“And then the Holy One responded
Out of the storm came Job’s answer:
Buckle up! Now I ask the questions,
and you, big man, will tell me the answers
Why would you pervert my justice,
why must I be your villain just so you can be right” (Job 40.6-8)?
Any good editor would have sent this back to its author explaining that you can’t do this. You can’t lead the reader along, leaving breadcrumbs that appear to be leading us to some sort of resolution only to close the poem in this ambiguity. You can’t have God off-stage this whole time, as everyone debates and argues, just show up and give some speech about creation and then fade to black.
Your audience will be furious. I’m furious. We’ve been journeying through this work all summer, listening to both sides and trying to understand who was right and who was wrong. We’ve put all our assumptions aside to honestly understand if Job wasn’t the pure, upstanding man he claimed or else was wrongly punished for sins he didn’t commit. And now we find ourselves here, at the end, without any answers at all?
This, after all, is God’s big chance. Here it is, the ideal test case. Once and for all we can settle the debate that has raged over the centuries. Everyone’s had their turn. They’ve all locked in their answers. What is the correct answer to the question of questions? What is the reason why?
And the survey says: nothing. Not a hint. The Holy One doesn’t even pretend that there have been questions unanswered. Doesn’t God care? Does it matter that we are confused and need to understand? Isn’t why a good enough question?
In the Gospels, there are incidents where it appeared people were trying to trap Jesus in some trick question. And every time, we’re told, his response was “Let me ask you a question.” What Jesus would say next cut through the fog and went straight to the heart of the moment. His response seemed to say that people were asking the wrong question.
Let me ask you a question, the Holy One seems to say, why must I be your villain? Why is it that you’re so interested in being right, in proving your point that you’re fine with me being the bad guy? In other words, is that who you think I am?
Throughout the poem both Job and the Trio have put point to counterpoint, they have sought to show the other just how right they are and how their answer to the why of Job’s suffering is the answer.
But no one has asked why we think God—Love Incarnate—is bound to blacks and whites, rights and wrongs. None of the Trio ever questioned why they thought this was the character of the Divine. And Job never thinks about how it might feel to be tried and convicted by one’s own beloved creation.
And, I’ll admit, I haven’t either. In the worst of moments when all I could do was stand and scream up into the cold stars my own question of why, I never thought about what it meant. I never asked why I thought my vulnerable, loving God was like that.
I wonder what answers I would get if I did?
Jesus, your life with us was love. Your intention is always love. I’m sorry for the moments when I forget that. I’m sorry for the unloving motives I attribute to you. Help me remember who you are; because, that’s the only way I’m going to learn to be like you.