Daily Lesson for September 10, 2018

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Job chapter 32 verses 1 through 6a and 19 through 21:

So these three men ceased to answer Job, because he was righteous in his own eyes. 2Then Elihu son of Barachel the Buzite, of the family of Ram, became angry. He was angry at Job because he justified himself rather than God;3he was angry also at Job’s three friends because they had found no answer, though they had declared Job to be in the wrong. 4Now Elihu had waited to speak to Job, because they were older than he. 5But when Elihu saw that there was no answer in the mouths of these three men, he became angry.

6 Elihu son of Barachel the Buzite answered:

19 My heart is indeed like wine that has no vent;

   like new wineskins, it is ready to burst. 

20 I must speak, so that I may find relief;

   I must open my lips and answer. 

21 I will not show partiality to any person

   or use flattery towards anyone.”

Elihu reminds me of myself at a younger age. Clearly he is bright and articulate and also brave. He is also zealous to a fault. 

Elihu thinks his job is to give a defense of God. In the face of question and doubt and even open aspersion, Elihu decides he must speak up for God. And he does it in anger.

I don’t know that there’s one thing that Elihu says that I disagree with. Not one thing. 

But there is something about the way he says what he says that deeply troubles me. It’s the weight of his phrases, the condemnation in what is implied. The young man doth protest too much. Maybe he’s not so sure, after all?  Maybe this man who steps in to vindicate God from sin, hasn’t come to terms with his own sin.  Maybe, as Jesus said, “He who is forgiven little loves little.”

There is an old prayer: “God, save me from your followers.”

May God save us when as followers our theology outpaces our humanity, our love of law and doctrine exceeds our love for each other, and our zealous defenses of the faith bring far more heat than they do light.