Uncharted Understanding

June 16, 2024 Leave a comment

Hadn’t things already been mapped out? Most thought they knew the system of cosmic order and justice in a world of evil, suffering, and chaos. But the course they followed, was it determined by superstitious and romantic assumptions?

Someone had a novel idea: write a prose tale of events and characters employing an extreme case to exemplify, expand, and examine common notions at the time. What was created is similar to a parable.

The conventional wisdom was that you take care of the gods through ritual and they take care of you. You forget the gods and the gods got angry. And then one had to work to appease the gods to regain favor and benefits. This quid pro quo piety-for-prosperity symbiosis between contingent and capricious gods and mankind was considered the foundational principle in the cosmos. It was thought to represent order and justice in the cosmos.

Two particular issues were scrutinized by the author. (1) Was the Retribution Principle (RP) – the righteous will prosper and the wicked will suffer – the foundational principle of the cosmos? (2) Does anyone serve God for nothing?

The characters or figures in the fictional account:

The Arbiter – a character representing God

The Challenger. His function was adversarial: to point out issues with people and policies and to present arguments against a person or policy.

Job, a ritually pious man and the subject of the problem posed.

Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar, and Elihu. They are Job’s friends, counselors, advice givers, and challengers.

An unnamed friend of the heavenly court. He offers supplemental material.

The following is a brief summary of the account:

One day the Arbiter was holding court. Heavenly beings were there to report on what was going on in the cosmos. Among them was the Challenger.

The Arbiter pointed out Job to the Challenger. There was no on quite like him, he said. He considered Job to be honest through and through, a man of his word, totally devoted to him, and someone who hated evil with a passion. Job even made sacrificial atonement to the Arbiter for his children just in case they sinned during their partying.

Knowing that Job was incredibly wealthy and the most influential man in all the East, the Challenger alleged that a self-interest symbiosis with the Arbiter motivated Job. Righteous people like Job behaved righteously, he contended, because of the expectation of a reward from the Arbiter.

Was this true? Was the Retribution Principle the Arbiter’s policy? Was reward Job’s motivation to be righteous? Does Job serve God for nothing? The Challenger wanted to find out. He picked Job to be the unwitting focus of his posed problematic policy:

“So do you think Job does all that out of the sheer goodness of his heart? Why, no one ever had it so good! You pamper him like a pet, make sure nothing bad ever happens to him or his family or his possessions, bless everything he does—he can’t lose!

“But what do you think would happen if you reached down and took away everything that is his? He’d curse you right to your face, that’s what.”

With the Arbiter’s go ahead, Job, a blameless and upright man was exposed to devastating loss. Yet, in spite of losing everything including his sons and daughters, Job maintained his integrity. And, he didn’t blame the Arbiter.

Seeing the failed result of this trial, the Challenger wanted to further test his proposition – that righteous behavior is based on physical blessing:

“A human would do anything to save his life. But what do you think would happen if you reached down and took away his health? He’d curse you to your face, that’s what.”

The Arbiter once again gave the go ahead but with the condition that Job does not lose his life in the process. Job was then struck with terrible sores. He had ulcers and scabs from head to foot. He used pottery shards to scrape himself. He went and sat on a trash heap among the ashes. Job was in extremis.

Job’s despair – William Blake

And it was there, among the ashes, that Job gets his first feedback into the horrendous situation that he finds himself and has had no control of:

 His wife said, “Still holding on to your precious integrity, are you? Curse God and be done with it!”

Job’s wife responded with imperatives to her husband: accept the tragic situation, curse God, and accept the fate of death – in effect, “life is not worth living Job”. It should be noted that if Job does what she says, the Challenger’s claim would be proven true: benefits had motivated him all along. But Job tells her that she is out of line:

“You’re talking like an empty-headed fool. We take the good days from God—why not also the bad days?”

The study records that after all that had been inflicted on Job, he remained blameless and said nothing against the Arbiter.

Included in this tale are three cycles of dialogs that Job had with his three friends Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar. These three heard of Job’s situation and came to console him. When they saw him, it was written, they sat quietly mourning. They thought Job was on the way out.

Later, after days of silence, they each in turn offer Job their worldly wisdom about his dire state. They believed there was something off about him and his thinking. So, they each try to find fault with Job and they each reaffirm the Retribution Principle in the process.

The Arbiter, they tell Job, protects the righteous and punishes the wicked. Regarding the reason for his suffering, they tell Job that no mortal is righteous and how can mortals understand what the Arbiter demands.

Their advice to Job: put away sin, restore your righteousness, plead your case before the Arbiter, and regain benefits. Notably, their counsel was contrary to Job’s wife’s directive when she told her husband to just be done with the RP and die. The friends, like Job’s wife, do tell Job to accept the tragic situation but they want him to revise his thinking and his life and then he will find that life is worth living through restored benefits.

Job Rebuked by His Friends – William Blake

The three friends counsel was in line with the Challenger’s claim: there’s a symbiotic relationship between piety and prosperity. To defend this principle, they reject any notion of Job’s righteousness. For them, the end game was material reward.

If Job acted in accord to what his three friends said, he would validate the Challenger’s claim. But Job has not been swayed by their words directing him back to benefits. He has shown that his righteousness stands apart from benefits. And so, the three friends are silenced.

Job does question the Arbiter’s justice:

“Does it seem good to you to oppress, to despise the work of your hands and favor the schemes of the wicked?”

In saying his suffering is undeserved, Job claims that what has happened to him cannot be justified by his behavior. He thinks the RP system of justice is broken and the Arbiter is being petty.

The dialog with the three friends ends with them not finding fault with Job’s behavior. Job maintained his innocence all along. He had done nothing wrong and admitted to no wrong doing. And Job does not expect any benefit or reward. He does serve the Arbiter for nothing. As such, he refutes the Challenger’s claim.

