Chaos and Equality: Part 2

Two weeks ago I wrote on my engagement with Job via Brown’s The Ethos of the Cosmos (read Part 1 here). I left off with Job envisioning an undoing of creation in an imaginative peeling back the layers of reality to reveal the chaos into which God spoke and brought forth life and order (see Job 3). On the other side of Job’s reality he sees equality. Gone are the social stratifications, inequalities, and powerful systems that separate people into spheres of worth by gender, class and race. Job sees glimpses of a new reality, new social and familial structures–he sees something radically different than the patriarchy he is exclusively familiar with.

When Job finally has his chance to duke it out with Yahweh, something completely unexpected happens. Yahweh invites Job into the wild. Job is assaulted with a whirlwind of questions about an assortment of undomesticated animals, through which Yahweh ultimately points to the fact that every last one of them is dependent upon the Divine. Contrasted to Adam, Job is brought before the wild animals rather than the other way around. Job is, figuratively, in their territory. Job has left the safety of civilization and community and comfort and is introduced to a vast array of nonhuman life.

Job learns that beyond the scope of civilization and order and human life is a world that God cares for deeply. The distinctions between civilized and uncivilized melt before Job, as Yahweh is revealed to have created all and therefore value all. Brown notes that “Job comes to see that he is a child of God as much as all these creatures are shown to be nurtured and set free by Yahweh” (Brown, 376). These creatures exist and thrive entirely outside of and independent from humanity. “The outer limits of creation,” Brown says, “serve double duty for Job by deconstructing and restoring his character” (Brown, 377). Brown makes the observation that not once during Job’s introduction to the wild do any of the creatures “bless or praise their Maker”; there lacks any mention of “wild animals rendering due honor to God as a consequence of divinely rendered care, in contrast to the exilic prophet’s vision of the transformed desert (Isa 43:20). Nature does not praise God, in contrast to its role in the psalms of praise” (Brown, 377) . The wild and uncivilized realm of oxen and onagers and lions and ravens is the landscape of Job’s discipleship journey. “Rather than praising God, Job comes to a clearer perception of God and, consequently, of himself” (Brown, 377).  After Job’s pride has been thoroughly dismantled, he has new eyes to see the world as Yahweh sees it. The value, worth, autonomy and independence of the natural and uncivilized world under the creative hand of Yahweh levels prior hierarchical distinctions between created beings. Bringing Job to the furthest outposts of creation where Behemoth and Leviathan play around chaos’ border, Yahweh teaches Job that all life, all people, all things are good, and very good. “These denizens of the margins are ultimately for Job symbols laden with the power to reorient his praxis within the community to which he must return” (Brown, 379).

My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes. (Job 42:5-6)

Job returns home a different man. He no longer sees himself at the top of a chain of power, but as an integral link in a community of partner relationships rather than subject-object relationships.  Job begins this new example within his own family by extending an inheritance to his three daughters “along with their brothers” (42:15). The sapiential tradition that once dominated Job’s ethic fades upon discovering that “the ethic of merit and retribution has no home in the wild . . .Now it has lost its pride of place in Job’s own home, so his new conduct indicates. Servility too is banished from the hearth: distinctly lacking in the epilogue is any mention of the numerous slaves in Job’s household” (Brown, 379).

Yahweh answers Job’s undoing of creation by thrusting Job into an alternately uncivilized world, certainly a chaotic realm for a person of means such as Job. As a result, Job sees that the structured inequality and stratification and distinctions of patriarchal culture are socially constructed. Job realizes that he is as much created and cared for and dependent upon the functioning of the biosphere as the ostrich, the donkey, and the lion. This realization leads to a new relationship with both the earth and its inhabitants.  The question of who is Job’s neighbor sits at the center of his experience.

A part of our calling to realize the kingdom of God here on earth, proclaiming good news to the poor, restoring freedom, and lifting oppression, lies within our ability to sense our place within creation and seek equality and peace within our reality. Domination and anthropocentrism do not fit into this equation. We must find new ways to relate to one another and to the earth.