I have understanding as well as you; I am not inferior to you.
Who does not know such things as these?
I am a laughingstock to my friends;
I, who called upon God and he answered me,
a just and blameless man, I am a laughingstock.
Those at ease have contempt for misfortune…
–Job 12:3-5a
The Book of Job is an agitator of mainstream ideology and theology in the Hebrew Scriptures. Its very presence puts the presence of other books on blast. Job troubles the waters of what Dr. Gustavo Gutierrez calls “temporal retribution”–the idea that God blesses the good and punishes the bad in accordance with His Divine will. Through its literary structure and folklorish content, the Book of Job insists that the reader examine (too long held?) assumptions, wrestle with mystery, challenge falsehood and show up authentically ready for the next chapter. In that way the Book of Job feels akin to the Black Lives Matter movement in America in 2015.
My church in Battle Creek Michigan is diving into the Book of Job for Lent. Last week I preached on the very human, yet spiritually infuriating presence of Job’s friends. Their names are Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar. They come from far away, having heard of Job’s calamity. At first they claim their rightful place as spiritual companions in a time of unprecedented grief for Job. They offer rituals of mourning in accordance with Israelite custom. They rip their garments and throw dust on their heads after barely recognizing their friend Job whose health has been lost along with his livestock, servants and 10 children. Then for seven days and seven nights the friends sit upon the ash heap in sacred silence with Job, acknowledging the futility of words, the finality of death, and the place of presence when nothing else will do. Then Job, having been quiet long enough, breaks his silence and launches into speeches of rage, curiosity, lament and challenge that last about thirty chapters. His three friends engage the speeches, attempting to bring Job into “right” relationship with his experience, with God, and with their need for comfort. It’s an abysmal attempt.
At the (crushing) heart of Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar’s engagement with Job is orthodoxy: right doctrine. As Job is lamenting his loss, searching God’s intent and impact, and cursing the day of his own birth, the friends respond with their theological convictions. They assure Job that God would never punish an innocent person, that God is just, and that if Job will just repent from whatever sin he’s (obviously?) committed and refrain from blasphemous speech, all will be well. Job will have none of it. He knows and the reader of the text knows that the friends are misguided, ill informed and perpetuating (more!) unnecessary suffering on Job with their ignorance. My colleague Rev. Thomas Ryberg pointed out to me the other day that the friends are fine as long as Job is silent. But when he starts calling out, crying out, petitioning for justice, and challenging theological falsities, the friends’ behavior turns oppressive. This reminds me, unfortunately, all too well, of our country’s discourse on race and racism.
Black and brown bodies have been exploited and brutalized since persons of European descent arrived on these shores over four hundred years ago. Struggles for justice and efforts to resist white supremacy have been alive for those four hundred years as well. Recently we’ve seen increased attention paid to the ways law enforcement perpetuate racism against black and brown people thereby maintaining white supremacy at a structural level. Because of the power of social media to counter mainstream, corporate narrowing of what’s “news,” many people across this country have been made aware of the sacred lives, unnecessary and brutal deaths and social/spiritual resurrections of black people such as Oscar Grant, Aiyanna Jones, Trayvon Martin, Shantel Davis, Mike Brown,Tyisha Miller, Eric Gardner, Gabriella Navarez and Tony Robinson. May they rest in peace and power. There is no movement more responsible for this wide spread attention and justice momentum than “Black Lives Matter” which you can read about here: <http://blacklivesmatter.com/a-herstory-of-the-blacklivesmatter-movement/>.
The brilliance of Black Lives Matter is its unrelenting call for public recognition on multiple levels. It is a prophetic call that invites us to recognize that black lives are individually and culturally significant/sacred (adjective), yes, and black lives are materializing (verb) forth particular realities in this nation, even after death. There are new occasions of resurrection in these social movements. While some are fighting for their lives with acts of courageous civil disobedience and others are working within systems for structural change, making resurrection a practice in body and community–there are others in the crowd, throwing shade, screaming “crucify them” louder than ever.
It’s “normal” for much of oblivious white America to see and hear of abject killings of unarmed black men. Tragedies-turned-media-spectacles targeting blackness are nothing new. Some might even go as far as holding silence when a young, unarmed black man is shot and killed, acknowledging that victimization has taken place. But when systems and structures of racism that connect to and indict white supremacy at large get called out for what they are, in the wake of these killings, all of sudden a form of “orthodoxy” rears its head and screams its cacophonous, tired song. A clear and nauseating example of this is the insistence of some people to chant “All lives matter” in response to the Black Lives Matter movement. There is an orthodoxy there, however implicit, that insinuates all lives are “equal” while shoving any acknowledgment of racialized inequity out of view. It’s a rhetorical failure on its face: it’s applied expression (rendering some lives less worthy of recognition by silencing their call for recognition in real time) reveals the fallacy of its content. Orthodoxy often has an attendant hypocrisy just waiting to be exposed.
The orthodoxy being defended in our country right now, in light of Black Lives Matter, is of course some privilege-induced notion of patriotism that benefits “One America.” It’s been said over and over that there are two Americas, meaning the criteria for citizenship, liberties, and opportunity are not the same for people of color and white people here in North America. When people of color rage, lament and challenge in response to the racism enacted upon them, the duplicitousness of “One Nation Under God” orthodoxy is revealed. Instead of pausing to consider that the experience of people of color might be rightfully challenging an old, irrelevant and ultimately harmful worldview, many rush to explain why people of color are the very source of their own “problems” and suggest a kind of social repentance as the cheap grace summoned by our times.
This is exactly what Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar do to Job. It’s a timeless counter-move when righteous indignation dares to voice its accusations. What do Job’s friends think they’re doing by defending a world-view that’s clearly not accurate? Are they seeking to distance themselves from the pain their theology cannot account for or comfort? Do they really really think their words will help Job in any way? If one straw gets pulled from their theological stack, are they afraid the whole thing will crumble? And then what–do they imagine themselves on the ash heap too?
One of the things I most love about the Book of Job is its place in the biblical canon. That it was included at all strikes me divine. Why? Because it pushes back on and contradicts about 90% of the biblical theology surrounding it. It exposes idolatrous orthodoxy; even G-d lets the friends know they have “spoken falsely” at the end of the text. It prods us, the reader, to ask new questions, to create new world-views that account for more meaning, connections, and to reconcile what we say we believe with the realities of the world.
The Black Lives Matter movement does the same in 2015. It agitates the mainstream status quo and demands a more just world. It unapologetically claims the sacred nature of black lives and refuses to hear anything different. It calls upon the powers that mock life to be held accountable and to be destroyed if/when necessary. It holds out for a different future where racialized disparities and spiritual duplicitousness are laid to rest and the integrity of who we say we are and who we actually are live in alignment. As a pastor of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, I am grateful for the ways the Black Lives Matter movement is incarnating the love of God in its fullness this Lenten season. It calls us all, calls us all to the work of redemption. May a world of justice and peace be the faithful result.
JUST LOVE houston 