What is it we can take away?
Confidence in the LORD is not shaken amidst great loss
Third UEM Asia Regional Assembly in Parapat (Medan),
North Sumatra/ Indonesia (01.-07.05.2006)
Bible study on Job 1:13-22, Wednesday 03.05.2006, 08-09 a.m.
Preliminary remark
I am thankful for the opportunity to share with you this morning this devotion and bible study. My name is Wolfgang Marquardt. I am a Protestant Pastor from the Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Württemberg/ Stuttgart, South-West Germany.
In September 2004 my family and I were sent by UEM to Jayapura/ West Papua in Indonesia to serve in the GKI Tanah Papua as Ecumenical Coworkers.
My wife Maureen Marquardt is a Protestant Pastor from Ambon/Maluku in Indonesia. We have two little boys, Tim (7) and Joshua (3).
Let us pray:
I. Introduction
„Job, Job, do you still know how it was then, when the Lord took away everything we had, even our children and you where so sick, close to death?“ Job’s wife was sitting in front of their house on a bench, 140 year old Job smoking his pipe and drinking his wine. “Oh yes, of course I know, honey”, Job smiled, old and full of years, “and I still love you!”
This comes from my own fantasy appendix to the book of Job, Chapter “43” -
This actually doesn’t exist. But I still wonder:
How did life go on for Job? Could he forget – would he be able to forget, would he even want to forget? How would he keep his memories? How did he change his life? Was there any reason at all to change the life of a man who was so just and humble?
In other words: Was there any “Trauma Healing”?
And, last but not least, what about his wife?
Could she confess the same as Job did and join him in his first confession in Job 1:21 after the terrible things that had happened:
“Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised”?
In Germany you can find the abover verse often quoted on gravestones and especially on the graves of small children who died before their time had come, before they really had started to live. W.Reiser (p.19) states, he always felt kind of a slight horror when reading this verse on the grave of a child.
We don’t know much about Job’s wife. I assume a mother had greater difficulties confessing this verse upon the death of her 10 children than a perfect man like Job. Later on she even encourages her husband to curse the LORD and die. Was she really “doing a good job” as a wife for Job? Does she only have to repeat Eve’s role from the garden of Eden and seduce her Adam? I would liked to have known more about her.
Nevertheless, at that time, the confession or even opinion of Job’s wife wasn’t important. Interestingly enough, at the end of the book, at the very “happy end” in Chapter 42, Job gives an inheritance, not only to his seven new sons, but also to his three new daughters. This is something new and surprising for this era and it is remarkable and unique in the Old Testament. Would he have done this and given the same to his first three daughters before he had gone through all of his trials? Would he have given his three beautiful daughters these wonderful names like Yemimah (turtledove/ Taeubchen), Qeziah (cinnamon/ Zimtbluete) and Keren-Happuch (powdered antimony for the eyelashes/ Schminktoepfchen)? These names represent natural feminine physical and spiritual charms enhanced by perfumer’s and beauticians`s arts. These are not names usually given by families of protestant pastors to their daughters.
In this very last chapter of the book of Job he even prays for his friends and saves them from the LORD`s anger. In the beginning he would only pray for his own children when they were having a big party and - full of wine - talking nonsense.
Many things have changed after this big wave of loss, disease and God-talk.
I like to imagine the old couple, Job and his wife sitting outside the house – relaxed, smiling, with tender love for each other. Once they had lost everything, once they were close to death, once they were close to cursing the LORD. Getting back their goods, twice as much more than before; having 10 more children again, becoming 140 years old -
Can all this really “heal”?
There might be silent tears now and then, especially for their lost children. “Bereaved parents - Verwaiste Eltern” never loose their tears.
Loosing a child remains as an open wound until the end of life.
But I imagine, now, old and full of years, within their joy, grief and wisdom, they can really praise the LORD, not only as a duty or common understanding, but out
of the fullness of their hearts. What else a can a “Happy Ending” mean if not praising the LORD for ever more?
Let us finish this introduction with just one minute of complete silence.
Imagine for 60 seconds: What would I take with me if I had only one minute to make my decision and I could only take what I am able to carry on my own?
