Have you considered my servant Elihu?

Job 32:1-5

(1) Now these three men stopped trying to convince Job, for he was righteous in his own eyes. (2) But Elihu son of Barchiel the Buzite was not satisfied, becoming very angry with Job, who was arrogant enough to justify himself before God. (3) He also angry with the three friends, because they could not find a way to answer Job, yet they still condemned him. (4) Now Elihu had waited before speaking to Job because they were older than he was, (5) but when Elihu saw that the three men could not refute Job he could not restrain himself any longer.

I was a sophomore in college when email first became widely available. Even in the early days of the Internet, everyone who was paying attention realized what a powerful tool this was going to be, and what potential it had for both great good and great evil. It also was not very long before people began to sell themselves and their knowledge on the Internet, and publicizing their talents via mass emails. Now, mass emails like this are very common, and steps have been taken and are being continually refined by the creators of email delivery programs to stop this unwanted “spam” email.

I remember one such occasion, an early “spam” that I received, this time during the first semester of my senior year in college, or two years after I had first gotten an email address of my own. The email came from a first-year student, advertising to everyone on campus that he was able to help them answer any questions they had about the Bible, and he was offering free subscriptions to an email newsletter he was putting together that would answer these important questions for anyone who was interested. As I think about it now, this was not only one of the first “spam” messages I received, but also it was the one of the first times I was invited to subscribe to regular delivery of something through email and the Internet. (Now, I have many such active subscriptions, but then I hardly understood the power of this new tool that had come into the world seemingly overnight.)

I responded to this young man in a very arrogant manner, as I recall the situation. I said, “I am a senior religion major, so I do not need your help with anything,” or something like that. He gave a cheerful response, “OK, thank you!” or “OK, God bless you!” or something like that, but the exchange had gotten me to think about what I said to people and how I treated them. I even wrote an article for the school newspaper about it, suggesting that any major on the campus might be better served if they did not treat offers like this in an arrogant manner, but were instead a little more open to what non-experts had to say, even if they turned out to be all wrong. I thought that religion majors like myself were particularly tempted in this area, since matters like the interpretation of Scripture and understanding theology were not the exclusive realm of those trained in the academic study of religion, like I was involved in, and in which I continued to be involved through nine more years of study after I graduated from college. Although I may or may not have agreed with the young man who offered his services in answering questions about the Bible, it was not right of me to have treated him so flippantly. That was a lesson I needed to learn, and I was thankful for the opportunity, even if I had to learn the lesson through making a mistake and having God correct me.

A similar kind of thing, it seems to me, is going on in the book of Job when it comes to be Elihu’s turn to speak. The general consensus among scholars is that this lengthy section running from chapter 32 to chapter 37, was inserted into the book of Job, because there is no answer given to the speech of Elihu. The entire structure of the book of Job is a lengthy, philosophical reflection on the problem of unjust suffering. Chapter 1 begins by describing how Job was the richest man in the valley, and how he was super pious to boot. Then a bet of sorts takes place between the satan and God, to see whether Job really is faithful to God or if he just trusts in him because of all the blessings he receives. So all of these terrible things happen first to his possessions, and then to his family members, and then to Job himself. And then the three friends come to comfort him, and then to engage him in a lengthy debate. They feel that Job has some unconfessed sin in his heart, for which God is correctly punishing him. You see, this is the theology under which the friends operated. And, for that matter, this is the theology under which Job operates. Job never disagrees with the fundamental theological opinion that obedience to God results in blessing from God, and disobedience to God results in punishment from God. He merely asserts throughout the dialogues that this theological system needs a bit of clarification, because it simply does not apply in his case. He is righteous, a blameless and upright man, fearing God and turning away from evil. As a matter of fact, both the narrator and God make this judgment about Job, and even though he never quite says this about himself, he does believe himself to be justified before God. And there is where the problem lies.

But I have become convinced that Elihu’s speeches belong right where they are in the book of Job. There is a saying that the wisdom of experience is the best kind of wisdom, or something like that. The truth behind that saying is that you can learn a great deal indeed from people who have more experience than you do, and in particular from your elders. This is part of what Elihu’s speech is about, at least in the early going. He has deferred, so Job 32 tells us, to the wisdom of experience, to the three friends Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar. But he has lost patience with them, because they were unable to refute Job, even though they thought him to be in the wrong. And for that matter, he has also lost patience with Job, for Job has been arrogant enough to attempt to justify himself in the sight of God. Elihu has decided it is time for him to speak, for none of his elders have gotten the matter right.

It is true that in the movement of the dialogue no one responds to Elihu, for beginning with chapter 38 God moves in and responds to Job, but this response is not a response, but rather a challenge. Were you there at the foundation of the earth? says God. So why do you dare question me? says God. Not even God responds to Elihu, and so this is why many people think that these six chapters were added to the dialogue later. But if you pay close enough attention to what is going on, you will notice that the nature of God’s response to Job is that he hasn’t gotten it right. And God ultimately says to Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar that they are in the wrong, so they haven’t gotten it right either. What this says to me is that Elihu is the most right of all. True enough, God eventually declares Job to be correct over against the three friends, and Job goes and offers a sacrifice for the three friends, just like he used to do for his children before they were taken away from him, and God accepts the sacrifice and vindicates the three friends on the basis of the righteousness of Job, who is blameless and upright, fears God and turns away from evil. This is in fact what God told the satan about Job: “Have you considered my servant Job? He is blameless and upright, one who fears God and turns away from evil.”

But no one responds to Elihu. He is not even dismissed in the same way that I dismissed the young man who was offering sincere help in understanding the Bible all those years ago. I think there is something important about that. After all, if there is something to be said for the wisdom of age and experience, then there is also something to be said for the wisdom of youth and fresh thinking. For Elihu, neither Job nor the three friends were right. And the narrator, or God, gives implicit assent to what Elihu has to say, for no one, not even God, tries to refute him. In Hebrew, “Elihu” means “he is my God,” so even in the name of this character who only shows up at the end of a long dialogue and who is ignored by everyone else there is a theological point to be made. But perhaps we should not be so quick to ignore what Elihu has to say as Job, the three friends, and even God appear to be.

And perhaps we should not be so quick to ignore the contributions of others who do not fit our pattern of what a knowledgeable person looks like, or what a person who has something important to say looks like. And don’t we, here, face that same kind of temptation, day after day, as we continually interact with people who look differently than we do, who speak differently than we do, who come from cultures that are different from ours, who think about things and the world differently than we do? At least in my culture, someone like Elihu might have been dismissed in the same way that I dismissed that other guy who sent out the mass email. True enough, I may not have been satisfied with what he had to say, but it was over the line for me to dismiss him like that. And it just might be over the line for Job and his three friends to have dismissed Elihu like they did, without even so much as an acknowledgement of what he had to say.

Do not be so quick to judge the ability of someone to contribute something meaningful to your life. The reading from Ecclesiastes suggests that remembering God, your creator, in the days of your youth is the way to find life under the sun. The reading from Matthew suggests that unless we become like little children, we have no place in the kingdom of God. And what does it mean to become like a little child, what does it mean to remember your Creator in the days of your youth? It is, simply, this: to be open, to not think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, to look to the needs of others and not to your own, to build new bridges, to set aside your notions of what authority looks like, or what truth looks like, or what effectiveness looks like, or what honor looks like, or shame, or beauty, or wisdom, or knowledge, or meaningfulness, or Godliness, or…

Have you considered my servant Elihu? Amen.