Job and spiritual formation and job's character and reaction to loss

5. There are important insights for spiritual formation to be gleaned from the structure of the Book of Job. I will only give two here. In most basic terms the book consists of a prose narrative (1-2), a long poetic conversation section (3-42:6) and a concluding prose narrative and conversation (42:7-17). The large middle section consists of Job's talk with the three friends (3-31), and then Elihu's (32-37) and God's monologues (38-41). Opening the "window" of Job's conversation with the friends, you may further divide 3-31 into three cycles of talks between Job and the friends. I will not go through the entire outline, but will give one example. The first cycle runs from Job 3-11. Job speaks in ch. 3, Eliphaz in 4-5, Job in 6-7, Bildad in 8, Job in 9-10 and Zophar in 11.

The structure of the cycles gives us the first insight for spiritual formation: Job has three times as many words as any of the friends. Maybe even more. Apart from Eliphaz's speech in 4-5, the speeches of the friends are limited to one chapter, while Job's often are two and even three (12-14; 29-31). The point should not be missed. The person in great distress needs to speak lots of words. In this case he needs many, many more words than the "comforters" in order fully to express his complaint. I think this is an important insight. Change of perspective cannot come until the one distressed has his or her say. Sometimes the words keep flowing, belching like a viscous and boiling mixture of lava and ash from the crateral depths of our hearts.

Second, the structure of Job helps us for spiritual formation because it tells us there is a time when the "coast is clear" to respond to (Job's) pain. Often ignored by scholars is a verse I think is crucial for the task of spiritual formation. Job 31:40 says, briefly, "The words of Job are ended." On one level it is an obvious statement. Elihu and God then take over the conversation. On another level, however, it is significant. Job has "finished" speaking. He is "talked out." He will be ready, as he was not earlier, to hear the words from the next speakers. Once you have let a person get "all talked out," that person is open to hearing life from a different perspective. It is interesting that God earlier never accedes to Job's demands, beginning in ch.9, to come and speak with him. God has the good sense to wait until Job is all talked out. Once this has happened a new spirit descends on a conversation. Healing, new insight, new ability to listen, and new eyes to see are all the product of waiting for the words of Job to end.

6. The character of Job as he is portrayed in chs. 1-3 helps us probe the nature of our own dealings with loss. At first things seem to be going well, extremely well. Job has multifarious blessings: wealth, a large and happy family, and community respect. He has all of these within the context of a pious life. When he is informed of his great losses (of possessions and children) he has two kinds of reactions. In his first reaction, 1:20-22 (very similar to 2:10), he seems to accept his lot. Two parts of this first reaction are his attention to ritual and his words blessing God. Notice the language of 1:20. Five verbs are used to show how ritual seems to buoy Job or at least give him a context for explaining the great distress that has overcome him.

We also notice his first reaction in words (1:21-22):

"Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return there; the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord."

How are we to characterize this response to loss? Some who are attuned with the psychological terminology of grief might say that Job is "in denial" with respect to his pain. I think that is a defensible reading of the text. It might also be that Job, who as the "greatest man" in the East always needed to "control" his life, was trying to "control" or "limit" his grief in the only way he knew. Sometimes the rhythmic rituals and words learned in our youth come back to us immediately upon suffering loss, and they give us our first salve, our first balm, our first treacle to try to treat the loss.

But note, second, Job's reaction to loss in 3:1-10. Within five verses of his upbraiding his wife in 2:10 to accept the good and the bad with equanimity from the Lord, he explodes in pain. Lest we miss it, the narrative says, "After this Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth" (3:1). Job then descends into the world of darkness, of cursing, of wishing he had never been born, of longing for obliteration. He reverses the words of Gen. 1:3, where God had said, "Let there be light," by his words in 3:4--"Let that day be darkness."

The portrait of Job in these chapters helps us in spiritual formation because it forces us to consider our layered reaction to loss. Our first reaction is not our second reaction. I try to explain Job's dual responses as reflective of his desire, first, to control his circumstances and then, seeing his inability to do that, to fly to the other extreme, where he wishes that everything was obliterated. We are learning that Job is a man who will go to the extremes. He will explore the nadir of distress and personal anguish, but he will also climb the heights to the acerose peaks of hope, especially in 19:23-27.

There is much more to say about the development of Job's character, but not now...

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