Perspectives on the story of Job

I am not inclined to offer commentary on the following articles, but I do want to offer some perspectives from familiar voices (Rachel Held-Evans, Greg Boyd, Nadia Bolz-Weber) on the story of Job and the problem of pain/evil. If you have some time this week, these articles may inform your thoughts on this week's study.

Rachel Held-Evans wrote a blog post in 2013 called "The abusive theology of deserved tragedy..." In this post she tackles the particular evangelical response to suffering that declares, "Bad things happen because God is angry. This is God’ judgment on undeserving, sinful people. Repent. We brought this on ourselves." In her words,

This theology is, in a word, abusive, for it blames the victim for whatever calamity, abuse, or tragedy she suffers and says it is deserved.

And:

...the story of Job stands as an ancient indictment on those who would respond to tragedy by blaming the victim. That’s exactly what Job’s friends did, and the text is not kind to them for it, because Job is described as "blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil."

Greg Boyd gets into the particulars of the story of Job in his article The Point of the Book of Job. (It's a detailed article and worthy of a careful reading!) Boyd expresses a similar sentiment to Rachel Held-Evans here:

Sounding remarkably like many Christians today when they confront people in pain, and illustrating perfectly the complaint that satan originally raised against God, his friends insist that since God is perfectly just, Job must deserve what God is dishing out to him.

But also...

This is not to say that everything Job's friends say about God is incorrect. This book is far too subtle to paint everything in either-or terms. It artfully paints a thoroughly ambiguous picture of the cosmos...

In another article, Boyd responds to The 35W Bridge Collapse and the Book of Job. Here he draws our attention to how closely related the problem of evil/pain is to the question of free will/predestination:

If God was controlling everything, then there obviously would be no point for God to bring up the unfathomable complexity of creation or his warfare against powers of chaos. If God is controlling everything, such matters are utterly irrelevant.

Instead,

God’s appeal to the complexity and war-torn nature of the cosmos is significant precisely because it shows that God is not an omni-controlling deity, and that because we humans have next to no understanding of this complexity or the spiritual battles that engulf it, we should not be quick to attribute catastrophes to God.

Nadia Bolz-Weber, perhaps not surprisingly, suggests that perhaps we're not asking the right questions at all in response to the story of Job (from an interview with Religion and Politics).

This is what we see at the end of Job. Throughout Job there’s basically what we call theodicy: If God’s all good, why are we suffering? And Job’s friends end up going, “Well, either you did something wrong, you know, you’re bad and God’s good, and that’s why you’re being punished, or you’re good and God’s bad, and that’s why.” You know, there are just really simple categories. It’s either black, or it’s white...

We like black and white, dualistic categories, and we love nothing more than to project those onto God...

We’ve been struggling with this sort of dualistic thinking since the very beginning. You know what’s really weird? To be human and God. It kind of has to be either-or, right? No, it’s queer. It’s like being sinner and saint. Like Martin Luther said, imul justus et peccator. We’re 100 percent of both all the time.

And here's where I'll insert just a few of my own thoughts. One of the things that has guided me in my studies of theology, especially when it comes to questions of evil and suffering in the world, is the idea that if I find myself faced with an idea about God that is just too horrific to believe, it's actually ok to not believe it. Instead, I believe that there's something that I'm not understanding. There's a truth or a mystery that is beyond my grasp. But it simply does not make sense to believe evil of God. Rachel Held-Evan says it this way (in her article The Scandal of the Evangelical Heart):

It’s not enough for me to maintain my intellectual integrity as a Christian; I also want to maintain my emotional integrity as a Christian. And I don’t need answers to all of my questions to do that. I need only the courage to be honest about my questions and doubts, and the patience to keep exploring and trusting in spite of them.

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For more of Greg Boyd's thoughts on Job, listen to his sermon here: Twisted Scripture: The Book of Job.

