A Reflection for the Memorial of St. Jerome, Priest and Doctor of the Church
Find today’s readings here.
“Then Job began to tear his cloak and cut off his hair. He cast himself prostrate upon the ground, and said, ‘Naked I came forth from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I go back again. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD!’ In all this Job did not sin, nor did he say anything disrespectful of God.”
Would you curse God if you lost everything?
In our 21st-century world of instant gratification, we often believe that we are in control of our lives. It’s hard to imagine an inconvenienced existence when our desires have doorstep delivery.
But in today’s first reading, we meet a man that really did lose everything—his oxen, his donkeys, his servants, his sheep, his camels and all of his children. Everything he had worked for evaporates in a whiplash minute, and the triumphs of his life become irredeemable at a level beyond our imagination. I don’t think many of us can fully comprehend how Job must have felt after the hurricane of losses that struck him. After all, he was human, and humans sometimes think we are the “masters of our fates” and “captains of our souls.”
If Job’s success in life were to be graphed, then at the time we meet him, we would think the stock market had just crashed. We can’t even cite karma for this hurricane of losses, unraveling his progress like thunderous waves against a quiet shore. Job is “blameless and upright,” a model Christian. It's for this reason that God proposes him as a litmus test for unconditional faith in the first place.
After things fall apart, he still chooses to worship God. His devotion is unconditional. In a position of complete surrender with his body flat upon the earth, Job embraces life’s precarity with the words, “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”
The story of Job is a perfect illustration of how we cannot control the world around us; it also reminds us that we are susceptible daily to losing everything. But I want to talk about the real question at the heart of the story of Job, one which has confounded Christians for centuries: If success is the result of righteousness, then who wouldn’t be righteous? Would we resist cursing God if we lost everything, and would we truly love God for nothing?
Satan first asks this question to God when the two are setting up the terms and conditions for a divine bet that sets Job’s plot in motion. Satan wages that Job would curse God if his blessings were removed. Job has thus far been blessed with a wonderful life and prosperity as a result of his hard work, and though Satan pushes God’s buttons, he raises a fair point: God has put a fence around Job, insulating him from disaster and rewarding his industry. Who wouldn’t be faithful when doing so has made you rich beyond imagination?
So Job’s paradoxical response to losing everything has earned him a household name. Despite his devastating losses, Job defies Satan’s original prediction, who had told God, “put forth your hand and touch anything that he has, and surely he will blaspheme you to your face.” Job’s actions sing a different tune: I love God for who he is, not for what he gives me. I will love God for nothing.
Job’s righteous surrender to uncontrollable disasters that destroyed his life illustrates that our love for God must be unconditional. We must enter into daily conversation with surrender in order to meet our greater purpose: devotion to God. I challenge us today to focus on the burning questions revealed by the bet between God and Satan—Will we love God for nothing?—and hopefully, we can learn something valuable about ourselves. In an age of optimization, I also encourage us to take a closer look at this idea of “righteous surrender.” To be a Job means to love God no matter what, not only when God is good to us.
