Changing our Mind

Another Angle on the Book of Job

Of course, the story of Job is very familiar, at least in terms of its basic parts. The Book of Job is usually considered as a book about the ultimate question: why do we suffer? [See below!] What I want to explore in this blog post is, how the story presents to us what happens when we are confronted with the limitations of our world-view and how a conceptual mind-shift can occur.

Most of us have a certain way of thinking about the world, about how things work – and we interpret our day to day experiences with reference to our wider concept of ‘how the world works’. For Christians and other believers, God takes a central place in that appreciation of ‘how the world works’. Who we think God is; what we think God is like, will inform our world-view, and our actions.

Well, one centrally important thing that the narrative of Job shows us is what happens to a man or any person when their worldview is demolished by something that happens to them: Something that is so unexpected, so traumatic event, or so confusing, that it cannot be understood. It is outside the person’s ability to understand. It does not fit into their worldview. These moments are crisis moments, and they are full of potential, but also of danger: they can lead to despair or to new life. They require the person to find a different answer, to accept a different way of thinking. They require imagination and bravery.

How so? Well,

Job was pretty self-satisfied. He was wealthy, had a large household of children, servants etc. and ample to live on. Moreover he satisfied the commands of the law and was confident in his own righteousness. And then, from out of nowhere, he was struck down with extraordinary suffering – the death of his large family, and the destruction of his health – he was afflicted with sores all over his body. Perhaps even more worryingly his good repute as an upright and holy man before God was lost, as his friends and neighbours assumed that God had so afflicted him because of some fault of Job’s. He had a secret sin: they blamed him for his suffering. Job’s worldview collapsed. He thought that he would always live blessed and happy because he followed the Law. But, he was afflicted. His framework disintegrates. He attacks God and accuses Him of unrighteousness. The God he thought he believed in does not act like this and this is not a just way to act: so he attacks God and despairs.

His friends gather around and initially lament with him, but then start to blame him for his suffering: they continue to work with the conceptual framework that Job used to live with. They expect that suffering is a result of sin. They cannot imagine that suffering could be arbitrary.

The destruction of Job’s worldview, therefore, is the central problem of the narrative. But, is a new worldview offered, and if so what is it?

Well, the end of the story that we listened to today shows us that Job comes to a new appreciation and new understanding of what God is like. He changes his worldview – he changes his theology.  On coming face to face with God he realised that God cannot be categorised and controlled and that he cannot be easily understood. Job thought he had life all wrapped up – God’s actions had the effect of showing him that he didn’t - that what he most needed to learn was empathy and humility; it is these things that would make him more like God. Job has an experience of the real and living God and he repents in dust and ashes.

‘I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes’.

Job’s experience becomes a fruitful one because he is able to accept a new understanding of God. Growth in the spiritual life depends too on our ability to keep re-working our understanding and knowledge of God. We cannot grow in faith if we think that we have Christianity all understood – because God is much greater than we could ever imagine: it would be a great presumption to assume that I or you could ever fully understand or know God – and therefore we should necessarily be open and questioning Christians – open in heart, mind and Spirit.

Joan Chittister writes that ‘suffering calls us to conversion, to that change of attitude that softens our hearts to one another and opens our arms to life in all its shapes and forms.’

And so, the Story of Job is the story of the conversion of Job – he learns through suffering that God is greater than he could ever imagine. He is a great model to us of how to let God transform us through expanding and enlargening our understanding – in challenging us not to think that we can understand all of God’s ways or everything that happens in the world. What we are invited into however is an ever deepening relationship with the living God – the One who will open our eyes and our ears if we are able to endure the suffering that true knowledge requires.