| by Catherine C. Kroeger (Brewster, Massachusetts) |
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| Some months ago, I made a duty tour of a section of the Bible that I find incredibly boring. It was in fact the book of Job, composed of interminably long speeches from a crowd of unbelievably rigid and self-righteous snobs. As I started again to plow through their torrent of rhetoric, I suddenly realized that I was hearing the same sentiments that came to me from a far different contemporary source. The opinions of Job’s friends are very much the same as those voiced by faith communities when they address victims of domestic violence. They must have done something wrong to deserve this ill treatment. If they had behaved better, prayed harder, been more submissive, been a better wife they would not have been in such a predicament. Sad to say, some churches revictimize the victims, scolding, denying, reprimanding, shaming, and silencing. We as Christians are apt to spend a great deal of time trying to set the victim straight and very little on the offender. In point of fact, we frequently become a secondary set of abusers and offenders. What then does the book of Job have to teach us? It is composed in a genre different from any of the other sixty-five tractates of the Bible. It is in fact a drama, with six main characters God, Job, his three friends Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar and their younger side kick Elihu. The devil is given a minor speaking role. Some scholars suggest that the story is actually a parable while others view it as a description of an actual event. In any case, it is a protracted debate as to why bad things happen to good people and where is God when tragedy strikes? The drama begins with a strong affirmation of Job’s righteousness. He is described as a sort of poster person for someone who lives blamelessly before the Lord. (That’s why some people think this is more a parable than a history of a real live person). Throughout the entire saga, there is never any doubt about Job’s piety and integrity. That is a given, re-emphasized at several points along the way. There are some sinners in this story, but Job isn’t one of them. Almost immediately as the story begins, we discover that his integrity has made Job a target for one dire tragedy after another. Human predators and natural disasters sweep away his flocks and herds, his servants, his holdings, and his children. Nothing is left to him except an embittered wife who has no words of comfort to offer. Her only advice is “Curse God and die.” Here, as in several other places, the voice of an editor comes to the fore: “In all this Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing.” (Job 1:22) “In all this Job did not sin in what he said.” (Job 2:10) Finding no consolation at home and smitten with a painful affliction, Job goes in despair to sit upon an ash-heap and to scrape his boils with a broken potsherd. If ever the support of faithful prayer friends was needed it is now. Having failed to break down Job with the loss of all that he owns, including his beloved children and the suffering of physical pain, Satan wheels up another piece of equipment, psychological warfare. Enter Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite – to do their religious duty. As we learn from the text, they are religious leaders in the community. The most commendable thing they do is to sit in silence as his companions for seven days. “No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was.” (Job 2:13) In some ways, they represent the richest treasure that Job was to lose in this incredible succession of catastrophes. No matter what disaster might strike, he had supposed that he could be assured of the support and sympathy of his own faith community. No matter how dire the circumstances, they would be there for him. Job’s ultimate support is about to crumble; and of all his afflictions this is the most cruel. He himself is the first to break the silence, to bewail his fate and to question WHY has this happened to him. Why ever was he born in the first place? Eliphaz is prompt with an answer. Because Job has sinned and has failed to get straightened out with God. One friend follows the other in condemning Job, in insisting that all his trials have come about because of his own misdeeds. Suddenly Job finds himself deprived of his dearest earthly support. They lash out at him because he has burst their tight theological framework. Bad things happen to bad people and good things to good people. Their whole understanding of the universe rests upon this principle. “The truth remains that if you do not prosper, it is because you are wicked?” (Job 18:3) “Can you recall a guiltless man that perished, or have you ever seen good men brought to nothing? Will God pervert the right? Will the Almighty pervert justice? If you are blameless and upright, He will protect you,” (Job 4:7) The supposed friends understand the ways of God far too well to believe Job’s protestations of innocence. Again and again, he insists that his life has been one of integrity, of compassion for those who are, were in need. Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar simply refuse to believe what he says. How often victims just aren’t believed! Job cries out, “what wonderful helpers you all are! And how you have encouraged me in my great need! How you have enlightened my stupidity! What wise things you have said! How did you ever think of all these brilliant comments”? (Job 26:2-4) “Will you never stop tormenting me, and shattering me with speeches? Ten times, no less, you have insulted me, ill-treating me without a trace of shame.” (Job 19:2-3) “O please be quiet. That would be your highest wisdom . . . Must you go on? Speaking for God? When he never once has said the things that you are putting in his mouth? Does God want your help if you are going to twist the truth for him? Be careful that he doesn’t find out what you are doing! Or do you think you can fool God as well as men? No, you will be in serious trouble with him if you use lies to try to help him out.” (13:3-10) Many survivors tell us that it was the rejection from their faith community that inflicted the cruelest wounds. Many believers feel closer to their family of faith than they do to their own kin, and many find no solace when they disclose the terrible truth of their abuse. Hagar’s Sisters have encountered the following responses when their plight was revealed. “It takes two to fight, what was your role?” “Go back and be more submissive.” “You have not been long suffering.” “After DSS declared the father unfit for visits with their children, the wife sent an email to her pastor letting him know of the issues. The pastor responded by saying, “I hope for the sake of the children that you will go back to your husband”. “After revealing the abusive situation to her church and her decision to pursue divorce, the wife was asked to step down from the church choir, then when she applied for church membership she was asked, to not pursue church membership at this time.” Like Job’s friends, those in direst need are betrayed the worst. The church