Clergy and Educators

ICJS Scripture Forum, 2004-2005
Session #6

Scripture Forum
Session #6
Goucher College
March 11, 2005

Brief introduction:
   This session of the Scripture Forum and the next one will be tied into the upcoming ICJS conference called "Dying Well: Medicine and Mortality through Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Eyes." The conference will be held on April 12, 2005. The conference is intended to assist health-care and religious professionals in participating in the experience of dying well with their patients and parishioners, respectively.
   This Scripture Forum session consisted of two exer-cises: a personal reflection question and text study. Participants were asked to begin the session by spend-ing some time thinking about the question, "What are the elements of dying well for you personally?"

Discussion of the reflection question:

• One participant kicked off the discussion by saying that his father had provided a good model for him. His father had died in his sleep without suffering from any discernible illness beforehand. He was in good relations with his family and friends, and as far as anyone knew, he had no unfinished busi-ness. It's important to be clean, free from pain, and having access to loved ones; but the notion of having no unfinished business is very important.
• It does seem like a good idea to die in your sleep, and thus not be aware that you are dying. But on some level I would like to be conscious in order to experience and engage the reality that is death.
• That [experiencing the reality of death] is some-thing you become more aware of as you get older.
• I would wish for a sense of appropriateness or timeliness, in the sense of dying at an appropriate age. I would also wish to die in a relational way, that is, with family and community participating intentionally, saying intentional good-byes. I also want to die with a "yet-to-be-done" list.
• It's sad when a funeral is not well attended by family, friends, and community.
• I'm hoping not to have too many regrets, so I'm trying to minimize regrets in my life. I want my relationships to be in good order, so I would want to have time to address them.
• The same participant then commented that some people die well, with grace and dignity; but others are angry, they cannot come to terms with their dying, and they cannot do what needs to be done. Their experience, psychologically speaking, is not meaningful, not a good dying.
• People get angry about dying because they are unable to control it.
• The amount of preparation and control you exer-cise in how you live your life is not a predictor of how you let go of it.
• Having control is a factor, but there is no way to know what will happen.
• I would like to be clean, pain-free, physically com-fortable, and have a list of things not yet done. I would hope that my not-accomplished list is not filled with regrets. I would like to die the way that John's Jesus died (saying, "It is finished") rather than the way Mark's Jesus died (saying "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?").
     The question is, "What do you do with the time you have?" Now is the time to be the kind of per-son you should be. So I want to be sure to say "thank you" to people who have been generous to me, to those who have loved me, and to those who have forgiven me. I mustn't wait to do this. I don't want any unfinished business in relationships. I want to die the way I live.
• I'm ambivalent about this. I sense judgment in the question, as if to say that I should die well. I feel anxious about attaching value to something that has so many variables. I think of death as similar to child-birth: It is an overwhelming physical pro-cess, and best-laid plans can go right out the window. I hope to bring grace to my dying.
• Question in response to the previous comment: But don't you assess how people have died by judging whether they've done it well?
• I don't want to do that. It seems arrogant or inappropriate.
• "Dying well" is not meant to be a template against which to measure the deaths of other people. This question is about the self.
• I feel the same sense of ambivalence or anxiety.
  It seems to have to do with what I hope for: If those pieces are not in place, will I want my dying to be other than what it is? It is problematic to attached "well" to it.
• Some people cope with it better. That's what I want.
• I do, too, but if things don't come into play the way you expect, then you set yourself up for regrets.
• If I live well, the means are the ends, and the conditions I set don't have to be met. Fear is important in the process: A lot of people die afraid, but some don't. My grandmother died
  with anticipation.
• For those who are left behind, mourning takes into account the hope you have.
• The same participant asked how Jews feel about the notion of resurrection.
• In the liberal Jewish community, the issue is
  moot (another participant suggested the issue
  is "mute"). People may believe in the continued existence of the soul. Judaism has the notion of physical resurrection at the time of the coming
  of the Messiah, but no one has that in mind.
• Returning to the previous conversation, one participant said that she does not feel anxious about placing a judgment or a value on her own dying. She continued: Pondering the question does make me uncomfortable. I want my death to be a gift for those who love me -- I want them to love missing me -- and not have it be something that they'll regret. I want people to have a smile on their face when they think of me.
• I don't know what my own death, or the deaths of those I love, will be, but I don't want people to have to make good on expectations. I want to embrace whatever people give me in their death.
• Scientists are not in agreement about what control we have over dying.
• There are assumptions about what constitutes
  a natural death. Older people who want to be in control often commit suicide.
• There seem to be two conversations going on here: one about how one faces death, and another about how others perceive one's death.
• Dying is such a great mystery. I learn about it
  only from walking with other people who are go-
  ing through the process.
• Life experiences are also a huge mystery. It's interesting that we get this bifurcation in the conversation; it's hard to stay with the original question. Does that mean that we shouldn't pay any attention to it at all? The value in the ques-tion is the effect that one's death has on how
  one lives. I don't want to live unintentionally.
• But do we lay expectations on people who are dying? The truth in the death of Mark's Jesus is the truth that I know.
• I live a faith that doesn't often require me to validate it, which is not the case for people in certain other countries. Not being forced to validate my faith may mean that I don't know as much about it as those people know about their faith because they are forced to validate it. Death confronts us with our faith.