Just one minute and only what you can carry yourself!
Exercise 1 minute:
What would I take with me, if I had enough time to escape and to take with me what I can carry on my own hands?
Don’t ask the results! Probably the answer is mostly: children, wives and husbands.
Let me share a true story with you. Once upon a time, there was a small town in Southeast Germany.
It was back in mediaeval times in Anno Domini 1140. The Emperor got mad at this little town, because he wanted to conquer it, but its resistance was much stronger than he expected. His attempts took weeks and months resulting in the postponement of all his further plans. Many of his best men died or were wounded. Finally the brave men behind the walls where close to starvation. Their water was gone. They decided to give up.
They had done the best they could. Now they were ready to die or be sold as slaves. However, before opening the doors, their wives asked the Emperor a favor:
This is men’s stuff; we and our children don’t have anything to do with this.
Let us leave the town by sunrise and take with us only what we can bear ourselves and carry out. The Emperor was still angry, but as a man of honor he agreed. The following morning at the first light, the Emperor’s army found a picturesque scene in front of the walls: All the women leaving the town with their heavy burden and heading away from the enemy. Some of the soldiers outside protested and said:
“This was not the intention of this favor!”
But the Emperor let them go and smiled, just saying: “They have my word, because I have given it to them!” Can you guess what they had on their backs?
Right, no jewels, no money, no furniture, even the children walked alone –
Each and every woman took her own husband onto her back and walked out of town!
These “Women of Weinsberg” are famous to this day and you still can find a monument for them in this little town. We know little about their faith and how their confidence was shaken amidst great loss – but they were still able to use their fantasy and to act for their loved ones.
II. Job 1:13-22
Let us now take a closer look at the bible verses in Job 1:13-22
Usually we know the beginning (prologue) and the end (epilogue) of Job’s story very well:
The good man Job like in a fairy tale, Satan’s bet with God, the catastrophe and finally the Happy Ending. All this is written in prose (or narrative verse) in Chapter 1:1 - 2:13 and Chapter 42:7-17, while the long dialogs between Job and his three (later four) friends and the LORD’s answer are written in poetic verse and rather unknown to our parishes.
“Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised.” Job 1:21
Here Job is using a common saying. This kind of formula of resignation we even find in 1.Sam 3:18 when Eli says to Samuel: “He is the LORD; let him do what is good in his eyes.” This utterance is of a piece with other pessimistic observations on human fate in the bible, as found in Gen 3:19; Eccles 5:14; 12:7; 1.Tim 6:7. Until now among the Bedouins of Arabia after a death the next of kin recites the formula “His Lord gave him, his Lord has taken him away” (Rabbu jabu, rabbu ahadu). The body of man is formed in the entrails of the earth (Psalm 139:13.15) and the dead thus return to the womb of Mother Earth. Classical literature contains many similar allusions to Mother Earth who bears all and finally receives all back to herself.
Actually Job is not only naked, but more than naked, because he has the remembered experience of wealth and blessing. He has always with him a memory of much better days. His mere life is saved and Job mourns according to the customs of his day (see Gen 37:34). But this experience is somehow “subcutaneous”.
Like the disciple in Marc 14:51 who runs away from the soldiers in the Garden of Gethsemane leaving all his clothes in the hands of those who want to grab him, Job has nothing but his mere and naked life.
Over night Job has lost everything.
It is like the Tsunami in 2004. In less than one hour everything is gone, dead and destroyed. Who can find words for this? Isn’t the well known formula the only thing to be uttered? Is it a confession? May we encourage other people to say the same in such a situation? Or is it better to keep silent and to let the words grow out of mourning? Perhaps just gestures, not even words?
The next step is to see what happens if even his naked skin gets sick.
The “Satan” here is more of a title than a concrete figure and is reminiscent of the Persian Emperor’s spies. They were called the “eyes and the ears” of the Emperor and striving all over the empire to tell the Emperor everything which is going on.
