Today’s Scripture Reading (April 17,
2015): Job 1
Our world is
changing, sometimes so quick that it leaves us speechless. Author Phyllis
Tickle speaks about those over the age of 65 (and she is over 80) in our
society as being immigrants to a land and culture in which they have never
lived. But her encouragement to all of her fellow immigrants is that they have
the ability to adapt to this culture. The age group that she worries about are
the ones between 45 and 65. These often seem lost. She doesn’t call them
immigrants, but since this is my age group, I will. Maybe the problem is that
we are immigrants who are trying desperately to believe that we have some kind
of control over the society in which we live. But this is quickly becoming a
fantasy. Experience keeps on telling us that we just don’t belong.
Maybe a
mundane example of this is found in the controversy over free range children. I
have to admit that the first time I heard the phrase, I was baffled. Free range
animals I have understood. Free range ranching has long been advocated as a
humane approach to obtaining the meat and animal products that we consume. Free
range simply means that the animals are allowed to roam outside as they grow,
rather than being herded inside and kept in tight pens that allows the greatest
possible number of animals to be kept in the least amount of space. Often these
animals are crammed in so tightly that it is a wonder that they can breathe and
live. Free range is the ethical alternative, but requires much more space.
But
apparently free range children are not a good thing, as the Meitiv family of
Montgomery County – just outside Washington, D.C. - is finding out. The family has
been in trouble, not once but twice in recent days, for allowing their children,
aged ten and six, to walk home alone from a park close to their house. And the
reaction to the story is different depending on age. Some younger people seem
to understand the concern, while older ones remembering their own childhood
think that the police must have something better to do with their time other
than to pick up and hold two kids walking home from the park for the crime of
not having someone over the age of thirteen with them. One person commented
that we were all free range children when we grew up. And as strange as it
might seem, he is not exaggerating. I remember walking home from Grade
Kindergarten all by myself at the age of five – a distance of a few blocks from
my home. But times have changed and now we are immigrants in a new world that
we are desperately struggling to understand. It almost seems to us that the
story of the Meitiv family should have “Once upon a time” attached to the
beginning of it – it is a cautionary tale that is supposed to teach us some
obscure lesson.
The story of
Job is like that. Some experts have desecrated the story of Job by saying that
it ought to have “Once upon a time” attached to the beginning of it. And the
story of God and Satan in heaven does have that kind of feel to it. But the
author of the story, maybe Job himself, wants to make sure that we understand
that the story is grounded in history. We may not be able to identify where
this land of Uz is, but then again, we sometimes seem to have problem identifying
the land that we grew up in. But the author wants us to know that Job was a
real person, a flesh and blood descendant of Noah. Uz was the son of Aram, the
son of Shem, the son of Noah – in other words Uz, the person that Job’s home
was named after, was the great-grandson of Noah. All of this is to anchor the
story of Job in history, so that we don’t add “once upon a time” and lose the
flesh and blood story of this special man, even though the story itself is
anchored in a time that we may not easily understand.
Tomorrow’s
Scripture Reading: Job 2
No comments:
Post a Comment