Job 2

Chosen Family

Job is part of our Wisdom literature and is a story that like most wisdom literature is meant to trouble our assumptions and raise more questions than answers. Job’s story serves as one the most beautiful and heart wrenching pieces of sacred writing in our tradition, giving us permission to truly wrestle with our human experiences of suffering, loss, feelings of persecution, and pain. As a true Gen X queer emo kid, I love it. Let’s dig into Chapter 2. It begins like this:

One day the heavenly beings came to present themselves before the Lord, and the accuser  also came among them to present himself before the Lord. The Lord said to the accuser,  “Where have you come from?” The accuser answered the Lord, “From going to and fro on the earth and from walking up and down on it.” The Lord said to the accuser, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil. He still persists in his integrity, although you incited me against him, to destroy him for no reason.” Then the accuser answered the Lord, “Skin for skin! All that the man has he will give for his life. But stretch out your hand now and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse you to your face.” The Lord said to the accuser, “Very well, he is in your power; only spare his life.”

So the accuser went out from the presence of the Lord and inflicted loathsome sores on Job from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. Job took a potsherd with which to scrape himself and sat among the ashes.

Then his wife said to him, “Do you still persist in your integrity? Curse God and die.” But he said to her, “You speak as any foolish woman would speak. Shall we receive good from God and not receive evil?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips. (Job 2:1-10 nrsvue)

First, we will begin with the business of the identity of the antagonist in Job’s story who appears in both Chapter 1 and Chapter 2. This character sets off a terrible series of events and then disappears for the remainder of Job’s traumatic ordeal. The Hebrew word for this character, בני האלהים is commonly translated as “Satan” as if it’s a proper noun with a capital S. When read through a Christian lens, it often conjures in our imaginations images of Evil incarnate. I don’t know about you but I was raised to believe that like the serpent in Genesis (also incorrectly interpreted) this is the same devilish character who is God’s ultimate enemy and is often at war for our very souls. I have a visceral memory of what was an impressive theatrical presentation of good vs. evil at the Christian summer camp I attended as a small child. Two camp counselors battled it out using lightsabers hidden behind a white bed sheet so that we witnessed the battle unfolding between two shadowy figures, one fighting with a red saber and the other green. God ultimately succeeded in slaying Satan, extinguishing his red light with the power of green goodness (obviously). We all cheered because of course, we were being shaped to believe that life was simple and binary, and that it would always be easy to discern the good from the bad. 

Another, more faithful translation to both the original Hebrew in Job ch. 2 as well as to the text’s ancient context is to call this character the “adversary” or “accuser” rather than a proper noun. These are common nouns meant to be descriptive of the characters actions rather than their identity. This use of satan is similar to when Jesus says to Peter, “Get behind me satan!” (Mark 8:33). Jesus doesn’t think Peter is Evil incarnate, he’s simply saying “don’t come at me” or “don’t get in my way.”  

So here we’ve got this celestial being who has already incited violence and trauma against Job and who is bent on making a case against him, or even more brazenly, it is using Job to make the case that there is not a human on earth who will stand in their integrity and remain faithful to God at all costs.

How familiar this feels to those of us who claim both Queer and Christian Identities and have faced both adversaries and accusers as we’ve worked to claim the fullness of our identities and remain steadfast in our faith as Queer beloved children of God. Job’s steadfastness in his own identity as a good and righteous human in the face of such an adversary is a beautiful metaphor for what it means for those of us who have steadfastly stood in our integrity as Queer Christians for generations.

What I love about this text is that it does not apologize for God, in fact, I think it invites us to ask questions like “how could God allow this?” “Why doesn’t God rescue Job?” “Why does the adversary have so much power?” These are good hard questions, and ones worth wrestling with. They might give voice to our very real sense of terror, powerlessness and rage – appropriate responses to the misuse of power, and very real violence and terror we are witnessing at home and around the globe in these painful days. What I love about this text, however, is never, never does it imply that the problem is Job. How often in our queerness have we been made to feel small? How often has an accuser raised questions about our wholeness, our faithfulness and our humanity? How often have our church systems, harmful theologies and even some of our families taken on the role of the unjust accuser?

