“The Labyrinth of Job”
Job 1:1, 2:1-10 and Romans 8:22-23
Allen Huff
Jonesborough Presbyterian Church
4/28/24
There was once a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job. That man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil.
One day the heavenly beings came to present themselves before the Lord, and the accuser also came among them to present himself before the Lord.
2The Lord said to the accuser, “Where have you come from?”
The accuser answered the Lord, “From going to and fro on the earth and from walking up and down on it.”
3The Lord said to the accuser, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil. He still persists in his integrity, although you incited me against him, to destroy him for no reason.”
4Then the accuser answered the Lord, “Skin for skin! All that the man has he will give for his life. 5But stretch out your hand now and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse you to your face.”
6The Lord said to the accuser, “Very well, he is in your power; only spare his life.”
7So the accuser went out from the presence of the Lord and inflicted loathsome sores on Job from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. 8Job took a potsherd with which to scrape himself and sat among the ashes.
9Then his wife said to him, “Do you still persist in your integrity? Curse God and die.”
10But he said to her, “You speak as any foolish woman would speak. Shall we receive good from God and not receive evil?”
In all this Job did not sin with his lips. (NRSV)
22We know that the whole creation has been groaning together as it suffers together the pains of labor, 23and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. (NRSV)
Job: History or legend? A flesh-and-blood human being or an amalgamation of human experience in general and of Jewish experience in particular? What we’re asking is whether Job WAS real or IS real?
In his book Messengers of God: Biblical Portraits and Legends, Jewish scholar and holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel included an essay entitled “Job: Our Contemporary.” Wrestling with the stories around the story, he says, “Once upon a time. When? Nobody knows. [Job’s] name is mentioned by Ezekiel in passing, along with those of Noah, and Daniel—was he a contemporary of one or the other? Possibly. Other legends link him alternately to Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Samson, Solomon…and…the Babylonian exile. He would thus have lived…more than eight hundred [years].”1
Later in the same essay, Wiesel describes Job as one who “was everywhere and everything at the same time…[a man characterized by] peregrinations through provinces and centuries.”2
So, to ask, “WAS Job real?” means arbitrating nearly a millennium of conflicting stories. It becomes a kind of maze, a complicated playground with only one entrance and only one exit and lots of dead ends in between. The point of a maze is simply the entertainment of getting lost. The experience leaves you essentially unchanged.
Now, the question, IS Job real? asks something entirely different. It brings the question into the moment. It acknowledges unmerited suffering, and dares to ask, Does God cause our suffering?
To ask if Job IS real is to enter not a maze, but a labyrinth. And a labyrinth is a spiritual practice in which one walks a set course of twists and turns that seems maze-like, but a labyrinth is about surrendering to Mystery, not becoming mystified.
When walking a labyrinth, one follows the pathway, shedding distractions, pretensions, and fear. That single, trustworthy path leads to a center—a place of stillness, reflection, and divine encounter. It also becomes a place of metanoia—of turning and new beginning. To leave the labyrinth, one simply retraces your steps and exits exactly where you entered. Assuming due discipline, which includes regular trips through the labyrinth, one becomes a transformed pilgrim who can help transform the world—or your little corner of it.
To ask if Job IS real is to enter the story as if walking a labyrinth. At the center of this story-labyrinth, we encounter God in, of all places, a gut-wrenching experience of human suffering. When traveling with Job as a path of divine encounter, we discover that regardless of whether or not he existed as a particular individual, Job most certainly IS real.
On the path of discovering the immediate IS-ness of Job, we walk shoulder-to-shoulder with all of the characters in the story. In the first curve in the path, God brags on Job’s righteousness. Irked by God’s boasting, “the accuser” dares God to test Job.
Make anyone miserable enough, says the accuser, and they’ll turn on you quicker than you can say Jezebel.
And then…What?! God accepts the accuser’s challenge? For the second time! (Job 1:6-12)
Do your worst, says God, just don’t kill him.
(The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God?)
Who wants to walk justly, kindly, and humbly with that God?
Then we meet Job’s wife, and she reminds us that it was not just Job who lost everything. Her family and fortune are gone, too. Furious, she dares her husband to test the faithfulness of God the way the accuser dares God to test the faithfulness of Job. And a long, bitter standoff begins.
Instead of eating the toxic apple of vengeance his wife offers, Job lies in an ash heap, scrapes his oozing sores with a potsherd, and cries, “Let the day perish in which I was born and the night that said, ‘A man-child is conceived.’…Why did I not die at birth?…I loathe my life.”
Utter despair is not exactly where one expects to find God, is it? Indeed, many people dismiss the very notion of God when caught in the grip of suffering that seems to have neither purpose nor end. And hasn’t the tantalizing but tormenting influence of the prosperity gospel conditioned many of us to interpret a lack of physical pain and a surplus of material wealth as signs of God’s presence and favor? From the sale of indulgences in the medieval Catholic Church to the Protestant work ethic of rewards and punishments, the Church has infected countless generations with such dis-grace. It has funneled people into a kind of doctrinal maze. Turn here, now there. Memorize this and that. Do not trust experience. Just believe and repeat what you’ve been taught. While there may be some comfort in that kind of certainty, it makes us look more like lab rats in a maze than disciples on a journey.
While the labyrinth of faith does lead us toward gratitude and joy, it also leads us toward suffering. And we encounter God in both places.
When Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio was elected Pope in 2013, he chose the name Francis because of his concern for those who suffer. And during one of his first Holy Weeks as Pope, he famously washed and kissed the feet of prisoners. Since then, he has spoken boldly things like climate change and the death penalty—issues of human suffering. He has also declined invitations to dine with a host country’s leaders in order to eat with the homeless in the streets outside.
While Pope Francis is far from perfect, he often demonstrates what it can look like to walk the labyrinth of faith rather than to wander the maze of theological convention. When he does, he helps us to remember that Jesus—who is more eager to have followers than mere “believers”—leads us into a labyrinth where we encounter God’s most amazing grace in the midst of the world’s deepest pain.
Remember what Jesus says in Matthew 25: “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food or thirsty and gave you something to drink…[or] a stranger and welcomed you or naked and gave you clothing…[or] sick or in prison and visited you?’ 40 And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me.’” (Matthew 25:37-40)
Maybe this is why Jesus often seems more authentic in the projects than the palaces.
We’ll return to Job over the next two weeks. In the meantime, I encourage you to spend time with this remarkable story. And as you read it, trust it. Let a very realJob take you by the hand and guide you to a place of very real suffering, your own or someone else’s. Be honest with any feelings of anger, betrayal, bewilderment, or despair. And if you find yourself in that dark and lonely place, sit still. Open your heart and your mind, and both give and receive the grace of the Living God.
Then may you turn and begin your journey outward—retracing your steps toward healing, transformation, and hope.
1Elie Wiesel, Messengers of God: Biblical Portraits and Legends, Random House, NY, 1976, p. 188.
2Ibid., p. 190.
Jabbok in the Foothills 