Today's Reading: Job, Chapter Eighteen
Bildad's discourse lays out the community thinking along the lines of those who obey the law and those who don't. He lifts up the ungodly and the consequences of their actions which are quite a laundry list of awful things.
This kind of boogey man thinking is fear-based and designed to keep the members of the community in line. It is easy to slip into without thinking about it.
"Nothing good happens after midnight"
"If you're five minutes early, you're already ten minutes late"
"You think education is expensive, try ignorance"
"What you eat in private, you wear in public"
 |
| Some community standards are flatly ignored! |
All of these outcomes are fairly positive from a community standpoint but none of them are absolute. Sometimes a good thing does happen after midnight. There are circumstances where you might actually be late to a meeting, and the world will not end.
From a biblical standpoint, the author is using Bildad to show us that these absolutes are not always true and that when we judge others by them as if they were, we may be doing a great disservice to them. The reader can see Bildad doing this to Job and we feel like he's being a jerk. This is by design so that we can remember to offer a little grace to others - especially those who have experienced tragedy.
It is important to have a strong community and to have standards that respect others. But one of those standards should also be compassion. How can we lean into being more merciful today?
Prayer for the day:
Tender God, touch us, be touched by us; make us lovers of humanity, compassionate friends of all creation. Gracious God, hear us into speech; speak us into acting; and through us, recreate the world. Amen.
Prayer by Carter Heyward, Church of England, 20th Century
Photo by Katherine Hood on Unsplash
No comments:
Post a Comment