Things Fall Apart: Big Enough
We Do Not Justify God, God Justifies Us
Job 23:1-9, 16-17
Rev. Tim Callow
Preached Sun. October 10th, 2021
Our discipleship can be greatly hampered by images of God that are just plain wrong. J.B. Phillips, bible translator and Church of England clergyman wrote a short book in 1953 that is still just as relevant today called Your God is Too Small where he interrogates these false conceptions of God and reveals them for what they are, too small to matter. Not worth the faith we put in them. One example of these small gods is God the Resident Policeman who patrols the world and makes sure all the baddies get their due. God the Parental Hangover, the daddy we never had. Or maybe God is too painted by the daddy we did have and did not like. There’s God the meek and mild who would never judge us. God the Cosmic Bosom who is only there to comfort us in troubling times but not draw us to holiness. And so on and so on I think you get the picture.
All of these images of God are true in their way. God is meek and mild, we know that because Jesus was meek. But that meekness does not preclude judgment. God is our Father, but that doesn’t mean God is like human Fathers. God is sovereign, but God doesn’t police each and every instance. There is free will after all. What makes them too small is they take an aspect of God’s character, and make that all of God’s character. But the biblical picture of God is far more than just being a daddy or being a police officer. And we do ourselves great harm when we don’t pay attention to all that God is.
The Book of Job opens us up to God’s great mystery, even in the face of evil. The God of Job is by no means small, he is far beyond our conception or reckoning. Most of the book concerns debates over God’s character, how God works in the world, and whether God can be at fault in the case of Job the good man who has had evil done to him.
When we left off last week Job has lost his family, household, and farm. He has been covered in sores and ulcers. He now resides on a dung hill in the ashes. His wife told him to give up on his integrity and curse God and die. He has refused, and he did not sin. Since then he was visited by three friends: Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar. When they arrived they could hardly recognize him and sat down and wept with him. They sat on the ground for a whole week and wouldn’t say a word because of how great his suffering was. They were great friends until they opened their mouths.
Finally, Job’s patience seems to wane when he opens his mouth and curses the day of his birth. He demands to know why he has lived to suffer so much, why he could not have died at birth that he might rest with the kings in the grave. He accuses God of hedging him in, and hiding from him the way that leads to life. This outburst greatly disturbs Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar. The majority of the book recounts their debate with Job. Job insists that he is innocent, that he has done no wrong, and that God has acted unjustly. He wishes his concerns could be brought to trial, that God would not simply overawe him with terror, and that he would be vindicated.
His friends, on the other hand, seek to justify God. Job could not possibly be innocent, because this great evil has befallen him. He must, in some way, deserve it. He must have committed some grave sin. Perhaps he has ignored the pleas of the poor, or plundered ill gotten gains. Instead of consoling Job they begin to attack him. In their zeal for defending the Lord, they forget their responsibility as friends to console the aggrieved. They add to Job’s sufferings.
Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar have a God that is too small. Their God is the Cosmic Accountant who makes sure to rightly balance our debts, or our sins, with our credits, or our merits. Since it is so, Job must deserve what he suffers, and God is vindicated. But as we will see, it is not the friends who are vindicated, and God judges that in labeling him a cosmic accountant they have spoke wrongly of him. Unlike his servant Job, who has spoken rightly this whole time.
This temptation to try and justify God by making him small is a temptation that remains with us today. When we confront injustices or great suffering it can make us insecure in our faith, and when we are insecure in our faith we seek to justify God. We try to make sense of the suffering, and how it fits God’s plan. In the case of Job’s three friends that meant blaming the victim. Today it might mean trying to diminish God, making it out like he can’t help combatting evil. Or it might mean saying that God is helpless to combat evil because evil is the necessary opposite of good. Which puts God in a peculiarly tight spot and makes us wonder what heaven must be like. Or it might mean claiming that evil will eventually come out in the wash, that it will all make sense by and by. In these ways we limit God, we try to make sense of God’s actions in our own limited systems of logic. But the consequence is making God too small, and hurting others or ourselves.
Truth be told, God doesn’t need us to justify his actions. We need God to justify us. The desire to make sense of God, to explain God, to justify God, misses who God is. God is big enough to take criticism. God is big enough to hear our laments. God is big enough to even take the blame. Because God is big enough to overcome all evil.
Here is the great evil of making God small, of seeking to justify God: Grace is not rational. Grace cannot be justified. It is grace that justifies. And the God who is the cosmic accountant has no room for grace. The God who makes evil come out in the wash does not act in grace. Grace exceeds all calculation. Grace cannot be rationalized, has no utility, and most importantly is not fair. But God is big enough to be graceful. So we should be faithful enough to trust in his grace, and not make him out to be small.