There are a million ways to
say “I’m sorry!” Some of them are authentic, some are not so much, some are
kind of even backhanded. My favorite “I’m sorry!” happens after we put Natalie
in timeout and she screams usually tries to get off the chair a dozen times
before finally pouting and crying for the whole two minutes she’s usually in
timeout. Then, when her time runs out, she gets down runs over to Kate and I,
gives us hugs and says, “Sorry daddy” and “Sorry mommy.” That’s my favorite,
“I’m sorry.”
But on the long list of apologies I’m not so sure where
to put Job’s, because I’m not really sure how to read this, especially this
last verse, “Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.” Other
translations read that Job repented of
dust and ashes. Like a ton of phrases from ancient languages we just don’t
know exactly what that means. Is it ironic? Is it defiant? Is Job hanging on to
a little bit of self-righteousness against the God who he still believes took
away everything he held dear? Or is this true repentance? Is Job the hero who
could repent in a way the rest of us can only hope to emulate?
Over the course of the book of Job this word for
“despise,” the Hebrew ma’as, is used
many times. Sometimes it is used by Job’s friends to tell him not to despise
the Almighty (e.g. 5:17) or that God will not despise a righteous person (8:20), most often it’s used by Job to
talk about how he loathes his life
(7:16, 9:21), despises his work (10:3), and even how young children despise him (19:18 and 30:1). Finally,
this word, ma’as, is used twice by
Elihu, most importantly to tell Job that God does not despise anyone (36:5).
In fact, you can trace the way that various characters use this word that’s
sometimes translated “despise,” sometimes “loathe,” and sometimes “abhor,” to
get an understanding of the frame of mind of each person. Job uses it out of a
sense of pity. His friends use it to try to convict him of wrongdoing. Elihu,
God’s spokesperson, uses it as a means of freeing Job from his vision of a
judgmental God, and, maybe most interestingly of all, God never uses it. God
never utters the word: “despise.”
God despises nothing. Human beings? We despise all
sorts of things. Even in repentance, which is one of our most positive traits,
we despise ourselves. God just makes things good. We’re the ones who despise it
all.
If you stop and think about it that’s pretty much the
problem with the world. We despise one another, we despise ourselves, we
despise people left and right for reasons that are reasonable and reasons that
are not. So that when we hear that a person who murders 49 people in a gay
nightclub in Orlando was, himself, gay, are we surprised? We shouldn’t be,
because self-hatred runs deep, and this is all the more why we have to be
people who love one another without conditions, without feeding that
self-hatred. The killer’s father apparently told him that “Only God can judge
homosexuals,” thinking that he was being pragmatic and helpful when really he
couldn’t know the depth of the inner conflict he was feeding.
We have to be better than this, because we have a God who
does not despise. There is no hate the sin, love the sinner; there is no hate
whatsoever, there is only an understanding that all are so covered in sin that
everything we do is wrong, we are 100% sinner, there is no despising part;
there is only the whole, but we were also created as something truly above
criticism, even especially self-criticism. We are saints. To deny the essential
makeup of what makes us who we are as human beings is the surest way to instill
seeds that cause us to despise one another.
A person is not less than you because they are different.
This is a lesson we learn before kindergarten, though I think we never really
get it. The root of all sin lies in comparison after all; the ways we want to
be like others and the ways we denigrate how others live, thinking, “Well, at
least I don’t live like that person.” At least I’m not an alcoholic. At least I’m
not poor. At least I don’t have a mental
illness. At least I don’t have a
handicap. Then we pity, which is a power trip we use against those we imagine
to be weaker than us, who we imagine can’t possibly have what we have because
of some serious challenge they’re facing in their lives. People need empathy;
they don’t need pity. Pity becomes about your own misgivings about living in a
world where you know nothing is completely safe, where you could become Job,
where at any moment these things you value too much may be taken from you.
So, what do we do in a world where scenes like the one in
Orlando are so prevalent, where mainstream media jump from tragedy to tragedy
because they have to fill up the news, and where they have no problem finding
the next one because in America mass shootings are now our national pastime?
People retreat to various political stances and Lord knows I think there are
things we should be doing as a country to make some changes, but as people of
God across the spectrum of political ideology, coming together with the understanding
we will never completely agree on the direction we take as a nation because
that’s not the primary thing that
brings us together, there are some things we just need to do better that have
nothing to do with how we vote in November or which positions we advocate to
our representatives.
We
have to do a better job of helping people not to despise themselves. We have to
share the truth about one another: that we are all created in the image of God,
that God loves us for who we are as individuals, that—as much as we have our
own personal beliefs about how a person should live—those are simply that:
ours, and subject to our own limited point of view. We need to do a far better
job of telling people on the margins that they are loved. Not loved but. Just
loved. We haven’t built up the equity to offer a “but”… not even close.
I
come back to Job, standing in front of God and offering his own limitations. We
need to do that, personally; not to make it about something other people need
to do but to look in the mirror first of all, then again and again. Yes, all
have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We all know that, so focus on
yourself, but, then again, if you are one who despises a part of that self and
can’t let it go, then know this also: You are the best and most wonderful you
that’s ever been, created “very good” with the foundations of the universe. You
are a child of God, so painstakingly beautiful and fragile. Don’t forget that.
You need to know that.
Everybody
needs to know that. So did Job. You see, lost in God’s poetic response to Job
where God lays out all that he has created—earth and seas and creatures—is that
all these things were created good, but man alone was created “very good.” That
Job, still, is the pinnacle of God’s creation—in spite of all of this. Job
shouldn’t confuse himself; he is not God. That is the point. And, yet, he is
something great in his own way; he is a human being; the image that Jesus takes
on when he one days comes to us.
We
are all made in that image. Male and female. Jews and Gentiles. No matter the
skin tone, not matter the religion—Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Atheists. No
matter the politics. No matter your sexuality. No matter your interests. No
matter your view on government and liberty. No matter your disease or
disabilities. No matter any of those things you are created in the image of
God. All those things matter, but they do not define you. Rather, God does to
us as he did to Job: He humbles us with actual majesty. None of us are perfect,
not even close, and though we may not pick up the stones as literally as they
did when Jesus told the Pharisees “let he who is without sin cast the first
stone,” still we cast our metaphorical stones today. Passively. So subtly many
of us don’t even see it. But our targets still know what we’re doing; they know
who we’re targeting.
This
is anti-Christian; it’s anti-Christ. Who knew Job would leave us here, humbled
as Job was, and realizing when we’re at our best that the only way to be
Christ-followers is to love on a world that needs it? That’s it. It’s the
hardest thing you’ll ever be asked to do and the most worthwhile. Love God;
your love neighbor. That’s it. So, when Job despises himself we are reminded we
are called to the Jobs of the world to say, “Yes, you are nothing but dust and
ash. Yes, you are broken. Here is a place for broken people, because here is a
place where we tell you a second word: You are saved from that dust and ash.
You are you. Which is not a problem to solve but an opportunity to live in response
to the grace that God has given you.”
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