Today I will add a bit onto yesterday's piece from "Who Will Be Saved?" by William Willimon.
God never questions Job's protestations of innocence. Guilt or innocence, goodness or badness doesn't seem to be of great interest to God in the book of Job. Finally, when God speaks to Job, it is out of a whirlwind, and God doesn't talk about guilt. God brashly asserts cosmic lordship and ridicules Job's smallness in the great scheme of things and never really entertains any of Job's searching questions. The God who meets Job in the whirlwind seems beyond and above any philosophical answer, certainly above easy moral calculation about the deserving or undeserving of reward or punishment. The God of the whirlwind is loud and swaggering, leaving nothing settled or stable while speaking.
And yet, after Job's failed attempts to dialogue, what is there? Communion and communication with God. No philosophical, reasoned response is given to Job's searching questions. Something better is given. God. There is presence, availability (38:1; 42:1-6). God speaks personally to Job, restores not only Job's fortunes but more important a relationship. Job says that previously he had heard of God. Now he sees God (42:5).
There is relationship. The image of God - when we look to Genesis one - is humanity in relationship. It is in the middle of that dynamic aspect of life that we come to see our God and see how God is available to us in, with, and under those around us and in the events of the day. I was once told that Job should not end with Job getting back all of his possessions and things of life that he prized so much. Rather, the story ends with this primary and creative relationship the entry way into a fullness of life in which Job will blossom. It would be my desire to see how God restores everything that was taken from Job...and then the story continues to tell how Job enters these relationships anew with God in dialogue with him. That, I think, is our journey - to be in relationship with one another in a ways that reflects our ongoing dialogue with God about God's Reign in which we have been called to live.
Connection: When we see ourselves in relationship with God - a relationship God initiates and draws into it fullness - how do we relate to others...those who share this relationship and those who do not? It could all change the day.
Bless us with your presence, O God. It is so easy to drift off on our own and expect to be able to make the world our own. We too easily turn from you to make ourselves into something other than the ones you call beloved - before anything takes place in our lives. We call upon your Spirit to hold us close to your love that will shape us and all things. Amen.
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