Introduction to text study: Job 42:1-6.
   The reality of my dying raises many questions for me. One of them is, "Are there questions that are worth exploring and questions that aren't?" That leads me to think of Job. The central question of the book of Job is, "Why do the innocent suffer?" This is the question that the community that produced Job is asking itself. Up until that time there was an operative sense of retribu-tive justice: The good are rewarded and the bad are punished. The community is asking itself how to make sense of things when the good suffer. The book of Job is the nadir of retributive justice, a rethinking of suffering.
   The suffering Job endures is beyond measure, and he wants to know why it is happening. He feels he is inno-cent of this kind of suffering. If Job can understand why he is suffering, he can attach meaning to it, he can give himself over to the experience, and then he can endure it.
   His "friends," who mouth the traditional theology of the community, try to help him make sense of his suf-fering. They all share the same understanding about God: God is just, God acts in accordance with justice. All misfortune comes from God and is deserved, because God is not unjust. But Job will not let go of his question because what is happening does not make sense to him.
   In chapter 38 God finally begins to speak (and goes on speaking for three chapters). The fact that God speaks says that Job's question is a question worthy of a re-sponse. (We should not silence the questions, because God honors them.) But there is no answer from God to Job's question. God speaks out of a whirlwind, so the speaking is not dispassionate. But, at the end, it is still not clear why Job is suffering. Instead, God responds by pointing out to Job that Job was not around when God was in the process of creation.

Job 42:1-6:
Then Job answered the LORD;
"I know that you can do all things,
   and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.
‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’
   Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand,
   things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.
‘Hear, and I will speak;
   I will question you, and you declare to me.’
I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear,
   but now my eye sees you;
therefore I despise myself,
   and repent in dust and ashes."

[Translation: New Revised Standard Version]


Job said in reply to the Lord:
I know that You can do everything,
That nothing You propose is impossible for You.
Who is this who obscures counsel without knowledge?
Indeed, I spoke without understanding
Of things beyond me, which I did not know.
Hear now, and I will speak;
I will ask, and you will inform me.
I had heard You with my ears,
But now I see You with my eyes;
Therefore, I recant and relent,
Being but dust and ashes.

[Translation: Jewish Publication Society]

Discussion:

