FW: Sunday, August 1

Hello All,

It's a pleasure to join you this week as your guest blogger for The Year of the Bible. I want to say a couple things in advance. It's over 20 years ago now that I first put together this program for Westminster Presbyterian Church in Upper St. Clair (Pittsburgh), PA. It was because people received the program so well, including some from other congregations who wanted to join, that I decided to write it up for general use. Never did I dream that, over two decades later, congregations like yours would still be doing the program. Not only that, but I couldn't have guessed that someday (now!) folks would be blogging about their thoughts on the readings. After all, back then we all would have asked, "What's a 'blog'?!" I'm still not sure, really, so I hope what you get this week at least approximates a blog!

Also, I'm pleased to be doing this with First Presbyterian Church in Williamsburg for another reason: I finished my graduate studies in theology just up the road, at the University of Iowa. That's a nice added touch to this invitation to join you for the week. I'm sure that some of what I was taught at UI made its way into the Participant's Book that you are using.

We've had some heavy-duty passages recently (Job, especially), and they continue this week, so let's get to them. In case you need the list, here's what we're reading this week:

August 1: Job 29, 30/Luke 23
August 2: Job 31, 32/Ps. 86, 87
August 3: Job 33, 34/Luke 24
August 4: Job 35, 36/Phil. 1
August 5: Job 37, 38/Ps. 88
August 6: Job 39, 40/Phil. 2
August 7: Job 41, 42/Phil. 3

Job 29 picks up in the midst of Job's final defense in response to his friends' accusations that he has surely sinned to bring such calamities on himself. For many chapters now, we've been reading the speeches of Job's friends, and then his refutations of them. This cycle of speeches reminds me of some discussions (better: arguments!) I've been in when both sides have just kept repeating the same arguments over and over again with different words. The argument never goes anywhere, and nobody seems to learn anything or understand any better. Job's friends never get beyond their inherited belief that the righteous will always enjoy God's favor, and the wicked will "get it" - sooner rather than later! (That's Israel's traditional theology, by the way, called the "two ways" doctrine.) Job knows, of course, that the facts in his case don't fit the doctrine, so he won't confess to any trumped up charges of sins and transgressions on his own part.

With 2000+ years experience since the book was written, we know that the two ways doctrine just doesn't work. We've seen proof of that all through history, and most of us have seen it in our own lives too. So Job's friends, in spite of their dogmatic certainty, are obviously wrong. But it strikes me that Job isn't entirely blameless either. As the book has gone on, it seems like he has become more adamant about his own goodness. Notice here how he says that, in his "autumn" years (29:4), the prime of life, everyone - both young and old, princes and nobles - stood in awe of him. The rest of the chapter paints a graphic picture of Job as supremely wise, compassionate, righteous and powerful. Then, chapter 30 opens with Job's complaint that now younger men are mocking him. And here's the point: they are the sons of men that Job disdained!

I'm pretty sure the writers of Job thought that this comment helped to show his exceeding righteousness, but it sounds pretty prideful to me. A few days ago, there was an article in the local Pittsburgh Post-Gazette pointing out that the largest under-represented group in American private colleges is rural, white, and mid-western. If this is true, it suggests an upper-class disdain for lower classes that sounds a lot like what we read in Job 30!

As far as the mocking itself goes, Jesus is experiencing that very thing in his trial and crucifixion that we read about in Luke 23 today. He's from Galilee; he's poor; he's uneducated; and he has (they think) called himself a king, and the Christ. But now he's in chains and facing a death sentence. Good grounds to mock him, don't you think? And while Jesus is in torment on the cross, the rulers scoff at him, the soldiers make fun of him, Pilate ridicules him with the title over his head, and one of the criminals on another cross derides him.

In the midst of all that noise, I'm struck that one of the criminals confesses faith in Jesus, a centurion recognizes his innocence, and a council member quietly buries him. I wonder which parts of this story the Jerusalem Post-Gazette would have reported the next day. And...which parts do we hold close to our own hearts?

Jim Davison

(Rev.) James E. Davison, Ph.D.
Director of Continuing Education
Pittsburgh Theological Seminary
616 North Highland Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15206
412-924-1346
www.pts.edu/continuing-education