Of what use was the strength of their hands to me, since their vigor had gone from them? – Job 30:2

Today's Scripture Reading (July 27, 2021): Job 30

Many years ago, I was involved in a church, and I frequently had an opportunity to have a discussion with one of the older ladies of the church. The lady was one of my grandmother's friends, but unlike my grandmother, who has always tended to be very optimistic, this lady was pessimistic about almost everything. And one of her frequent complaints about the church was how unfriendly it seemed to be. "I can go to church on a Sunday morning (and yes, she was a regular attendee), and no one talks to me."

One Sunday, I decided to put her assertion to the test. I watched her as she walked into the church, sat down for the worship service, and then got ready to leave once the service was finished. And at every step of the way, people stopped to talk to her. She talked up a storm with both young and old inside the church, including my grandmother. A little while later, I confronted her on her comment that no one talked to her, wanting to gain a little more insight into the statement. And what I discovered shaped my view of the complaint, "no one talks to me."

Don't get me wrong, sometimes it is true. I have attended churches and been able to walk into the church, sit down, and get up without having anyone utter any kind of a greeting. It is a genuine problem in the contemporary church, but sometimes that is not really the issue. For my grandmother's friend, it wasn't so much that no one talked to her, but rather that there were two prominent families in the church, one was the family of a doctor while the other was the family of a relatively wealthy businessman, and the reality was that they didn't greet her. The likely reason for the lapse had nothing to do with the woman who wanted to be greeted by them; other people tended to dominate their time at the church. It wasn't that they were ignoring her or didn't know who she was, but their time was given to various other people who chased them down. And my grandmother's friend didn't want to be the one doing the chasing; she wanted these two men to chase after her to give her a greeting. And since that didn't happen, the church was "unfriendly." 

Job's thoughts turn to his present situation. He has mourned what he had lost. Job had shared his strength in the past, helping those who needed him as much as he could. But now, he was the one in need of help. But the only ones who were coming around were useless to him. Part of the problem was that they weren't reliable, men whose fathers Job wouldn't have trusted to guard the sheep (Job 30:1). But more than that, they were people who possessed strength but refused to use it. They were lazy, only interested in getting others to do the work for them, which Job couldn't do in his current state.

This comment is not directed directly at Job's friends, but it could have been. They had the strength to help but instead seemed only interested in talking to Job and accusing him of bad behavior. Like my elderly friend, it wasn't that no one was coming to him, but it was the wrong people. The people that Job needed avoided him, while the lazy and the useless came for long, and very annoying, visits.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Job 31