A Formative Exploration
Columbia Theological Seminary Spiritual Formation Certificate
© May 1998 by Norman StolpeMy first serious encounter with the Book of Job came at age seventeen in a public high school World Literature class. The style of Christian faith I absorbed as a young person in the church where I grew up seemed to have little if anything to do with the challenges of the "human predicament" that I found increasingly enticing as I studied literature. Studying something from the Bible (Job) as literature that addressed this fascination was a profoundly integrating experience. I said to myself: "Ah ha! God does understand the pain of being human." The New Testament understandings of incarnation and Jesus' crucifixion became living realities to me. I have marked that as the beginning of my "adult faith," and I resonated with the way we looked at Job as a window on adult faith in this course.
Of all of the interwoven themes we looked at in Job through the week, I was particularly drawn to and moved by viewing the Book of Job as sort of case study on authentic relationship with God. I found this far more compelling and reasonable than trying to find a rationale for human suffering in the Book of Job. This took me back to the awakening moment in my seventeen-year-old experience with Job. Though I did not have the understanding, experience or maturity to appreciate it as much at the time, God's self-revelation and Job's overwhelmed response was what evoked the sense of satisfaction and integration that nurtured my faith at the time. Now, having pursued a life of contemplative prayer for several years as an adult, this most recent conversation with the Book of Job brought a sharp focus for me on my relationship with God.
The Longing to "See God"
Since adolescence I have been drawn to the theme in the contemplative tradition of the beatific vision, to be able to have a direct, spiritual encounter with God. This, of course, is a grace that is given by God, and no amount of meditation or ascetic discipline can manufacture an authentic experience. They merely prepare one to be ready to recognize and receive the gift. Yet, contemplative tradition presents the spiritual longing to "see God" as a legitimate motivation for pursuing the contemplative life. The popular notion is that such a vision of God is filled with bliss and delight. While the sweetness and wonder of intimacy with God permeates the writing of
many contemplatives, that emphasis is balanced by heavy encounters such as St. John of the Cross's dark night of the soul and Ignatius' understanding of consolations and desolations. I found the image of landings on a spiral staircase that descends into the depths in Thomas Keating's Intimacy with God (Crossroads, 1994) to be a very helpful tool for discerning God's presence when I am only aware of God's absence.
I have taken Jesus' Beatitude "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God." (Matthew 5:8) as encouraging in me the longing to "see God." Kierkegard's explorations of this in Purity of Heart Is To Will One Thing (Harper and Row; 1938), helped me grow past seeing purity of heart merely as moral innocence but as being consumed by the single desire to "see God." My development of spiritual disciplines has been inspired by Psalm 37:4, "Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart." As God has increasingly become the delight and desire of my heart, I have tasted the "reward" of direct relationship with God, much as God said to Abram in Genesis 15:1, "I am your shield, your very great reward." (NIV)
I am intrigued by some of the encounters people have with God that are recorded in Scripture. Moses asked to see God's glory, to which God responds with this anthropomorphism, "While my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by; then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back; but my face shall not be seen." (Exodus 33:22-23) When Isaiah "saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty," he responded, ""Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!" (Isaiah 6:1,5) As I reflect on these kinds of accounts, I ask myself if I could stand the wonder and terror of a direct encounter with God. The answer at one level is "No! Of course not! You fool, you'd be consumed." And then I am reminded of the worlds of Abba Joseph, "If you will, you can become all flame," and I yearn for such total immersion in God.
John's Gospel starts with the impossibility of seeing God as a way of presenting Jesus as the one who shows us God. "No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father's heart, who has made him known." (John 1:18) And Jesus says to Philip, "Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'?" (John 14:9) Taking this cue from the New Testament, I have made a point of soaking in the Gospels (not to the exclusion of the rest of Scripture, however) so I can be as fully saturated with Jesus as possible as the avenue for "seeing God."
