Won't hurt us? Will kill us? Would fill a bucket? 

 

Many days I'm confronted by the fact that, in fact, I don't know a whole lot. My kids especially like to point out this fact: "Mama, why is it called fog?" "Mama, why don't you know what a number bond is?" "Mama, why are oatmeal cookies yummy?"

 

Being confronted by what we don't know can be good or bad, depending. What it depends on, especially, is how well a person responds to not knowing. Take Job, for example, in today's first reading (Job 38:1, 12-21; 40:3-5) Throughout the book of Job, he and his friends ask questions of God, questions we like to ask God too: why is there suffering in the world? Why am I suffering? Is this all there is? Job's friends especially try to pretend that they have all kinds of knowledge about God and the world, and pontificate about all their ideas.

 

But in today's reading, God answers Job and his friends by asking questions back at them: "Do you waken the morning? Do you know the sources of the sea?"

 

Of course, their honest answers must be, in a word, no. God takes it further though; intertwined with his questions about whether they can awaken the dawn, are statements about how God deals with unjust people and light is withheld from them, even as God makes the sun rise. God emphasizes here that even though Job and his friends may currently be experiencing suffering, that does not mean that God's promises are false. God's time isn't ours.

 

In this case, acknowledging what we don't know means being willing to cultivate a bit of humility and also leaving open a wide door for faith and hope. When our lives get particularly difficult, that door of faith and hope in the midst of unknowing is one of the many things the book of Job offers.

 

In today's second reading, humility in the face of what we think we "know" or don't know also shows up. Here Jesus is commenting on the mission work his disciples have done.  In the preceding verses, Jesus sent his disciples out to various towns to preach the good news, and now he names the results.  Some towns listened, others did not.  Curiously, the various towns that Jews had been accustomed to seeing as "bad" because they did not follow God (like Tyre and Sidon) are actually the towns that listened to the good news and will be saved.  Conversely, the towns seemed to the people to be "good towns" are in fact towns that will find themselves in trouble.

 

Once again we are confronted with the fact that God's ways are not ours, and we do not in fact know everything, or even very much at all, especially when it comes to the workings of God. These scripture verses admonish us further than the ones in Job, however, because they ask us to remember that not even popular opinion or "what everyone else thinks" (in this case, about whether a town is good or bad) will land you on the right side.

 

Today, let us pray for doors of faith and hope, especially in all the places in our lives where we are encountering suffering, doubt, and even the pain of unknowing.

 

- Jana M. Bennett