The book of Job is written after Israel’s exile in Babylon and it reflects the time of prison hood and poverty. The land, name and tribe of Job are not quite clear. In fact he is not even an Israelite, but it is clear that he worships YHWH, the one and only God of Israel and Jacob, the LORD of the Old and New Testament. He was a good and just man (tob). He becomes the prototype of the man suffering without knowing the reasons, as is often expressed in the Psalms. Although he is a good and just man, he has to suffer. So far, there is no amazing grace.
His friends tell him three times, that there is no man pure before God (Job 4:17; 15:14ff; 25:4ff) and Job agrees in Job 9:1 “How can a mortal be righteous before God?” But nevertheless he can’t find any reason for his suffering.
Blessed be Yahweh’s name – this benediction recurs for example in Ps 113:2 with the addition of “now” and “forever”. Like the Psalmists, Job blesses the name of YHWH recognizing his right to give or to take blessings at his discretion. Job’s faith remains unshaken and his integrity unsullied. He doesn’t curse the LORD. It looks like God has won the first round. So far, Job wasn’t yet knocked out but has only lost all he had and his children and the trust of his wife. But he didn’t use any blasphemy.
Exercise 1 minute:
Is there anybody among your friends who lost his faith and gave up the Christian belief after an experience like Job’s? Do you know about their life after the catastrophe? Did any of them quite literally curse the name of the LORD?
When Dietrich Bonhoeffer first met Karl Barth in 1930 in a seminary at the Protestant Theological Faculty of Bonn in Germany, he quoted Martin Luther, saying:
Sometimes the blasphemies in the mouths of godless people sound much more comfortable in the ears of the LORD than the hypocritical praises of the people who only are thinking they fear God. Karl Barth was delighted to hear that.
I don’t think humankind is really able to curse the LORD and actually I do not believe there is any real possibility for blasphemy. Any society which tries to punish blasphemy is just protecting its own idols, but not the living God! It is just keeping up its own picture of God instead of listening to his voice. It is not aware of the critical voice of the prophets to any kind of homemade (or country made) religion.
III. Equipping our UEM congregations as healing communities in a suffering world:
Theological Questions to our mission practice in the post Tsunami era
1. Living a good and a just life
It is impressive to hear that there was once a good and just man. So far, I am not sure if I could say that about many lives or even about my own life: A good and just man! But Job was! There is no doubt about that. When his friends keep on looking for his hidden sin, they can not find any. I find this really impressive.
But a good and just life is not a guarantee for a visibly successful life. In the Psalms we can find this complaint many times: Why are those who don’t fear the LORD so wealthy while I am not? I think a good and just life has its goal within itself and doesn’t need to be rewarded. What does it mean to be naked? Is it worth it to be true and honest? Isn’t he who obeys such laws stupid? Why are those who don’t fear wealthy, see the Psalms?
If there is trust, love and confidence, a man is never naked. And rich people can find themselves very naked in the midst of overwhelming visible abundance without trust, love and confidence.
His trust in God gives Job a strenght in his life which holds him even when everything is lost. Even when nobody holds him, he still feels held. Even when everythin is lost, he is not yet lost. And even when his wife wishes him dead, he still wants to live and to argue with God. There is life in all that death. It is life that can not be destroyed.
There is hope for Job. There is hope for everyone who is lost, there is hope for our congregations in the midst of all kinds of Tsunamis – be it quite literally a real wave or the waves of oppression and corruption.
2. Trauma counseling
In Job’s time there wasn’t yet a public service for catastrophes like fire emergency, police or even “Notfallseelsorge” in Germany, a public emergency service of pastors and lay people which was organized all over the country after the big train accident in Eschede in 1998 to accompany the victims, but also their families and friends.
At least, Job has three friends to come, to listen and to talk to him.
Who among us really has three friends who will come in such a situation?
Who among us is a friend like this to somebody in Job’s situation?
