“I Would Lay My Case before Him” - October 14, 2015

Job 23:1-9, 16-17

When there is a drought the fields and woods become liable to wildfire.  One careless match or one lightning strike, one overheated car or one stupid camper and the grass starts to smoulder and then the brush goes up and then that’s it.  Then there are only two ways to stop it.  One is to pour water on it, but lack of water is what set up the disaster to begin with.  The other way is to contain the area and let the fire burn itself out.

The grief that Job feels sets off a crisis of faith just at the time that it’s faith which is asked of him.  In other words, he has only a little water to throw on the flames, and it will not be enough.  So what we see happen is how his suffering burns over until it burns out.

David’s favorite son, Absalom, rebelled against his father and tried to overthrow him, leading to his death in battle.  The Bible tells how when the news reached him,

“The king was deeply moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate, and wept; and as he went, he said, ‘O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom!  Would I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son!’”  [II Samuel 18:33]

David’s grief was real, and stayed with him for his remaining years, but his sense of what had gone wrong was clear and Absalom’s death had a definite “why” to it. 

Job’s suffering was different from that.  The precipitating events of his deepest trouble recede into the background and we don’t hear him repeat his children’s names, nor mourn the loss of his wealth.  He does express his physical pain, but even that is easy for the reader to lose sight of, because those things set off his struggle with God’s role in all of that.  Somehow things would be bearable if they had a clear cause-and-effect.  Without that, Job questioned God.

One gift this gives us is permission to own up to those troubles if and when they arise.  Not everybody goes through that introspective torture that John of the Cross named “the dark night of the soul”.  I cannot imagine somebody like David had the temperament for that.  When he was mourning his son, one of his soldiers came to him and said, basically, “Whatever you do, don’t let the army see you doing this, because they just fought a war to defeat the son you’re crying over.”  He told David to his face,

“You have made it clear today that commanders and officers are nothing to you; for I perceive that if Absalom were alive and all of us were dead today, then you would be pleased.” [II Samuel 19:6b]

So David put a mask on his feelings and went out and thanked the troops.  That’s how some people are, and that is okay.  For those who are more like Job, however, there is no shame in feeling their own emotions deeply and genuinely. 

The poet Gerard Manly Hopkins expressed this often.  One of his poems says,

“I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day.

What hours, O what black hours we have spent

This night!  what sights you, heart, saw; ways you went!

And more must, in yet longer light’s delay.

With witness I speak this.  But where I say

Hours I mean years, mean life.  And my lament

Is cries countless, cries like dead letters sent

To dearest him that lives alas! away.

I am gall, I am heartburn.  God’s most deep decree

Bitter would have me taste: my taste was me;

Bones built in me, flesh filled, blood brimmed the curse.

Selfyeast of spirit a dull dough sours.  I see

The lost are like this, and their scourge to be

As I am mine, their sweating selves; but worse.”

He speaks out the same dread that Job looked at: that God is far away.  He proposes the same wish that Job speaks, just to be able to lay out his lament, his complaint before God.

            Job says, in fact, that even if he wonders if it makes any difference, he still just wants his chance to lay things out in front of God.  He just wants to be heard.

“O that I knew where I might find him,
   that I might come even to his dwelling!
I would lay my case before him,
   and fill my mouth with arguments.
I would learn what he would answer me,
   and understand what he would say to me.
Would he contend with me in the greatness of his power?
   No; but he would give heed to me.
There an upright person could reason with him,
   and I should be acquitted forever by my judge.”  [Job 23:3-7] 

He is like a woman pleading in an elevator with a Senator, “Look at me!  Don’t turn your eyes away; look at me!”

            So do that.  Do exactly that.  Speak out your case.  Leave aside, for now, what kind of answer or results come of it, or what your expectations might be.  Shout, grumble, or sing the blues.  If nothing else, it brings your troubles into focus.  This example will be dumb, but bear with me.  One time a friend of mine who was going through a break-up wrote what he called “The Black Coffee Blues”:

“I got the blues in my coffee.

I got the blues ’most everywhere.

I got the blues in my coffee.

I got the blues ’most everywhere.

I got the blues in my coffee

’Cause, sugar, you just ain’t there.”

Or maybe – and I actually think this is better – open up the Bible and pray the Psalms.  Pray the psalms of lament.  Pray a psalm like 130:

“Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord.

            Lord, hear my voice!

Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications!”

Or even consider the words that Job spoke:

“If only I could vanish in darkness,
   and thick darkness would cover my face!” [Job 23:17]

because there is more than one form of thick darkness, and more than one reason you may not be able, in sorrow, to see God.  It could be that at that very moment you are like a scared and troubled toddler whose Father has scooped you up to let you cry everything out with your face buried against his shoulder until it all passes.  He may not be too far away for you to see.  He may be too close.