"Honesty Before God"

(James 5:7-12 & Job 7:11-19)

          Last Sunday we began our study of Job by focusing on a common misunderstanding, one promoted by Job's so-called comforters, and one which finds widespread support even today.  And it goes something like this.  Since we believe that God rewards the good and punishes the bad, if something bad happens to you, you must have done something to deserve it.   It's the assumption that people only get what they deserve, or at least that we deserve what we get.  That we're ultimately to blame for whatever suffering we encounter in this life. 

          The book of Job resolutely insists that this is NOT the case.  Job was blameless and upright, a good and faithful man.  The fact that he suffered terribly had nothing to do with anything he did, and certainly nothing that he did wrong.  It was his friends who were mistaken in their assumptions, not Job himself.  God even affirms in the end of the book that Job spoke what was right.  He really was innocent.  He really had suffered without just cause.  One of the conclusions we should draw from the book of Job is that people DON'T always get what they deserve.  Sometimes good people suffer for no good reason. . .

          Another common misunderstanding stems from our reading of this brief passage in the NT book of James which in many translations refers to the "patience" of our friend Job.  Patience as most of us understand it implies putting up with things, waiting and accepting, letting things run their course, bearing without complaint.  And the expression "the patience of Job," as it's found its way into contemporary idiom, calls to mind all of this to the nth degree.  ("If ever ANYONE was patient, it was Job.  Remember everything he had to put up with!")

          But since the author of James presumably had the same book of Job in front of him as we do, we ought not jump to conclusions about what "the patience of Job" means until we're fairly familiar with the guy the NT author is talking about here.  As we heard in our second Scripture lesson this morning, the kinds of "patient" words Job spoke actually sound more like these:  "I will not restrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit;  I will complain in the bitterness of my soul." And these are just a few of many similar lines spoken by Job in the middle section of the book, typical in their brutal honesty.  As the story moves along, Job becomes even more bold, accusing God of piercing him with poison arrows (6:4), of crushing him with a tempest and multiplying his wounds without cause (9:17), of hunting him down like a lion (10:16), of breaking him down on every side (19:10).

          Clearly it's oversimplification and probably a serious misreading of the book of Job to say that Job bore his sufferings without complaint!  He went on like this for some 30 chapters, with some of the strongest and angriest language we ever find in the Bible for people addressing God.  So where did James get off calling Job a patient man?   If, like me, you were familiar with this NT evaluation of Job long before you ever encountered the words of Job himself, you might find yourself wondering what happened to that silent, stoic, complaint-free man you were expecting to meet.

          But here's where we need to be careful.  In the Greek, the word that James uses to describe Job is hypomene--which actually means something like "standing fast," or "holding one's ground," or "endurance" (as NRSV now more accurately translates it).  Hanging in there, yes.  And hanging in there with God, in spite of it all.  But not necessarily bearing without complaint.  Job bore his sufferings, yes, and endured, and persisted in his integrity and his faith, but he was also brutally honest with his friends and with his God about how miserable he was, how unfair his situation was.  And he demanded that God respond and explain why he had to suffer. 

          So it's partly a misinterpretation of James' interpretation of Job that leads us to think Job was patient in the sense of passively sitting by and letting things happen to him, waiting around and tolerating it all.   Far from it!  He stood before God with his fists held high and demanded justice, using the same standards of justice that God had given him and applying those to God.  And in this, Job was not thought to be uttering blasphemy or saying things that ought not be said to God.  In fact, he was standing solidly in biblical tradition.  Elsewhere in the OT--in the words of the prophet Jeremiah, in the book of Lamentations, and particularly in the psalms of lament--people of strong faith struggled with God, speaking out from their experiences of suffering, crying out in pain, expecting that God would honor their honesty, that God could handle their complaints, and that God would respond. 

          Job also bears some similarity to the figure of Abraham arguing with God over the fate of Sodom in Genesis 18, a story of Abraham's "holy protest" against the injustice he felt would be done if the innocent were destroyed along with the wicked.  The spirit of lament and the spirit of "holy protest" are both well attested in the Scriptures.  Job's is not an isolated case.  In the Bible, the kinds of things Job said--and even the boldness with which he said them--were felt to be within bounds, one of the ways people of faith could appropriately address God.

          We've somehow lost this tradition of lament as people of faith, and gotten away too from the tradition of protest that stands there shaking its fist, demanding that the Judge of all the earth do what is right.  But it's important to be reminded from time to time that God expects complete honesty from us when we talk with God.  True faith can include protest.  Genuine prayer may at times need to incorporate lament. 

          I've heard people offer prayers of simple acceptance of God's will in situations in which there's a complete disconnect with what they're actually thinking and feeling.  Before the 'dear Lord' and after the 'amen', there are powerful, genuine expressions of anger, fear, and frustration.  But once heads are bowed, all this gets swept under the rug.  Why is that?  Perhaps because we've been taught that true faith means accepting whatever comes without complaint?  But this doesn't accurately reflect the range of biblical teachings on prayer.  Job carries on a dialogue with God for more consecutive chapters than most anyone else in the Bible.  I believe the presence of this book in the Scriptures suggests we can expand our definitions of what is and is not allowed in prayer.  Do we really think we're fooling God when we spit out the words we think we're supposed to say while everything in us wants to cry out in pain or anger?  God treasures real conversation with us, and that requires complete honesty on our part.  Saying not just what we think God wants to hear, but what needs to be said.  Might we all, in this sense, approach the injustices of our world with the so-called "patience" of Job! . . .

          Now admittedly it may seem like a bit of a leap to move from the shocking complaints of Job into our celebration of the Lord's Supper this morning.  The one seems dangerously blasphemous, after all, while the other finds us in a most holy, sacramental moment.  And yet honesty before God is as critical in our celebration of communion as it is in any other time of prayer.  Our Lord invites us to bring all that we are, all that we feel, our most genuine selves to this table so that we may find here a meaningful experience of Christ's presence among us.  There's no sense pretending.  For whatever may be in our hearts, God loves us and wants us to stay in honest conversation with God.

          So come as you are this morning, bringing your most grievances as well as your joys, and let us celebrate true communion with our Lord.  Amen.