Job's Justification

This is our final week in our short trip through the book of Job. It turns out that this gloomy book has a happy ending. After enduring the loss of his family, wealth, and health, moral lectures about his own sinfulness from his friends, and even a few pointed questions from God himself, Job is finally vindicated. Although Job admits that he has spoken about things he did not understand, God's verdict is still that Job has spoken truthfully about God while his friends have not. Job 42 gives the details of Job's vindication and restoration. Job is blessed even more than before. He once again has his health, he is again blessed with 10 children, and his wealth in livestock is double what it was before. Job's restoration as a spiritual authority is symbolized in his sacrifice and prayer on behalf of his three friends which God accepts and his restoration to his former place of honor in the community is symbolized by all those who had known him before his suffering coming and dining at his house. Job was righteous before his suffering, he endured that suffering righteously, and in the end God vindicated or justified Job's faithful obedience as righteous by blessing him even more than he had before.

As I've been working through the book of Job, I've been struck many times by the parallels of Job's suffering with the life of Jesus. I've often wondered if Jesus' own reading of the book of Job as he grew up was instrumental in shaping his own understanding of his messianic mission; if perhaps passages like these in Job and the suffering servant passages in Isaiah led Jesus to the conclusion that he could suffer righteously. As I was reading this last chapter of Job today, I was struck once again by the parallels between Jesus and Job, especially as Paul sums up the story of Jesus in Philippians 2:5-11. The pattern of movement from greatness to obedience in humiliation and suffering to restoration and exaltation as a result of that obedience which we find in the book of Job is the same movement found in the Christ hymn of Philippians 2.

The pattern in both of these stories shows that God will ultimately vindicate those who place their trust in him; Job's fortunes are restored and Jesus is "exalted to the highest place and given the name that is above every name". But this pattern also clearly shows that the kind of trust that God requires is not easy trust that is only present when things are going well. Real faith, real trust is the kind that endures the suffering of Job, the kind that carries a cross.

A Prayer for Deliverance (from the election)

I have to admit that I find Psalm 70 quite difficult. Like many of the others Psalms I have preached from lately, I find it difficult not because its message is hard to understand but because its words can seem so unlike Christ. The point of the Psalm seems pretty simple. It is a prayer for God to deliver the Psalmist from his enemies and to do it quickly. However, what is so troubling is the repeated call for the Psalmist's enemies to be put to shame. He asks God to let them be ashamed and humiliated, let them be turned back and dishonored, and let them be turned back because of their shame. A considerable portion of this Psalm is devoted not just to the Psalmist's deliverance but explicitely to seeing the Psalmist's enemies publicly shamed. Jesus certainly prays for his own deliverance (Lord, let this cup pass from me...) but even then he insists on the Father's will and not his own and never calls on God to shame his enemies. Quite to the contrary, he asks for their forgiveness even as he hangs dying on the cross.

Perhaps this language is only troubling to me because I am a privileged, relatively wealthy (by global standards), educated, white male who hasn't really had many experiences that would cause me to cry out to God with this kind of urgent need for deliverance. There have certainly been times in my life when I've felt somewhat mistreated or taken advantage of but for the most part, I have not been the victim of any kind of systemic injustice or outright persecution. I imagine that for our brothers and sisters in Christ who have experienced those things, the words of this Psalm and others like it must be very dear to their hearts.

I have to imagine that the current election has some play in the way that I read this Psalm as well. I am so thoroughly disgusted and disheartened by the dehuminization that has taken place throughout the campaign and has only intensified with the election now being so near. I think anyone who knows me knows that I thoroughly enjoy a vigorous debate over issues of substance and I am happy to enter into these kinds of conversations even with those I know will disagree with me and whom I will likely never persuade to share my position. It is not the civil disagreements that bother me. It is the exalting of one party or candidate to the status of righteous defender of God's will while demonizing the other party that sickens me. It is the saying anything to get your candidate eleceted, no matter how untrue, unfair, or uncharitable those words might be. It is allowing our loyalties to Christ to be blurred by our loyalties to a certain understanding of American politics that makes we want to vomit. And it is the constant assumption that I must be right and that my political positions must also be God's political positions and that anyone who disagrees with me must be either lazy or stupid that pushes me towards an unhealthy anger. This kind of incivility carries a certain kind of dissapointment with it when you find it in your average Joe (a phrase which itself has become another victim of sloganeering) but it takes on a whole other level of disgrace when you find it in your brothers and sisters in Christ. (I give much thanks to God and to the members of our congregation for keeping these shallow practices out of our local church and maintaining a Christ-like attitude in political conversations throughout this election season.) So when I come to a Psalm like this one which calls for the shaming of one's enemies, it is easy for me to hear the words of those who have done everything they can to try to bring shame upon their political enemies.

Even setting that baggage aside, there seems to be a terribly strong tension between the words of this Psalm that call for God to shame the Psalmist's enemies and Jesus' command to "love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you (Matthew 5:44)." Is this a place where we must allow Jesus' words to outright trump those of the Old Testament? Possibly. After all, this is one those "You have heard it said...but I say to you..." sayings of Jesus in the sermon on the mount in which Jesus does some serious re-interpreting of the Law. Maybe Jesus is saying that Psalms like this one just didn't quite get it right and he is the only one who has the authority to correct the error. Is that the only possible resolution to this tension?