Seven minutes of silence is already very long – but seven days or seventy years is much longer. Finally the first friend starts to talk to him in a really sensitive way:
“If someone ventures a word with you, will you be impatient?” Job 4:2
Some victims of the Second World War didn’t talk about their suffering for 70 years or more. The so called “Post War Traumata” (H.Radebold) has been explored only in recent years. For example, an 80 year old German woman began to cry when she heard an airplane. Her whole life, she had been healthy and worked hard. She could not find any explanation. Finally, she was able to tell to someone how, in the last days of the war, she had lost her whole family in the burning houses of her bombed hometown. Upon discovering this, Radebold could help this woman to handle her feelings when hearing an air plane.
Radebold, even though himself a psychologist, could find no reasons for his own depression which began at the age of 60. Finally it occurred to him that it had its origins in his traumatic war experiences.
A very usual reaction among people who see somebody survive a catastrophe is:
You are a lucky guy, you are still alive.
These people can’t understand, why the survivors don’t feel happy at all, but rather guilty and confused: Why did he/she die and not I? Did I deserve that?
But he/she deserved so much more to survive!
Often those people have difficulty sleeping, concentrating or even eating. Out of the South African context in the 90ties the couple Karl and Evelyn Bartsch have written a Manual for Trauma counseling for all people. It is very clear and easy to understand and attempts to enable the laity to help each other after a traumatic incident like the Tsunami or even the Social Tsunami people experience in Africa or Papua. We are happy to hear that this Manual now also since February 2005 exists in Indonesian.
3. Political awareness and prophetic voice – Social Tsunami in West Papua
Job’s experience is not only a personal, individualistic story, but also has political dimensions (R.Girard, G.Gutierrez). Where is the place for the victims in our society? Do we hide them? Are they hiding themselves and feeling ashamed for their story? Is there any dignity for the victims or are we as a church hiding them as well, with the thought that: Somehow it must be their own fault as well otherwise the LORD wouldn’t punish them like this.
What happens to our common memory and to our history after such a catastrophe like the Second World War (N.Frei)?
Can we together as congregations build up something like Notfallseelsorge, Fruehwarnsysteme, Shalom Diaconate, Peace Services or places and spaces for the victims? In one way, the net of relations within the UEM community helped after the Tsunami to very quickly obtain information and infrastructure for various relief efforts. But finally it turned out that most churches liked much better to work on their own.
Some people call the situation in West Papua a “Social Tsunami”. Just over night people disappear or get beaten up for no evident reason. Over night they lose everything. That is a bitter reality for many people in West Papua.
On the 16th of March this year, 5 policemen died in riots against Freeport Mine in Abepura in front of our Theological Seminary. Many students were wounded, taken by police and tortured. One of my students got taken at 5 o’clock in the morning, kept in prison for more than a week and was seriously beaten and injured. He didn’t run away like the others, because he didn’t feel guilty at all. The police burned down student dormitories after the demonstration when sweeping and searching for documents. Many belongings and study certificates were lost.
One pastor told me, his car was damaged and stolen twice. “Oh,” said I, “you have to tell the police!” – “But it is the police, who took it”, he replied, “They don’t want me to join any meetings on human rights.” The same happened to another colleague getting his hand phone stolen twice by security forces while chequing in at the airport. Many other and even worse stories like this could be told.
This is kind of a “Social Tsunami” and many indigenous people feel as if they are drowning in a big wave, which is not made by Mother Nature, but by so called responsible people who don’t take their responsibility as politicians seriously.
Are we prepared to live, serve and suffer in our society? Or are we still living in a church island with the imagination that we are already in heaven and don’t need to change this bad world? Some governments prefer this option and don’t like to see the church raising its voice for the victims. Religion is not a private thing, although it is still dearly held as such by some people especially in high positions (but if it is useful for their goals, the church surprisingly my not remain private).
This includes being aware of ideological shortcomings among NGOs and Church Groups. We know that some policemen in West Papua are beating up people and many people are suffering. But: Are we ready to meet a friendly policeman? Are we ready to meet aggressive Papuans? Are the friends of Papua ready to listen to what is really happening or only justifying themselves in the same patterns of argumentation again and again?
Rosa Luxembourg once said: “The biggest revolution is still to say what and how it is!”
The friends of Job are not able to face his reality. They only can repeat their patterns again and again. There is no paradigm shift in their way of thinking.