• Question to get the discussion started: What is Job saying in verse 5?
• Response: I knew of you from what other people said, but now I have experience of you.
• Seeing is qualitatively different from hearing; see-ing is a deepening of the reality of the glory of God.
• Seeing is a deeper understanding than hearing.
• Question: What is it that Job sees?
• Whatever Job sees, we hear. Our knowledge exists on the level of hearing. Our transformational im-pact is not on the same level as Job's. Are we to give what we hear a weight that moves it to a different level?
• Are we going to stay at the level of "I had heard"?
• Does the encounter move us from a state of knowing through hearing to a state of knowing through seeing?
• Does scripture do that? How does scripture mediate relationship?
• Is this a theophany . . . like the burning bush? (Yes.)
• A theme in Job is the chaotic presence of the natural elements, and a whirlwind is the natural element that is most out of control.
• God is saying, "I'll honor your question, but you will get caught up [in the whirlwind]."
• The whirlwind and the burning bush are equally obscure: You cannot see into either, you can't capture them.
• Is there a connection between the question and the manner of the response?
• God came to Elijah in a whirlwind, too, but God was not in the whirlwind. Maybe Job doesn't get
  to the pure voice of God as Elijah did.
• Although we encounter God in different ways, it doesn't mean that it's a different God. God can be encountered in different ways, but we don't get to choose [how we encounter God].
• What did Job see?
• That God is not accountable to him. There is a change in the nature of the relationship.
• God's doesn't have to answer Job's questions.
• Job realizes that his question is not important; the relationship is important, and Job can't control it.
• Job learns that there is a distinction between him and his question.
• Job learns that God is a real God, and that God
  is there comforting him. God does not have to respond to the question Why.
• God responds to the questioner.
• Job learns he's a worm.
• One participant wanted to challenge the notion that God responds to the questioner but not to the question. That is not comforting, and it's not
  a conclusion. If God does not value my question, then God doesn't value me.
• I always hoped that Job would reject his own question. I don't want a God who is manipulating everything so that that question can be answered.
• What do we learn when God doesn't answer the question?
• There is a relational value that is greater than Why.
• There are a lot of possible answers -- Because. Stuff happens. Or there is no answer. But that doesn't mean that God doesn't honor the question.
• If God honors me, the question matters.
• Relationship transcends the question.
• A lot of people think that prayer is turning to God as if God were Santa Claus. The point of prayer is to understand that there is a Presence out there.
• It's the wrong question. God is teaching Job about the questions he should ask. Some questions have no answer and persisting in asking them consumes the questioner, blinds him or her to the rest of life. And at the end of it, there is still no answer. Such questions are unproductive. Some questions are unanswerable, and one needs spiritual discipline to move away from them.
• The "wrong question" is not a genuine question. I'm not sure that Job is asking a question. If the category of "wrong question" has to do with anticipating an answer that would resolve the question, then it's not a real question.
• I'm facing a mystery, and I want guidance.
• It's also a human expression of protest.
• Any answer honors the protest.
• People who ask "Why?" when they are in the midst of pain don't really want to know why; they just want to say that harm has been done to them, or they want to express a protest.
• The answer God gives -- "I'm God and you're not" -- may be right, but it's not helpful. What was helpful to Job? Maybe he learned that it wasn't really a question. Maybe he just wanted his pro-test acknowledged, and it is because God shows up. Job embodies a way of being faithful that says, "You've made me in Your image and You
  owe me a response." God will not abandon Job
  to his question.
     The book teaches that God responds -- we're not abandoned to our questions, and that the answer to "Why?" isn't the answer we're looking for. Something happens to Job: Now my eye sees you, and then . . . verse 6.

Some English translations of Job 42:6

• New Revised Standard Version (1989): "Therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes."
• Jewish Publication Society (1985): "Therefore I recant and relent, Being but dust and ashes."
• New American Bible (1986): "Therefore I retract, And I repent in dust and ashes."
• Contemporary English Version (1995): "That's why I hate myself and sit here in dust and ashes to show my sorrow."
• New English Bible (1971): "Therefore I melt away; I repent in dust and ashes."
• Jerusalem Bible (1966): "I retract all I have said, and in dust and ashes I repent."
• Revised Standard Version (1952): "Therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes."

Discussion:

• The difficulty in translation is due to problems
  with the verb. It's not clear what the radical
  of the verb is; it could be read as "despise" or "melt." (Another participant thinks "dissolve" is
  a better translation.)
• Moreover, the verb has no direct object, so "despise myself" cannot be correct. A whole spirituality/piety grows out of that "myself."
• What does Job despise? The text gives no clue to what Job experiences, but it is a profound change. He sees differently and repents -- of what we do not know.
• One participant said that he likes the JPS transla-tion best because the trope shows a pause after "relent-repent-regret" (God uses the same verb in the same form in the flood story, and there it means "regret.")
• Is there something self-deprecating about that?
• Job is saying, "I'm stepping back from challenging God. I'm sorry, because I'm human -- dust and ashes."
• Another participant has a different read: "I now see that asking the question, whether it has an answer or not, . . . it's not a life-giving answer." Being consumed by the question "Why?" put blinders on Job so that he couldn't see anything else.
     Job learns that he is not alone, that God is with him, and that's got to be enough. Our relationship with God is not adversarial. Job understands that God is not standing opposite him but next to him. But that's not the kind of God we want. We want a God who will pull us out of a hole, or keep us out of holes, not a God who is in the hole with us.
• One participant then returned to the notion of Job's question not being a genuine question: I question the character of the question because Job wanted God to own up to being the one who shafted him.
• That's not a pastoral answer.
• Neither is "It's the wrong question."
• The productive response is presence.
• There is more than "presence" in those three chapters in Job.
• Pastorally I would want to move people away from unproductive questions, to help redirect what the person is being consumed by.
• There is a time when it is inappropriate to try to redirect the question.
• You need to read the emotions behind the ques-tion -- like fear and anger -- and respond to those feelings.
• Feelings also carry cognitive content, so you have to know what the cognitive content is.

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