Stephen
Terry, Director
The
Rhythms of Life
Commentary
for the April 6, 2019 Sabbath School Lesson
“And he said to the man, ‘You listened to your wife and ate the
fruit which I told you not to eat. Because of what you have done, the ground
will be under a curse. You will have to work hard all your life to make it
produce enough food for you. It will produce weeds and thorns, and you will
have to eat wild plants. You will have to work hard and sweat to make the soil
produce anything, until you go back to the soil from which you were formed. You
were made from soil, and you will become soil again.’” Genesis 3:17-19, NIV
Much of our lives seem to indicate that our sole purpose
in life is to produce goods and services for ourselves and others. We come into
this life as babies and if we are fortunate to have a parent or nanny to allow
us to remain at home, after a few short years of childhood joys, we are ushered
into the educational system. The purpose of that education is to develop the
skills we need to work and sustain us and our families for the remainder of our
lives. The number of years devoted to education is often related to the return
we might expect. Some drop from the educational system rather early on and tend
to struggle to meet their needs because they failed to develop marketable
skills. Nonetheless the immediate escape from the regimentation of school
seemed more appealing to them than concerns for the future. What child hasn’t
looked out the window on a beautiful day and lamented being sequestered within
the four walls of their classroom. Often it is the goals and examples of their
parents that instill in them the desire to persevere. Some may become “blue-collar”
laborers. Others may become “white-collar” professionals. Each pursues a path
according to their abilities and interests. And ideally, in a prosperous
economy, most will find adequate employment to be able to purchase the goods
and services needed and desired by them and their families. So it continues
until disability or death.
Perhaps this work ethic derived from a time, not all
that long ago, when most people lived an agrarian existence. In that setting,
one had to work according to the rhythms of the seasons to provide food,
clothing and shelter for their family. Failure to work, would not only make it
difficult to survive financially, it could mean death from starvation or
exposure. Credit was hard to come by in those days, so people saved what they
could to prepare for future uncertainties. They could not whip out a plastic
card with an available credit limit to get them through lean times. They also
did not have an institutionalized social safety net to fall back on. If they
had good relations with their neighbors, they might expect some support from
them, especially if they had done the same for others. But if a disaster
affected the entire community like the fictional Dust Bowl experience of the
Joad family, written about by John Steinbeck in “The Grapes of Wrath,” even the
community would be unable to help. While the family was fictional, it was an
accurate synopsis of the experience of thousands of families trying to sustain
themselves during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Since that time, the
United States, in spite of periodic economic downturns has enjoyed relatively
high employment figures and a lifestyle that many around the world can only
dream about. Paradoxically though, faith and belief seemed to be stronger and
more widespread during times of struggle and more prone to be abandoned during
times of prosperity. Perhaps this is because when we are struggling and looking
for answers to our plight, the Bible offers them. Maybe nowhere does it more so
than in the book of Job.
One lesson life teaches us is that life can change in an
instant. We can be working to provide for our family one moment and then while
driving home from work lose our life to an automobile accident, a heart attack
or even a stroke. The dreams of our children for their future may be abruptly
interrupted. Even those children may suffer an accident or an illness that
requires a heavy commitment of time and resources to deal with. The castles in
the air we have been constructing in our minds may vanish in a puff of smoke.
When they do, and for many of us this happens, how will we handle it? Will we
look to the government to support us on a niggardly stipend that will often
guarantee that we will never be able to rise above that experience and
stigmatize us for even daring to ask for help? Will we turn to the church which
often requires religious or moral qualification before they will do anything?
Too often, the resource that is turned to is easy credit. The banks do not care
if you are a drug addict, an alcoholic, a prostitute, or a thief. They will
offer credit when the government and the churches turn away. Unfortunately, the
interest rates are high due to the high percentage of defaults, so it becomes a
difficult trap to escape from, even though it may provide some temporary
financial relief.
Job’s answer when he could depend on no one was to
continue with an unwavering dependence on God. His wife could not understand
this. She saw the pain he was in and advised him to curse God and die.[i] Many today do just that.
When faced with hardship, they blame God and claim it is because of his
indifference that they are suffering. While this may seem logical to us when
faced with an all-powerful God who does not immediately deliver us from
suffering, Job would not countenance that idea. Instead he felt that if the
suffering in any way could be attributed to God that he who had received great
blessings from God should also be willing to accept adversity from him.[ii] Job’s friends, who came
to comfort him, could not accept that his suffering was random. Rather they
attributed it to some hidden sin that Job had not confessed. Job denied that
this was the case. In view of our present experience of the universal taint of
sin as expressed by Paul in his epistles,[iii] the claim to be without
fault seems provocative, but Job was written very many centuries before Pauline
theology made an appearance. In light of the translation of Enoch and Elijah,
perfection capable of brining one straight to heaven without experiencing death
was an accepted possibility. Some claim that it is still attainable. However,
even though God vindicated Job before his friends, he also chastised him for
presuming to question God. Although some feel this may be a later
“happily-ever-after” accretion to the story, we are told that God then restores
all Job’s fortunes and blesses him even more than before. Perhaps this is seen
as not original to the story because it defeats the premise that righteous people
don’t serve God simply because of the blessings he bestows, for it pretty much
says if you serve God he will bless you more than your loss so serve him for
the blessings.
But if we cannot expect blessings for ourselves and our
families because of being faithful to God, then why shouldn’t we turn to the
government or the institutional church for charity? After all, we all have
moral failings, why then would God even care about what happens to us and our
families? In fact, according to the book of Job, God may even agree to our
suffering, even if we are good and even if he doesn’t actively participate in
it. Some might say, “Why believe in such an uncaring God?” Others my take it a
step further and question whether God even exists. Perhaps this is a major
reason that Jesus spent over 30 years among us before he acquiesced to his
crucifixion. He may have been engaged in revealing the correct character of
God. In the Sermon on the Mount,[iv] Jesus reveals God to be
far more compassionate than we might have expected from the stories of the Old
Testament, willing to send blessings even for those who are evil. Therefore, he
can be counted upon to care for those who are his as well. And John, throughout
his gospel, presented that compassion as seen in the life of Jesus more
dramatically than any of the other gospel writers. He saw Jesus as shedding
light into a world filled with darkness about everything, even the character of
God.
We may deny the existence of God because of the evil we
see in the world, but can we honestly say that there is any less evil as a
result of us doing so? Life is a struggle and has been for a very long time.
The Bible traces the difficulties back to the Garden of Eden. However far back
we choose to trace the first betrayal, or the first murder as with Can and
Abel, we have a long and sordid history. The history of mankind continues to be
written in blood and plunder. For some reason we feel it is desirable to take
from those who are weaker than us while doing as little as we can for those who
are suffering. Then having chosen that path, we blame God for all the evil we
create. Maybe we need to step up and own responsibility for our failings and
then seek out God as Jesus portrayed him. Why not? Nothing else seems to be
working.
