A Moment Aside for 23 March 2021

 

A Moment Aside --- 23 March 2021

                                                                   

The book of Job is not an easy read. It is quite long and it starts out with tremendous tragedy. It ends with God answering Job’s objections, but not has Job, an innocent and upright man exposed to horrible suffering, had expected. God appears out of the whirlwind and asks “Who is this…?” (Job 38: 2)  Job repents “ in dust and ashes.” (Job 42: 6b)

Job cries out his grief and anger and sense of injustice. He doesn’t like the answer but he accepts it. (That is the whole point of the book, by the way. Why do the innocent suffer? Good question!)

Job is not alone in contending or arguing with God. Jacob wrestled with a stranger who is thought to be God “in disguise” until the stranger cheats at wrestling and punches Jacob in the hip, leaving him limping. Abraham dickers with God over the fate of Sodom. (“What if there are only one hundred righteous people? Will you still destroy the city? Okay, how about ten?”) Elijah grumps at God, asking to be allowed to die, to which God replies with an angel, a jug of water, a small pastry, and a nap for the prophet. Moses faced off with God over the fate of the Hebrews. (“I’ll destroy them and make a nation from you!” “But God, what will the nations say if you’re unfaithful to your own people? Hmm?”)

This wrestling with God is not lost with Christians. Teresa of Avila, the reformer of the Carmelite Order in the Roman Catholic Church was traveling by when her coach became stuck in the mud. While working to pull the thing out, Jesus spoke to her: “Don’t be worried! This is how I treat all my friends!” Sister Teresa replied “That’s why you don’t have so many!” The ancient funeral hymn, the so-called Dies Irae holds these verses:

Think, kind Jesu! – my salvation

    Caused Thy wondrous Incarnation;

    Leave me not to reprobation.

Faint and weary, Thou hast sought me,

    On the Cross of suffering bought me.

    Shall such grace be vainly brought me?

In simpler words, “You said you’d save me! That’s the promise!”

Don’t be afraid to argue with God and tell God exactly how you feel. It might seem strange and close to blasphemy, but if Job, Moses, Abraham, Elijah, Teresa, and Thomas of Celano might shake a finger at God, at times we could as well.

At the very least, if we’re angry with God, we are surely taking God seriously in our lives.