Of God and Nature

One of my favorite books in the Bible is the Book of Job. It kind of keeps the rest of scripture honest. Scholars believe that the story of Job is an ancient one originating in the Semitic oral tradition possibly some several thousand years B.C.E, and probably got written down during the Babylonian captivity wherein Jewish scribes began mastering the art of literary narrative. What makes this story so important is that it stands as a challenge to the pervading theology of Hebrew Scripture; the pervading theology being that of the so-called Deuteronomistic historian. This theology holds that as long as Israel worships the one true God, Yahweh, then Israel will be blessed; if Israel strays from its fidelity to Yahweh then Israel will be cursed. So the life and times of the people Israel totters along a continuum of blessing and curse; God's love and wrath; God quick to forgive and quick to punish.



Then along comes our friend Job. You know the story. Satan and God are having a friendly conversation around the heavenly water cooler (my paraphrase), and God asks Satan if he in his travels in earth has encountered God's servant Job. God tells Satan that there is no more faithful one than he. Satan challenges God that Job would cease being faithful if Job's earthly possessions, his family and his health are taken away. If that happens, Satan says, Job will curse God to God's face. So the game is on and Job, God's faithful servant, is beset with all manner of calamity; and indeed Satan is right, Job, for some thirty five chapters gives God a good cursing, demanding that he see God face to face; challenging the time honored theology that being faithful yields blessing. He the case in point that this theology does not hold true. The underlying question of course is why do good people suffer; why is there suffering and evil in a world that God calls good? Legitimate question....and a faithful question.



And the answer Job receives is what none of us expect. It is as if God is the consummate politician dodging the question posed, and launching off on some irrelevant diatribe. This monologue is by far the most we hear God speak in the whole of scripture, so it's worth our while to pay attention. For the longest time I felt God was dismissing Job with a divine arrogance, but now I don't believe that is the case. Here we have God in a moment of high art , God the poet answering Job's question with all due passion and love. God the artist exulting in God's work....the artifice being the created order, the Cosmos. God gives Job a poem about nature herself....its mystery found in its beauty...."where were you when I made the Leviathan; Do you know when the mountain goats give birth; do you observe the calving of the deer?"...a mysterious and elegant dance between birth and death; of dark and light; of joy and pain...and the whole of it possessing an apprehendable beauty just near...a beauty that saves and satisfies....Job sees the beauty of the created order, the world God loves into being, and he is restored to wholeness. Seeing is believing.



The premise of this ancient story is that we can know God's goodness, but not as theological dogma; we can only know God in mystery, which resides in beauty. God points Job toward the beauty of creation...the Creation, a sacred metaphor as to God's true identity: the rhythm of the estuary; the cycle of the seasons, singing the song of love and life and death and new life...the life of God inhabiting the created order, still in its becoming....we God's people a contingent part of the whole, participating in this divine life...not super nature....but nature herself in her divine fullness...God's answer to Job is to trust the beauty...for all manner of thing shall be made well.