In standing by his righteousness, Job believed there was an advocate or mediator (a redeemer) who would show up and vindicate him. This seems to be Job pointing a finger at the Arbiter and wanting the Arbiter to justify his actions to Job. The Arbiter remained silent throughout the dialogs.

After the dialogs, supplemental material is inserted. Someone who has not been involved (an unnamed friend of the heavenly court?) offers poetic insight that speaks to the cosmic issues raised. He provides perspective from territory not explored in the dialogs.

He asks “Where do mortals find wisdom? and “Where does insight hide?” And he answers: “Mortals don’t have a clue, haven’t the slightest idea where to look.”

With what’s been dug up so far in the dialogs, these questions raise issues: what man has found- the Retribution Principle – is this the foundational principle of order in the cosmos? Is justice the foundational principle of the cosmos? If neither is true, then what is?

The supplemental material would have us understand that the foundational principle of the cosmos is wisdom and not justice. And, that the Arbiter alone knows the exact place to find wisdom. For the Arbiter is the only source of wisdom and its only evaluator.

The poem states that the Arbiter, after focusing on wisdom and making sure it was all set and tested and ready, created with wisdom thereby bringing order and coherence to the cosmos. What’s man to do? Totally respect the wisdom of the Arbiter. Insight into that wisdom means shunning evil

After this poetic insert there are three speeches.

Job begins by pining for the past: “Oh, how I long for the good old days, when God took such very good care of me.” The RP was working and things seemed coherent. He was in a good place then and in good standing socially.

“People who knew me spoke well of me; my reputation went ahead of me. I was known for helping people in trouble and standing up for those who were down on their luck.”

But now, Job says, things are not good. His role and status in society has reversed – from honor to dishonor. He’s the butt of jokes in the public square. He’s mistreated, taunted and mocked. And the Arbiter has remained silent. He laments:

“People take one look at me and gasp.
    Contemptuous, they slap me around
    and gang up against me.
And the Arbiter just stands there and lets them do it,
    lets wicked people do what they want with me.
I was contentedly minding my business when the Arbiter beat me up.
    He grabbed me by the neck and threw me around.

For Job, things are incoherent. It’s a dark night for Job’s soul. He feels abandoned, empty, and desolate along with enduring extreme physical agony.

The trauma he is experiencing may have scrambled his senses. He lashes out at the Arbiter:

“I shout for help, you, and get nothing, no answer! I stand to face you in protest, and you give me a blank stare!”

“What did I do to deserve this?” he says. “Haven’t you seen how I have lived and every step I take?”

Job tries to restore coherence with an oath of innocence. He lists forty-two things that he is innocent of and then pleads for a vindication scenario: “Oh, if only someone would give me a hearing! I’m prepared to account for every move I’ve ever made – to anyone and everyone, prince or pauper.”

As things seem to be out of control, Job considers the Arbiter something of a wild card, an unknown or unpredictable factor. He’s being capricious like all the other gods.

After Job speaks, another friend enters the conversation. Elihu, younger than the others, has been waiting and listening to the conversation. He’s somewhat brash in addressing the group. Elihu, in a somewhat superior way, wants Job and the others to know that he is speaking on behalf of the Arbiter.

“Stay with me a little longer. I’ll convince you.
    There’s still more to be said on God’s side.
I learned all this firsthand from the Source;
    everything I know about justice I owe to my Maker himself.”

Elihu is angry with the older three friends. They had condemned Job and yet were stymied because Job wouldn’t budge an inch—wouldn’t admit to an ounce of guilt. And they ran out of arguments. He contends that the wisdom of their many years – the conventional thinking about the self-interest symbiosis and the carrot sticks of the Retribution Principle – did nothing to refute Job.

Elihu presents another accusation angle and it’s not the motivation claim of the Challenger. He starts by repeating Job’s words:

“Here’s what you said.
    I heard you say it with my own ears.
You said, ‘I’m pure—I’ve done nothing wrong.
    Believe me, I’m clean—my conscience is clear.
But the Arbiter keeps picking on me;
    he treats me like I’m his enemy.
He’s thrown me in jail;
    he keeps me under constant surveillance.’”

Job thought that he was being scrutinized way too much by the Arbiter. He was being excessively attentive and petty.

Elihu is angry at Job for justifying himself rather than God. Job, he claims, regards his own righteousness more than the Arbiter’s and is therefore self-righteous and proud. That is why he is suffering. And, his suffering, Elihu claims, may not be for past sins but as a means to reveal things now to keep him from sinning later.

Elihu heard Job questioning the Arbiter’s justice: Job was not happy about a policy where the righteous suffer; something was off with the RP system or its execution. Job thought that the Arbiter could do a better job of things. Job, claims Elihu, doesn’t know what he is talking about and speaks nonsense.

He comes at Job with a defense of the transcendence of the Arbiter.

“The Arbiter is far greater than any human.
So how dare you haul him into court,
    and then complain that he won’t answer your charges?
The Arbiter always answers, one way or another,
    even when people don’t recognize his presence.”

And,

“Take a long, hard look. See how great he is—infinite,
    greater than anything you could ever imagine or figure out!

Against Job’s “senseless” claims, Elihu says that the Arbiter is not accountable to us. The Arbiter is not contingent and not bound to our scrutiny. In a break with the conventional wisdom – the quid pro quo piety-for-prosperity symbiosis with the gods – Elihu says that neither righteousness and wickedness have an effect on the Arbiter.

The Arbiter, he says, “is great in power and justice.” He uses nature to explain:

“It’s the Arbiter who fills clouds with rainwater
    and hurls lightning from them every which way.
He puts them through their paces—first this way, then that—
    commands them to do what he says all over the world.
Whether for discipline or grace or extravagant love,
    he makes sure they make their mark.”

Elihu wants Job to know that no one can out-Arbiter the Arbiter. He poses a theodical reason for Job’s suffering –the Arbiter’s justice. And that is how he tries to introduce coherence to Job’s situation. He thinks justice is the foundational principle of the cosmos.

