Would he vigorously oppose me? No, he would not press charges against me. – Job 23:6

Today’s Scripture Reading (June 13, 2018): Job 23

There is maybe no scarier a notion in legal matters than the comment that charges have been laid. Up until that point, there is an investigation and suspicion, and what some might label as a witch hunt in the search for the truth, but during the investigative phase no one knows exactly who knows what. But all of that changes the moment that charges are laid. With the laying of charges comes the sure knowledge that someone believes that they have a case against us. While in the cultural west we often rely on the idea that we are innocent until proven guilty, it doesn’t work that way in every part of our world. And even in the West, often we are guilty until we are proven innocent, and sometimes we are guilty even after we have been declared to be innocent (just ask O. J. Simpson).

And in some matters, the verdict really doesn’t matter. It is the charge that will damage our reputations. We are emotional people, and often it is our emotions that carry us into a verdict. If we think that someone committed a crime, then the evidence doesn’t matter. They have already been declared guilty in the court of public opinion, a court that operates outside of the legal niceties of lawyers and judges and juries and the belief of innocence. We just know.

In the court of public opinion, Job has already been declared guilty. His friends have laid out the case against him. They have even imagined the crimes that he might have committed. They suppose that in his affluence he neglected the needs of the poor and that Job treated the commands of God without proper gravity, using them only when they coincided with what Job wanted to do. And all of this has been declared with an absence of proof. It is as if Job’s friends can conjure up charges out of thin air as if they could know the truth without any need of evidence.

But in the face of these charges and declarations, Job remains sure of his innocence. He has examined his conscience and the things that he has done, and he is sure that he has committed no crime. He does not understand his situation, but he is sure that he is innocent of the charges. While his friends have already tried, convicted, and sentenced him, Job is convinced that there is not enough evidence for God to even bring charges for a trial. If God were found and the case was made, God would dismiss all the accusations that Job’s friends had laid at his feet.

The story of Job is a reminder of all that we do not know. I still hear people like Job’s friends declare that they “know the truth” in the absence of any real evidence. They cite their intuition or knowledge. You may not see it, but they do. They know. And in making the comment, they place themselves solidly on the side of Job’s friends. The truth is that we know very little. And we need to extend the assumption of innocence more often in the day to day events of our daily lives than we do. Judging in the absence of solid evidence is a pathway that only leads to pain, division, and our own mutual destruction. If we are to survive, we must find another way – a better way.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Job 24