In John 17:3 Jesus describes eternal life in terms of knowing God by knowing Christ. "This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent." Paul echoes a similar idea in describing the consuming passion of his life in Philippians 3:1-11. "I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead." As I have pursued and cultivated my relationship with God, this focus has defined my personal sense of meaning. Jesus' words about eternal life and Paul's focus on the resurrection from the dead contrasts with the existential immediacy of Job. Yet, while Job does not speak of resurrection or eternal life in a New Testament sense, I find a connection between my hope of resurrection and the quality of intimate knowledge of God through Jesus Christ.
At a superficial level eternal life suggests a personal existence that extends without limit beyond the end we call death, and the resurrection from the dead points to a better life beyond this life. I am certainly not interested in denying or diminishing in any way the New Testament hope of a personal experience of the resurrection to eternal life; however, the way both Jesus and Paul link it with knowing Christ emphasizes a glimpse of God far outweighs an endless life without God.
It is here that the power of Job's encounter with God compels me in my pursuit of the contemplative life. In his flash of hope in 19:26 Job asserts, "in my flesh I shall see God." Job's declaration after being encountered by God is, "Now my eyes have seen you" (42:5). This deep longing and persistent asking to see God is at the heart of God's approval of how Job "has spoken of me what is right" (42:7) Thus, the Book of Job not only approves but encourages seeking to see God.
Job also holds out the expectation of having that longing fulfilled. However, this is not some conventional piety. Seeing God is not something that can be controlled or commanded. It does not come in expected fashion nor is it comfortable. Without an explanation of what has caused his suffering, without the promise of personal participation in Paradise, before the restoration of his fortunes, Job finds resolution and satisfaction in God's direct encounter with him.
I have always had a hard time with the popular distortions of the New Testament's witness to resurrection into a heaven where people become angels or disembodied spirits. Part of my difficulty is how the focus shifts from God to humans. Such a perspective misses what Gustavo Gutiérrez asserts, “Not everything that exists was made to be directly useful to human beings ... [but] for the freedom and delight of God." (On Job, Orbis, 1987, p. 74) Certainly "heaven" is even more for God than earth is. So in a certain sense, the resurrection to eternal life that Jesus and Paul speak of is to be so absorbed or consumed by one's focus on God that questions such as location and duration cease to matter.
Thus Job, without knowing what the New Testament will eventually say about the resurrection to eternal life, samples it in God's encounter with him. Though Job's cry in 19:25-26 (" I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth; and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God.") is not a theological assertion of resurrection, God's response to it gives Job a taste that is consistent with how Jesus and Paul talk about knowing Christ in connection with resurrection to eternal life.
Seeing Christ's Presence in Suffering People
In 1992, along with my wife and youngest son, I had the opportunity to live for four months in the L' Arche Daybreak community in Richmond Hill, Ontario. A superficial view of the community was of about 50 "core members" with a variety of identified "mental handicaps" being cared for by a dedicated group of "assistants." However, at the heart of the L' Arche vision is the reversal in which the "assistants" are those in need of receiving God's grace which is mediated through the "core members." An essential ingredient in each weekly orientation session for those of us who were new "assistants" was to answer the question: How did you see the presence of Christ in the suffering of one of the "core members" this week?
That discipline was one of the most profound transformations of my entire life. It was much deeper than just a role reversal from a paternalistic giver to a humble receiver, though it certainly was that. It was an encounter with Christ as the "man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity" (Isaiah 53:3). Some of these were stunning, such as the glow that came over Dave when he put on an alb to assist in communion, which I mused to my wife must have been something like how Moses appeared after coming from the presence of God (Exodus 34:29). Others were more subtle; such as the community's grieving as they waited helplessly for Morris' impending death. Attaching labels and definitions to these encounters was difficult. Even more challenging was recognizing the reality of Jesus in unadulterated pain, not just the flashes of triumph over the pain: stares and even abusive comments of people outside the community, the frustration of wanting skills and experiences that would never be available, the indignity of uncontrollable bodily functions, language and emotions.