Elihu’s justice and cosmic order also includes the RP. At one point he tells Job that if people listen and serve the Arbiter, they will complete their days in prosperity and their years in pleasantness.

Finally, from out of a whirlwind, the Arbiter speaks. He remains silent about Job’s oath of innocence.

Starting with “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?” the Arbiter asks Job rhetorical questions which reveal the utter lack of understanding of those who thought they knew how the complex cosmos was ordered.

“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?”

“Have you ever in your days commanded the morning light?”

“Where does light live, or where does darkness reside?”

“Can you lead out a constellation in its season?”

Job and friends had reduced cosmic order to be a mechanical system of automatic justice: the Retribution Principle. The Arbiter would have Job know that he and his friends don’t know all the ins and outs of how the cosmos is ordered including why there is suffering. And that he is not to be defined and held accountable by their systems of thought.

After detailing some of the knowledge and intricate design that went into the ordered cosmos, a cosmos that encompasses the yet-to-be ordered, the disordered, and wild things, the Arbiter then corners Job: “Now what do you have to say for yourself? Are you going to haul me, the Mighty One, into court and press charges?” The Arbiter agrees with Eliphaz’s assessment of Job: Job is self-righteous.

Job responds: “I’m speechless, in awe—words fail me. I should never have opened my mouth! I’ve talked too much, way too much. I’m ready to shut up and listen.”

The Arbiter challenges Job: “Do you presume to tell me what I’m doing wrong? Are you calling me a sinner so you can be a saint? Go ahead, show your stuff. Let’s see what you’re made of, what you can do. I’ll gladly step aside and hand things over to you—you can surely save yourself with no help from me!”

To exemplify their differences and respective roles, the Arbiter instructs Job with examples of imaginative creatures seemingly both natural and mythical: Behemoth and Leviathan

Job is compared to Behemoth: “Look at the land beast, Behemoth. I created him as well as you. Grazing on grass, docile as a cow . . .”

Behemoth – William Blake

Behemoth is content and well-fed, strong, first of its kind, cared for, sheltered, not alarmed by turbulence. Behemoth is an example of stability and trust: “And when the river rages, he doesn’t budge, stolid and unperturbed even when the Jordan goes wild.”

The Arbiter is compared to Leviathan, the sea beast with enormous bulk and beautiful shape.

“Who would even dream of piercing that tough skin or putting those jaws into bit and bridle?”

Leviathan can’t be tamed or controlled and should not be challenged or messed with. “There’s nothing on this earth quite like him, not an ounce of fear in that creature!”

The Arbiter has drawn a vast distinction between himself and Job.

Job had been speaking about his own righteousness and God’s justice. Behemoth is not an example of righteousness or of a questioning attitude. Rather, Behemoth is an example of stability amidst turbulence (crisis). Behemoth symbolizes creaturely trust.

Leviathan, not an example of justice, is the image of a rather terrifying creature. There is nothing wilder than the Leviathan. Leviathan cannot be domesticated. It would be utter folly to tangle with such a creature.

Behemoth and Leviathan – William Blake

After the Arbiter finishes his description of Leviathan, Job answers:

You asked, ‘Who is this muddying the water,
    ignorantly confusing the issue, second-guessing my purposes?’
I admit it. I was the one. I babbled on about things far beyond me,
    made small talk about wonders way over my head.
You told me, ‘Listen, and let me do the talking.
    Let me ask the questions. You give the answers.’
I admit I once lived by rumors of you;
    now I have it all firsthand—from my own eyes and ears!
I’m sorry—forgive me. I’ll never do that again, I promise!
    I’ll never again live on crusts of hearsay, crumbs of rumor.”

The Arbiter accepts Job’s admission that he was both ignorant and wrong about the Arbiter. Job has grown in his understanding: justice is not automatic – good is not rewarded and evil punished mechanically. The Arbiter is not a contingent being. He is not beholden to Job. He is not accountable to Job. Job cannot force the Arbiter to act.

The Arbiter, who heard Elihu say true things about the Arbiter, addresses Eliphaz:

“I’ve had it with you and your two friends. I’m fed up! You haven’t been honest either with me or about me—not the way my friend Job has!”

The Arbiter tells them to go to Job and sacrifice a burnt offering on their own behalf and Job will pray on their behalf – just as Job did for his own children just in case they’d sinned. The Arbiter accepts Job’s prayer.

After Job had interceded for his friends, God restored his fortune—and then doubled it! Job’s later life was blessed by the Arbiter even more than his earlier life. He lived on another 140 years, living to see his children and grandchildren—four generations of them! Then he died—an old man, a full life.

Job’s restoration at the end does not make up for the losses he incurred. The restoration seems to reset the stage for Job to bring the understanding he gained during his suffering to a new generation. He will tell his daughters to have Behemoth-like trust in the Arbiter and not in a mechanical system of justice.

