Word to the Wise
Wednesday, October 3, 2018 - Wednesday in the 26th Week in Ordinary Time
[Job 9:1-12, 14-16 and Luke 9:57-62]Should he come near me, I see him not; should he pas by, I am not aware of him; should he seize me forcibly, who can say him nay? Who can say to him, "What are you doing?" How much less shall I give him any answer, or choose out arguments against him! [Job]
A work as profound and beautiful as the Book of Job suffers when it is excerpted or condensed as the lectionary presents it, but nevertheless some of the meaning gets through. The context is important and can be lost. One of Job's sufferings, ironically, comes from his friends who come to sit with him in his trials and try to convince him that he must have done something wrong, otherwise he would not be suffering! Job is convinced of the truth of his righteousness. It is not a matter of pride but a matter of truth. How can he plead guilty to something he has never done? If he is innocent, why, then, is he suffering? That is the central question, and it remains in front of us throughout the Book of Job and into our own lives today.
The mystery of suffering has tasked human understanding for as long as we have been able to ask questions! Our theological reflections about the identity of God and, indeed, the suffering of Jesus, lead us over and over back to the same mystery. How can we square a belief in a loving and omnipotent God with the existence of terrifying suffering, especially in cases of evil and deliberate suffering of the kind in the Jewish Holocaust or other genocidal events? Or how can we explain the suffering brought on by terrifying natural events such as earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, forest fires....?
Our human pride has a tough time with mystery. We have convinced ourselves that ultimate mystery is an illusion and is only a problem that if we do enough research we'll find the answer. The Book of Job challenges that assumption. AMEN