One of the best books I've ever read was Gustavo Gutierrez's "On Job". This book was fascinating, healing, and ground-breaking (at least for me).
As you may know, the story of Job takes place chronologically early on in the Bible story, somewhere in Genesis.
Gutierrez writes that the book of Job sets the tone for understanding the right nature of our relationship with God. It is designed to be revolutionary and to counter-act the prevailing attitudes of the day about religion.
In Job's day (and I think in ours), we have a notion that we have a quid pro quo relationship with God. We obey God and we are blessed, with material provisions or health or family. God blesses us and we give thanks....a reciprocal relationship that Gutierrez says is no different from any superstition.
The story of Job is trying to disconnect the state of the world (its blessings AND its curses) from our praise of God. I find myself praising God for good things that have happened. But when I have traveled overseas, I have asked myself what people are praising God for? A woman isn't praising God because of having a good family, because her dad might have abused her. A boy isn't praising God because he has good health; years of drug use has taken its toll. An older woman isn't praising God because she has a lot of possessions to leave her children; she is destitute and alone in the world. If the West praises God for material blessings, will our praise become silent when we don't have as much? (I have left out of course, the reality of praising God for Jesus and His redemption of humanity, despite the rough shape of things around us).
There are a number of beautiful parts of Gutierrez's analysis. What he says is that Job acts honorably by requesting/even demanding an audience with God. He wants to know the charges against him. Gutierrez then builds an interesting case where he separates Job's innocence from Innocence. What I'm getting at is that Job is not without sin, because humanity is not without sin. But Job is not guilty of any personal sin that predicated God's punishment (which God validates later in the story).
God, in his complete love, granted Job's wish and met with him, which is exactly what Job wanted. Everyone else around Job had the old notion that Job MUST have sinned because of these bad things that were happening...Quid pro quo: God punishes because man has been disobedient. But God is turning this notion on its head. Both the wicked and the upright have bad things happen to them and both the wicked and the upright have good things happen to them.
I probably even took his analysis farther in my mind, in that I felt I could hold on to my existential beliefs about the world and so much of its "randomness" because this would be the truest test of our obedience. For instance, as a society we make all sorts of laws to create incentives to do the right thing. Without penalties, humanity falls into all sorts of traps. Even for Christians, how long after police officers stop writing tickets for speeding would almost everyone be speeding?
Incentives (both carrot & stick) are our best measure against our sinful nature.
The truest test of our REAL desire to do right is a world without incentives....a "seemingly" random world where a person is just as likely to be punished for doing right as for doing wrong. This bypasses behavior modification that human structures put in place to get us to do the right thing. A "random" world means that Job is honored if he theoretically praises God in good times AND bad (or just as good...to tell God why he is frustrated and doesn't understand; sometimes I think this is a more childlike, pure, and honest form of praise anyway).
Gutierrez emphasizes that God answered the call of Job by meeting together: God and man/face-to-face. I have gotten hung up on the "stern-ness" of the words of God while talking to Job. I have become afraid of calling on God because of the awesomeness of God's reply to Job's questions that dwarf humanity.
But Gutierrez doesn't lend as much analysis to God's words as he does to God meeting with Job at all. This alone is the victory.
Gutierrez tells of the static nature of conversation from Job's friends, in contrast to Job's transformation in dialog and understanding...even before God talks with Job. There is a pre-conversion of understanding with Job because he expands his predicament from just his own suffering to the suffering of humanity. He rightly places his pain in the context of the pain of the world and that God should respond not just to him but to humanity.
God comforts Job by being with him in his pain. Something foreshadowing Jesus and God bearing the suffering of the world.
As you may know, the story of Job takes place chronologically early on in the Bible story, somewhere in Genesis.
Gutierrez writes that the book of Job sets the tone for understanding the right nature of our relationship with God. It is designed to be revolutionary and to counter-act the prevailing attitudes of the day about religion.
In Job's day (and I think in ours), we have a notion that we have a quid pro quo relationship with God. We obey God and we are blessed, with material provisions or health or family. God blesses us and we give thanks....a reciprocal relationship that Gutierrez says is no different from any superstition.
The story of Job is trying to disconnect the state of the world (its blessings AND its curses) from our praise of God. I find myself praising God for good things that have happened. But when I have traveled overseas, I have asked myself what people are praising God for? A woman isn't praising God because of having a good family, because her dad might have abused her. A boy isn't praising God because he has good health; years of drug use has taken its toll. An older woman isn't praising God because she has a lot of possessions to leave her children; she is destitute and alone in the world. If the West praises God for material blessings, will our praise become silent when we don't have as much? (I have left out of course, the reality of praising God for Jesus and His redemption of humanity, despite the rough shape of things around us).
There are a number of beautiful parts of Gutierrez's analysis. What he says is that Job acts honorably by requesting/even demanding an audience with God. He wants to know the charges against him. Gutierrez then builds an interesting case where he separates Job's innocence from Innocence. What I'm getting at is that Job is not without sin, because humanity is not without sin. But Job is not guilty of any personal sin that predicated God's punishment (which God validates later in the story).
God, in his complete love, granted Job's wish and met with him, which is exactly what Job wanted. Everyone else around Job had the old notion that Job MUST have sinned because of these bad things that were happening...Quid pro quo: God punishes because man has been disobedient. But God is turning this notion on its head. Both the wicked and the upright have bad things happen to them and both the wicked and the upright have good things happen to them.
I probably even took his analysis farther in my mind, in that I felt I could hold on to my existential beliefs about the world and so much of its "randomness" because this would be the truest test of our obedience. For instance, as a society we make all sorts of laws to create incentives to do the right thing. Without penalties, humanity falls into all sorts of traps. Even for Christians, how long after police officers stop writing tickets for speeding would almost everyone be speeding?
Incentives (both carrot & stick) are our best measure against our sinful nature.
The truest test of our REAL desire to do right is a world without incentives....a "seemingly" random world where a person is just as likely to be punished for doing right as for doing wrong. This bypasses behavior modification that human structures put in place to get us to do the right thing. A "random" world means that Job is honored if he theoretically praises God in good times AND bad (or just as good...to tell God why he is frustrated and doesn't understand; sometimes I think this is a more childlike, pure, and honest form of praise anyway).
Gutierrez emphasizes that God answered the call of Job by meeting together: God and man/face-to-face. I have gotten hung up on the "stern-ness" of the words of God while talking to Job. I have become afraid of calling on God because of the awesomeness of God's reply to Job's questions that dwarf humanity.
But Gutierrez doesn't lend as much analysis to God's words as he does to God meeting with Job at all. This alone is the victory.
Gutierrez tells of the static nature of conversation from Job's friends, in contrast to Job's transformation in dialog and understanding...even before God talks with Job. There is a pre-conversion of understanding with Job because he expands his predicament from just his own suffering to the suffering of humanity. He rightly places his pain in the context of the pain of the world and that God should respond not just to him but to humanity.
God comforts Job by being with him in his pain. Something foreshadowing Jesus and God bearing the suffering of the world.
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