"The Fairy Tale Ending"

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October 28, 2012

Old Testament Reading:  JOB 42:1-6, 10-17

¹Then Job answered the LORD: ²"I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. ³'Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?' Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. ⁴'Hear, and I will speak; I will question you, and you declare to me.' ⁵I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; ⁶therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes."

¹⁰And the LORD restored the fortunes of Job when he had prayed for his friends; and the LORD gave Job twice as much as he had before. ¹¹Then there came to him all his brothers and sisters and all who had known him before, and they ate bread with him in his house; they showed him sympathy and comforted him for all the evil that the LORD had brought upon him; and each of them gave him a piece of money and a gold ring. ¹²The LORD blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning; and he had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand donkeys. ¹³He also had seven sons and three daughters.

¹⁴He named the first Jemimah, the second Keziah, and the third Keren-happuch. ¹⁵In all the land there were no women so beautiful as Job's daughters; and their father gave them an inheritance along with their brothers. ¹⁶After this Job lived one hundred and forty years, and saw his children, and his children's children, four generations. ¹⁷And Job died, old and full of days.

SERMON: The Fairy Tale Ending

Once upon a time, in a far-off land called Uz, there was a man named Job.  He had it all: a wife, kids, an expense account, thousands and thousands of the highest quality livestock.  But then a cosmic wager happened between God and the devil.  God said that Job would never curse him even if he lost everything.  The devil disagreed – and put it to the test by taking away everything that Job loved.  His animals were killed, a house fell on all of his children and they died, and then he got very sick.  His relationship with his wife fell apart. 

Then the cursing began: Job cursed the day he was born and demanded that God answer the question of why he deserved all that pain.  Job’s friends judged him for his anger and only made him feel worse.

Finally, God responded and told Job that Job’s life was about so much more than just suffering, and that this world was about so much more than just Job. 

Job saw the hand of God in all of creation and admitted that he had spoken “without knowledge” and he repented.  He even prayed for the friends who had been so quick to judge him, and so slow to show compassion for him.

And then God restored Job’s fortune: his friends returned, he and his wife made up, he bought more livestock than he could have ever dreamed of and he had ten children, three of them girls.  He named the girls with poetic words like Jemimah, Keziah and Keren-happuch, meaning Dove, Perfume and Eyeshadow.  Yes, eyeshadow!  She was named after the little horn in which women kept the dark powder they used to color their eyelids in those days, in that far off land of Uz.  He even gave his daughters an inheritance along with their brothers: an act of generosity and equality that was well before its time.

The LORD blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning.  And they all lived happily ever after, to the end of their days.

Isn’t that a nice little fairy tale: a dash of the supernatural, a riches-to-rags-to-riches story, worthy of the Brothers Grimm.

The message seems to be this: repent from your pride and the false notion that you are the center of everything and watch as God makes all your dreams come true!  Forgive those in your life who have hurt you and magically all of your troubles with disappear!  Your friends will even bring you presents!  Not a bad deal, y’all.  But it just sounds a bit much to me.

Perhaps this is why many biblical scholars say that the movement from poetry to prose and the simplistic happy-clappy ending was added later, and is not part of the original story of Job.  Many suggest that the story ends with Job’s repentance, and that the restoration of his family and fortune was thrown in for dramatic flair.  Because we all love a good happy ending, don’t we?

But, whether it was intended to end so perfectly or not, it is here, in this book.  And so we grab our magic wands and swords from stones and enter into the fairy tale ending, seeking something of God within it.

In that magical land of Uz, we see a God who is much easier to swallow than the one who makes deals with the devil in the beginning of this book.  We see that restoration is entirely possible with repentance, that when we admit that we are on the wrong path entirely, it is possible to turn around and change direction, to change our luck. 

We see that Job’s greatest joy in his latter days was not his money or his livestock, but his radiant daughters whom he loved so much, that he broke religious and cultural customs to see that they were provided for, whether they happened to get married someday or not. 

We see that God stirred within Job the most precious thing there is in this life: the ability to love.  Even after his heartache and bitterness, he was able to love again: to love his God, to love his wife, to love his new children, to love his friends, to even love himself. 

This is Job’s story.  He did experience transformation, but it wasn’t as simple as it seems.  His happy ending was not his own doing, though his repentance played a role in it.  Here we see that just as suffering in this life – including Job’s – is inexplicable, so is blessing.  Our relationship with God does not operate like a cosmic ATM machine, where we get out only what we put in. 

No, God interrupts our sorrow with moments of extraordinary grace, whether we deserve it or not.  Because, really, no amount of repentance on our part will ever earn that grace for us.  Our repentance is not a payment.  It is a profound act of gratitude, even when we cannot see the end of our own story.

Happily ever after is not God’s guarantee to us.  In Christ, we see a very different path through this world: one of self-sacrifice and radical compassion, one permeated with the loneliness of the cross and the glory of the empty tomb.

But even if restoration doesn’t happen on the scale found in our Job fairy tale, it is still God’s gift to us.  When we’ve endured more than we should be able to survive, restoration is found in every single defiant breath of new life. 

When we have made a total mess of things, placing politics above people and retribution above relationship, restoration is found in the courage behind the words, “I’m sorry.  I messed up.  Forgive me.” 

The God who made us and gave us a very particular place in the story of creation, restores us still. 

So, what of “happily ever after”?  As I said, we are not promised happiness all of our days.  But ever after?  That our latter days will be blessed more than our beginning?  Trusting in the unending goodness of our God, this is our hope.  Trusting in the Savior who shows us still how to lay down our stones of anger and learn to love once more, this is our path.  Trusting in the Spirit who restores us through repentance even now, this is our life.  

Our happy ending is not written in the golden-gilded pages of some fairy tale book.  It is written in the moments we choose to love instead of hate, to find healing for ourselves and this world through forgiving others (whether they deserve it or not), to leave a lasting inheritance measured not in property and wealth but in generosity of spirit and humility. 

This is the closest we will get to a happy ending in this life, but in God’s infinite grace, it turns out that is all the happy ending we really need.  Amen.