Monday of the Twenty-sixth Week in Ordinary Time

 Lectionary: 455

One day, when the angels of God came to present themselves before the LORD, Satan also came among them.
And the LORD said to Satan, “Whence do you come?”
Then Satan answered the LORD and said, “From roaming the earth and patrolling it.” 
And the LORD said to Satan, “Have you noticed my servant Job?

Many people unfamiliar with the Bible and experiencing distress turn to the Book of Job. Regardless of its place in the Bible, it stands amid the greatest works of ancient literature, with Gilgamesh, the Iliad and Odyssey, the Aeneid, and Oedipus Rex. 

The unknown authors and the final redactor ponder questions that humans will always ask although they are never answered. Only those who live the answers are satisfied. When asked how they found their apparent contentment, these blessed ones offer words but no answers. 

And yet we turn again and again to Job,. His complaints echo our own. Neither the replies of his friends, nor the brash young Elihu, nor God's thunder satisfy anyone. For, although they are the Word of God, they are yet words, and we must find our satisfaction in a place beyond words. 

Recently I read that many Americans regret their liberal arts education. Some wish they had pursued a degree toward the more lucrative careers in STEM. Personally, I regret that I did not study more philosophy, history, sociology, and psychology along with my English major. (Alas, education is wasted on the young.) 

As important as STEM are for launching a career and maintaining an edge among competitive nations, we should at least know how to raise the questions of Job. "Why must the innocent suffer? Does life have a purpose? Do I have a purpose? Who decides my purpose; and do I have anything to say about it? Would the Earth and the Universe be better without human life? Is God real?"

Not only do Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics fail to address these questions; they don't know they exist. These human studies are not designed to ask the deeper questions of life. Francis Bacon's scientific method was borne of philosophical questions, but many scientists and students of STEM have never heard of him. Because of that ignorance, they cannot imagine a world without their narrow definition of "science." Nor do they hear a question their sciences cannot address. 

STEM can create mustard gas, an AR-15, cluster bombs, nuclear weapons; it cannot tell us why we must never use them. Or why we might use them. It cannot teach us how to conduct a democracy. 

Why do the innocent suffer? Why are the wicked not punished? The Book of Job gives us the small consolation of knowing the questions have been raised. It's furious arguments, prolonged, well spoken, and yet unresolved connect our youth with our ancestors. When they ask us the questions we cannot answer, we can point to Job and say, "I received this from your grandparents, who received it from theirs."  

But, if the questions are never satisfactorily answered, we can never stop discussing them. One time several years ago, as I concluded what I thought was a satisfactory reflection about two types of prayer, liturgical and private, a fellow in the audience raised the question, "Why do the innocent suffer?' 

I tried to dismiss him. "Ah,the problem of evil." I said, as if it doesn't deserve my time. I later learned the man like many Americans, had not experienced much loss until he suffered several deaths in his family. He had fallen, perhaps fatally, from grief into the whirlpool of depression.

The Book of Job doesn't go away. Michael Minkoff, Jr.has an interesting reflection about the Tetragrammaton in the Book of Job. Reading the Hebrew original, he says that of all the characters in the book only the protagonist uses the sacred name. Job seems to have a particular relationship with the LORD that his friends do not share and cannot comprehend. 

Their explanations fail because they cannot comprehend Job's personal disappointment in the LORD. He wants to know, "How could YOU do this to me?" But without a similar kinship with God, they cannot understand his distress. 

The Book reminds us to comfort our friends in their grief with few words and shared sadness, even as the LORD comforts us. There are no words, not even in the Bible. But the LORD is here, and so are we.