THE STORY OF JOB - Chapter One

 

                                                                   Job by Leon Bonnet, 1888

 At the age of nine I was brought by my mother to St. Giles Episcopal Church in Upper Darby for services and Sunday school classes. We had just moved from a back-bedroom apartment in North Philadelphia to a slightly larger one in a Spanish-style complex in the Stonehurst Hills neighborhood of the township. The distance from our apartment to the church was less than a mile, and we didn’t own a car, so more often than not, the father of a boy in my Sunday class would pick me up and bring me back home after the conclusion of services.

My Sunday school teacher, Miss Wilson, was an attractive, studious woman in her mid to late forties. She wore cat eye glasses and kept her silver hair cut thick on the top and sides, with curly bangs that were popular in the 1950s.

During the week she was the principal of Samuel Gompers Junior High School in Wynnefield, a neighborhood in West Philadelphia. Looking back over the years, I realize that Miss Wilson was a thoughtful, caring teacher who related well with her class of fourth and fifth grade students, and who evoked responses from the children to whom she taught contemporary use of biblical stories to reinforce the ancient narratives.

As our class advanced into middle school, she followed us along on our journey, remaining our instructor into the seventh grade when, as a group, we attended confirmation classes, which required us to reinforce the tenets of the faith in which we were christened.

A few years later, Miss Wilson married the church rector, Harry Ingram Fell, whose wife had passed away from cancer before I began attending Miss Wilson’s classes.

Because of her educational background, Miss Wilson offered greater insights than most teachers at St. Giles could or did, as she had us read, and  then share, our opinions of the condensed religious stories of both the old and New Testaments. She also delved into the deeper meanings behind the ancient writings.

During one such class, Miss Wilson, without a book as reference, paraphrased the story of the suffering of Job by using words and terms that students of our age and generation could understand. She explained that Satan, an anti-hero similar to Lex Luthor in the Superman series, and the Joker in the Batman comic books, presented a challenge to God that targeted Job, a faithful husband, loving father, sheepherder and landowner.

In a conversation with God, Satan claimed that Job followed the Almighty’s words because he had gained everything he needed and wanted in life, but would turn on God if he no longer had good fortune.

Knowing Job, God told Satan that no matter what  happened to his faithful subject, Job would remain among His flock. Satan countered with specified conditions placed upon Job which would surely force the man to turn away from righteous life and turn to Satan for help. 

God listened to the proposal offered by Satan and his plan to ruin Job, and prove that he would curse God for his losses. God knew that Job was a man of honor for other reasons than the gifts he’d been given. As Miss Wilson explained to us, he had worked hard and long for his well-deserved fortune that included a large flock of sheep, his marriage to a kind and forgiving bride, and the bearing by Job’s wife of three wonderful children who respected their parents for the wisdom they imparted.

Miss Wilson then presented Satan’s plan and set the stage for the battle between God and Satan, in which God permitted the evil power to decimate Job’s sheep from an unspecified disease. God’s faithful follower soon was forced  into debt, after which Satan, one by one, took away Job’s children, starting with the youngest, a boy of only three, by an infection for which there was no cure in that ancient time. Job’s middle child, a daughter, then succumbed to food poisoning after eating mutton from the last remaining sheep. Finally, the oldest son was trampled to death by the family’s prized ox while plowing a field to foster the growth of crops  that Job hoped to sell to make a small gain following his losses.

But that wasn’t enough for Satan, since Job still prayed to God for relief from his many burdens. Job’s beloved wife couldn’t cope with the loss of all of her children and ended her life by filling the deep pockets of her dress with heavy stones and drowning herself in a river. (I discovered later  that Miss Wilson may have improvised this part, based on the death of the writer Virginia Woolf. 

As if this was not enough, Satan covered Job’s body with painful and disgusting boils brought on by insect bites that allowed bacteria to fester.

Job’s friends, all firm believers in God, were convinced that Job must have done something terribly wrong to displease God, and turned their backs on him. In his prayers, Job asked God why is this all happening? What have I done to displease you so much that I deserve such suffering?

God couldn’t show his cards, since any acknowledgment of the wager would prove to Satan that Job wasn’t truly faithful.

Miss Wilson paused at this point in the story, with all of us wide-eyed and horrified by God’s punishment placed on his most faithful servant. 

Miss Wilson then continued calmly, acknowledging that God may have appeared to act unfairly, but that in life, bad things happen to good people and sometimes bad people reap undeserved rewards.

“So what’s the point in believing in God,” asked Edie, a pretty and precocious fifth grader, who raised her hand, but then began to speak before being recognized.

“Well,” said Miss Wilson, “the story doesn’t end there. Eventually, God speaks to Job and though he can’t reveal all of the answers to His servant’s questions, He helps Job to reaffirm his belief in Him.”

“God sounds awfully cruel to me,” said Edie. “What would make Job still believe in God after all the bad things that happened? Why would anyone?”