If something does not happen in accordance with there world view, it cannot happen!
Shaken confidence amidst great loss is not only a question of loosing loved ones, goods and work, but also of loosing your worldview and the context of your life.
How can we go on living in our relations to other people?
In praying and doing the good and the just (D.Bonhoeffer) we will find peace without looking for or even needing rewards.
Exercise 1 minute:
What is your purpose and imagination of a good and just life? The meaning of life? Life in fullness?
Write a sentence, find a gesture or draw a picture!
Please allow me to finish with another very old poem of my home on the question, what can you really take away and who is rich and who is poor.
Back in the 15th century the dukes, barons and counts of the German Empire met in Worms. After dinner they started to praise the richness and beauty of their countries: “Preisend mit viel schoenen Reden ihrer Laender Wert und Zahl sassen viele deutsche Fuersten einst zu Worms im Kaisersaal“ by Justinus Kerner
One had gold and silver, the other one big towns, another one monasteries, grain-growing countries and wine. Only the count of Württemberg, Graf Eberhard im Barte, was very modest and at the very end of all this praising he mentioned, that he did not possess all this.
But he declared, that if he goes hunting with his horsemen in the deep forests of Württemberg and he gets tired and hungry, he safely could enter any house and without hesitating sleep on the knees of any brave man in the deep forests. All the other dukes and counts became silent and then they unanimously agreed:
“Graf Eberhard im Barte, you are for sure the richest count of all of us!”
To me this is the greatest richness we can achieve and it is the answer for Job as well as for our mission situation today:
Mischpat w Zedakah, justice and righteousness, Recht und Gerechtigkeit, as it is described in the Old and the New Testament (this “treasure we have in heaven” Matthew 6:19) is the basis for all of our mission work, and for the coming kingdom of our LORD Jesus Christ.
Bibliography:
Bartsch, Karl dan Evelyn, Sang terluka yang menyembuhkan (Stress&Trauma Healing).
Panduan Bagi Pendamping, Pustaka Muria bekerjasam dengan Forum Kemanusiaan
dan Persaudaraan Indonesia (FKPI) dan Mennonite Central Comittee (MCC)
Indonesia, Semarang 2005
(English: Stress&Trauma Healing. A Manual for Caregivers, Durban and KwaZulu-
Natal/ South Africa 1997)
(Zulu 1998, French 2001, Spanish 2004, Indonesian 2005)
Berita Oikoumene, PGI Jakarta, 15 Maret - 15April 2006, Bagaimana Gereja Menyikapi Bencana?
Frei, Norbert, 1945 und wir. Das Dritte Reich im Bewusstsein der Deutschen., Muenchen 2005
Girard, Rene, Ayub, Korban Masyarakatnya, Jakarta BPK 2003
(English: Job the victim of his people, London 1987),
(French: La route antique des hommes pervers, 1985)
Gutierrez, Gustavo, On Job. God-Talk and the Suffering Of The Innocent. New York 1987,
Spanish 1985
Maag, Viktor, Hiob. Wandlung und Verarbeitung des Problems in Novelle, Dialogdichtung und
Spaetfassungen, Goettingen 1982
Radebold, Hartmut, Die dunklen Schatten unserer Vergangenheit.
Aeltere Menschen in Beratung, Psychotherapie, Seelsorge und Pflege, Stuttgart 2005
Reddemann, L., Imagination als heilende Kraft. Zur Behandlung von Traumafolgen mit
ressourcenorientierten Verfahren, Stuttgart 2001
Reddemann, L., Psychodynamisch Imaginative Traumatherapie, Stuttgart 2004
Reiser, Werner, Hiob. Ein Rebell bekommt recht, Stuttgart 1991
www.oaseonline.org Sources of the Seminar “Theology in the context of catastrophes”
11.-15.06.2005 Makassar/ Indonesia
Yewangoe, Andreas, Theologia crusis di Asia, Jakarta 1996 (English 1987: Theologia Crusis in Asia:
Asian Christian views on suffering in the face of overwhelming poverty multifaced
religiosity in Asia)