One of the most perplexing, and yet most humanistic, narratives in Scripture is the Book of Job.[1] A man, a great man, a righteous man, a man who seemed to have everything going well for him, lost everything. Those who knew him, his friends and family, tried to get him to admit either he caused the situation himself, through something he had done, or to curse God. He would and do neither. He would seek God, and seek an answer from God, but he would neither blame himself nor curse God.
When he thought he was to get no answer, when he came to accept his lot in life was suffering, God came to him, in the midst of “the whirlwind”:
Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind: “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?” (Job 38:1-2 RSV).
Job wanted answers, but he would not curse God. He knew himself and knew there was no answer, no complaint he could make of God. He wanted to know God and to understand, but he knew it would come of God’s prerogative not his:
Then Job answered the LORD: “Behold, I am of small account; what shall I answer thee? I lay my hand on my mouth. I have spoken once, and I will not answer; twice, but I will proceed no further” (Job 40:3-5 RSV).
After once again being confronted by the overwhelming, transcendent, incomprehensible God, Job once again answered:
Then Job answered the LORD: “I know that thou canst do all things, and that no purpose of thine can be thwarted. `Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. `Hear, and I will speak; I will question you, and you declare to me.’ I had heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees thee; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:1-6 RSV).
Job came to accept his own personal nothingness in relation to the transcendence of God. He did not belittle or question God. He who had desired an answer from God got it; of course, it overwhelmed him. He saw himself next to God and realized his emptiness, but this was possible because he was good and compassionate, a righteous man already vindicated by God. While he suffered, he did not yet understand – God was there, God was already there with him; only when he denounced all theological explanations which would keep him entrapped in the philosophical and political systems of the world, only when he denounced all things which could be placed between him and God, only when he truly accepted his inherent emptiness, did God reveal himself and enlighten Job. The form in which the author of Job explained this might not make much sense to us – for it seems as if God is just questioning Job, belittling him more, when it is the reverse which is to be found: God has come, God blesses Job but in the presence of God, that transcendence will always reveal to us our own inherent emptiness. There is a holy dread to God, and to be given enlightenment of God requires us to accept our emptiness, our nothingness. This will then allow us to be open to God and, likewise, to reach out to others in love, having nothing to hold us back from such love. Thus, in explaining the story, Gutierrez explained quite well what was revealed to Job:
What is it that Job has understood? That justice does not reign in the world God has created? No. The truth is that he has grasped and that has lifted him to the level of contemplation is that justice alone does not have the final say about how we are to speak of God. Only when we have come to realize that God’s love is freely bestowed do we enter fully and definitively into the presence of the God of faith. Grace is not opposed to the quest of justice nor does it play it down; on the contrary, it gives it its full meaning. God’s love, like all true love, operates in a word not of cause and effect but of freedom and gratuitousness. [2]
Only when Job got beyond the world, and experienced the greatness of ascetic denial of the world, could he find God in it. Only then could he be lifted up as if brought into the heavens itself, where the truth then could be revealed to him. In this manner, Chrysostom preached:
I think he placed a cloud over the righteous man at that time so as to elevate his thinking and get him to think that the voice was coming from on high, as is the case of the mercy seat on the ark. You see, since a cloud is suggestive of heaven, it is as if he wanted to place heaven over Job as though setting his very throne near him. [3]
Job had to come to accept his suffering in order to transcend it; for in that acceptance, he saw through the glory of his previous life, the glory which kept him apart from others in his riches, so he could possess true riches which could benefit all. He once was a rich man who thought himself to be good, and truly in his way, he was good, but he had not yet attained the fullness of that good, he had not yet been tested; only in that test, only in becoming poor, could he see God is present in and with all, and indeed especially with the poor. Only when he became one among the poor could he see God who is the lover of the poor and know God in his fullness, seeing a foreshadow of the divine plan when God himself would become one of the poor himself so as to give his true secret to all who accept their own poverty:
For this reason let us love and not despise the poor or strangers, dearly beloved, lest He also despise us: ‘Who, being rich, became poor for our sakes.’ Consider, brethren, and carefully notice that from the beginning God has wanted us to despise no poor man. As you have frequently and diligently heard in the Sacred Scriptures, in order to check the pride and vanity of the world, God did not choose as teachers the eloquent, officials, the wealthy, or the powerful, so that He might entrust to them the secrets of His word. Instead, He selected shepherds like the patriarchs and Blessed David, or fishermen like blessed Peter and the other apostles, so that through the weak He might bring to naught the strong, and through the humble cast down the lofty and proud. [4]
Only with a compassionate heart can God be seen and heard. Only those who embrace God’s love for the poor will be able to see and be with the heart of God, and see and know the secrets of his word. Only those who open themselves up and give without expectation will find true enlightenment. For his enlightenment, Job had to attain a high level of perfection; that meant giving up claim for all he had, so that he would be no longer attached to worldly things apart from God; “The perfections of giving and discipline are meant to counter the causes that prevent embarking [upon the religious life], i.e., attachment to possessions and home.” [5]
He had lost it all, and now he could come to know himself apart from worldly goods. He had to lose all sense of desire for things in themselves separated from God and the bounty of God. Then Job would no longer envy anyone nor seek what they have for himself, for such desires put limits on God, limiting what we see and experience of God in and through those constraints we try to put on God. Job learned the patience that Buddhists see is to be found in Bodhisattvas:
Regarding this [topic], what is a bodhisattva’s all-inclusive patience?
