Parental Responsibility

When the days of feasting had completed their cycle, Job would send word to them and consecrate them, getting up early in the morning and offering burnt offerings according to the number of them all; for Job said, “Perhaps my sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts.” Job did so continually.  Job 1:5  NASB

Continually – Literally, “all the days.”  What are we to say about a father who is so concerned over the spiritual condition of his children that he makes a sacrifice on their behalf every day.  Today we might describe this as the equivalent of the parent who prays for the child every day.  “Lord, please keep my son, my daughter, on the straight path and if anything has been done that would upset You, please Lord, forgive them.”  Does this sound familiar?  Or are we so busy with “life” that we forget about life for another?

Let’s review the context.  After four verses describing Job’s enormous wealth, the final thought is not “what a great man he was,” but rather “how spiritually concerned he was,” so much so that he took on the responsibility of asking daily forgiveness for potential misdeeds.  After the laudable character description in the opening verse, we discover that this rich man has not allowed any of his good fortune to divert him from the spiritual path.  In fact, his wealth and divine favor adds to his deep sense of personal responsibility extended toward his family.  This is a man without fault, an idealized man, someone who deserves our greatest admiration.

And that is precisely why his misfortune is so disturbing.  He becomes the innocent victim, the undeserving innocent victim, of a divine wager, a cosmic game played out between celestial powers over which he has no control.  He’s the pawn in God’s chess game with evil.

Why?

That’s about the only question we could possibly ask.  Why?  Why do You, God, do this to him?  What’s happened to Your sense of justice, of honor?  How can we possibly understand Your actions toward a man who is Your perfect servant?  There’s not a shred of evidence that he is anything like us.  At some level, we deserve divine mistreatment.   He doesn’t.

You see, the point of the Job story is not an explanation for the existence of evil.  It is about the existence of unjustifiedevil.  And while we might not fit the exemplary characteristics of Job, we resonate.  At some fundamental ethic level, we don’t see how there can be any cosmic justification of such mistreatment—and by extension, the kind of mistreatment that even we, the deserving, experience.  We might not be perfectly holy, but we understand the concept—and it seems utterly incompatible with the idea that good people, especially really good people, suffer.  In a way, what is done to Job is a terrorist plot.  It makes us afraid of God.  Why?  Because if God can do this to the best of us, He can do it to any of us.  And that makes me want to stay well below the radar.  The last thing I want is to be so righteous that God decides to let the Accuser have a swing at me.  No thank you.  Religious terrorism seems all too real.

What we’ll likely discover in the Job story is the inadequacy of human explanations.  Rather than fall victim to these false narratives, we might want to know what they are before we get tricked into believing them.  So, with fear and trepidation, let’s proceed.  Cautiously.

Topical Index: righteous, responsibility, justified, evil, Job 1:5