delivered 11 October 2009
by Rev. Dr John Evans
Job 23:1-9, 16-17
Mark 10:17-31
On the 19 July 2009 President Barack Obama gave a speech on the occasion of the centenary of the founding of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the great US civil rights organisation. The speech sort of had two parts. Now apologies for the lack of oratory, however, the first part went like this:
“We’ve got to say to our children, ‘Yes, if you’re African American, the odds of growing up amid crime and gangs are higher. Yes, if you live in poor a neighbourhood, you will face challenges that somebody in a wealthy suburb does not have to face. But that’s not a reason to get bad grades. That’s not a reason to cut class. That’s not a reason to give up on your education and drop out of school. No one has written your destiny for you. Your destiny is in your hands, and don’t you forget that. That’s what we have to teach all of our children. No excuses. No excuses.
You get that education. All those hardships will just make you stronger, better able to compete. Yes, we can.
To parents, we can’t tell our kids to do well in school and then fail to support them when they come home.
And by the way, it means we need to be there for our neighbours’ sons and daughters. WE need to go back to the time, back to the day when we parents saw somebody, saw some kid fooling around and – it wasn’t your child, but they will whup you anyway.”
The second part, however, went like this:
“And yet, even as we celebrate the remarkable achievement of the past 100 years … we know that too many barriers still remain.
Make no mistake: the pain of discrimination is still felt in America . . . But we also know that prejudice and discrimination — at least the most blatant types of prejudice and discrimination – are not even the steepest barriers to opportunity today. The most difficult barriers include structural inequalities that our nation’s legacy of discrimination has left behind; inequalities still playing too many communities and too often the object of national neglect . . .
I remember visiting a Chicago school in a rough neighbourhood when I was community organizer, and some of the children gathered around me. And I remember thinking how remarkable it was that all of these children seemed so full of hope, despite being born into poverty, despite being delivered, in some cases into addiction, despite all the obstacles they were already facing – you could see the spark in their eyes. They were the equal of children anywhere.
And I remember the principal of the school telling me that soon that sparkle would begin to dim, that things would begin to change, that soon the laughter would begin to fade . . . because, well nothing about them inherently, but because by accident of birth, they had not received a fair chance in life. They had not received a fair chance in life.”
Lack of personal responsibility on the one hand, and structural inequality on the other; for Obama – both are dehumanizing. This analysis can apply to our indigenous population; to any marginalized group; it can apply to the Carlton Housing Estate. . . it can apply to you.
Now what happened in the US after this speech is interesting. What was the headline message? How did the media report it? How did this speech play?
As Noel Pearson in the current Quarterly Essay on “Education and Equality in Australia” suggests:
“It was inevitable that the headline message from the president’s address would be “No Excuses . . . the other half, dealing with structural barriers and historical legacy, was not exactly ignored, but it was the exhortation of black parents and their children that captured public attention.” (p13)
And Obama was miffed, even annoyed as he reflected on the response to the speech a day later in an Oval Office interview to the Washington Post. A reaction to which Pearson quizzically adds, why was Obama surprised? If someone is in dreadful strife, one is going to quickly see past any “structural inequality” and play on that person’s personal responsibility as the cause. Or put more crudely, it will always be their fault . . . whether the fault is poverty, or unemployment or even sickness. This is just the human thing we do! We blame the victim.
And it is the also the religious, or even theological, perhaps even doctrinal, thing we do. The book of Job is all about how we blame, rationalize and accuse a person in an absolutely parlous state, such as Job found himself. We say, “it is all your fault.” Of course it might be a bit more subtle; we might say, “Your dreadful situation (for Job it is was illness, family death, loss of livelihood and social isolation) is the reasonable action of God, given your behaviour.” As Eliphaz, one of Job’s comforters, and to whom Job is reacting in our reading today, says:
“Is it for your piety that God reproves you, and enters into judgment with you? Is not your wickedness great? There is no end to your iniquities.”(Job 22:4,5)
What can you expect? – you are being punished. Or as a good Calvinist might say, you are predestined, within the power of God, to be in this situation.