It should be regarded as being of two types: (1) [the patience] that relates to the faction that is made up of householders and (2) [the patience] that relates to the faction that is made up of those who have gone forth [into the homeless state]. [The patience] that relates to both factions should be understood as being of three types: (1) the patience that forebears the harm that is inflicted by others, (2) the patience that tolerates suffering, and (3) the patience of the conviction [that is gained by] reflecting upon entities. [6]
Job had to look beyond himself, to be patient while growing in compassion for others; thus, his desire to encounter God had to go beyond any desire for personal gain. As Gutierrez understood, such discipline, such wisdom allows for a vision of God because it is no longer seeking to imprison God within the constraints of human logic and its systems:
But let me get back to Job. He has just been delivered from the envy that paralyzes reality and tried to put limits to the divine goodness, that leaves no room for generosity and, even worse, tries to take God’s place. Yahweh, the God of Life, has restored Job to a life that refuses to be imprisoned in a narrow ethical order but rather draws inspiration at every moment from the free and unmerited love of God.[7]
The Book of Job is not an excuse for evil or suffering in the world; we must not read the revelation of God to Job as justification for such evil. Rather, it is the realization of transcendence of God which goes beyond all systems which ultimately create such justification; Job’s friends were wrong because they tried to limit God to their self-centered understanding of the world. Job accepted his lot while still wanting to know what God had to say – and it is imitating this that we too can be and, with grace, will be enlightened. Only in compassionate detachment can we be ready for the word of God to reveal its secrets to us.
[Image=God Answers Job by William Blake [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons]
[1] Was Job a real man? I see no reason why we should believe he was not. While the book about him might not qualify as a history as we have come to know the term, this should not detract from its value. Taking on legends of a holy man who suffered much in his life before receiving some sort of enlightenment, it serves as an important theological myth which then can tell us some universal truths through the story of a man who was known to be righteous who yet suffered with misery in his life.
The book of Jobs wants us come to a better understanding of the relationship between God and humanity which goes beyond the simplistic expectations believers might have had for God as represented by Job’s friends.
After much struggle, personal doubt as well as questions for God, Job is shown to have had an experience of the transcendence of God, revealing to him a better understanding of his place in creation as well as God’s work for and engagement with the whole of creation.
In many ways, the story of Job parallels the Buddhist legend of Asanga who sought an audience with Bodhisattva Maitreya (who it was believed would become the next Buddha). After years of ascetic struggle, Asanga believed he was no better off than where he was when he had begun his quest. He felt like giving up. And yet, there was a transformation taking place within him which was to be shown by how he was to treat a suffering dog, with pussy wounds filled with maggots. Wanting to help the dog, but not hurt any life, he cut his own flesh and slowly took out the maggots from the dogs and placed them in his own flesh. It was then he was to meet with Maitreya, seeing Maitreya was there before him, coming to him in the form of the dog before revealing his true self. Asanga wondered why it took so long for Maitreya to meet with him, to which Maitreya said he had always been there by Asanga’s side but only after Asanga had removed the veil of defilement through his years of penance and his compassion did he get to see the truth which had been hidden from him. Likewise, Job had to go through and fight against all the theological veils used to justify injustice in order to awaken to God and see beyond the system of the world which tried to justify any and all injustice. Thus, Gutierrez, writing on the book of Job, explained:
He remains a deeply human and religious man who takes seriously the reality of unjust suffering and does not play down the difficulty of understanding it. His determination to seek and find – which is already a gift from the Lord – leads him through a battlefield in which, as one author puts it, the shots come at him from every side. He does not avoid them, despite the danger that they may put an end to him and his finding a correct way of talking about God. His personal courage and his trust in God impel him to follows paths that are a challenge to the theology of his day. –Gustavo Gutierrez, On Job. Trans. Matthew J. O’Connell (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2000), 93
[2] Gustavo Gutierrez, On Job, 87.
[3] St. John Chrysostom, Commentaries on the Sages One: Commentary on Job. trans. Robert. C. Hill (Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2006), 186.
[4] St. Caesarius of Arles, “Sermon 132* in Saint Caerarius of Arles, Sermons. Volume II. trans. Sister Magdeleine Mueller, OSF (Washington, DC: CUA Press, 1963), 240. This sermon is attributed to St. Caesarius, though with many of his sermons, it seems he took from and used the words of others, like Augustine.
[5] Asanga, The Summary of the Great Vehicle. Trans. John P. Keenan (Berkley: Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research, 1992), 74.
[6]Asanga, The Bodhisattva Path to Unsurpassed Enlightenment. Trans. Artemus B. Engle (Boulder, CO: Snow Lion Publications, 2016), 314.
[7] Gustavo Gutierrez, On Job, 90-1.
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