“Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?”
Job 38:1-7, (34-41)
Take a brief look at social media and we’ll find plenty of words without knowledge – disinformation is the plague of our modern age.
Sometimes, this is merely annoying: my youngest was in McD’s yesterday and got Regent St on her Monopoly game. According to The Sun newspaper’s website, this was the rare green property so (already having Oxford St) she was two thirds of the way to a brand-new electric car! She was thrilled!
Except that Bond St is the rare one. The Sun (surprise!) was giving out false information.
Other times, false information can have more serious consequences. Do you remember the heart-breaking incident in the summer where little girls at a Taylor Swift themed dance class were stabbed? Three died, the youngest was 6.
And what was the response? For most people, an outpouring of sympathy and over £250,000 raised for families of the victims and the hospital that treated some of the children.
For other people, violence against police, mosques, refugees and anyone else they hated, chanting “We want our county back!” because they listened to far-right echo-chambers spreading false claims about the suspect’s identity, nationality, religion and immigration status.
“Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?”
Where we get our information from is important. The facts are that the attacker was Welsh, born in the UK and not Muslim. But the extremists who looted, burned, rioted and called for the wholesale murder of anyone not like them weren’t interested in facts.
Over a thousand rioters were arrested, many imprisoned for up to nine years. But that’s not the point. The point is that three families lost their daughters in a senseless and horrific attack, while brainless apes exploited the tragedy for racist thuggery.
Some people are a waste of oxygen.
More recently, and ahead of the up-coming US election, one candidate, known for a loosey-goosey approach to truth, has exploited the devastation of Hurricanes Helene and Milton – $50bn worth of damage and hundreds dead – to score political points.
I’m not American, nor much interested in politics (I’m not even certain which candidate is for which party), but I’m strongly anti-lies, anti-hate, anti-bullying, anti-stupid. It beggars belief that a potential president and a former advisor claim that:
- the Federal Emergency Management Agency ran out of money for hurricane survivors because it had been spent on illegal immigrants (completely untrue)
- Hurricane Helene was an ATTACK caused by Weather Manipulation! (just – what?!?!?)
Some people are a waste of oxygen.
We may shake our heads in the light of such unimaginable stupidity – stupidity that destroys lives – but there is, as Job found out, a bigger picture.
Job also suffers appalling tragedy, as bad as anything in Florida, and he is being fed a load of bull**** from the OT equivalent of Twitface / Snapstergram. But Job has the right solution. He has a good old moan at God. He pours out his heart and, eventually, God replies.
“Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?”
The darkened counsel, says God, comes not only from Job’s supposed friends, but from Job himself. “You’re getting your information from the wrong place,” he says.
God completely side-steps the questions of whether Job has led a righteous life or is guilty of some sin deserving of his misfortune. That’s simply not the point. Instead, God directs Job to “consider the lilies,” as Jesus would later say, to come for a walk in the garden in the cool of the day. And you know what? It was OK. Job never got answers to his questions, and it didn’t matter. It simply wasn’t the point.
I can do no better than to direct you to the insightful footnote of Andersen’s TOTC commentary on Job (p270):
It is one of the many excellences of the book that Job is brought to contentment without ever knowing all the facts of his case. In view of the way in which the satan brought up the matter, something had to be done to rescue job from his slanderer. And the test would only work if Job did not know what it was for. God thrust Job into an experience of dereliction to make it possible for Job to enter into a life of naked faith, to learn to love God for himself alone. God does not seem to give this privilege to many people, for they pay a terrible price of suffering for their discoveries. But part of the discovery is to see the suffering itself as one of God’s most precious gifts. To withhold the full story from Job, even after the test was over, keeps him walking by faith, not by sight. He does not say in the end, ‘Now I see it all.’ He never sees it all. He sees God (42:5) Perhaps it is better if God never tells any of us the whole of our life-story.
References (from reliable sources – not Twitface / Snapstergram / Fox News etc)
Liturgy Resources for Proper 24
Isaiah 53:4-12, Ps 91
Confession and Absolution
Let us confess our sins to almighty God,
trusting in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the suffering servant:
Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases;
he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities.
And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
Upon him was the punishment that made us whole,
and by his bruises we are healed.
And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have all turned to our own way.
And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
Yet the righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous,
and he shall bear their iniquities.
Amen, Lord have mercy.
Therefore will I allot him a portion with the great,
because he poured out himself unto death
and was numbered with the transgressors,
yet he bore the sin of many.
Praise God, whose mercy is as high as the heavens.
Blessing and Dismissal
May the Lord be your refuge, the Most High your dwelling place.
May he command his angels concerning you, to guard you in all your ways.
May he be with you in trouble; may he rescue you and honour you.
and the blessing …
Go as those loved by God,
those delivered and protected,
those who know his name.
Amen.
The Reflectionary 