From the brilliant mind of Wil Gafney

The lessons of Job, recently a question on my final exam, are not academic. Why did Job's children die in a collapsed house during a storm? Where was God and what was he doing? The horrifying answer is that God was playing games with Job's life and the lives of his children. But Job has this crazy faith, that there is more to God than he can see or understand. And he wants to understand. So he goes looking for God to give him a piece of his mind and to get some answers. Job sues God. (Lots of technical, legal terminology in Hebrew.) God responds to the summons and blows Job's mind in another storm. And this is where things get tricky. God never explains himself leaving me and many other readers frustrated with the text. But something happens between God and Job. God yields to Job. God admits that Job is right. What has happened to him was not fair. God acceptance of Job's charges invite us to rage against God, to God as well. And that sappy happy clappy happy-ever-after-ending misses the point: New children can't replace lost children and money doesn't erase or comfort grief. But having a God who hears, listens and responds - even if he is inscrutable and his ways arbitrary is a comfort in the Iron Age and perhaps even now.