Job’s Summation

Job 29-31

            This section of Job ends with the main character reciting an extensive monologue—chapters 29-31. Chapter 29 ponders Job’s former prosperity: he was blessed by the Lord and honored by men and he anticipated living out his life in that state.

            I was talking to a fellow pastor recently. He had been through a difficult run in ministry, and he talked about his arrogance. Now, I’ve known him for a while, and I told him arrogance was not a word I’d ever associated with him. His reply has stuck with me: he said it was the arrogance that said, “It could never happen to me.” I think a lot of us—like my friend, like Job—think that way. I’m still not sure I’d call it arrogance, but it’s certainly a kind of naivety. We just kind of assume that nothing bad will happen to us. So when it does—when the diagnosis comes in or the tragedy happens—we’re unprepared. Job certainly wasn’t prepared for the turn in his fortunes and he and his friends have been searching for a reason.

            In chapter 31, Job laments his losses. He has lost his honor, and men that he formerly would have counted as of little account lead in mocking him. The Lord has taken hold of Job’s collar and thrown him to the ground; He no longer listens to Job’s cries.

            Finally, Job protests his innocence in all of this. For those of us raised in the Lutheran church, with a keen sense of Romans 3:23, that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, we tend to side with Job’s friends: no one is blameless; all have sinned; and so on. True enough. But Job is not claiming perfection; he’s claiming blamelessness. He’s not saying he’s never sinned; he’s saying that he has always followed the Lord. We sin all the time, whether consciously or unconsciously, but that doesn’t mean that we have knowingly rejected the ways of the Lord.

            As we end this section of Job, let’s be reminded that both Job and his friends have in many cases spoken the truth about sin and its consequences, about faith and its expected blessings. But they’ve overstated their points and they’ve reduced their theology to caricature. Theology calls for balance, a yes-and-no approach—not so much either/or as both/and. And in the mess of life, that theological balance is even more important. So far in Job we haven’t really seen it.