaviour in this culture got you stoned. We know that the religious leaders didn’t really care about this woman or even her sin for that matter – she was simply to be prostituted once again – just in a different form – she now was a weapon, an object to be destroyed simply to prove a point. Like Job’s friends, this was more about the religious proving their own righteousness at the expense of another – and distancing themselves from the brokenness and pain of life – "You deserve this. We are better than you. You need to be rejected. Your sin needs to be made obvious to you and all those around you – and that’s my job." What these ‘religious’ ones were about to discover was that in truth we’re all sailing in the same sinking boat. -- more to follow

Anyway, I was just thinking….

Neil