At seventeen, I was attracted to Job because it illuminated the "human predicament," particularly how to face and understand pain and suffering. However, I did not relate this to either the questions of injustice nor of God's special love for the poor and oppressed. Somehow, my definition of "the human predicament" was limited to those I thought were pondering what it meant to be human. I had somehow never included those who were just trying to get by day to day. I was concerned for practical compassion and justice and recognized God's priority on trying to get by day to day. I was concerned for practical compassion and justice and recognized God's priority on seen until receiving this spiritual direction in the experience of Daybreak.
Writing out of his Latin American experience, Gustavo Gutiérrez puts special emphasis on the poor and oppressed in his book On Job, which reminded me of a particular spiritual discipline I undertook in New Jersey after leaving Daybreak but for which I have not found a suitable substitute since moving to Milwaukee. In the church I served New Jersey I led a weekly lunch with worship for people off the street which we called "Bread and Bible:" a half-hour family-style lunch and a half-hour very simple worship. As my own spiritual discipline after each "Bread and Bible" I asked myself, "How was I able to see Jesus through one of the people at the table today." By talking about this awareness with others in the church who shared these sorts of ministries, we were able to enhance our sensitivity to God's presence among us, and God kept shaping us from the providers of physical resources to the receivers of spiritual riches.
The congregation I serve now is in the affluent suburbs of north Milwaukee, and the obviously poor and oppressed are not visibly at our doorstep. However, we do have urban ministry partnerships with several congregations in the city, and third-world partnerships with congregations in Haiti and Honduras. I have personally participated in these and had brief glimpses of God. Virtually all of those who have begun attending our church since I came as pastor have been people with obvious pain. That has been somewhat disconcerting to some who thought this congregation would appeal to successful suburban executives. I have also discovered God looking back at me in my relationships with these folk. However, they are less frequent, less intentional and less intense than my weekly experiences in New Jersey. While I still don't know what shape it will take, my reflections on Job have reminded me how much I need the spiritual discipline of relationships with the poor and oppressed for my own spiritual health.
Seeing God in the Impenetrable Darkness
In his Old Testament Guide to Job (Sheffield Academic Press, 1996), J. H. Eaton develops the picture of Job speaking into the "impenetrable darkness" (p. 25) to appeal to God for vindication which acknowledges "the power and mystery of God beyond human comprehension" (p. 17). As I plunged into Job again, I also found myself identifying with the craving to see God in the darkness. This is not the darkness of unpleasant circumstances, rather it is the darkness of God's absence and apparent withdrawal. It is the experience of having climbed into an elaborate cave with many labyrinthine passages, steep and slippery cliffs, and deep pools of icy water, and then to stumble hopelessly breaking the lamp. Eyes strain into the impenetrable darkness for any hint of light while groping along what may be a precipice or a broad arena.
Job expresses this experience in 23:8-9. "If I go forward, he is not there; or backward, I cannot perceive him; on the left he hides, and I cannot behold him; I turn to the right, but I cannot see him." Thomas Keating suggests that this sort of experience is actually the work of the Spirit to bring us to a more mature level in which "we are capable of making a more complete surrender of that attachment or that aversion. ... In this way we reach a new level of interior freedom, a deeper purity of heart, and an ever increasing union with the Spirit." (Intimacy with God, p. 89)
Some months ago criticism of my ministry was at a peak and I had given up the expectation of continuing as pastor of this congregation. Suddenly I found renewed fervor for preaching and one particular sermon was especially energetic and even my critics acknowledged its power. Talking about this with my son David, we came to call that my "Janis Joplin message," after her singing of Chris Christopherson's Freedom's Just Another Word for Nothin' Left to Lose. Here, in a very small microcosm was that glimmer of seeing God at the moment of greatest darkness.
