Narrative Lectionary Summer Series – Job, Week 5 (Final)
Job 41:1-8; 42:1-17
Free Additional Resources for Study & Sermon Preparation
Furthering the Power of God’s Story – Narrative Lectionary Commentary
by Rev. Dr. Clint Schnekloth
Job: I had heard but now I see; I get it. Maintaining our image of a court of law where each side presents their evidence, we now conclude with the defendant, having heard the prosecution’s case, declare themselves guilty.
Even though Job is an especially righteous defendant (perhaps precisely because he is) he accepts the judgment of the court, which clearly illustrates there simply is no comparison between the good done by someone such as himself, and the sheer grandeur of God.
I mean, only a God can catch a leviathan on a fishhook (other than an adventuring party of 20th level PCs). *Editor’s note: Daniel Maurer jumped for joy knowing that Dr. Schnekloth still remembers to contribute a parenthetical comment connecting today’s text with role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons®.
Job evacuates any traditional theodicies for us that attempt to explain or justify suffering or evil. Notice we do not have a case here of God “using” unspeakable suffering of Job for some higher good.
Instead, we get a theodicy, if one can call it that, of “sheerness.” God’s sheer God-ness in comparison to Job, in the face of which Job simply repents in dust and ashes.
Some call-outs related to this. First, this does prefigure Jesus Christ himself, because though he is God’s son, he still undergoes John’s baptism for the forgiveness of sins. So too Job, though righteous, comes to terms with his small-ness (or whatever you want to call it) in the face of God, and so repents.
Second call-out. Job then plays the same role in relationship to his friends he was playing with his children at the beginning of Job. Remember he would pray to purify his children. Now his friends are humiliated, so Job makes sacrifices on their behalf, and the Lord accepts Job’s prayer.
Since this month’s texts from Job have given us very little of the arguments and personalities of Job’s friends, individual preachers will need to decide how much of those texts to weave into their preaching. At the very least, consider the book of Job itself and the texts not assigned for Sunday worship as a central focus for study and preparation.
Finally, the last verses of Job remind us once again of the “once-upon-a-time” genre of the text as a whole. Having set Job up to go through the entirety of the suffering he undergoes, combined with the dialogue with friends and God, we now return Job to his previous (and now even improved) state and status. Twice as much as he had before.
Like any good fairy tale with a happy ending. Just too bad about the children and the servants and the livestock.
Scripture Reference Links
Menu
Sitewide Search for Topics & Readings
We Have Worship Resources For You
Clergy Stuff NL
Clergy Stuff RCL
Clergy Stuff Plays, Dramas, Lenten Series
Clergy Stuff Sermon Series
Menu
The following links and resources are not produced or maintained by Clergy Stuff. However, at the time of this posting, the links were active and considered to be good source material for proclamation for the text for this week. Please scroll down or click on the quick jump menu you find below. For more free worship resources & planning materials, please visit our links for RCL Worship Resources.
Historical Exegetical Resources
The Leviathan in Middle Eastern Mythology
Vision I.I, Shepherd of Hermas. (c.145)
IV.26, Stromata, Clement of Alexandria (c 200)
Contemporary Resources
Great Quotes
““The source of every crime, is some defect of the understanding; or some error in reasoning; or some sudden force of the passions. Defect in the understanding is ignorance; in reasoning, erroneous opinion.” ”
A Good Read
Leviathan Wakes
by James S.A. Corey
Also a television series (The Expanse) this series of science fiction novels inquires into human self-righteousness as it comes face-to-face with things in the universe that ask it questions similar to God’s questions at the end of Job.
Video Resources
Daily Devotional Feed
Free Dramatic Reading For This Text (NRSV)
Readers: Lord, Narrator, Job
Lord: “Can you draw out Leviathan with a fishhook, or press down its tongue with a cord? Can you put a rope in its nose, or pierce its jaw with a hook? Will it make many supplications to you? Will it speak soft words to you? Will it make a covenant with you to be taken as your servant forever? Will you play with it as with a bird, or will you put it on leash for your girls? Will traders bargain over it? Will they divide it up among the merchants? Can you fill its skin with harpoons, or its head with fishing spears? Lay hands on it; think of the battle; you will not do it again!”
Narrator: Then Job answered the Lord:
Job: “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. ‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. ‘Hear, and I will speak; I will question you, and you declare to me.’ I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”
Narrator: After the Lord had spoken these words to Job, the Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite:
Lord: “My wrath is kindled against you and against your two friends; for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has. Now therefore take seven bulls and seven rams, and go to my servant Job, and offer up for yourselves a burnt offering; and my servant Job shall pray for you, for I will accept his prayer not to deal with you according to your folly; for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has done.”
Narrator: So Eliphaz the Temanite and Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite went and did what the Lord had told them; and the Lord accepted Job’s prayer. And the Lord restored the fortunes of Job when he had prayed for his friends; and the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before. Then there came to him all his brothers and sisters and all who had known him before, and they ate bread with him in his house; they showed him sympathy and comforted him for all the evil that the Lord had brought upon him; and each of them gave him a piece of money and a gold ring. The Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning; and he had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand donkeys. He also had seven sons and three daughters. He named the first Jemimah, the second Keziah, and the third Keren-happuch. In all the land there were no women so beautiful as Job’s daughters; and their father gave them an inheritance along with their brothers. After this Job lived one hundred and forty years, and saw his children, and his children’s children, four generations. And Job died, old and full of days.