Sounding remarkably like many Christians today when they confront people in pain, and illustrating perfectly the complaint the satan originally raised against God, his friends insist that since God is perfectly just, Job must deserve what God is dishing out to him. - See more at: http://reknew.org/2008/01/the-point-of-the-book-of-job/#sthash.7eVHmz2Q.dpu

Sounding remarkably like many Christians today when they confront people in pain, and illustrating perfectly the complaint the satan originally raised against God, his friends insist that since God is perfectly just, Job must deserve what God is dishing out to him. - See more at: http://reknew.org/2008/01/the-point-of-the-book-of-job/#sthash.7eVHmz2Q.dpuf

Mary and Mangers

Last week I shared Nadia Bolz-Weber's sermon on Mary, the mother of Jesus. You can find that sermon here: Sermon on Mary. An especially poignant piece of that sermon for me was this:

"She [Mary] got something I really struggle to understand: that getting a blessing is not the same as getting a present. She said yes not based on the expectation of things being awesome for her but based on the expectation that God can create something out of nothing. And the thing is: we just never know simply based on how our life feels if it is filled with blessing or not."

What we don't really know about Mary's story, despite all the sermons and nativities and paintings, is how or where or with whom she labored and gave birth. Kenneth Bailey and other scholars have raised some questions about our traditional Western interpretation of the word "manger" and our understanding of "inn."

"The text tells us, “She gave birth to her first son, wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger.” The traditional understanding of this verse in the Western world moves along the following path. Jesus was laid in a manger. Mangers are naturally found in animal stables. Ergo, Jesus was born in a stable. However, in the one-room peasant homes of Palestine and Lebanon, the manger is built into the floor of the house. The standard one-room village home consists of a living area for the family (Arabic mastaba), mangers built into the floor for feeding the animals (mostly at night), and a small area approximately four feet lower than the living area into which the family cow or donkey is brought at night (Arabic ka’al-bayt)." (Kenneth Bailey's The Manger and The Inn)

And from the same article...

"In Luke 2:7 kataluma is best understood as “guest room.” ... Joseph and Mary arrive in Bethlehem. They find shelter with a family whose separate guest room is full, and are accommodated among the family in acceptable village style. The birth takes place there on the raised terrace of the family home, and the baby is laid in a manger."

How might it change things, if we consider that Jesus was born, not in isolation and loneliness, but in community? What does it mean if Mary's story is not one of bravely facing the unknown alone (well, with Joseph...but he often gets a back seat, too...)? Within our own cultural context, are we actually more comfortable with the "brave and alone" story than we are with a story that involves community? Personally, I think it's a bit of a miracle that Mary was brought out of a potentially dangerous and extremely isolating circumstance (carrying a pregnancy and giving birth in her own community as an unwed mother) to a place where the Messiah could be born safely and in peace, among his own people.

Walking on Water

In Session 2 of In the Dust of the Rabbi, Ray Vander Laan tells the story from the Bible of  Jesus...and then Peter...walking on water.  For some further thoughts on this story, I enjoyed this sermon by Nadia Bolz Weber: Jesus Walking on the Water - A Sermon Sarcastic and Serious:

We might see the moral of the story as “you should have so much faith that you can walk on water toward Jesus” but the truth of this story is that Jesus walks toward us. The truth of the story is that my abundance of faith or lack of faith does not deter God from drawing close.  That even if you are scared to death you can say Lord Save Me and the hand of God will find you in even the darkest waters.  Because this is a story not of morals but of movement. Not of heros of the faith making their way to Christ but of Christ drawing near to you in the midst of fear. 

It is an important contrast, a tension we have to hold as believers - that our faith compels us to act but that our actions do not save us.

Lent, Suffering, and One Thousand Gifts

Beth emailed me this week and suggested that there might be a connection between this week's study and Lent. Strangely (or not), I had recently finished up the following post on my private blog...about Lent and Joy. If anyone else has thoughts to add, I'd love to hear them and can post them here, too (you can reply in email or in the comments)...

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The thing that "gets" me every time I sit down to really take a look at joy, at what it is, what it means, and how we find it (practice it? develop it? live it?) is the inclusion of suffering in the equation. A discussion about joy only goes so far before one runs into some seriously dark questions. How can I find joy when I lose someone precious? When war erupts? When a job is lost? When trust is broken? When hope seems so very, very far away?

It's easy to be joyful when life clips along smoothly and things go as planned. But is that really joy? I think sometimes it is. We can be both happy and joyful. All too often, though, when happiness wanes, we find that we must dig deep to find an underlying joy.  Walt Wangerin, Jr. says,

"The difference between shallow happiness and a deep, sustaining joy is sorrow. Happiness lives where sorrow is not. When sorrow arrives, happiness dies. It can't stand pain. Joy, on the other hand, rises from sorrow and therefore can withstand all grief."

