Daily Lesson for September 17, 2018

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Job chapter 38 verses 18 through 24:

Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind: 

18 Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth?

   Declare, if you know all this. 

19 ‘Where is the way to the dwelling of light,

   and where is the place of darkness, 

20 that you may take it to its territory

   and that you may discern the paths to its home? 

21 Surely you know, for you were born then,

   and the number of your days is great! 

22 ‘Have you entered the storehouses of the snow,

   or have you seen the storehouses of the hail, 

23 which I have reserved for the time of trouble,

   for the day of battle and war? 

24 What is the way to the place where the light is distributed,

   or where the east wind is scattered upon the earth?

A major natural disaster is taking place now with Hurricane Florence, and in reading Job this morning I can’t help but think of what one major televangelist said after the horrible natural earthquake that struck Haiti a few years back. He said the earthquake — which killed and maimed thousands — was a result of the Haitians having made “a pact with the Devil” two hundred plus years before. 

There is a Latin term for that kind of theology — Bovinus Excrementus.

God speaks from the whirlwind at the end of the book of Job, launching a series of vexing questions into the air. Where is the storehouse for the snows?  Where does darkness hide?  What is the source of all light?

We know scientifically so much more than Job’s day about why it is that natural disasters might strike. We understand now that the extent of an earthquake’s devastation may have much to do with poverty and shoddy building techniques, while a hurricane’s devastation can depend significantly on a warming planet. All these things we used to call “acts of God” are often in fact the result of human contribution. 

And yet, there are still so many questions which remain, so many variables, such colossal and also tiny causal affects. Theorists speculate a tiny flap of a butterfly’s wings may be just the difference in a strong storm and a record hurricane. It’s all so complex; it’s just easier to blame the Haitians. 

Job is a warning against blaming anyone. It’s a warning against the hubris of thought — prescientific, scientific, or absolutely non-scientific. It’s a chastening against too many delusions of control. Certainly it is a rebuke of our quick scapegoating. 

Yesterday I got word that a friend from elementary passed away. He was 41, with two small kids. A friend texted me, “Why do bad things happen to good people?”  I could have responded with a theological answer, “Nobody is good; only God is good.”  Or I could have offered a scientific answer, our friend was exposed to an excessive amount of So-and-So chemical which triggered his So-and-So gene which . . .”

But in the end, all I could do was remain silent, swallow hard, nod and know it could have been me. And the voice from the whirlwind reminds me that it’s a mystery better left to God as to why it wasn’t.