He may even tell them that prayer is not a cause-and-effect mechanism. Prayer is listening to God.

~~~

As we find out, this fictional tale is not an answer as to why there is suffering or benefit, for that matter. The author’s narrative was meant to educate and expand the reader’s understanding of Yahweh in a world where there are things that make people suffer. Its purpose was to challenge conventional thinking about order, justice, and Yahweh.

The narrative asked questions: Is the Retribution Principle (RP) – the righteous will prosper and the wicked will suffer – the foundational principle in the cosmos? And, does anyone serve the Arbiter for nothing?

The first question is answered through two contrasted views of reality: the old-time religion of piety-for-prosperity as order and justice in the cosmos and the Arbiter’s Wisdom as being the foundational principle in the cosmos. The second question is resolved by Job.

He continued to serve the Arbiter (and did not curse him as the Challenger supposed would happen) during his suffering. He did so without expectation of reward thereby rejecting the piety-for-prosperity symbiosis that was thought to exist between the gods and man.

We find out that the Arbiter, not Job, is put on trial. Under great suffering, Job questioned the Arbiter’s policies. He wondered if the Arbiter was petty and unjust.

The Arbiter, with no need to defend himself, corrects Job. For, Job did not begin to understand what’s involved in the mysteries of creation nor about cosmic order and justice. Job and his friends were not the source of Wisdom.

The Arbiter, along with the supplemental “wisdom” poetry, raised Job’s and the reader’s focus on suffering – the “raging waters” – up to great heights – the uncharted territory of creation beyond man’s comprehension where one would find a Leviathan-like being beyond our control.

This brief summary does not begin to extract the wealth of wisdom and understanding found in Dr. John Walton’s study of the book of Job:

Job (The NIV Application Commentary): Walton, John H.: 9780310214427: Amazon.com: Books

Dr. John Walton, Job (30 mini-lectures) – YouTube

walton_job_session25-order-non-order-and-disorderDownload

How should we understand our world?

Session 25: The World in the Book of Job: Order, Non-order, and Disorder by John Walton from Dr. John Walton, Job (30 mini-lectures) – YouTube

John H. Walton (Ph.D., Hebrew Union College) is professor of Old Testament at Wheaton College. Previously he was professor of Old Testament at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, Illinois.

Bibliography: Block, Daniel I., ed. Israel: Ancient Kingdom or Late Invention? Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2008; Longman, Tremper III, and John H. Walton. The Lost World of the Flood: Mythology, Theology, and the Deluge Debate. Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2018; Walton, John H. Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament: Introducing the Conceptual World of the Hebrew Bible. Second edition. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2018; idem. Genesis 1 as Ancient Cosmology. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2011; idem. Old Testament Theology for Christians: From Ancient Context to Enduring Belief. Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2017; idem. The Lost World of the Israelite Conquest: Covenant, Retribution, and the Fate of the Canaanites. Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2017; idem. The Lost World of the Torah: Law as Covenant and Wisdom in Ancient Context. Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2019.

~~~~~

“The suffering and evil of the world are not due to weakness, oversight, or callousness on God’s part. But rather, are the inescapable costs of a creation allowed to be other than God.” – John Polkinghorne

~~~~~

In light of the severe suffering and trauma that Job is exposed to, some may see the Arbiter’s response as cold and clinical, unfeeling and even autistic. Some in this day and age may hold that feelings and victimhood are core principles for understanding the world and may bad mouth the Arbiter for not being empathetic. Some might assert that his response is not their version of the RP’s justice and order- social justice. They may want an Arbiter to express himself like they do. Finding out that the Arbiter is beyond all reckoning unsettles them.

~~~~~

The Uncertainty Specialist with Sunita Puri

Pain is like a geography—one that isn’t foreign to palliative care physician, Dr. Sunita Puri. Kate and Sunita speak about needing new language for walking the borderlands and how we all might learn to live—and die—with a bit more courage.

In this conversation, Kate Bowler and Sunita discuss:

How to walk with one another through life’s ups and downs—especially health ups and downs

What “palliative care” means (and how it is distinct from hospice)