We have been studying Paul's letter to the Philippians here on Monday nights. Of course, any discussion of Philippians is often dominated by the Christ hymn found in 2:5-11. This hymn exhibits a movement from high status (being in the form of God) to progressively lower status and even shame and humiliation (he emptied himself, took the form of a slave, became obedient to death, even death on a cross). However, this humilation and shame eventually leads to vindication and exaltation (therefore, God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name). This exaltation in turn means that all others now have a lower status in relation to the one who has been exalted (so that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow ... and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord). This a pattern that repeats itself in Paul's letters as he describes the ministry of Christ as well as his own ministry in emulation of Christ.

Perhaps this pattern of shame leading to exaltation can be seen in Psalm 70 as well. After all, if the Psalmist finds himself in need of deliverance, this likely means that he is in a lowly and shameful position. This might take on even more significance if this Psalm, which is credited to King David, was written as he flees his enemies even after he has been anointed as King of Israel. If this is true, then the Psalmist's own situation would reflect the pattern of movement in the Christ hymn; he is the anointed but is forced into the lowly, shameful position of fleeing but is eventually exalted to the highest position in the land because of his complete obedience to God. Additionally, like the Christ hymn which ends by saying that this pattern of shame and exaltation is "to the glory of God the Father", so also Psalm 70 declares "Let God be magnified".

Maybe if we read Psalm 70 in this light then the call for shame upon one's enemies can be seen less as a vindicative demand for vengeance against one's adversaries and more as a trust in God to restore the justice of his reign. Practically speaking then we might say that the Christian should pray for his or her enemies as Jesus says while also praying that the wrongs those enemies perpetrate might be righted and their injustices judged justly. We can love our enemies while simultaneously asking God to make both us and them more just people so that we might be enemies no longer. That, indeed, seems to be a piece of what we ask when we pray "thy kingdom come."

The Church's Politics

Politics continues to be on my mind quite a bit these days with the upcoming election. I enjoyed watching the first Presidential debate last Friday and look forward to the Vice Presidential debate this Thursday as well as the other two debates to follow. I find the debates to be one of the most interesting parts of the campaign because, if they are moderated well, they push the candidates toward a more constructive conversation about the issues and away from campaign slogans, stump speeches, and personal attacks. Of course, these things still take place to some degree in a debate but having the person you are running against right next to you able to respond to your comments almost immediately should at least tone down the rhetoric to some degree.

Interestingly enough, as this election approaches, I happen to be leading a Bible study on Paul's letter to the Philippian's on Monday nights. This is a letter that contains a considerable amount of political language. This was not intentional on my part. As those in the Bible study know, they were given many choices as to which book we would study and it just so happened that Philippians received the most votes.

The passage which our Bible study group will be discussing this evening exhibits some of this political language. In Philippians 1:27, Paul writes "Only politic yourselves worthily of the good news of the Messiah" (my own translation). The political nature of this verse is often masked over by most English translations when the Greek word πολιτεύεσθε (politeuesthe) is rendered with something generic like "conduct" or "live your life". The word refers specifically to acting as a citizen or in accordance with one's citizenship, a metaphor that Paul will evoke again in 3:20. Therefore, Paul is calling upon the church at Philippi to have a certain kind of politics; that is, to organize themselves in a way that is representative of the victory that God has won in Jesus Christ. The Philippian church is not to follow the politics of the Roman Empire. They are two have their own politics which are determined by the gospel of Jesus Christ.

So then, what might a politics centered around the Messiah look like? Of course, it will take much more than a few verses of Scripture to answer that question. Nonetheless, Paul's elaboration on this point in the verses that follow is instructive. He says that the Christians in Philippi should politic themselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ so that whether Paul himself is able to come and see them or only hears a report about them, the church in Philippi will stand firm in one Spirit, one body striving together in the faith of the gospel, and not fearing those who oppose them (v.27-28). Paul says that they will do this because it has been granted to them not only to put their trust in Christ but also to suffer on behalf of Christ as is Paul himself (v.29-30). In this passage at least, when Paul tells the church at Philippi to have a politics of the gospel, he emphasizes a unity in the Spirit and the ability to face suffering without fear.

For me, this is yet another reminder of what it means to be a Christian in the season of campaigns and elections. It has so little to do with who is elected or what laws are passed. As citizens in a democracy, we have been given a level of influence in the politics of the empire that the Christians in Paul's day did not enjoy and I believe we should exercise that influence recognizing that it is one of the many gifts with which God has entrusted us as stewards of his creation. However, even as we cast our vote, we must remember the American political process is ultimately about the politics of the empire and not the politics of the Church and God's kingdom. Whoever is elected, whatever laws are passed, and whatever happens to America as a nation, the politics of the Church remain relatively unchanged. Our politics, oriented around the good news of Jesus Christ and his kingdom, mean that we must be united by a love that is greater than all the forces that threaten to divide us and that we must be willing to give of ourselves for others just as Christ gave of himself for us. A witness of fearless unity and sacrifice are the party line in the politics of the Church.