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I write about psychology, the Bible, spirituality, relationships, social issues and justice issues.

Thursday, March 31, 2016

On Having ‘Job Friends’


“Men at ease have contempt for misfortune,” Job 12:5

I had a Job friend once. It took me a while to realize it. It started during the time leading up to my separation from my abusive now-ex-husband. I had been struggling with it for years — multiple marriage counselors, reaching out to friends for advice, trying to figure out what I could and should do… When the shiz finally started hitting the fan, I had one friend in particular who responded to me in ways like “…are you really submitting enough?” “…are you sure you’re respecting him like you should?” And my stories to her of desperation were met with askance-eyed, tight-lipped smiles of “I love you, but…” 

Eventually I started getting knocked upside the head with references to the book of Job. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s about a man whom God allowed to be tormented by satan, so satan proceeded to destroy Job’s family, home, finances and health. He’s left miserable, lonely, destitute and hopeless. Three godly friends of his came to sympathize with him, and it all seemingly started off well, as they sat with him on the ground without doing anything for a solid seven days. This seems like a very compassionate ‘mourn with those who mourn’ kind of gesture. Then they started talking. The majority of the story is those three friends telling Job that he must clearly have deserved everything that was happening to him, that he was somehow to blame, and then Job defending himself. Toward the end there was one young man who gave some good advice, and then God basically said He was super pissed at the three friends, and that Job should pray for them and make sacrifices on their behalf so they could be forgiven. In other words, He was tempted to smite them all, but was being nice.

When I finally started pondering this at that time, I realized how it related to my own situation, having this friend telling me I must have done something to deserve what was happening in my marriage. And it was encouraging to feel that God was not actually in agreement with or pleased with the patronizing, critical, unhelpful feedback I was receiving. Conveniently, this friend also started finding herself being reminded of Job, although her interpretation was that she was the ‘good friend.’ Everyone thinks they’re the good friend. 

A current close friend of mine has recently been going through a similar situation, and he, too, has been blessed with a Job friend. When he explained to this friend of his about the abuse and misery he had been living with for so long, the friend responded by sending a long missive pleading with him to reconsider his position so he can be 'restored.' If not, this friend mournfully explained, he would be forced to cut him out of his life. Which is basically verbatim what Job’s friends kept saying to him. And saying to him. 

The parallels and unlearned lesson seem painfully clear. And unfortunately, I think this is all too common. Look for a person going through a terrible situation and you can often find (I hate to say it, but especially within the church) someone telling them they must have done something to deserve it — or, in a watered down phrasing, that if they didn’t do A, B, C, things would be better — which means the exact same thing, it just makes the person saying it feel nicer and more logical. Like they're just trying to reasonably point out the flaws in the way the person has been acting, which, again, is the exact same tactic of Job's friends. In fact, in Job, they seem so genuine and concerned and knowledgeable and persuasive that it often goes over my head at first just how crappy they are being to him. But that's coming from a serial apologizer. Plus there's the added benefit of it being super clear they were being jerks to him based on the fact that God said they were being jerks to him, which spares me the necessity of doubting my interpretation. 

This whole tired, 'helpful' unhelpful judgement parade happens to people in abusive relationships, people who have been sexually assaulted or sexually harassed, people who are struggling to get by financially. It happens to people who are victims of racial profiling and physical assault, and even murder. “You know, that’s unfortunate, but…” “If you hadn’t…”

“Men at ease have contempt for misfortune.” If we translate that into our modern context, it would read “People who have privilege look down on those who suffer from the lack thereof," or, more generally, "People whose lives aren't that difficult look down on those whose lives are." People take their own privilege for granted, and then blame those around them suffering from the imbalance created by their not-God-given legs-up in life. Blaming the poor, blaming victims of assault or abuse, blaming the victims of the crooked system. Or even as simply as looking at those in lower socioeconomic classes or living in poorer regions of the world as somehow being deserving of their situations. It's prideful and disgusting and very, very common.

The story of Job is, in large part, a very early tale of victim blaming, and the ending is a clear example of God calling out victim blaming as a clear and blatant sin. How many people within our country, our culture, reply to anyone going through a trauma with censure of some sort, often doled out in trappings of holiness and claims of wishing for better circumstances for those who have unfortunately made such bad choices — those people who carry such inherently flawed morality/judgement/work ethic — those people who are so different. I've heard the victims of terrorism in Syria being blamed for their genocide because they didn't do a better job of fighting the terrorists off. Black people are blamed for... basically everything, no matter what happens to them. This is not compassion. This is not love. This is not helpful. That is what the book of Job, I believe, was attempting to make clear. 

Regardless of the arguments, the eloquence, the logic, the reasons and refutations. God had the final word and God was clear: the things those 'friends' said were pronounced untrue


Peace,

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