The difference between what medicine can do and what medicine should do

Sunita’s script for how to talk to patients facing difficult diagnoses

Sunita Puri:The Uncertainty Specialist – Kate Bowler

~~~~~

“Here be dragons” (Latin: hic sunt dracones) means dangerous or unexplored territories

“Here be Dragons” was a phrase frequently used in the 1700s and earlier by cartographers (map makers) on faraway, uncharted corners of the map. It was meant to warn people away from dangerous areas where sea monsters were believed to exist. It’s now used metaphorically to warn people away from unexplored areas or untried actions. There are no actual dragons, but it is still dangerous.

The Psalter world map with dragons at the base:

Filed under Christianity, suffering, The book of Job, wisdom literature Tagged with , , , , , , ,

Lent in the Time of Coronavirus

April 5, 2020 Leave a comment

“I’m telling you a solemn truth: unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains all by itself. If it dies, though, it will produce lots of fruit. If you love your life, you’ll lose it. If you hate your life in this world, you’ll keep it for the life of the coming age.” -the gospel according to John, 12: 24-25

These words of Jesus were in response to Andrew and Philip. They came to Jesus saying that some Greeks would like to meet him. It seems to be a strange response for a simple request. But Jesus, noting that the “world” was coming to him for answers and for salvation, speaks of his coming death and the means to a resurrected life by following the same vocation. His words define the essence of Lent.

From the earliest days of the church, times of self-examination and self-denial have been observed. The origin of this practice may have been for the preparation of new Christians for Baptism and a reset of their lives. 2020 and the Lenten season is upon us and with it the government recommended “Stay in Place” until April 30th. Easter (April 12th), resurrection day, is the celebratory end of Lent and a restart to new life dependent on what takes place during Lent.

In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, there is a worldwide intense focus on physical and financial well-being, As we each hunker down and remain sequestered away from the coronavirus, anxiety is compounded: we want to know if we’ll be OK; we want to know where all of this is going and how it will end. The Greeks who wanted to meet Jesus and first-century Jews with their age-old anticipation for a Messiah to set the world to rights had similar concerns.

It is said that Luke, writer of a gospel account and the Acts of the Apostles, was a Greek physician. This being the case, he would testify, if present today, to the infirmities leading to vast numbers of death in the first century. He would recount that there were all manner of infectious diseases, smallpox, parasitic infections, malaria, anthrax, pneumonia, tuberculosis, polio, skin diseases including leprosy, head lice and scabies and, more. Dr. Luke would be the first to tell you that first-century remedies were ineffectual against the afflictions mentioned.

Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, would tell us how Stoic and Epicurean philosophers dealt with grim reality surrounding them.

The Stoics, around the same time as Epicurus, posited a grim fatalist outlook. Considering themselves cogs in life’s machinery, their response was to lead a virtuous life in spite of “it all”. Materialism and passions were of no interest to them. “No Fear” and apathy towards life’s randomness were the attitudes they wore on their shoulder to appear non-self-pitying. They also advocated for suicide -the ultimate form of self-pity.

The philosophy of Epicureanism, posited by the Greek philosopher Epicurus (341-270 BC) a few centuries before the birth of Christ, offered mankind self-pity with license. Per Epicurus, there was no God or the gods were uninvolved with men. And, for him, there was no life after death. So, mankind had to make the best of the atoms he was dealt. Man was to do so by avoiding pain and seeking pleasure in the company of like-minded friends. Self-pity could be dealt with in intimate and safe surroundings.

Around the first century Epicureanism and Stoicism were evident in Greek, Roman and Pagan life. These philosophies gave words to what was inherent in man from his days in the Garden – a narrative of mis-trust in God. During the first century these philosophies were already fused with pantheism and the zeal to worship pagan deities.

To seek relief, paganism, an early form of Progressivism, enjoined pagans to offer the distant gods sacrifices to secure their well-being. Israel, called to be the people of God, chose to lament – asking God to respond to dire circumstances according to revealed His nature. Many of the Psalms are worship-infused petitions invoking remembrances of God’s ability to save and vows to praise Him as he does so again.

Psalm 13

How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?
    How long will you hide your face from me?
 How long must I take counsel in my soul
    and have sorrow in my heart all the day?
How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?

Consider and answer me, O Lord my God;
    light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death,
 lest my enemy say, “I have prevailed over him,”
    lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken.

 But I have trusted in your steadfast love;
    my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
I will sing to the Lord,
    because he has dealt bountifully with me

In the news reports we hear “unprecedented” many times over. Yet, this pandemic is no Black Swan event. History records pandemics, plagues, earthquakes, famines and, all manner of tragedies affecting mankind. In my previous post I mentioned weathering last century’s Asian flu pandemic. And though our response to the current pandemic is “unprecedented” mankind will continue to suffer from unexpected devastating events. Mankind will continue to ask, as did the psalmist (Psalm 22), “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish?” We read above that the psalmist has put his trust in God’s unfailing love. He awaits God’s salvation knowing that God has acted to save a remnant of the faithful before.

Lent, this Lent in particular, is a time to lament. We want to know if we’ll be OK; we want to know where all of this is going and how it will end. Asking God to consider the dire circumstances and to answer according to his nature, is a conversation to foster during Lent. It is a time to consider that there is an advocate – the Word Incarnate – who pleads for us before the throne of God. He does so with ‘real-world’ experience.

The Son of God entered the unsanitary disease-filled world described above. He is fully aware of the pain, suffering and groaning of his creation and of man’s philosophies, with its grains of thought which produce no fruit. He did not come to give us social justice platitudes. He did not come to create a Progressive party and overthrow the establishment. If, as God-man, he had not made the sacrifice to redeem his creation, then he would have “remained alone” as a philosopher with platitudes. He came instead, as he stated to Andrew and Philip, to be a grain of wheat that falls into the earth and dies in order to bring forth much fruit in his creation.

Per Jesus’ example, Lent is a time to become a grain of wheat that falls into the earth and dies, dies to the flesh on the world’s self-preservation life-support. It is a time to cultivate healthy spiritual habits, habits that produce the fruits that Jesus spoke about when his time of sacrifice was approaching.

As a season for Christians to mark time and to “Stay in Place”, apart for a time from the world’s pervasive influence, Lent is a time for Christians to hunker down, revise routines, and to focus on what matters. It is a time of reflection, repentance and, renewal. It is a time for fasting, growth and, a return to silence and simplicity.

