Job 28 and Pastoral Formation

Below is an address that I delivered in May of 2018 at a gathering of alumni of Trinity School for Ministry in Ambridge, PA.

    Good evening. It’s a pleasure and an honor to be with you all this evening and to have the opportunity to reflect on God’s Word and the ministry to which He has called all of us, lay or ordained, in the workplace, the church, or the seminary.
  

  When you came to Trinity School for Ministry, what were you hoping to receive? I remember making that trip back in 2009 from sunny San Diego, CA to less than sunny Ambridge, PA. It was quite the shock for my wife. But the trip and the time was worth it, in our minds, because we were coming to this school to be equipped for ministry. We knew that God had called us into a certain kind of life and so we came to get what we needed. But what was it that we needed? What is it that all of us need in order to fulfill our calling?
    

    This evening I’d like to reflect with you on Job 28 as a way to remind all of us what it is we need for ministry, whether we have retired from parish ministry or are just in the early days of our calling. Job 28 is a hymn to wisdom, found at the end of three cycles of conversation between Job and his three comforters. Although there is debate here, I take the chapter to be an interlude in which the narrator interrupts Job’s conversation with his three friends to remind us what is at stake. And the central issue of the book is about wisdom, that capacity to live life well. Through the dialogues the book is asking where is it? Who has it? How can we attain it?
    

    The opening verses of Job 28 read as follows: "Surely there is a mine for silver, and a place for gold that they refine. Iron is taken out of the earth, and copper is smelted from the ore. Man puts an end to darkness and searches out to the farthest limit the ore in gloom and deep darkness. He opens shafts in a valley away from where anyone lives; they are forgotten by travelers; they hang in the air, far away from mankind; they swing to and fro. As for the earth, out of it comes bread, but underneath it is turned up as by fire. Its stones are the place of sapphires, and it has dust of gold. That path no bird of prey knows, and the falcon's eye has not seen it. The proud beasts have not trodden it; the lion has not passed over it. Man puts his hand to the flinty rock and overturns mountains by the roots. He cuts out channels in the rocks, and his eye sees every precious thing. He dams up the streams so that they do not trickle, and the thing that is hidden he brings out to light" (Job 28:1-11 ESV).


    The poem here extols humanity’s vast capacities, particularly focusing on our ability to seek out and mine precious metals. The methods here listed are representative of what we know of mining techniques in the ancient near east. One scholar, Scott Jones, notes how this poem also taps into the ancient near eastern royal mythology about the ideal king being one who has traveled far and wide and attained great wealth and knowledge, thus enabling him to be king. Such a king could boast of his great knowledge and ability to settle disputes in his kingdom. He had the greater vision of the world and thus was the expert.

    Jones goes on to coordinate this ancient mythology with the modern epistemological tradition which stems from Rene Descartes. In the 17th century, Descartes sought a foundation for knowledge that was free from subjectivity. His famous dictum “I think therefore I am” encapsulates his turn away from subjective sense experience, tradition, or authority toward ones individual rational abilities for a firm foundation. While not his expressed goal, this Cartesian model of knowing produced a quest for experts, those who knew more than others, who would then be qualified to lead those who knew less.
I confess that this was my initial model for approaching ministry; and if you had asked me in the summer of 2009 why I was leaving San Diego to go to Trinity, I would have answered that I needed more knowledge. I thought that if I knew more, then I would be qualified to lead. Like the ancient warrior king epics, I would go off on a dangerous quest and return to victorious hero who could lead some lucky congregation in the way of God through the overwhelming power of my mind. My sense is that I was not alone in this way of thinking; I met in my own class and have since met many a clergy person or aspiring minister who believed that the answer to every personal or congregational problem was more knowledge, more sermons, more books.

    But, Job 28 teaches us, this does not give us what we need. Humanity has vast capacities for skill and knowledge, but it cannot find wisdom.

    The poem continues, "But where shall wisdom be found? And where is the place of understanding? Man does not know its worth, and it is not found in the land of the living. The deep says, 'It is not in me,' and the sea says, 'It is not with me.' It cannot be bought for gold, and silver cannot be weighed as its price. It cannot be valued in the gold of Ophir, in precious onyx or sapphire. Gold and glass cannot equal it, nor can it be exchanged for jewels of fine gold. No mention shall be made of coral or of crystal; the price of wisdom is above pearls. The topaz of Ethiopia cannot equal it, nor can it be valued in pure gold. From where, then, does wisdom come? And where is the place of understanding? It is hidden from the eyes of all living and concealed from the birds of the air. Abaddon and Death say, 'We have heard a rumor of it with our ears'" (Job 28:12-22 ESV).

    These verses put wisdom out of reach of man’s natural capacities and resources. None of the ways that we would normally acquire something will work to gain wisdom, that skill in living life well.

