Will your long-winded speeches never end? What ails you that you keep on arguing? – Job 16:3

Today’s Scripture Reading (May 2, 2015): Job 16

Maybe some of the best advice I have heard has come from stand-up comedian Joe Rogan (although I have to admit that in my mind Rogan will always be linked to Joe Garrelli, the eccentric character Rogan played on the television comedy “NewsRadio.” The advice? “If you ever start taking things too seriously, just remember that we are talking monkeys on an organic spaceship flying through the universe.” I know, as Christians, many will argue that we shouldn’t like the comment, but Rogan has a point. Much of the damage that we have created on this planet has happened because of our penchant to take ourselves too seriously and to go too far.

If I am honest, there are a number of Christian agencies that I often wish would just shut-up. They started off with a great point, but then somewhere along the way they lost it. They made their point, but they acted like a dog severely reluctant to give up its bone. They refused to hear alternatives to their position. If you are arguing with them, then you must be stupid and you are definitely not a Christian. Who knows, you might even be a Democrat. Life becomes about one small section that is blown up to be much bigger than it should be, and it consumes much more of our time than the topic deserves. What these agencies seem to fail to understand is that while they started off with a great point, the longer they argue that single focus, the more discredited they become, not just as Christians, but as people – or as Rogan might put it, as fellow monkeys on this organic spaceship called earth making its way through the universe.

Job and his friends have been in conversation with each other. Job’s friends (although they certainly are not acting like they are friends) have been pressing a single point home – Job is in this unenviable situation for no other reason than that he has sinned against God. For Job’s part, he does not disagree that he has failed God in some way. But he argues that this is simply part of the human condition. Maybe he has failed God in a bigger way than his friends, but it is simply a matter of degree. All of us have failed God. (Centuries later the Apostle Paul would support Job’s argument when he writes that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).) But his friends push the argument just a little further. And Job asks them to be silent – to be willing to be his friends and just sit with him (Job 13:5). But his friends insist on talking. In the beginning they have had a point, but now their single mindedness has gone too far. What may have started as a good point for discussion is now simply annoying.

And so Job does what many of probably should do periodically. He tells his friends, politely, to shut-up. His directions are that they should be quiet, but then he goes a step further and asks “what exactly is wrong with you that you are unable to do this one simple thing? Why can’t you be quiet?”

It is a good question. One that we should probably all heed more often than we do. The truth is that we all talk much more than we listen. And sometimes, the Christian thing is not to push the argument just a little bit further, but rather to have the willingness to sit with someone and hear them – even when we can’t agree with them.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Job 17

Personal Note: Happy Birthday to my Brother-in-law Laurie (and the attack of the May Birthday's Begin)