As we do so, we may find that the silver lining we had purchased in the moment, in the midst of dark days of stress and difficulty, was in exchange for thirty pieces of silver. We may learn that the investments we have made – time-wise, financially and morally – are insufficient to carry us forward. We may find that we have greatly leveraged ourselves to control larger and larger positions in life, positions that are more than we can handle. We may have done so to gain acceptance and security from the world. But now there are margin calls we are unable to pay. This may cause us to look to for more security from the world or to God. During this time, we may also learn that our God-given discernment has been used to criticize others and their “sins” and not for intercession on behalf of them.

In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic ‘exile’, we may be wishing “If only someone would push RESET and we could get on with our lives as before”. A RESET button has been pushed. Jesus of Nazareth, very God of very God and the Word made flesh, came into the world to reset all narratives, including the historical Judaic narrative, by keeping his covenant promises. The epigraph, words to both Greeks and Jews, tells us how.

The resurrection of Jesus is the greatest RESET and the only one that really matters. With it, the power of death had been defeated. Remember Jesus telling Martha at the time of Lazarus’s death, “I am the resurrection and the life. And anyone who believes in me will live, even if they die.” (John 11: 25-26) Yes, Jesus wept at the overwhelming sorrow caused by Lazarus’ death. But he knew that he would overcome death and that there would be rejoicing in the new-life fruit his death and resurrection would produce.

Lent in the Time of the Coronavirus is a time for Christians to plant the grain-of-wheat RESET and to be ready to go on with their lives as never before.

Filed under Christianity, Current Events 2020, Easter, lent, pandemic, suffering Tagged with , , , , , ,

The Letters

December 22, 2019 Leave a comment

 

September, 2019

My Dear Agnus,

I may be among the last of those who write letters. Handwriting is personal and so I hope my words will be received not as the words of a deacon, but as your brother.

The last time I saw you Agnus, at the funeral for Nicholas, I perceived bitterness behind your grief as we spoke that day. You asked “Where is God in all of this?”

The tragedy that took your son was compounded by his claiming to be an atheist before his death. Together, these events must have caused you considerable anguish.

What succor can any observer give to the one who has suffered such a loss and heartbreak? What comparison of those who have also suffered loss can one make to lessen your grief when your sorrow and pain are profoundly yours, and yours alone? And, imagine, what support a spouse gives to her husband who has suffered profound losses when she says to him that he is better off dead?

Job’s wife, knowing where God ‘was’ in all that had happened, ‘comforted’ her boil-encrusted ash heap-seated husband with “Curse God and die!” In effect she said “Why maintain your notions of God and your devotion to Him when He does this to you?”

Job, also knowing where God ‘was’ in all that he suffered, responded to the “foolish” words with his own reckoning of the situation: “Should we accept from God only good and not adversity?” I wonder at the reckoning of Job, after suffering devasting losses: “the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.” Job wasn’t putting a positive spin on his situation. Rather, he was letting God be God.

And what of value are clichés like “time heals all wounds”? The wounds may heal, but the scars remain, as they do for our Lord and Savior. Pain, loss and suffering make their marks, as you well know.

As I write this I have before me the photograph of you and Nicholas at his fourteenth birthday. What joy and promise I see in both of your eyes. How will you remember him on his eighteenth birthday this Saturday?

Do you blame yourself for Nicholas saying he became an atheist? Don’t. I have mentored many such young men. Approaching adulthood, they are dynamic. They believe they know all they need to know and what they don’t know you can’t tell them. They begin to reject familial authority and the fixed rules and identity imposed on them. They will chose a path opposite of what they know. When they receive a driver’s license or go off to college, they believe they can drive off without limits.

Your Nicholas didn’t have time to harden his heart against God. Had he gone on to the university he may have begun to harden his heart, as immature Christian faith is often weaned on the religion of ideology.

The picture I have in my mind as I mentor these young men: they are like the lost wandering sheep that the Shepherd goes looking for. You committed Nicholas to the Good Shepherd as an infant. When he declared himself to be an atheist, the Good Shepherd went looking for him asking “Where are you Nicholas?” The Good Shepherd did not give up on him.

Most likely Nicholas, not yet understanding the nature of God, saw something in the nature of life. The world offers many shiny objects to lure a young man away from the fold.

Be assured, Agnus, that you are continually in my thoughts and prayers. Help me to see through your eyes.

Love,

Tom

 

September 2019

Dear Tom,

Forgive my email reply. My stationery, which I used to thank those who gave flowers in remembrance of Nicholas, has run out except for a mismatched envelope.

Thank you for writing. This past year have been a blur. The loss of my only child and the loss of my marriage the year before has drained life out of me and filled me with wormwood and gall. That is what my new friend Ann calls it.

I saw Nicholas change after the divorce. He became moody and distant. It didn’t help that Bill and I often fought the months before we separated. I was crushed when Nicholas asked both of us “Where is God in all of this?”

I will remember Nick’s birthday with a few friends. They are folk from the church I now attend. They are giving me a memorial tree to plant in my yard.

Agnus

 

October, 2019

Dear Agnus,

A memorial tree is a symbolic and an enduring way to remember Nicholas. What kind of tree did you plant?

You mentioned in your last email that Nicholas was affected by what was going on in his homelife. Changing aspects at home would intensify the growing dynamics in his young life. It would spur him to look elsewhere for greener pastures. But the Good Shepherd knows his sheep and cares for them wherever they run off to.

All that has happened has changed you, as well. Our sister tells me that you are now attending a Universalist Church. This concerns me, as I know of their pluralist beliefs.

How is your health? I worry about you.

Love,

Tom

 

October, 2019

Dear Tom,

I planted a redbud tree in my front yard. I can see it from my chair by the window. My friends from church helped me plant it. They say it will produce rose-colored flowers.

You mentioned the church I now attend. At the church I attended for many years, the one where Nicholas was baptized as an infant, after the divorce no ever one ever invited Nicholas and me over for a meal. I felt judged, unclean and worthless because of a failed marriage. I felt isolated, like I didn’t exist. I felt like a leper.

There was one old woman at that church, I won’t mention her name, who rankled me. She had the gall to imply that what happened to Nicholas was a judgment for my divorce. “These things happen for a reason” is what she said. Why on God’s green earth would someone say this? At that point I had had enough of that can of wormwood. I wasn’t about to lose my sanity and so I looked elsewhere.

Nicholas refused to go to church. He was spending time with his father who also didn’t attend church. Bill said that he has more fellowship on a golf course on Sunday mornings than in church. I don’t even know what fellowship means at this point. My old church had become a valued-members only country club of sorts.

I met the folks from the new church at a rummage sale. They invited me over for coffee. So, I took my baggage and started going to their church.

My health? I don’t sleep. I wake up from dreams so real I begin to cry. I see the old woman and Nicholas standing at the end of my bed. They are turned away and Bill is walking away.

