Thomas J Parlette
“Once Upon a Time in the Land of Uz”
Job 1:1, 2:1-10
10/3/21, World Communion
Have you ever gotten the cold shoulder from someone? You walk into a gathering or a meeting, or even your own home and a friend, a co-worker, perhaps a spouse or maybe your child won’t look you in the eye. They seem kind of distant, uninterested, or even downright mad. They seem to go out of their way to avoid you, or even make a point to stand up and leave the room when you sit down. If so – you’ve been given the cold shoulder.
It’s an interesting expression, “cold shoulder.” There was a time when giving someone the cold shoulder meant more than simply snubbing them in public. During the Middle Ages, if your guests had overstayed their welcome, you served them a big shoulder of old beef rather than a nice hot roast. With any luck, they would get the message and leave.
The English language has a lot of curious idioms like that. How about “bringing home the bacon”? It now means coming home with a paycheck, but it used to be understood more literally. In the 12th century, a church in Britain started to award cured bacon strips to newly married couples if they could pass a particular test- they had to swear, after one year of marriage, they had never once regretted the decision. If they passed, they could bring home the bacon. Not sure if that promoted happy marriages or encouraged lying – I wonder.
Or how about the phrase “stewing in your own juices”? Today it means to suffer the consequences of your own actions – “you reap what you sow”, “you made your bed, now you have to lie in it” sort of thing. But in the 13th century, that phrase was a euphemism for being burned at the stake, a horrible fate in which you would quite literally simmer in your own bodily fluids – gross, I know.(1)
All of this brings us to the idiom that arises from our text for today – the well- known phrase “the patience of Job.”
The idea comes from the Old Testament story of Job, the tale of a poor soul from the land of Uz, described in today’s passage as a “man blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil.” Despite his moral and spiritual virtue – or perhaps because of it – Job is subjected to a seemingly random and rather mean supernatural test in which he loses his property, his children and his health, and is challenged to retain his integrity and remain faithful to God. It seems that perhaps God is giving Job the cold shoulder – ignoring him in his suffering and callously letting these disasters come upon him.
Virginia Woolf once wrote to a friend, “I read the Book of Job last night – I don’t think God comes well out of it.”(2) She has a point. God does seem cruel here at the beginning of Job – all these tragedies over a simple wager between God and Satan.
The idea about Job’s patience actually comes to us from the letter of James in which the author says in the King James version, “Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.” Oddly enough, the word patience doesn’t appear anywhere in the Book of Job itself. Modern translations like the NRSV and the NASB got away from that idea of patience and went with “endurance” instead, as did The Message paraphrase that went with “staying power.” Even the NIV chose to render James words as “perseverance.” All good choices. But the phrase, “the patience of Job” still lingers.
Conventional wisdom argues that the patience of Job enabled him to endure suffering as he still kept his faith in God. Job took the long view in life, looking well beyond his considerable, heartbreaking losses – and because he was able to do this, eventually he experienced the compassion and mercy of God.
All good to say at the end of the story. But what about at the beginning and middle of the story. Enduring and keeping his faith – being patient – is that really true about the story of Job. Does his virtue lie in the fact that he is patient and that he is able to endure so much?
Not exactly. There are many adjectives that can be used to describe Job, but patient might not be the best choice. Blameless? - Ok. Upright? - yes, the text says so. Faithful? At the conclusion, yes. Long-suffering and steadfast? - true. Honest? - certainly. All those words work on some level.
But does Job bear his affliction calmly, as a patient person would? No – instead he cries out, “I loathe my life; and I will give free utterance to my complaint; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.”
Far from showing “cheerful endurance”, Job screams out, “My spirit is broken, my days are extinct, the grave is ready for me.”
The he moans, “God has made my heart faint; the Almighty has terrified me; If only I could vanish in darkness, and thick darkness would cover my face!”
Quite a list. But you have to hand it to Job – he is an honest man. But a patient man? Not so much.