Job rebels, reacts. He sees that we have to be able to understand that having a happy, fulfilled life of well-being, or its reverse, may not just always be about our personal responsibility. “No excuses” may not always be true. Job grapples with the existence of structural inequalities, and the role we might believe an all-powerful God has in causing such structural inequalities. These structural inequalities might be like what President Obama spoke about, or it could be why you and I live our lives on a stable tectonic plate and not at the unstable junction of such plates – like the people of Samoa or Sumatra; or why my DNA sequencing means that I am healthy, but someone else since birth, indeed since conception, is disabled, ill or unable to partake of the fullness of life . . . and so on.
Job in his heart just knows: there is such a thing as innocent suffering and structural inequality exists. Everything is not reducible to personal responsibility and “no excuses”. Indeed in Chapter 23, as he replies to the pious Eliphaz, he wants to engage not Eliphaz’s sort of God, but a God that gets a bit of balance into understanding the human condition; a God who does not use him as a play thing (which has to be Job’s conclusion if he knows in his heart of hearts he has not been wicked or iniquitous like Eliphaz has suggested.) He searches for this God, as he says:
“If I go forward, he is not there; or backward, I cannot perceive him, on the left he hides I cannot behold him; I turn to the right, I cannot see him.” (23:8,9)
Job desperately wants to understand God in a way that makes sense of his situation. If you want to use Obama’s categories, he wants to understand the relationship between personal responsibility and structural inequality. Honestly here he says, “God has made my heart faint: the Almighty has terrified me” (v16).
The next verse, verse 17 can have alternative renderings, however, I think the gist is – ‘I am not destroyed, it is just very difficult in understanding the divine purpose through all of this.’ The conclusion to which he comes is still far off in chapter 42, and we have that in our lectionary in two weeks’ time. Today’s preview however, the simple things Job has heard about God are not sufficient to help him understand who God is. It has only been through his lived relationship with God, in all of his difficulties, he has gained insight.
“I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eyes see you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes”. (44: 5,6)
In other words, be very careful about applying our human thinking into God’s scheme of things. Rather, get to know God and that God knows you and is there for you; and certainly for the Christian, has suffered with you, on the cross of Christ.
Personal responsibility is still important, however. If nothing else that is the point of the Gospel reading. Remember what the rich young ruler wanted? He called what he wanted “eternal life”. He could have simply said happiness, or wellbeing, or meaning, or some such. And Jesus gave the “no excuses” answer: You know the law, you know how to have that life – just do it. Jesus then adds the memorable bit about selling all your possessions and giving that to the poor. Our rich young ruler goes away sorrowful.
And so we have teaching about money and greed and how money can dominate our life. (And my files tell me that is what my previous sermons on this text have been about.) However we miss the amazement of the disciples – their cry “Who can enter the kingdom of heaven?” Giving away your money challenges the whole “personal piety”-“personal responsibility” construct of their religious world. Certainly it would challenge Job’s comforter, Eliphaz’s world. If you were wretched, you were unrighteous, iniquitous and wicked. If you were rich, you were righteous, blessed and holy. Jesus says give away the very sign of your blessedness. How indeed could anyone enter the kingdom of heaven?
Jesus, like Job, challenges a simplistic world view . . . except he does it from the “happy” and predictable end, not the sick, sad and miserable end, like with Job. His disciples are left pondering their destroyed simplistic world view.
What Jesus does is to join the personal responsibility and structural inequality perspectives. Insofar as there is structural inequality, or injustice, or people with a despairing, Job-like life, it is also our personal responsibility. The law still should be observed, for our own well being, our own relationship with God; but our responsibility is also to address such structural features – such as the inequality between rich and poor. It is not all the poor’s fault, you have a part to play – so sell your possessions and begin to address this need. . . don’t just hide behind your own piety and not do anything. Just like Job’s world our rich young ruler’s world would be thrown upside down – as Jesus says, the first will be last, and the last will be first.
Our challenge is to feel and show our responsibility, not just for ourselves but for others – and our use of money, is one way of showing that responsibility. That is our challenge. Is that something we all can do? To coin a phrase – yes, we can!