Wangerin then draws a connection to the church season of Lent, a time when many church folks mark themselves with ashes and put on grief and mourning, when we deprive ourselves in order to remember suffering and to bring forth...joy?

"In the sorrows of the Christ - as we ourselves experience them - we prepare for Easter, for joy. There can be no resurrection from the dead except first there is a death! But then, because we love him above all things, his rising is our joy. And then the certain hope of our own resurrection warrants the joy both now and forever."

In the same way, the Jews taste the bitter herbs during the Passover Seder, to remember the suffering, to increase the joy. "When Adar comes, joy is increased."

So much of me is still resistant to this idea.  Does this mean that God wills suffering? Even that God allows suffering for our own character development is too much for me. I can abide that God allows suffering because people have free will, and God allows for free will, and free will sometimes means that horrific things happen. But I cannot abide a God who allows suffering for my own character development. Maybe minor suffering - like reaping the consequences of my own mistakes. This is the kind of suffering I allow my children. I want them to learn from their mistakes. So, I don't step in and fix everything for them. But if something or someone else is threatening my child? You better believe I'll step in. You better believe I'll do everything I can to save them.

William P. Young takes on this idea in his book, The Shack, by suggesting that it makes a difference that we are all children of God. So, of course, I would defend my child against someone hurting them. But what if one of my children hurts one of my other children? Am I quite so ruthless then? Will I still go all "Mama Bear" when my child is being hurt? Most likely, the answer is more that I want to save both of them. I want the perpetrator to be spared...in case there's a possibility for a change of heart. I want the victim to be safe. I want them both to know I love them. I hope that my love has the power to change.

But then, the analogy also breaks down when we are talking about God because God has the power to bring about both outcomes, right? And it seems that at least some of the time God has stepped in to save some children, who need saving, and to destroy some children bent on destruction. The Bible tells us so. And then I come all the way back to the original question. Is suffering allowed because it brings about greater joy? Is it really true that we only know true joy in the face of (or aftermath of) sorrow? Is this why some suffering is allowed? I am afraid I don't have any answers. My hands come up full of ashes.

I know for sure that, as a human, I am, indeed, more aware of the joys in life when I have suffered, when I have been wounded. The joys, then, are piercing, poignant. I remember this beautiful scene in Tolkien's book, The Return of the King, when Frodo and Sam return after destroying the ring: 

“And all the host laughed and wept, and in the midst of their merriment and tears the clear voice of the minstrel rose like silver and gold, and all men were hushed. And he sang to them, now in the Elven-tongue, now in the speech of the West, until their hearts, wounded with sweet words, overflowed, and their joy was like swords, and they passed in thought out to regions where pain and delight flow together and tears are the very wine of blessedness.”

I know that feeling...when joy is like swords.

And I think that maybe this is something we can only understand in stories. It is something we only know in the living out of our lives. It isn't something that can be known in so many words or explained in the theology books. It isn't something that makes sense. It is something that is in the fabric of our humanness, and, perhaps, it is something of God's image in us. Joy following suffering, following the epic drama.

And does God allow it? Does God create it? I don't know. I know God uses it. I think I understand that God suffers, too. That God suffers with us. Mike Freeman in his blog, "wordhavering," sums up some ideas of Nadia Bolz-Weber and Richard Rohr this way (from his blog post: caged god):

"In our suffering we tend to experience God as outside of it all, watching, a omnipotent bystander who by all rights could and should be able to do something, but he just sits there, stands there, whatever, letting it all happen anyway. Helping it all happen anyway? And for his glory? Yes, let me slap that.

And that’s what I appreciate about Rohr’s musing. He taps right into main line of biblical teaching when it comes to suffering – though we seldom perceive it. God participates in our suffering. In all of it. He feels each deep wound, screams in each terror, groans in each injustice more profoundly than we can begin to fathom. We groan. Creation groans. God groans."

 And maybe the knowledge of God's presence in our suffering is where we find our source of joy?

Preparing for Discussion - Cross: Where God Is

There's no intro necessary for the 5th speaker of the Animate: Faith series. We met Nadia Bolz-Weber already when we studied Animate: Bible. If you missed the post, check it out here: Who is Nadia Bolz-Weber? Check out more info about her here: Interview, Blog & Sermon Links. 

