Job 12:5 (ESV)

[5] In the thought of one who is at ease there is contempt for misfortune;

it is ready for those whose feet slip.

Herein lies the problem. Job acknowledges that what his friends have been saying contains truth. He knows it as well as they do. What they cannot see is that experience does not support their thesis that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people. They have reasoned backwards starting with Job’s experience of pain and assumed that he must then be a great sinner. They have failed to see what Job reveals in the next verse.

Job 12:6 (ESV)

[6] The tents of robbers are at peace,

and those who provoke God are secure,

who bring their god in their hand.

Job sees that not all “bad people” have bad things happen to them. Conversely, bad things are happening to him and he knows he is right with God. It is easy for his friends to sit in their ease and explain away the pain of the less fortunate. It is another thing to look carefully at their world and recognize the injustices. Job 12:5 gets to the heart of the matter. His friends, in their ease, hold those experiencing misfortune in contempt.

I have watched non-smokers criticize smokers who couldn’t kick the habit. “Just quit,” they say. As if it were that easy. I have watched those who were cancer free explain miracle cures to their cancer ridden friends. Things change when they get cancer. I have watched those without pain explain to those in agonizing pain how to easily get relief. They don’t realize that the one in pain has already tried all the “easy” miracle cures for pain relief. They didn’t work. I have watched those with a good job and a steady income criticize those without. They don’t realize how difficult it is for a homeless person to get a job. They don’t realize the difficulties involved in learning a new way of thinking when you have been taught to think from a poverty perspective all your life. They don’t realize the limitations the jobless person is facing. I have watched my white friends criticize those who complain about white privilege. I have done it myself. We have no idea what it is like to live as an African American or a Native American in a world that does not trust you. We have no idea what it is like to be pulled over on the highway by a police officer at gunpoint just because of your skin color. Like Job’s friends, we criticize those who do not have the same privileges we do without understanding the world in which they live.

Recently in our community, to raise awareness of violence against women, Support Within Reach sponsored an event called Walk a Mile in Her Shoes. Men took part in a walk while wearing women’s shoes. Just looking at the shoes they had to wear made my feet hurt. How women can wear those shoes every day, I have no idea. But the need for better footwear wasn’t really the point. The point was to open people’s eyes to the fact that not everyone’s experience is the same. Too many conflicts and broken relationships are the result of people, like Job’s friends, making judgements about other people without understanding their pain first.

The incredible part of the gospel is that God didn’t shout down at man. He became a man. In order to save us God walked three years in our shoes. Then he died for our sin and rose to give us new life, not just fix our old life. He didn’t just shout platitudes at us from the comfort of Heaven. He took our place on the cross. How different our world would be if we became more like Jesus. How much better if Job’s friends had first tried to place themselves in his experience rather than trying to fix him quickly. How different our churches would be if we learned to listen and understand instead of criticize and fix. What a different world it would be if we became even a little more like Christ.

Philippians 2:5-8 (ESV)

[5] Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, [6] who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, [7] but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. [8] And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.