The Book of Job: "The Riddles of God Are More Satisfying Than the Solutions of Man"

That was some July, huh?

...

The purpose of July was to reinvigorate my writing and hopefully renew a more regular habit, but as soon as the pressure wore off, a few days' break turned into a few more, and a few more, and a few more, and then a full-on holiday. Sorry about that. I really will try to be better.

In the meantime, lots of things have happened (maybe subjects for future blog posts?). Some of you may remember that I began writing a series on the Book of Job (post 1, post 2) two years ago, but I dropped off before getting to the hard bit. Well, yesterday the hard bit was the lectionary reading for the week, and I attempted to deal with it. Here's the audio of the sermon on Job 42 if you're interested.

An Unexpected Arrival

In my journalism training in college, I was taught that most people don't read a full article in the newspaper, so each article should be frontloaded with all the important information, with details getting less important as the article progresses. This sounds like a recipe for self-fulfilling prophecies. In any case, for those who just want the details, here they are:

Thomas Lynn was born February 12, 2012, at 10:26 p.m. He weighed six pounds, three ounces, and measured twenty inches long. Both mother and baby are fine.

There. Now you know. The rest is just details.

Reflections on Peace

In order to give my pastor a break this summer, several men from the church have been preaching a sermon series on the fruit of the Spirit. Yesterday, shaky and nervous, I delivered my sermon on peace.

Each time I've preached, I've done manuscript delivery, so this time, I was determined not to--determined, that is, until it became time to preach. Then I decided, no, I'd rather just read my remarks. The reason for doing this: I would take a lot longer to say a lot less if my remarks were not scripted.

The audio for the sermon is not posted online (better for you: I hate hearing my voice recorded), but you can read the text of the sermon here, if you're interested. It's hard sometimes to say all you want to say in a forty-minute sermon, so forgive the not-always-as-nuanced-as-it-should-be approach.

***EDIT: The audio is now online.***

O Death, Where Is Thy Sting?

"Eternal life is...a relational event. Man did not acquire it from himself or for himself alone. Through relationship with the one who is himself life, man too comes alive.... Man has found life when he adheres to him who is himself Life. Then much that pertains to him can be destroyed. Death may remove him from the biosphere, but the life that reaches beyond it--real life--remains. This life, which John calls zoe as opposed to bios, is man's goal. The relationship to God in Jesus Christ is the source of a life that no death can take away."

--Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week, 84-85

He is risen, indeed!

Resolutions

I mentioned in a previous post that I might revisit New Year's resolutions and try to come up with some. I don't think I've decided to do that. Instead, here are some things I would like to integrate into my life this year.

The Book of Job: Job's Wife and Friends

Bible scholars think that the book of Job is the first book of the Bible that was written (though much of Genesis covers events earlier in chronology). This is fascinating to me since the book of Job acts as an early corrective to an idea that's prevalent among the people in the Bible, but which the Bible itself speaks against: external blessing is always a sign of God's favor; suffering is always a sign of God's judgment.

We see this idea advocated most of all in the book of Job by Job's friends. But before I talk about them, let me say a few things about Job's wife. Job's wife is the one who encourages Job, after the rest of his family dies, his possessions are destroyed, and his body is covered in boils, to "curse God and die." Job responds with one of the greatest examples of faith and fortitude I've seen: "Should we accept only good things from the hand of God and never anything bad?" (Job 2:10, NLT). Job's wife, I think, represents the typical response that we (or maybe just I) would normally have when suffering anywhere near the magnitude of Job's affects us. "Life is hard now? It must be that God has rejected you. Since he's already done that, you might as well cut your losses." To place her in Jesus' parable, she might be the seed that fell among thorns. She grows up fine while all is well, but when the time of testing comes, her faith is choked out by the thorns.

The Book of Job: It's Not as Bad as You Think

I read an article the other day titled "Job Suffered Alone--and So Must We." I don't know why the article bothered me so much--I read lots of articles on the Internet I disagree with (what? how can you disagree with FACTS?)--but it did.

So I decided to blog my thoughts on Job in response to that author's.

However, to avoid taking on the huge task of examining Job all at once, I think I will talk about it bit by bit, starting with an introduction here. I will also forewarn you that I am not a biblical scholar; these will be simply my impressions, how I might talk about Job if the author on the Guardian blog and I were discussing it over coffee. But please, if you have any input, let me know.