In the Animate: Faith series, Bolz-Weber presents the session entitled, "Cross: Where God Is." In this session we are challenged to think about what the cross really symbolizes, in contrast with the human messages and explanations we may have traditionally used to understand the cross.

What is your experience with various representations of the cross? Is there a cross in the room with you right now? Do you wear a cross? How do you feel about the way the cross is used in pop culture? If you have the journal book, take a look at page 75, and answer the question about which crosses you find appealing & which you don't.

Then flip over to pages 76 & 77 in the journal and take a look at the 4 views of the cross (atonement theories) presented there. For more information on each of those interpretations (and a few others), check out the following link:

Atonement of Christ

For reference, these are the theories listed in the journal book along with their corresponding "titles" in the Atonement article (linked above) and the person most responsible for developing that theory:

• Ransom Theory - held by many of the early church leaders, further developed by Gustav Aulen, Origen of Alexandria and Gregory of Nissa
• Moral Lesson/Moral-Example/Moral-Influence - Peter Abelard
• Substitution/Scapegoat/Satisfaction/Commercial - Anselm of Canterbury
• Transformation/Recapitulation - Irenaeus

Do you see the differences in these views of atonement? Do you see the differences and similarities between these perspectives and that of Nadia Bolz-Weber?

It seems to me that Bolz-Weber is more interested in making a point about the ways in which we put our human characteristics and understandings on God than in the exact correct interpretation of atonement (though the way we understand the cross changes how we view God).

Pages 78 & 79 of the journal book depict a movie projector and a screen, and we are left a blank space on the screen to write about the human images we project onto God. What "images," both positive and negative, do you see people (including yourself) projecting onto God? Bolz-Weber talks about the "Angry Daddy" image of God and the "Cigar Chomping Loan Shark" image of God. What are some others?

The facilitator guide invites us to explore further the idea of an angry God. Is God ever angry? What kinds of things do/should make God angry?  What is the difference between God's anger at the injustices of the world and God's anger toward individual people? How do God's love and God's anger fit together? Can we be satisfied with the idea of God sending Jesus to the cross to mediate his anger toward humanity?

Find scriptural support for both God's wrath/anger and God's love.

What images or beliefs about God have been used by Christian people to justify particular events, beliefs and actions? How have these ideas contributed to both the positive and negative actions of Christian people over time?

Pages 80 & 81 of the journal book encourage us to think about "our own twisted roads of faith" and the "symbols and ideas that become sacred to us." We are asked to draw our own icons and symbols into the picture on page 80 and to add our own life events that have shaped our faith and our "image of God" to the road on page 81. Think about where your ideas have come from, how they have developed over time, and what it might mean to challenge some of those long-held beliefs and ideas.

For an interesting debate on roadside memorials, such as the one drawn in the journal book on page 80, check out this forum hosted by the New York Times:

Should Roadside Memorials Be Banned?

After a pretty thorough exploration of our own thoughts and beliefs, of what scripture has to say about who God is, and of the various schools of thought on atonement, consider the following scriptures in a discussion of what it really means to live a "cruciform"  life?

• 1 Corinthians 1:18-21
• 2 Corinthians 4:5-12
• Galatians 2:15-21
• Philippians 2:1-8
• Luke 9:18-26 

Nadia Bolz-Weber interview, blog & sermon links

I found the interview of Nadia Bolz-Weber on Krista Tippett's show On Being here: podcast, video or transcript. THANK you so much, Beth, for mentioning this in your comments! I listened to the podcast on my drive to Rochester yesterday, AND I listened to it again with my husband last night.It was that good.

Intro from the transcript:

Ms. Tippett: The church Nadia Bolz-Weber founded is called the House for All Sinners and Saints. At six feet tall with spiky hair and a body covered in tattoos, she is an original voice in a loosely defined movement called the emerging church.   ...  She spent years as an addict and a stand-up comic before being surprised by what felt like a call to be a minister to people on the underside of life.   ...   These days, convicted felons and elected officials join teenagers with pink hair at this church and others like it redefining what church is and with a deep reverence for tradition.

I would recommend listening to the podcast, rather than reading the transcript, if you have the time. There is so much life and character in Nadia's voice that you miss a lot only reading her words.