As a pastor I have accompanied people through many dark and painful experiences. The catalog is really quite predictable: divorce; rebellious children; suicide of spouse, friend, child, parent; debilitating illness or injury; loss of career; someone else's death; one's own death. However, my own life has been smooth in these sorts of areas. While painful, my sister's divorce and the subsequent trauma to her children has not obscured an awareness of God's presence and activity in their lives, nor has it threatened the smooth path our family has been able to live. Even in the current conflicts that have swirled around my two-year pastorate in Milwaukee, we have able to live. Even in the current conflicts that have swirled around my two-year pastorate in Milwaukee, we have encouraging and supportive. Thus, for me this question of seeing God in the impenetrable darkness goes beyond whether my current circumstances are comfortable or understandable.
Rather, looking to see God in the impenetrable darkness has more to do with God's own inscrutable mystery. That is, recognizing God's wild freedom that defies my ability to describe, define or predict. In the evangelical circles where I serve, the commitment to the authority and reliability of Scripture is all too often and easily reduced to proof-texts for a manageably reduced portrait of God. However, for myself, I find that the deeper I plunge into Scripture and the more seriously I take it, the less I am able to package God. As my reservoir of Scripture grows, the more important my pursuit of contemplative encounter with God becomes for me. This is not in any way a revelation beyond the data in Scripture, but a direct relationship that comes alive with all the ambiguity of a relationship with someone who is wild and free and powerful beyond my imagination.
Here, then, is the impenetrable darkness of choosing an intimate relationship with someone I can neither understand nor control. Someone who beckons me to a greater depth of intimacy that goes far beyond whether or not my personal circumstances are pleasant or whether the conditions of people in the world seem to reflect justice and peace, righteousness and mercy consonant with what I think I know of God's character. Like many Christians, I am fond of trying to identify signs of God's presence in the circumstances of my own experience and the events of life in the world, both historic and present. However, I as I grow in contemplative prayer, I find I must relinquish these tangible signs to see God directly, not through external circumstances, not through definable signs. This sort of prayer is the extreme sport of spirituality.
Discerning Authentic Occasions of Seeing God
The Book of Job presents Job's vision of God as authentic and discredits the claims of Eliphaz (4:15) and Elihu (33:4; 36:2) to have received a message from a spirit or vision that allows them to speak for God. The pursuit of a mystical or contemplative encounter with God is fraught with the dangers of subjectivity and deception. In the conflicts that have troubled the church I am serving, a number of people have claimed to have "a word from the Lord" or "a message from the Spirit" to tell us what to do. Often these are contradictory and mutually exclusive, and the debate all too easily degenerates into what I call "spiritual blackmail" of people asserting that their spirituality validates their claims. Both within Christianity and in other religions, many have claimed various visions from God, which often turn out to be fraudulent. Thus, looking at Job as a model for authentic relationship with God calls for discernment.
Consistency with the teaching of Scripture and witness of the Church is the obvious answer, and true enough as far as it goes, but variations in Biblical interpretation and disagreements among church traditions clearly show this is inadequate to resolve the question. In the conflicts of my present congregation, I have said that if we were all hearing the same Spirit, what we are hearing would be the same thing or at least it would fit together. If one person is truly hearing from God, it would be confirmed by other spiritually sensitive people. Again, this may be true enough, but our current conflicts demonstrate that alone is not the path to discernment.
Of course, these are strategic debates in which people marshal whatever arguments then can to support their positions, and that is different than discerning if one's own contemplative experience is an authentic encounter with God. But I do think that this illustrates that not all claims to or, for that matter, experiences of direct encounter with God are equally valid. Perhaps the greatest danger of all is self-deception, convincing myself that a mere psychological phenomenon is God, or worse yet that spiritual evil is God.
The New Testament talks about testing the spirits (e.g. 1 John 4:1-3) and a spiritual gift of discernment (1 Corinthians 12: 10), but the Book of Job does not present either evidence for the authenticity of Job's vision of God (in contrast to Eliphaz and Elihu) nor a discernment procedure. Rather, it seems to present God's encounter with Job as self-evident. Job has been calling for God, and when God showed up, Job recognized God. Furthermore, God speaks to Eliphaz (42:7-9) correcting Job's friends, and they seem to recognize this as God's voice as well. When God speaks, the human debate ends.
