The Life of Job and Shame-based Manipulation

This morning I was reading through Job, and I was suddenly overwhelmed with sadness. I realized it was because what I was reading was such as clear reflection of the Church today.

Job was a broken man. He lost everything--his family, wealth, health, and even the support of his wife and friends. In his time of greatest trial and need those around him, who should have supported and encouraged him, cursed and accused him. Job sought guidance and perspective from the people who had thus far been faithful to him, but what he received was more misery. They tried using reason, guilt, shame, and threats to make Job agree with them. Throughout the conversation Job maintained his innocence and continually asserted that God is sovereign and faithful. His friends pelted him with accusations of sin and pride; they talked and talked, trying to include as many arguments as possible in the hopes that one of them would strike a chord with Job. Here is a man who seemingly had every reason to cast aside his faith and curse God, and who was told by his most trusted friends that he deserved everything that happened to him. In the face of it all Job did not falter.

It would be easy to read this account and become angry with Job's friends; it seems so painfully clear that their actions are abhorrent. What's difficult is accepting that this culture of shame still persists, and often prevails, in our own lives. Though many of us are quick to condemn the outright prosperity gospel, we allow a more subtle form to permeate our teachings and actions. We may not say "Obey God and you will be a millionaire," but how often do we say "Obey God and you will be happy" or "Obey God and you will find love/success/security/etc." In the same vein we teach that hardship is the direct result of sin. Somehow we have lost the idea that the Christian life is not promised to be one of ease or security. We gloss over the accounts of poverty, persecution, and imprisonment in the Bible, and instead manufacture this image of successful Christianity meaning a two-car garage and weekends spent on the boat. This is a nice idea, but where are the white picket fences and Mediterranean cruises in the life described and lived by Jesus?

"Blessed are the poor in spirt...

Blessed are those who mourn...

Blessed are the gentle...

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness...

Blessed are the merciful...

Blessed are the pure in heart...

Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, 

for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven."

This is the picture Jesus gives us of a life lived well. Nowhere in this description is there anything resembling the idealization of power and prosperity that is so apparent in modern culture. This person is humble, loving, and faithful. They are unafraid to follow God despite the pressures applied by the world. There is no boasting or muscle flexing, and there are certainly no promises of or prosperity or an easy life. 

It is our own brokenness that's taken us from this life of consistent faithfulness to one of check lists and outward demonstrations. As sinful people we want tangible steps to follow and quantitative results to analyze. It's easy for us to say that if you are obedient you will be blessed, because as a society we've established a system of rewarding good behavior. If a child behaves they are given a present. If an adult performs well at work they are given a bonus. Everything we do is attached to a positive or negative outcome. We work out in order to look nice, we study hard so we can make a lot of money, and all too often we think God operates the same way.Our desperate need to understand the inner workings of our Creator results in our attributing human qualities to divine actions. The only promise given by God to His people is that of fellowship with Him. That is our only reward, and it's not attached to any level of physical comfort. Someone who makes $200k a year and someone who makes $20k have absolutely the same potential for fellowship with God. Money and comfort are not used by God as part of a reward system. He does not promise to financially bless the faithful just as he does not threaten to without financial security from the faithless. This connection is manmade and ultimately detrimental to the understanding and living out of our faith.

I say all of that just to make my real point. If sin and hardship do not go hand in hand, then how hateful are we being when we teach that it does? How presumptuous is it of us to use God's name for our own purposes? We plant in people the idea that misfortune is their own fault, and we use declarations of God's will to manipulate the actions of those around us. Job's friends should have encouraged his determined faithfulness to God's immutable holiness, but instead they blamed his pain on his supposed sin. They should have seen the God-given strength that was carrying Job through these trials, but instead they assured him that his misfortunes were evidence that God couldn't possibly be by his side. They used emotionally and intellectually charged manipulation to try and persuade Job away from what he knew to be true and instead subscribe to their own self-serving version of the facts. If there was no causal link between Job's actions and his loss, then that meant that the same could happen to them. They needed to believe that their adherence to the law would secure their comfort level, so they persecuted Job when his life and words suggested anything else. 

Don't we do the same? Don't we use guilt, shame, and fear in an attempt to maintain the delicately balanced gospel we've created? If someone can live in contradiction to our ideas of interrelated obedience and blessing then what does that say about the state of our own souls? As Christians we are supposed to support and encourage one another. We are called to carry each other's burdens and rejoice for one another's successes. The Church is supposed to be a place a of fellowship and community. Shame and manipulation have no place in the kingdom of God, and they shouldn't have a place on our lives. When we see something that challenges our understanding of the gospel we shouldn't lash out in fear or hatred; we should be confident enough in the supremacy of our God that we can accept the fact that we will never understand everything or have all the answers. It should be enough for us to help each other take one step after another in faithful obedience to the truths we do understand. 

"My foot has held fast to His path; 

I have kept His way and not turned aside. 

But He is unique and who can turn Him? 

And what His soul desires, that He does."