There are many life-changing lessons in the story of Job, but patience is not really one of them. It is more fruitful to focus on several other messages that are delivered with far greater clarity, messages about the nature of suffering and the importance of faithfulness to God. These are not clichés like the patience of Job, but are, instead, insights that leave us with something truly nourishing to chew on. A focus on suffering and faithfulness enables us to read Job and then- bring home the bacon, I suppose.
First, Job teaches us about the nature of suffering. The book of Job makes it clear that not all human suffering is deserved – it is not necessarily a punishment for a life of debauchery and greed. Job is a righteous man, described by God as being “a blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil.”
And yet he loses everything. He loses his property to raiding Sabeans and Chaldeans. He loses his sons and daughters in a natural disaster. And then he loses his health as he comes down with painful sores all over his body. Job is an absolute mess, leaving onlookers to wonder, “What did he do to deserve this?”
The answer, of course, is – nothing. This intense suffering descends on Job through no fault of his own. Jesus himself knew this. Remembered how he once observed that God sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. We should never be too quick to conclude that anyone deserves the suffering they experience – anyone, including ourselves.
Gerald Sittser was a history professor with a wonderful family. But one day, his wife, his 4-year-old daughter and his mother were all killed in a car accident caused by a drunk driver. Sittser’s life had been going very well, but then, in a horrible moment, he lost three of the most important people in his life.
His suffering was compounded eight months later, when the driver of the other car was acquitted of vehicular manslaughter. The attorney was able to cast enough suspicion on the testimony of several witnesses that he was able to get his client off the hook.
Sittser was enraged. But then he began to be bothered by his assumption that he had a right to complete fairness in life. He wrote in his book A Grace Disguised: “Granted, I did not deserve to lose three members of my family. But then again, I am not sure I deserved to have them in the first place.” His wife was a woman who loved him through some very hard times. His mother lived well and served people all her life. His daughter sparkled with enthusiasm and helped to fill his home with noise and excitement. “Perhaps I did not deserve their deaths,” says Sittser. “But I did not deserve their presence in my life either.(3) Instead, he was lucky and blessed to have them at all.
We should never be too quick to conclude that people deserve the suffering they experience… but at the same time, we should never jump to the conclusion that people deserve their blessings, either. Job makes much the same point when he asks the question, “Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?”
The second clear message of Job is that faithfulness to God is of critical importance, in bad times as well as in good times. Gerald Sittser did not turn his back on God after his family was killed by a drunk driver, nor did Job abandon the Lord in his time of overwhelming loss. It is essential that we not give God the cold shoulder when we encounter a period of undeserved suffering.
Can we scream and yell at God? Sure. “I will not restrain my mouth,” shouts Job, a little later in the story. “I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.” There is nothing wrong with offering up a passionate and honest complaint, as long as we direct our complaining to God. Job grabs hold of the Lord like a dog with a bone, and he won’t let go until responds – but more on that later. What saves Job is that he remains faithful to God always demanding that God hear him and take him seriously and respond to his concerns.
As we approach the table on this world communion Sunday, let us remind ourselves of the good news of the gospel – God is good, all the time. God never abandons us. As John Greenleaf Whittier once wrote:
“Yet in the maddening maze of things,
And tossed by storm and flood,
To one fixed trust my spirit clings:
I know that God is good…
I know not what the future hath
Of marvel or surprise,
Assured alone that life and death
His mercy underlies.”(4)
Whittier was convinced that greater than the reality of evil and suffering in this world, is the reality of the goodness and mercy of an ever-present God that underlies our lives.
In the end, I think Job would agree.
May God be praised. Amen.
1. Homileticsonline, retrieved 9/20/21.
2. Barbara Brown Taylor, When God is Silent, Rowan and Littlefield Publishing Group, 1998, pg. 68.
3. Homileticsonline, retrieved 9/21/21.
4. Ibid.