“We don’t really know from the story, as it’s written in the Hebrew Bible,”answered Miss Wilson. “But faith is often tricky, and we never really get to know why God had to even prove himself to Satan.

“What’s revealed later in the story is that after days and nights of anguish and hardship, Job survived and continued to work and to pray, and in time was able to build back his flock of sheep, remarry and have many more children.”

“That’s fine,” said Edie sarcastically. “But what possible reason would God have  to even consider a wager like that, and take away Job’s family, his livelihood and make him suffer to such an extreme? Can you give us any possible purpose?”

Miss Wilson answered Edie in the best way she knew how. “Through suffering people can gain great strength, and sometimes become better because of their anguish or infliction. Some may choose to give up on life and God at those times. God can’t force any of us to work through our suffering, but He can help provide us the strength we need to face whatever struggles lie ahead.”

“But what if someone can’t get past their suffering?” questioned Edie. “Like Job’s wife, who killed herself. And what if Job may have loved his wife and children so much that he couldn’t find the strength to go on without them?”

“It seems, from the story, that God knew from the beginning that despite Job’s suffering, he was not one to give up because of Satan’s punishments, and although he may have questioned God’s motives, he remained committed to his belief in Him as well as to hard work, and a fairness in dealing with people. He may have grown further to gain a better understanding of other people’s sorrows despite, or because of, his own suffering. God may simply have looked down deep into Job’s core, and knew that this one man would maintain his faith no matter what happened.”

“I don’t like that story one bit, Miss Wilson,” answered Edie.

“It’s not meant to be liked,” said Miss Wilson. “It’s meant to be a lesson that can help carry us through the bad times and guide us down unknown paths when life seem hopeless.”

“But what if the next path is as difficult as the first?” again asked Edie.

“I can’t answer that. Neither can God. The most I can say is, as you grow older and things don’t happen quite the way you may have hoped they would, try to be mindful of Job’s story. Then decide how you choose your own ending.”

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At the conclusion of the lesson, I agreed with Edie. Mostly because she was the cutest and smartest girl in the class, and because I loved the way she stood up to Miss Wilson. Secondly, the story was personally discouraging. From what I had learned about God that day, He wasn’t loving or caring at all — for anyone.

I thought of the story of Job as one of Batman shaking hands with the Joker and plotting against all of the good people in Gotham City. From what I perceived, the same thing could happen to me as had happened to Job. Where did the betting stop and the caring begin? 

It took months for me to get over my distaste for God. But I was only ten, and stories from the New Testament presented God in a much kinder light. This enabled me to continue to pray to the new and improved God rather than to the one in the Old Testament, especially for assistance in me becoming just like Batman. If I could make Upper Darby safe and everything meet and right, the way I hoped and planned to do, then perhaps I could own a cool bat cave, drive an ominous black car with wings and be waited on by a butler like Alfred in the comic I most loved.

Like many kids my age, I was oblivious to concepts beyond those I’d been taught. For the most part, I  believed in what was told to me by my parents as well as by the teachers I met at school and in church.

It was only in my later teens that I began to question all that I’d been taught throughout my younger years, so by the age of nineteen I turned against all religions, including my own. By observation, I discovered that most believers I knew were hypocrites and often formed beliefs of foolish notions. Through the process I wondered why I’d remained ignorant for so long of the obvious realities of the world that seemed to conflict with all religious thought. How could evil still exist in the modern world? Why did people believe that prayer could magically end their suffering, help them achieve an “A” on an essay test, or turn the tables in a football game when thousands of others were praying for a win by the opposing team? 

Some  books I read helped me find answers outside the realm of religion, while other stories promoted their authors’ confirmed beliefs in the Almighty and the miracles of life.

Over time, I grew to accept the randomness of nature, and forged ahead, trying to become the person I chose to be while still not knowing who that someone was. If I had any true beliefs and, if so, what they might be.

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It’s only been in my older years that I’ve found relevance in the stories learned as a child, and though I subscribe to no specific religion, I’ve learned to accept the reasons for belief by humans. When bombs are falling left and right and bodies are being blown apart, a man who’s running parallel to others struck down while he’s singled out and left uninjured begins to believe in such mystical intervention. That person might remember until his dying day the instance when he began to pray. To whom, and for what?

He may never know the answer, but everything that came after he found himself safe, physically unharmed and given a second chance at a life that might never have happened if, on that momentous day, he had run just a bit slower or faster, dodged left instead of right, and was led by fate’s hand past all of those others who perished that day, that week, that second, that moment when he was chosen for survival.

Miracles are not often repeated, and the man who remained untouched that day could easily have perished the next. Belief isn’t necessarily an absolute, but rather nuanced by each individual’s perspective, and the stories our life has to offer about our existence, the vulnerabilities we face each day and the value of our time spent here on Earth.

Continue to Chapter Two