“Subversive Grace” based on Job 2:7-10
This
week a clergy friend reached out with a concern about our United
Methodist Bookstore and recourse center, Cokesbury. In the most
recent Cokesbury catalog, on page 21, listed under “Women’s
Studies” was a book entitled “Zip It” with a cover image of
women’s lips zipped closed. He asked us to join him in expressing
displeasure. I did. I got a response from Cokesbury that attempted
to reassure me by informing me that I was ignorant of their intent.
The email informed me that the author, “offers
practical how-to’s meant to inspire her readers to use their words
‘to build, not to break; to bless, not to badger; to encourage, not
to embitter; to praise, not to pounce’. Her work is very
specific to women’s group Bible study and personal devotion and
reflection.”1
Clearly the author of the book along with the author of the email
perceive this to be EMPOWERMENT of women. You might stake a guess
that I disagree. You’d be right.
Now,
this particular exchange was fairly trivial this week. It was almost
nothing, except that it served as a reminder of the inherent sexism
in The Church and the resiliency of the patriarchy in the
institution. It was just another
piece of frustration and sadness. In the language of Parker Palmer,
it was another expression of the “tragic gap.” He explains it
this way, “Of
all the tensions we must hold in personal and political life, perhaps
the most fundamental and most challenging is standing and acting with
hope in the “tragic gap.” On one side of that gap, we see the
hard realities of the world, realities that can crush our spirits and
defeat our hopes. On the other side of that gap, we see real-world
possibilities, life as we know it could be because we have seen it
that way.”2
Palmer teaches that much of what we struggle with in life is the
reality of the tragic gap and how to be authentic in response to it.
The
tragic gap ALWAYS exists. For the past few weeks though it has felt
like every piece of news, as well as every time I’ve accessed social
media, I’ve been bombarded with reminders of the tragic gap. At
times it has felt like I’ve been drowning in them. My natural
emotional disposition tends toward happiness and playfulness (along
with overthinking 😉 ), but recently I’ve been feeling tired,
overwhelmed, and bogged down.
Now,
it feels imperative to mention that I do not think that a publishing
foible by Cokesbury is a tragedy, it did not send me into a
depression, and it is not even OVERLY significant. In the face of
the scope of issues today, it barely registers. I have to say this
because the last time I acknowledged being personally harmed by the
existence sexism in the church at large I was told by Annual
Conference Leadership that I was a hysterical woman and sent to
Emotional Intelligence training. So, now that’s cleared up.
Truth
be told though, there are so very many reminders of the tragic gap
right now that they are piled on top of each other. There are all
the normal ones and all the exceptionally new ones. I think it is
creating a phenomenon similar to grief: when a new grief occurs it
also serves to reawaken all the grief we have experienced before it.
No one attack on the world as it should be is the problem: they all
add on to each other and start to snow ball. For many in my life,
I’m hearing that they are now avalanching. Dear friends (please
note: friends, none of you, I wouldn’t share your struggles from this
pulpit) have told me this week that they are experiencing physical
symptoms of the anxiety they experience given the current depth of
the tragic gap. I’m also hearing people are having trouble sleeping,
as well as turning to junk food and alcohol to make it through the
days.
As
for myself, this week I noticed that EVERYTHING I try to do is an
uphill battle. It all just feels harder, sort of like how it does
when I haven’t taken vacation in entirely too many months. My
yearning has been to sit on the couch, drink tea, pet my cat, and
watch West Wing and anything more than that requires steeling myself
to do what needs to be done.
I
don’t know how all of you are doing. I hope some of you are fine and
dandy, with either sufficient coping mechanisms, sufficient hope, or
sufficient joy to counterbalance the world’s problems. I know some
of you are really struggling, and that those struggles are often a
combination of the world around us and the personal issues that keep
coming. Perhaps some are also in the middle: aware of the struggles
and making it. After last week’s sermon, and the Biblical book from
which we read, many of you may be feeling anxious that I’m about to
make it worse.
I
don’t think I am. Ironically enough, Job feels like a friendly
figure right now, and his story seems to give us reason for hope.
For those of you who aren’t inherently familiar with the story, let
me summarize quickly: Job is presented as a truly good human.
Everyone agrees that he is “blameless and upright,” faithful to
God, and even overly observant. He made sacrifices to God JUST IN
CASE one of his sons accidentally sinned. He was also wealthy in the
form of enormous flocks. He and his wife and had 10 children, 7 sons
and 3 daughters. God is said to be proud of Job’s good heart and
faithfulness.
Suddenly
things changed: all of his wealth was either killed or stolen. At
the same time, all of his children, who had been feasting together,
were killed when a wind knocked down the tent. Job turned to grief
and turned his heart to God in prayer. Then, in our text, his
health deteriorated, with painful sores opening all over his entire
body. He is already sitting on an ash heap and appears to simply,
calmly, pick up a piece of a broken pot to use to scratch himself.
It seems that he is already so heartbroken that the physical symptoms
barely register.
That
seems right. The deepest grief I have seen in my life has been the
grief of parents mourning for their children. In the face of losing
10 children, I don’t think anything else would even register. Job’s
wife is convinced that his death is imminent, and even in the midst
of her shared grief, she manages to register the degree of his pain.
The
meaning of her words is not entirely clear. She says, “Do you
still persist in your integrity? Curse God, and die.” The big
question is: does she assume he is dying already and wish to ease his
death by helping him speak words of truth on the way out; OR does she
believe his suffering is too great for anyone to handle and believe
that if he curses God, God will finally let him die? That is, it
isn’t clear if she thinks he is dying anyway which then also makes it
unclear if she thinks cursing God will kill him. Since this is a
book especially designed to argue against the idea that a difficult
life indicates that God is punishing you, I’m going to suggest that
the more likely meaning is the first: she wishes for him speak out
loud of his pain to ease the suffering on his way to death.