A few gems from the interview:

Ms. Nadia Bolz-Weber: I really feel strongly that you have to be deeply rooted in tradition in order to innovate with integrity. So, for example, we celebrate the Easter vigil, where you start with a new fire and you light it and you have this paschal candle and you parade in chanting, and we have these baptisms and we have the Eucharist and it's like amazing.

And...

Ms. Nadia Bolz-Weber: I feel like the Christian life is a life of continual death and resurrection. Also, I think some sectors of Christianity think, well, you're saved and then you're good, right? And then you just lead a really nice life and you're a good person and you're redeemed and you sort of climbed this spiritual ladder so that you're close to God. And that's just not been my experience.

My experience is of that disruption, over and over again, of going along and tripping upon something that I think I know or that I think I'm certain about, and realizing I'm wrong. Or maybe fighting to think I'm right about something over and over and over again until I experience what I call the sort of divine heart transplant.

Also, Tesha mentioned that Nadia's blog seems like it has not been updated recently. I found more recent blog posts and links to sermons (both audio & transcript) here: Patheos.

Preparing for Discussion - Gospels: Unexpected Good News

On Wednesday this week, we'll be discussing session four of Animate: Bible, entitled:  "Gospels: Unexpected Good News." The DVD presentation for session four is by Nadia Bolz-Weber.

I suggest going through the journal questions backward this week, in an effort to get to the scripture-based discussion questions before running out of time.

* Take a look at the opening lines of the gospels of Matthew and John. Think about how these introductions differ and how they fit together. How do they complement each other?

* The gospels give us both stories and descriptions of what Jesus SAID and what he DID. Do you tend to put more weight on one than the other? These scriptures may help guide your thinking:

• Matthew 5
• Mark 1:40-42
• Luke 9:12-17
• John 8:1-11

* Nadia Bolz-Weber talks about how Jesus kept company with the wrong crowds of people (John 4:4-26 & Luke 19:1-10). Have you ever experience of finding the Good News in unexpected places or people?

* How about John the Baptist? What do you think about the description of John the Baptist from the DVD, and what do you think it says about Jesus that this is really the beginning of the gospel story?  He was, most likely, not what people expected for a preamble to the appearance of the Messiah. 

* If you have a couple of Bibles around your house, see if you can find one that has some footnotes about Mark 16 and bring that Bible with you to Morning Blend on Wednesday. What thoughts do these notes bring up for you? Is it unsettling that there are some different possibilities for the ending of Mark?

* And following from that question, how do you make sense of the differences between the 4 gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John? Which stories about Jesus are really essential to your faith, and does it change how you feel about a story if it is included in more than one gospel?

* From the facilitator guide: "Nadia talks about the word "gospel" as a proclamation that demands a response. Does our faith feel like a response to the good news? In what ways does it succeed and in what ways does it fail?"

* What was your response to Nadia's story of the conversation with her friend, who said that she didn't really need anything outside herself to have a sense of hope and life? How do we see that same conversation playing out in the world around us? Does it seem to you that more and more people think they don't really need God or even religion or spirituality to have hope and life? Do you think that people can really and truly feel that way? Or are they covering up their true fears and longings?

* In what ways do you see the gospel still unfolding around you?

Peace!

Who is Nadia Bolz-Weber?

Session Four of the Animate: Bible series, Gospels: Unexpected Good News, is presented by Nadia Bolz-Weber.

Nadia is the founding pastor of House for All Sinners and Saints, an innovative, urban Lutheran church in Denver. That church has received wide acclaim for its programs like curbside communion and distributing turkey dinners to people who have to work on Thanksgiving.

Her first book chronicled 24 hours of watching Christian television, and her second book, Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner and Saint, tells of her transition from alcoholic stand-up comic to world-renowned Christian leader.

Five fast facts

1. Lives with her two children and husband (also a Lutheran pastor) in Denver
2. Can usually be found in the gym
3. Has spoken to 35,000 people in the Superdome
4. Collects belt buckles and loves tattoos
5. Has a BA in religious studies from University of Colorado at Boulder and holds an MDiv from the Iliff School of Theology

(Bio from: http://wearesparkhouse.org/adults/animate/bible/voices/nadia/)

Learn more at Nadia Bolz-Weber's website: http://www.nadiabolzweber.com/