just is not there for them. Let’s face it: we, the body of believers have ignored when we should have affirmed, condemned when we should have consoled, victimized when we should have vindicated, silenced when we should have supported. How often believers refuse to lend a listening ear! Repeatedly Job asks his friends just to listen to him, and this is a basic need of every victim, that a support group of believers will just listen. A woman called from another state to tell of her friend, a faithful and sincere Christian, a member of a world-famous fundamental church. Her exemplary life threw the church into dire consternation when she revealed the truth of her domestic scene. Such things just did not happen in good Christian marriages. Even if what she said was true, her disclosure was simply gossiping. An official announcement was made in a large adult Sunday School class, she was not to be believed or supported. Although the church sent enormous amounts of aid to many places around the world, there was not to be even a food basket for this desperate mother trying to feed her children. Here is our predicament. We believe that marriage is a divine institution, ordained by God. We maintain that marriage is a picture of Christ’s love for the church. In point of reality, the Bible holds up Christ’s love for the church as a model for Christian marriage. We have idolized and idealized marriage in ways that do not have scriptural support, and domestic abuse threatens our whole theological framework. We cannot accept the ugly reality unless we take a wider look at God’s purposes and designs. Strange to say, this is precisely one of the messages of Job. God is far wiser and more profound than the little black and white theology espoused by the religious leaders of Job’s community. Terrible things do happen, and often very unexpectedly in a way that lies far beyond human understanding. But the message for us today is that well-meaning folk can totally mistake the mind of God. Job’s friends thunder on and on interminably, inflicting ever deeper and more accusatory blows. Now in view of the total scenario, this is most interesting. The Hebrew name Satan literally means Accuser, and in Revelation we read “The Accuser of our brothers and sisters has been thrown down from heaven onto earth, he accused them day and night before our God. They defeated him by the blood of the lamb and by their testimony.” (Rev. 12:10-11) This is precisely the role of the friends who have become the devil’s tools. The ultimate affliction that Job suffers is not his material losses or the loss of his children, but rather the accusations of those whom he thought that he could trust most deeply. Again and again, he pleads with them just to listen to him, but they are far too fond of their own rhetoric and their own self-righteousness for that. When they are exhausted, a younger friend continues the assault until Job is left with no shred of comfort. Elihu is exasperated that his elders have done so badly, and he intends to clinch the argument. In point of fact, he does no better than the others and even confesses himself to be a windbag. “I am pent up and full of words, and the spirit within me urges me on. I am like a wine cask without a vent. My words are ready to burst out. I must speak to find relief, so let me give my answers.” (Job 32:18-19) Job longs to be allowed to face God directly, to question WHY his whole world has collapsed. Like the Psalmists, he asks difficult and searching questions, he is devastatingly honest about the storm in his own soul, about the incomprehensibility of the divine Being to whom he still clings. “I vow by the living God, who has taken away my rights, even the Almighty God who has embittered my soul, that as long as I live, while I have breath from God, my lips shall speak no evil, my tongue shall speak no lies. I will never, never agree that you are right; until I die, I will vow my innocence. I am NOT a sinner; I repeat it again and again. My conscience is clear for as long as I live. Those who declare otherwise, are my wicked enemies. They are evil people.” (Job 27:1-7) And suddenly, out of a whirlwind, God speaks. “Who is this who darkens knowledge?” After the dreadful tedium the words of God burst forth in brilliant poetic utterance. Who can fathom the wondrous designs of God in all that has been made? Who can understand the majesty of the horse or the power of the crocodile or the speed of the ostrich? Who are mere mortals? God said to Eliphaz, “I burn with anger against you and your two friends, for not speaking truthfully about me as my servant Job has done. So now find seven bullocks and seven rams and take them back with you to my servant Job and offer a holocaust for yourselves, while Job my servant offers prayer for you. I will listen to him with favor and excuse your folly in not speaking of me properly as my servant Job has done.” God is there, vindicating Job who did not blaspheme God; but the three friends are in serious trouble. They are guilty of blasphemy, of maligning God, of putting God in their own small box; and now they must make atonement. Job is not the sinner, they are, and they must bring bulls and rams in expiation. Please note that ordinary offerings consisted of doves and lambs. Rams and bulls were necessary when there had been blasphemy or some other heavy-duty evil. This was required of kings and entire communities who outraged God’s holiness and goodness. Eliphaz and his cronies were leaders in their religious communities, and they must atone for their serious misrepresentation of both Job and the God to whom he has clung. One of the lessons of Job is that revictimizing the victim is sin and that it often drives a needy soul far from God. Job, for all his anguish, has spoken truthfully about God; and now he is given yet another task. He must intercede on behalf of his misguided, self-righteous friends. We are never told whether or not he found it easy to forgive these would-be comforters. Only that the Lord accepted Job’s prayer on their behalf. Surely it was easier to pray for them once he understood that he had been vindicated. And then he was ready to move on with the rest of his life. “Then, when Job prayed for his friends, the Lord restored his wealth and happiness” All his old friends come around to comfort him, where were they when he really needed them? How often present-day victims need this kind of vindication! How often they are made to feel that they too are the sinners when in point of fact, it is their accusers. Let us remind those who endure ill-advised reproaches, the heaping up of words, that God is still there even if they cannot see Him. In the end, the ultimate reality is that the Lord has been there all the time, weeping to behold the abuse, affirming and vindicating. When people close in on you, shaming and reproaching you, remember not to believe the lies that they say about God; and don’t believe the lies that they say about you. ——————————————————————————– Reprinted with permission from: God’s Word to Women http://www.godswordtowomen.org/ ——————————————————————————– |
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