Food and a glass of wine and a few new friends are my only comforts.

Agnus

 

November, 2019

Dear Agnus,

I understand your reaction and your desire to walk away. That woman had no business saying those things. The church, where the lost and lonely and broken should find hope and fellowship and healing, is often the place where the most rejection and hurt is incurred. There are, as you may have encountered, broken people who believe they know the mind of God and can diagnose other’s lives through their own distorted lens. I am reminded of Job’s friends and their counsel.

Now, it may be that this woman had also experienced loss or hardship or heartache and assumed that God was chastening her and that became her frame of reference to project onto others. It may be that, like many in the church, she gets involved with people only viscerally and never enters into a deeper relationship with them. There are those who are not solicitous about a person’s spiritual and emotional well-being as it would involve having to get involved. I don’t want to project any of this onto her or impugn her character, as I only know of her. I don’t know her. One cannot know the mind or intentions of another or the mind of Christ, for that matter, unless they are intimately acquainted with the person. Still, that woman had no business saying those things.

I think many see the church not as a Mash unit where the wounded are cared for and nursed back to wholeness. Rather, they see it as a soapbox for their views. Years ago I left a church where the congregation voted on church matters. That was a nightmare. Many who voted had already converted their political commitments into moral principles. As such, they had become conduits of the world and not of the Holy Spirit.

My main concern is you. How are you holding up? I am glad you found some folks who invited you in. I hope this letter finds you well and in better spirits.

Love,

Tom

 

November 2019

Tom,

I received your letter. The church isn’t all it’s cracked up to be and neither am I for that matter. Maybe the old woman just woke up on the wrong side of the bed that day. I know I did.

These days all my focus has narrowed to getting by day to day. I try to make sense of it all. It seems life is one of those patternless crossword puzzles in the newspaper. There are clues and no structure or a place to start. There are answers that connect at one point but after I work on it the puzzle ends up being a disconnected mismatched jumble. And the solution is a Want Ad.

Now that Christmas is approaching and I will be without Nick, I have a question for you Deacon. Why would God send his son into the world when he knew that his son would brutally die? That is a world of hurt that I know all too well. Why all the suffering? What does it accomplish?

I may get around to buying stationery someday. Right now, email is what I can handle.

Agnus

 

November 2019

Dear Agnus,

I can relate to the crossword puzzle example you gave. More than once I have a puzzle almost completed but there are a few clues that confound me. I have to search to find the word suggested.

You ask a deep theological question that is much like the patternless puzzle. Both begin on a template as a mystery that bids the partaker to search for answers, as you are doing. Mysteries cannot and should not be assessed on their face and be rejected outright as too difficult or pointless.

I have long wondered why Jesus didn’t just come down to earth and feed everyone and heal everyone and keep people from suffering and death. Why did he have to suffer to make things right for the world and then allow suffering to continue?

I have been reading Russian authors for a while now – Chekov, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and Solzhenitsyn. What I like about these Russian authors is that they were not afraid to pose deep questions in their works. The things of the spirit were of great importance to them. Their writings depict the torment of the Russian soul especially as it is affected by suffering and loss and evil.

My favorite is Chekov. His writings depict the prosaic side of Russian life and the hopelessness pervasive in the lives of his characters. His stories are not of the Hallmark/Disney sentimentalist twaddle so popular today. He writes the about the way life is without moralizing.

Here, as an example of their writings, I will quote Ivan, one of the brothers in Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov:

“And if the suffering of children goes to make up the sum of suffering needed to buy truth, then I assert beforehand that the whole of truth is not worth such a price.” (5.4.21)

Ivan Karamazov, a deep thinker, poses suffering as a theological problem: if sweet innocent children suffer, how can there be a just God? With this conundrum he reveals what is behind Russian nihilism and atheism he sees all around him – sentimentality and a false sense of sympathy for mankind.

The Russian nihilists and atheists he speaks of see children suffering, so they assume that if there is a God that he is unjust and not worth their time. They walk away from God bearing a hatred towards Him and his divine purpose for life. They take on a false moralism which denies all values including the sacred. They will hold an abstracted God accountable but not themselves. They will not stomach the tears of children nor will they stomach the sacrifice required of them to alleviate the tears in this world. In fact, as history shows, they go on to sanction Progressivist revolutions that create untold sufferings and tears.

Have I answered your questions? No. Not yet. I am relating that the patternless puzzle, the mystery, has troubled mankind since the days of Job. The Psalmists and the wisdom literature authors in Scripture reflect on the meaning of life amidst suffering and hardship and loss. These writings offer clues that suffering can be redemptive as they turn to God for healing and justice instead of indicting him. Maybe the old woman spoke from this perspective.

Each individual puzzle, yours included, can be redemptive as one seeks the Source for answers. The church should be a resource of redemption, of grace and a healing balm. But it is often the resource of sentimentality and a false sense of sympathy for mankind as I mentioned above. There are those in the church who see themselves as prophets, as arbiters of who is right and who is wrong and of the mind of God, like Job’s friends. They think they have the answers to the patternless puzzle.

I’ll briefly mention that along with the problem of suffering there is also the problem of evil. Of the Christian view you are already aware. Jesus suffered death on the cross to defeat evil. His resurrection means new creation. That sin and evil continue is a matter of human’s free will. That suffering continues, Jesus’ resurrection tells us that things are not as they seem – that suffering can be redemptive and that death can be overturned so that new creation can take place. The return of Jesus is when he will put things to right.

I’ll just mention a non-Christian view.

An atheist will revere cause and effect science as the tree of life, as the impersonal source of life. This ‘relieves’ them of accountability. Yet, as mentioned above, the atheist will not see human agency as the mechanism behind the cause and effects of evil. Rather they see themselves as the tormented and not as the tormentors. This is more to say on this subject but would be of no comfort for you now.

How are you spending Christmas? Will you be alone? If so, I will come out. Let me know right away so that I can book a flight. I should have asked sooner.

For your sleep I recommend exercise. It will alleviate your mood and help you sleep at night.

Love,

Tom

 

December 2019

Tom,

I received your letter and your Christmas card. The card is beautiful. Thank you.

Of the things you wrote, that whole ball of wax, I can barely take it in. The church has been both a blessing and a bane to me. Now I see myself as part of the bane. My focus has been on myself and words spoken and not spoken to me.