In my own community I minister with, we are building a church and community with faithful queers who’ve experienced Job’s kind of pain at the hands of such accusers. Folx who’ve stood actual public trial for homosexuality in their previous congregations, folx that have been kicked out, folx that have been erased, forced into rehabilitation or conversion therapy convincing them that something was deeply and inherently wrong in them. These accusers are not different from the adversary we find in Job. They are not on God’s side, they are not faithful servants, they are obstacles and adversaries that have attempted to break the very ones God calls, good, upright, righteous and beloved. 

You know what breaks open my heart the most? The way these beautiful Queer folx, like Job, have stood in their own integrity, claimed their own power, remained steadfast in the discovery of their authentic selves and their trust in God. Beyond all odds, and anything that should ever be required of a human being, here they are, and not just surviving my friends, but thriving. At Friendship Presbyterian Church we insist on telling the truth about how our queer lament intermingles with our queer joy, and that both are faithful expressions of our life in God. We hold space for ambiguity and rage while simultaneously creating healing spaces, we have expanded our language from open and affirming to include celebration. We know now, that the Church isn’t whole without us. How did we get here? What gives us strength? What gives us the courage to remain so steadfast in the face of even the most recent attacks by our Federal Government, particularly on those of us who are Trans and Nonbinary? 

I will let others speak to the responses of Job’s friends in later chapters but in this chapter, in the early days of Job’s suffering they get it so, so right, and I believe that it’s their companionship that Job draws on as he continues to endure. These three characters, “Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. They met together to go and console and comfort Job. When they saw him from a distance, they did not recognize him, and they raised their voices and wept aloud; they tore their robes and threw dust in the air upon their heads. They sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great.” (Job 2:11b-13 nrsvue)

I am reminded of the way in Queer community that we create chosen families when our families of origin can’t or won’t show up. Job’s friends, are in this moment his chosen family – which means they come alongside his grief as if it were their own. They match his pain with their own cries of lament. They tear their clothes as an act of witness and then they sit. They seem to understand that these are “sighs too deep for words” days. In this moment, they love Job by accompanying him without judgement or advice.

In the queer community when we speak of chosen family, the criteria is not perfection, as we build community, it is not that we choose perfect people but we choose people who choose to know us, who see us, who believe us when we tell them who we are. Job’s friends know there are no words to match the pain the accuser has caused. There are no songs that will comfort, and no joy in this moment. They do not try to manufacture anything, they do not try to fix what cannot be fixed. They simply sit. 

This is the gift of authentic friendship. This is the gift of the chosen family. It is in one another’s faithful presence that we will endure.

Check out the Queering Job Writer Interview with Rev. Shawna Bowman here.

Rev. Shawna Bowman (they/them/theirs) is an artist and pastor. They are the first called and installed pastor of Friendship Presbyterian Church and have been doing ministry with the creative and justice-seeking folks there since 2011. In 2019 Friendship launched a not for profit called Friendship Community Place to create a neighborhood hub as a collaborative and resource rich space on the NWSide of Chicago, Shawna serves as the Executive Director. Shawna is a trained educator and artist that graduated with a studio art and education degree from Iowa Wesleyan College and completed a M.Div. at McCormick Theological Seminary where they have also served as Affiliate Faculty. Shawna and their wife Jennie are  doing intergenerational life with their three young adult children and their good dog Bentley in the Portage Park Neighborhood in Chicago where Shawna’s love to garden, make art and cook all the good things to eat. Shawna would love to conspire with you over a cup of coffee or have you over for dinner if you’re hungry for some good food and good chaos. (Picture credit: Rich Copeland)