This is much like the corporate confirmation of the leading of the Spirit, I mentioned earlier. However, it goes much deeper than just that we who have been disagreeing now agree because we heard what God wants. Both Job and his friends are humbled by their encounters with God. Job's humbling validates his cry for a direct encounter with God. The humbling of Job's friends prompts repentance and reconciliation with Job. When the Apostle Paul writes about his vision, he immediately goes on to write about the "thorn in the flesh" that was sent to humble him (2 Corinthians 12: 1-10). So, somehow, humility is a key to discerning authentic encounters with God. They will not result in spiritual one-ups-man-ship or spiritual blackmail.
Over the years of learning about my particular mix of spiritual gifts, I have become comfortable talking about pastor/teacher and wisdom as my gifts. However, I have felt particularly deficient in discernment. I frequently misread other people and situations. I frequently miss cues that could have tipped me off to particular needs to be addressed or opportunities to be seized. So I have looked to others who seem more gifted in this area to alert me to what is going on in people. Over the years, I have had three Roman Catholic spiritual directors who have fulfilled this function in connection with my contemplative life. However, especially among the cerebral evangelicals I serve with, talking about this seems to raise suspicions and incredulity rather than empathetic discernment.
While the qualities of humility and mutual self-evidence are helpful hints at discernment in Job, this most recent experience with Job has left me asking questions about discernment in my own contemplative prayer. Of course, discernment can't be reduced to some series of tests with a score to determine the authenticity of a mystical encounter with God. That would negate both faith and the mystery of the impenetrable darkness. That would reduce an intimate relationship with a wild and free God to an abstract theological construct. Yet, I see the need for discernment to avoid heading down the wrong path, thinking I am going with God but actually just chasing my own imagination or worse.
What to Expect when Seeing GodGod speaks to Job out of the whirlwind (38:1; 40:6). The special effects people in the movie industry as well as the hyper-literalists might scale this back to audible words from a tornado. Certainly a tornado is a wonderful picture of wild and free power. No one willingly embraces intimacy with a tornado. Yet, our whole technological society with its fixation on measuring and explaining all phenomena, reads things like Job and asks, what did Job see and hear? If we played back a video, what would come out on the screen? Clearly, these are the wrong questions. They are just another way of trying to capture the wild and free God with definitions, whether scientific or theological. Yet, people who are serious about wanting to see God do ask what to expect, and books such as Thomas Keating's Intimacy with God try to give some guidance for answering that question in a spiritually responsible fashion.
In my own journey of contemplative prayer, I have had occasions that have seemed to me to be little snatches of direct encounters with God. I have felt physical tingling and release through my whole body, not unlike sexual intimacy. I have occasions of seeming to be in some sort of trance in which I knew I was fully awake and alert and yet completely unaware of my immediate surroundings. I have more often found solutions to dilemmas that were troubling to me or insights for ministry immediately after times of centering prayer. I have experienced an ebbing away of tension and an upwelling of peace and calm during centering prayer. I have also experienced the spiritual or emotional terror of someone I was ministering to during these times. However, these experiences are the exception. More often my prayer times are a quiet solitude, keeping my attention on God but not experiencing anything extraordinary. I certainly know that I cannot do anything to compel these experiences to come, but I must wait in the silence for God. I also know that these experiences are not the goal of contemplative prayer but are merely a gracious byproduct of intimacy with God. I also know that while they share some commonality with the experiences of other contemplatives, they are not some expected pattern prescribed for me, nor that I can prescribe for others.
What was it that Job actually experienced when God spoke to him out of the whirlwind? That, of course, is a modern question, and answering it is not the purpose of the text. However, I believe Job suggests that seeing God is an overwhelming reality, much like embracing a tornado.