Truly,
Job’s wife speaks with outstanding grace, especially for a woman who
is also grieving the loss of all of her children. The capacity to
attend to anyone else’s pain in the midst of that grief is unusual –
humans are built that way. She wants his pain to be eased, both
physically and emotionally. She thinks he is being too stoic, and
should let go of his pride in order to find some relief. In Bible
Study we found ourselves telling stories of the end of people’s
lives, and the grace-filled ways we had known loved ones to ease the
end of the dying person’s life. This woman’s words reminded us of
how difficult it can be to let go of a loved one, and at the same
time how much of a relief it is when someone we love is no longer
suffering.
Job’s
wife encouraged him to do what he could do to be at peace at the end
of his life. He refused her, responding that his faith required him
to deal with the pain as it came. In case you haven’t read Job, it
is interesting to note that for chapters upon chapters after this he
expresses his pain with great intensity. However, the prelude seems
to forget those speeches.
Now,
the grace-filled response of Job’s wife has not been heard as such
throughout history. “Chrysostom asked why the Devil left Job his
wife and answered with the suggestion that he considered her a
scourge by which to plague him more acutely than by any other
means.”3
Yep. And he wasn’t alone, “The ancient tradition, reflected in
Augustine, Chrysostom, Calvin, and many others, that she is an aide
to the satan
underestimates the complexity of her role.”4
Most male commentators throughout history have condemned Job’s wife
for her words, seeing her as a part of the problem. I wonder how
much of culture’s assumptions about females fed into that
perspective. It was difficult for those of us who studies this
together to hear anything but gentleness, love, and grace in Job’s
wife’s words. They’re subversive grace, for sure, not at all
reflecting the most common ways of showing love, but they’re grace
nonetheless.
The
book of Job explores human suffering, and asks the big questions
about how human suffering and God’s will are related. God’s answers
to Job’s questions are in chapters 38-40 if you want to read them
yourselves. The book of Job gives us a space to reflect on suffering
itself, and it gives us words to name the suffering. We don’t have
to be in Job’s particularly awful position to be suffering, there are
many kinds of suffering in the world.
This
week we had a Gathering of (The) Connection where we talked about
finding peace. We were gifted with wonderful questions: what is
peace? What helps you find peace? What keeps you from peace? We
discussed the balance of righteousness anger and peace, and we
wondered about it. As we discussed a thought started to form in me:
I think I’ve been doing it wrong. (Or if not “wrong” than in a
less than optimal way.)
In
recent weeks, I have allowed my fears and angers to motivate and lead
me, and I am not at my best when I do that. Certainly there is
plenty worth protesting, there are great organizations to donate to,
and imperative conversations to have. However, if I want to be as
useful as I can be in building the kin-dom of God, then I need to
start those actions from the best motivation. Now I’m wondering if I
can attend to centering myself in the unconditional love of God and
wonder of life and Creation – even now, ESPECIALLY now? Can I
allow myself to slow down enough to consider where my energy belongs
and where my gifts are most useful? Can I show up, wherever I show
up, grace-filled and at peace so that the love I have to share can be
part of what I offer in changing the world? Can I learn how to hold
peace in such a deep way that it allows me to hold anger differently?
Please
be aware that I think grace-filled and at peace can be a reasonable
way to protest, chant, and resist!! I’m talking about the inner
motivation and way of responding to the rest of God’s people. When
it comes down to it, I think that the energy we bring into the world
changes it more than the words we use. The world is desperately in
need of love and peace – and listening as well as many many forms
of resistance. Furthermore, in the past few weeks people’s hearts
haven’t stopped breaking in the normal and awful ways human hearts
break. There is still a lot of need around us for patience and
compassion.
So,
I’m hoping that in the face of great suffering I might be able (on
good days) to share subversive grace: to share God’s love from a
place of peace and gratitude WHILE calling the world out of the
tragic gap and into the kin-dom. This will take times of quiet,
intentional reflection, deep conversation, and attending to hope,
gratitude and goodness. This will take paying attention to what
brings me energy – and doing those things. This will take a
regular practice of Sabbath, in particular Sabbath from the news
cycle. I got one of those this week and it made all the difference.
Finally,
I hope that my journey is of use to you as well. In the midst of her
own suffering, Job’s wife found the way to hear her husband’s pain
and respond to it with love, grace, and compassion. That’s
especially hard work right now. But, may God help us to treat
ourselves, and those we love, with similar love, grace, and
compassion. May we find our energy sources, good spiritual
practices, and the freedom to breath outside of the news cycle.
And, with God’s help, may it lower our anxiety and fill us with some
much needed peace. Amen
1Personal
Email, February 1, 2016.
2Parker
Palmer, Healing
the Heart of Democracy,
p. 191. Accessed at
http://www.couragerenewal.org/democracyguide/v36/
on February 2, 2017.
3Marvin
H. Pope, Job.
In
the Anchor Bible Series, (Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Co, 1965)
page 22.
4Carol
A. Newsom “The Book of Job” in The New Interpreter’s Study
Bible Vol IV (Nashville:
Abingdon Press, 1996), page 355.
Rev. Sara E. Baron
First United Methodist Church of Schenectady
603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305
Pronouns: she/her/hers
http://fumcschenectady.org/
https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady