The Land of Uz

October 5, 2003

Job 1:1;2:1-10; Hebrews 1:1-4; 2:5-12; Mark 2: 15-17

The land of Uz may be geographical but it is also mythical, a place that is not so much a place in the real world but a place of the heart and imagination where the story of the real world is told. This account of God and Satan arguing and playing games with human life is outrageous if read literally. The idea that God causes or allows people to suffer to test them makes us very uncomfortable if not angry but this is not what this is about.  This is not about how God deliberately causes us to suffer to test us but it is about the fact that human beings are tested by suffering. A myth is a story told to tell the truth. The truth is not that God and Satan play games with human life. That is a literary device used to form the story. The truth is that things happen in life that test us, challenge everything we have ever thought about what is possible or fair or reasonable. This is the content, the message of the land of Uz. It is where people live and die and try to make sense of what happens to them.

That people suffer is a given. I won't need to convince any of you of suffering. Why we suffer is another question. One of the answers is that suffering is a result of sinfulness.  There is no doubt that sin causes suffering but not always and not exclusively. This may be why the story from the Land of Uz  picks on Job who is a righteous man if not without sin though it might be argued that his sin is assuming he could be without sin simply by being righteous. The logic of the myth says what would happen if a man who has done what he is supposed to do in order to not suffer because of doing what he was not supposed to do actually ends up suffering and not just suffering but suffering more than anyone else? (Anyway we know Job was not perfect as indicated by the way he speaks to his wife and disparages women in general (v.10) in his otherwise reasonable rebuke of her suggestion to tell God to stuff it.)

The account of Job goes on elaborately to illustrate a number of possible responses and consequences but in the end there is no answer as to why we suffer only that we do and we will. There is only the answer of what our response must be, a response of utter dependence and trust in God who supposedly lets us suffer to find this out. Job in particular learns that righteousness does not come from just doing what is right and thereby being tempted to trust our righteousness to save us. Righteousness comes from being in the right place before God, a place of  profound humility and obedience that trusts God for everything. The Land of Uz is not interested in whether or not this is fair or reasonable. There is no entitlement to happiness or freedom from suffering. There is no inalienable right for anything. There is only this complete and utter dependence on God.

And here is the challenge. We must trust God with our lives. And we must trust God even though there is very little evidence that God is trustworthy. Indeed there is very little hard evidence that God exists at all. This is precisely what Job learned in the story, to trust God even more than himself. The evidence of God was found deep within himself, buried beneath layers of fear and grief. It was a hard lesson to learn and we may all hope that we do not have to lose everything to finally have what we need as he did.

 It is difficult enough to trust what we know. It is even more difficult to trust what we don't know.

The writer of the Letter to the Hebrews seems to suggest that there is a way to know God better and to learn to trust God more completely through God's Son namely Jesus. Jesus not only is the reflection of God's glory and exact imprint of God's very being(v.3) . . .he is made perfect through suffering(v.10). The writer of the letter to the Hebrews writes elegantly but beyond the flowery language there is a real hope that not only encourages trust but even seems to make some sense. Henri Nouwen wrote: Who can take away suffering without entering it? To that we might add, how can we know somebody who does not know our experience? Jesus is the bridge. In him we can know God and we can know that God knows what we are going through. Of course this requires trusting Jesus, God's Son which is only slightly less difficult than trusting God the Creator/Parent.

It is written: what are human beings that you are mindful of them, or mortals, that you care for them? . . . Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters . . . Jesus is our brother therefore we are all children of God. The distance between us and God depicted in the story of Job's suffering is lessened dramatically. Even in that story there is the sense that God cares for Job. Even when God gave Job over to Satan's power to be tortured God asked that his life be spared. Ultimately Job's life was in God's hands all along. Of course Job was not just Job in the mythical land of Uz. Job is everyman and everywoman who wonders what is going on anyway. We may never get all the answers but according to this, we already have the answer we need even if don't know it yet.

We may wonder if that is good enough when it is our turn to suffer. In the gospel reading Jesus said he didn't come to heal those who are not sick. What it doesn't say is if there is anybody who is not sick. Whether it is in the Land of Uz or Levi's house those who think they are righteous seem to be on shaky ground. Some sinners seem to know who they are and everybody else does too as evidenced by the description of Jesus dinner partners while others do not associate themselves as actual sinners but sin is nothing more than separation from God, a turning away from God. Is it ironic that self-righteousness separates us from God perhaps even more profoundly than out-right rebellion against God because the self-righteous are not even aware of the separation? Some sin causes more harm than others of course but there is no one I know who couldn't get closer to God, who couldn't return to God just a little more. In the Land of Uz the righteous man was so righteous he wasn't righteous anymore. No one who trusts him or herself more than God is outside the judgment of God and no one who trusts God is outside the mercy of God. Of course, it should be pointed out that ultimately God's mercy and judgment are the same thing and so the fact is that there is no one who is outside God's mercy but there are plenty who may never know it but then, to be honest, what do I know?

This much I know: I have to trust God because I don't know what else to do. There is nothing that I know (and I know a lot) that can keep me safe from the blows of the universe.  I am encouraged that Jesus ate and drank with sinners and that it says so right out loud in the Book. It may not be enough evidence to merit a sure thing but it is enough for me to continue to trust in what I hope for, to trust something and someone more than myself to see me through the Land of Uz. After all if he eats and drinks with sinners he'll eat and drink with me. In fact, you are all invited to trust the one who invites us to the table.