    In my time at Trinity I did quite well academically. Prophetically, the only classes in which I received B’s in were those in the pastoral department. I excelled in my languages, I could write papers, and I read quickly. With the exception of those few B’s, I passed seminary with flying colors, and returned to San Diego with the encouragements for me to go on to study for a PhD ringing in my ears. I felt like I had won seminary, I beat the game, I got the grades, and I had the knowledge. I was ready to minister.
And then I hurt someone. I hope I remember this until my dying day. I took it upon myself to redo our church’s website, even though we had a volunteer who had graciously stepped in when the previous webmaster had suddenly left the church. Rodrigo had built the website and was faithful in giving a few hours a week to maintain it. But in my eyes, it wasn’t good enough. So I set about to make a new one, and one afternoon, while on the phone with a web company, I inadvertently deleted the website he had made and spent time keeping up…without telling him. I still remember my embarrassment, and my phone call to him to apologize, and his very gracious response to me, accepting my apology and telling me he looked forward to seeing me in church that following Sunday.

    I had a certain kind of knowledge, but I did not have wisdom. I did not have what I really needed to minister. But Job 28 does not end in the negative, but goes on to describe true wisdom. "God understands the way to it, and he knows its place. For he looks to the ends of the earth and sees everything under the heavens. When he gave to the wind its weight and apportioned the waters by measure, when he made a decree for the rain and a way for the lightning of the thunder, then he saw it and declared it; he established it, and searched it out. And he said to man, 'Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to turn away from evil is understanding'" (Job 28:23-28 ESV).

    Contrary to humanity, God alone has wisdom. Humanity sees and knows many things, but only God see wisdom, and knows its place. By wisdom God made the world, but he did not keep it to himself. Rather, he declares it to humanity, “The fear of the Lord is wisdom, to shun evil is understanding.” Here the poem gives us the definition to what it means to live life well. Rather than a natural human capacity as described in the opening 11 verses of the poem, wisdom requires a relationship with Israel’s Lord. In contrast to Descartes otherwise static knowledge, wisdom here is relational and dynamic; it is to be connected with the Lord (“fear of the Lord”) and acting (“shunning evil”).

    Job himself provides the model for this kind of wisdom. In the opening of the book, we are told that Job fears the Lord and shuns evil. In the heavenly court drama of chapters 1 and 2, the accuser contends that Job is only this way because he believes he will be rewarded, that is, his fear of the Lord is instrumental. The tragedies that befall him put this contention to the test, and Job passes this test. Throughout his trial, he holds fast to God, even as he rails against his situation and even makes accusations against God, he still maintains that God alone can resolve his problem. No amount of knowledge that his comforters bring satisfies him. He keeps his sights on God. And, of course, Job typologically pre-figures another suffering one, who in the days of his flesh, offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence (Heb 5:7).

    What does this definition of wisdom mean for us? What did we come to seminary for? What did we receive? Yes we came to learn, and learn we did. But Job 28 commends to us a different model of knowing than the model Descartes advocated. Job 28 encourages us to adopt a model of knowing which Alasdair MacIntyre terms ‘tradition,’ which is a way of knowing that requires us to take our place in a living stream of ongoing knowing, becoming a student of masters who have come before. The method of this approach requires that we are involved with the object of our knowing, that we ‘get our hands dirty.’ There is thus both relationship and action, as Job 28:28 prescribes.

    When I reflect on it, this is what I received at Trinity School for Ministry. I sat under those who have walked the path of Christ prior to me and in deeper ways. The professors who taught me were faithful women and men who had themselves been apprenticed to other disciples of our common master, Jesus. To use the terms of Job, they feared the Lord. And so did my fellow students, who were masters of so many other parts of the Christian life in which I was and remain but a novice. And the method of education was an active one, as we prayed together, worshipped together, ate together, played flag football together, and on and on. I needed this method and these relationships to broaden my own horizons but not for my own enrichment only, but as a gift and grace to any congregation to which I am called. That is, I was formed to carry in my body the tradition of the church so that that might be passed on wherever I went.

    This is what I really needed as I came to Trinity, and this is what I received. And this is how Job 28 reminds us how we are to minister to others. Our sermons may be dazzling pieces of theology, unmatched by any clergy person to ever before occupy a pulpit. But they are but a noisy gong if we are not in relationship with our Lord, and with the people with whom He has placed us. And they are a clanging cymbal if these sermons are not reflected in the practices and rhythms of worship, discipleship, fellowship, and mission, that is, if our hands are not as correspondingly dirty as our sermons are erudite.

    Job 28 reminds us of the why and wherefore of ministry through its language of wisdom. Perhaps you did not need this reminder this evening, but I find that I constantly need it. In my ministry, I am frequently faced with the temptation to pull away from relationship, to reduce ministry to ideas, or programs, or administration, and to neglect the Lord and the lives of His people. Perhaps I am not alone in this temptation. But as we’ve heard tonight we are called to be people who live in relationship with God and others, and who act upon His word.