Friday in the 26th Week of Ordinary Time, September 30, 2022

Job 38, 1; 12-21; 40, 3-5

The Lord addressed Job out of the storm and said: Have you ever in your lifetime commanded the morning and shown the dawn its place For taking hold of the ends of the earth, till the wicked are shaken from its surface? The earth is changed as is clay by the seal, and dyed as though it were a garment; But from the wicked the light is withheld, and the arm of pride is shattered. Have you entered into the sources of the sea, or walked about in the depths of the abyss? Have the gates of death been shown to you, or have you seen the gates of darkness? Have you comprehended the breadth of the earth? Tell me, if you know all: Which is the way to the dwelling place of light, and where is the abode of darkness, That you may take them to their boundaries and set them on their homeward paths? You know, because you were born before them, and the number of your years is great! Then Job answered the Lord and said: Behold, I am of little account; what can I answer you? I put my hand over my mouth. Though I have spoken once, I will not do so again; though twice, I will do so no more.

After arguing back and forth with the three men who had purportedly come to comfort him, the stricken Job began to call out to God to come down and tell him why he allowed so many evils to come upon him: “Oh, that I had one to hear me! Here is my signature! Let the Almighty answer me! Oh, that I had the indictment written by my adversary!” (Job 31, 35).  At that point, a young man named Elihu arrived and joined in, very self-righteously, arguing with Job that he had no right to call upon God to justify himself.  At the end of his words, God finally speaks to Job: “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up your loins like a man, I will question you, and you shall declare to me” (Job 38, 2-3).  God then demands answers of Job: “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare, if you have understanding?  Who laid the measures thereof, if you know? Or who stretched the measuring line upon it?” (Job 38, 4-5).  And: “Who shut up the sea with doors when it broke forth, as if it had issued out of the womb? When I made the cloud the garment thereof, and thick darkness a swaddling band for it,And broke up for it my decreed place, and set bars and doors, and said, Hitherto shall you come, but no further: And here shall your proud waves be stayed?” (Job, 8-11).  The whole passage, chapters 38-41, should be read sheerly for its beauty and power, preferably in the King James translation or the Revised Standard Version.  Here, more than anywhere else in the Old Testament, do we get a sustained sense of God’s Providence, his infinite might, and of his glory.  Before him, even the mighty angels quail and the universe shudders.  What then can the human person expect when questioning God?  At the end of God’s speech, Job’s voice is small and contrite: “I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42, 6).  God does not charge Job with sin, but he is angry with the three men who supposedly came to comfort him, for they enflamed him instead, and he ordered them to bring oxen to Job for him to sacrifice on their behalf.

It would be good to read those three chapters of Job in which God spoke of himself in conjunction with today’s Gospel reading, Luke 10, 13-16, in which the Lord Jesus spoke out against the towns of Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum, where he had performed many miracles, yet where the people did not repent of their sins.  This was the God whom they refused to honor, the God whose commandments they refused to obey.  At the same time, we see the power of God in creating and ordering the earth, the sky, and the sea, and how they do his will, but that men and women do not.  He respects our will even when he rebukes us for not using it properly.  This is the God of love, beside all else, who treats us not like slaves, as he does the forces of nature, but as his children, even in our willfulness.