Job 42:1-6, 10-17

Year B - Pentecost +22 or Energy to Witness ²²

October 25, 2015

Job 42:1-6, 10-17

This passage cannot be understood without its middle section. With this returned to unity there are 3 points to be made.

1) Wherein does seeing G*D lead to the despising of self and repentance unto dust and ashes? How has an option for rejoicing at a new meeting and opportunity for partnership been siphoned off? When our eyes, ears, and other senses are enlivened we have a choice about our response. As “glory” beyond our imagining is engaged, questions need to be raised about the role of repentance as an initial action or one subsequent to thanks or gratitude and without ashes.

2) Job kept faith with G*D by anticipating justification (if not assurance or grace). Job’s “friends”, Eliphaz, bildad, and Zophar placed G*D in an independent relationship from when “smiting at will” is an enforcement tool.
     Hear clearly that Job’s “repentance” was not to stay in the ashes but to “pray” for his “enemies” and as a governor on G*D’s wrath.
     It is recorded that “Job’s prayer” was accepted by G*D and Job’s future well-being is directly related to his prayer for his “frenemies”.
     Was his prayer one of forgiveness of others, was it intercessory toward a particular change in them? Was it a prayer toward G*D to not do an eye-for-an-eye thing (after all this was all a test of Job and not a test for Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar).

3) After being “restored” to a state of abundance/prosperity, Job broke ranks with the economic tradition of male privilege—Job’s daughters inherit along with their brothers. It is this sort of openness that left Job “full of days” or “days of fullness”.

Now what will fill your days—”ashes” or “prayer”? May this question haunt you to a point of choice to change our culture’s limitation on a freedom of G*D and self to intentionally partner in the midst of this creation.