August 2

Job 31-32

We're coming to the end of Job's protestations of his innocence now, and he ends in chapter 31 by listing a whole series of things and saying to each: "If I did this, then judge me." He's being ironic, because he means to say, "I'm not guilty of any of these, so what I'm suffering is unjust."

Job's three friends have been arguing the opposite, of course. I was looking in my file folders and found a Peanuts cartoon I cut out years ago. (I won't tell you when - I'm shocked at the copyright date in the fine print!) Lucy is standing face to face with Snoopy and bawling him out. "You know why your doghouse burned down? Because you SINNED, that's why!" Then she faces us while speaking to him: "You're being punished for something you did wrong! That's the way these things always work!" In the third panel, Snoopy responds with a huge, "BLEAH!" Lucy tumbles over; and the fourth panel shows our favorite little dog saying (with a rather self-satisfied look): "Her kind deserves to be bleahed."

Well, the friends have finished bawling Job out, and Job has given his final "Bleah." You would think that would be the end of it, but in chapter 32 one more speaker enters the dialogue. His name is Elihu, and we're told that he is younger than the rest. He says he waited, because they were older...and therefore wiser (That's what the culture taught!), but now he sees that "It is not the old that are wise, nor the aged that understand what is right" (vss. 9-10).

In the next five chapters, we'll see what Elihu has to add. But I'm struck by this statement about the older and wiser. It seems like an admission by the sages who wrote the book...that the sages aren't always so wise either! It's a kind of skepticism that will come back in Ecclesiastes in full bloom. The "wise men" are reaching a stage in Israel's history where they realize that the earlier, easier assumptions about God, the world, and human life may be more complex than they thought. Are we reaching the same stage in our own culture now too?

I think, for example, of the anti-institutionalism these days. Much of it is due to skepticism about our leaders - in government, in business, in churches, everywhere. So many leaders have "fallen," and so often we read of corruption. Or our own country itself, which has been "number one" for so long. Our pride, our self-satisfaction and self-gratification, our greed, our "I want it now" mentality...is all that and more (and we all seem to participate in it subtly and unconsciously) gradually leading us to the end of our leadership in the world? In fact, is the next great power - China - perhaps already looming on the horizon?

And what about European/American (= Western) Christianity? My major areas of study have been "systematic theology" and "historical theology." The coursework and readings related almost totally to the big names in the West. Think of Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, Barth, etc. They are wonderful thinkers, and deep believers in Christ, to be sure, but the whole organization of coursework was rather parochial, really. After all, the Eastern Orthodox Church has a 2000-year history of its own, and there were some rich theologians writing in the 20th century too. But now, we're beginning to talk about global theology - Christians in other countries may have original insights that we need to hear and learn from. I can't help wondering, when someone studies "historical theology" in the 36th century (!), what countries and cultures the primary theologians and Biblical scholars will come from.

Which is to say, how central are we, really, to God's plan to bring the divine Kingdom of Christ to fullness in (and beyond) this world? We would at least be wise to be humble...which is what I think God is going to tell Job in a few chapters!

Jim