Looking for meaning in our lives and scripture often misses the point
This
post has been prompted by some comments and issues raised in my Google +
circles concerning the various struggles and pains we all go through in our
lives, and has sharply reminded me of a very dear friend of mine who unexpectedly
died last summer, after a brief illness.
Scripture seems to point to meanings which are often
opaque, riddled with conflict and tension, and where the meaning God gives us in our lives and what we go
through, is frequently illusive, despite religious and philosophical
pretensions to the contrary. However, we should also recognise that these
pretensions are, indeed, precisely what the Bible warns us against, lest we end
up trusting our own understanding of
God and life, rather than God himself.
Most explicitly, the opening lines of one of my favourite books Ecclesiastes 1:1-2 clearly states, and without equivocation: ‘“Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.’” This theme concerning the impossibility of explanation and meaning being delivered in our lives is relentlessly pursued throughout this Old Testament book. The contemporary (even postmodern) tone of its passages is staggering – given the age of the text – resonating with many contemporary views, including my own, that access to any meaning and explanation to life’s experiences is so limited. Moreover, Ecclesiastes is not a one-off either, and so the vain hope of full meaning and explanation for our lives being delivered through religious and philosophical reflection is quashed in other parts of scripture too. In the book of Job, for example, God never told Job the reasons for his suffering, even though the reader is privy to the mysterious deal made between God and Satan at the beginning of the story, which sets the scene for Job’s awful testing. Instead, toward the end of the account, when Job confronts God with enraged questions of why he should suffer this way when he has done nothing wrong, God does not directly answer the questions but proclaims his own authority as the Lord of all things and creator of the universe. Job’s response, at the end of the drama, (in 42:3), is to submit to God’s authority and concede to God’s steadfast refusal to give answers, or any meaning and explanation for his suffering. Paradoxically, then, the answer for Job is that there is no answer, because God’s ways are beyond his understanding, which Job finally realises and accepts: ‘Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know.’ This is a hard lesson to learn, certainly, but the only route to God’s peace and blessing, when we are so often struggling and feeling pain.
Click on book cover image on this blog's home page for information on my book Nine Steps to Well-Being: A Spiritual Guide for Disconnected Christians and Other Questioning Journeyers - first three chapters are FREE!!
Just saw this post and had to comment just a bit on the interesting case of Job.
ReplyDeleteIn Job 1:22, we have the statement (just a matter-of-fact statement from the author) "In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing." Other translations give "...did not charge God foolishly."
Then, in Job 19:6 Job says "...know that God has wronged me...", and he spends the rest of that chapter listing all the ways God has wronged him.
So, it occurs to me, the phrase "Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing" could mean two things. It could either mean "Job did not charge God with wrongdoing, which would have been a sin", or it could mean "When Job charged God with wrongdoing, it wasn't sin."
The same reasoning can be applied to the other translations: "he didn't do this foolish thing", or "what he did was not foolish".
In addition, God himself said in Job 40:2: "Let him who accuses God answer him!", showing that Job did, in fact, accuse God of something.
Now comes the kicker. In 42:7, God says to Job's friends: "...you have not spoken the truth about me, as Job has."
Think carefully about that. What did Job's three friends say about God? They said, in various ways, that God was just. That he rewarded the righteous and punished the guilty. That he kept his word. What did Job say, over and over, about God? That he had done him wrong. That he had abandoned him. The he ignores the cries of, and even strikes down, those who trust him.
And this, God says, is the truth about him.
Job's replies to God also have an interesting twist to them. Job's first reply in chapter 40 is essentially a non-reply. He says "I shut my mouth", and that's it.
In chapter 42 he says "I know you're omnipotent and know everything, so I'll repent in dust and ashes." But wait... "repent"? Repent of what? God has not, anywhere in this entire book, given Job anything to repent of. In fact, God has repeatedly stated that Job was righteous in every way, and had done nothing wrong. What was Job repenting of?
I admit that some of what I am saying comes by way of my own filter and paraphrasing from Jack Miles' Pulitzer prize winning "God: A Biography". The chapter covering the book of Job in that book is a revelation. Basically, he reads a bit of sarcasm into Job's words. And later on, when "the Lord blessed the latter part of Job's life more than the former part", it's like God is trying to make amends, but the reader cannot help but notice that more money, more possessions, and a set of more beautiful daughters (what?!), do not in any way make up for the children that were lost. Job pointedly gives his daughters an inheritance with his sons (going against God's commandments) and gives them names that all serve as reminders of his loss.
This is a great comment - many, many thanks for this Timothy! It adds subtlety and nuance to my original post. I am not sure where I am going with this, but two thoughts have occurred to me in response. Maybe what God is honouring in Job, with your questions around his sin/righteousness and so on, is his honesty - Job never seems to pretend anything 'religiously' - he says stuff from the heart, warts and all. Second, regarding Job's comforters - they superficially say the right things to try and get meaning from Job's experience, but because they haven't got God deeply and the importance of simply getting alongside those who suffer, they miss the point of God's love - which I suppose gets back to my original post!
ReplyDelete