You and I were raised in a church with petty rules. No dancing, no movies, no talking in church. Remember the sign that hung over the choir loft? Be still and know that I am God. How can anyone be still when so much suffering is going on?

Later I attended a free church where I thought I would be free from judgment. I think it is called grace. No way. I traded the Be Still church for the Shut Up about your problems put on a smiley face and carry on church. I came home depressed and crying so I went elsewhere. I told you about my last church. My last straw is the church I attend now. They accept anyone and anything. They teach universal reconciliation – that all humans will eventually be saved. I want to believe this for Nicholas’ sake but I can’t. Why wasn’t everyone saved and suffering stopped right after Jesus died on the cross? Why is there still evil and trouble in the world. It seems that people must still make a choice to be saved or not. You mentioned free will. It seems that universal salvation would mean that there is no difference between good and evil. Alls well that ends well, I guess is what they think.

They also teach about finding yourself within yourself. I found enough in myself I don’t like. If God thinks like me and the rest of these people, we’re all in trouble. Your letters got me thinking about all this.

Anyway, I sit by the window looking at the memorial tree covered in snow and wonder when the redemption part kicks in. I sit here with this feeling of something gushing up inside me like a flare was set off inside me and I can’t contain it. What could this be?

The church does give me the chance to work at a local homeless shelter. I brought in some of Nicholas’ clothes. I was so happy when I saw a boy wearing the shirt I bought for Nicholas.

Rose said that she is coming out for Christmas. She is bringing her kids. That will be a blessing. There will be noise and life in my home again. I will have to clean the house. This is no vale of roses.

How are you spending Christmas?

Agnus

 

December 2019

Dear Agnus.

Your email was a great encouragement to me. My concerns for you have greatly diminished. I don’t see you being taken in by your church’s pluralism. As you have stated, the church accepts anyone and everything. It teaches all religions as emanating from a divine origin and therefore all religions are true and therefore worthy of toleration and respect and considered on equal footing. As such, the church synthesizes universal principles of many religions to form a universal truth. The church wants to be known for being inclusive. You will encounter all manner of false teaching to make inclusion and toleration possible.

The Universalist church will teach about God and Jesus and immortality and, as you mentioned, that things will work out at the end, that no one will suffer eternal torment. The church implies with their teaching that evil and sin make people victims and therefore no one should have to suffer eternal punishment. Their teaching questions how the redeemed can enjoy heaven while even one soul suffers in hell. The sympathy card is played.

The Universalists are like the prodigal son’s older brother. He deems himself on higher moral ground than his father as he witnesses his brother repenting and returning to their father of his own volition. He believes he deserves the sympathy of his father for just being himself.

Like the atheists I have mentioned in a previous letter, the Universalists have taken on sentimentality and a false sense of sympathy for mankind and imbue it with false moralism and cheap grace. They do not let God be God. Rather, they let a god of their own making, as synthesized from the world’s religions, be their graven image.

But there will be no synthesis of good and evil. There will be no marriage of heaven and hell. In fact, there will be The Great Divorce. If you get a chance, read C. S. Lewis’ book by the same name. As Lewis depicts, the choices we make take us down divergent pathways.  We either choose a path of good that becomes an even greater good as we continue to make good choices and stay on its narrow way or we choose a broad path that leads towards ever greater evil.

In the story you will read of the proud, the stubborn, the willful and the angry.  There are those who demand their rights.  There will be those whose feet hurt them as they walk on solid ground for the first time and there will also be the “bright solid people” who move about the “High Country” without effort.  And finally, there will be those who reject Joy and solid Reality to return to “grey town” on the same bus.

Universal salvation teaching reckons the ‘victim’, the ‘tormented’, as having power over God, as being able to hold God hostage and being able to force God’s hand to enact salvation from eternal punishment regardless of the choices made. This implication is mere sentimentality and nothing more. God gives each what they have desired with their free-will. I’ll quote Lewis from that same book:

“There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, in the end, “Thy will be done.” All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. Those who knock it is opened.”

 

Now, enough of this talk. My pipe just went out.

It appears that redemption is already “kicking in”. The shirt you provided that boy is an act of redemption and re-creation. You gave new life to the shirt and to the boy, so it is also an act of resurrection. Resurrection is the hope of Christians. You will see Nicholas again. In the meantime, keep doing what you are doing.

What you are experiencing as you sit in that chair by window is what Paul wrote about in Romans. The entire creation, not just you and I and the Russians I mentioned, but “the entire of creation is groaning together and going through labor pains together, with groaning too deep for words. The Searcher of Hearts knows what the spirit is thinking, because the spirits pleads for God’s people according to God’s will.” God knows what is going on inside you by his spirit which indwells you. The spirit is pleading on your behalf so that God will work all things together for good. The Comforter is with you.

Rose will bring the gift I have for you. I hope you receive this letter before Christmas. I am spending Christmas Eve and Christmas day at church to receive the Eucharist. After church on Christmas Day I will be having dinner with a couple my age. Then I will go home and watch Alistair Sim in A Christmas Carol with my parrolet Henry. He’s good company.

Love,

Tom

 

Christmas Eve 2019

Tom,

I received your letter just today. Thank you! Still smoking that old pipe?

And thank you for the wonderful gift. It gave me a spark of joy. Rose says it is a copy of the Return of the Prodigal Son by Rembrandt. Isn’t this the same painting that hangs behind your desk?

I am sorry this will be a short email. I have a houseful right now. We’ll talk soon. Maybe you should stop smoking that pipe. You’re 82.

Merry Christmas Tom.

Love,

Agnus

 

January 2020

Dear Agnus,

I see in that painting Father Christmas and the greatest gifts being reconciliation and redemption.

I see myself, as I was a prodigal who returned to the father. The suffering caused by my waywardness to myself and to others, including a loss of dignity and relationship, was redemptive in that I saw myself as I was and in need of the father and his love to put things to rights. My Father in heaven suffered being un-fathered by me for a time but he never changed Who He was in my absence. He never said to me “do this and be that” and then I will accept you back. He did not become like the older brother with his strict moral order as the parable relates. Our relationship, not rules, was his priority.

I see Nicholas being comforted and back home. I see you beholding that scene and being filled with joy.

I will come out to see you in February. At 82 this will be my last trip. My age ‘kicked in’ a while ago, so my travel days will be over after this trip

If you’ll be asking me questions, I will have to bring my pipe.

Love,

Tom

 

 

 

 

 

© Jennifer A. Johnson, 2019, All Rights Reserved

Filed under Christmas, Holiday, Short Story, suffering Tagged with , , ,