Jody and the Yearling

Sixth Sunday of Easter

O God, you have prepared for those who love you such good things as surpass our understanding: Pour into our hearts such love towards you, that we, loving you in all things and above all things, may obtain your promises, which exceed all that we can desire; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Some judge it sinful, even blasphemous unto deadly, to be angry with God. As when Job in his suffering was so miserable and outraged that his wife advised him to “curse God and die.” Job declined and we like to speak of “the patience of Job.” But the story does not say Job was patient, in fact, Job was in terrible pain and grief, and he was frustrated and unhappy and squabbled not only with his friends: he challenged God himself -- to which the deity’s response in the saga is beautifully poetic but neither gracious nor admirable: “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?” (Job 38:2). 

None of us come before God with knowledge and understanding. We are like the semi-proverbial ant who doesn’t believe in humans until a man casts a shadow on him and the ant finally says egotistically even arrogantly, “I believe in you.” Unlike the human who before stepping on the ant and squashing him, couldn’t care less what the ant believes, God loves us and wants only good for us. To be angry with God is not a lack of faith, but the very center of faith, even the essence of faith: we can only be angry with one in whom we believe and have deeply trusted. The analogy is weak, but like a child angry with a loving parent and even saying in that anger, “I hate you, I hope you die” as Jody said to his mother and father after shooting his beloved yearling, and running away.

Jody came back home. He had no where else to go. No one else to love him.

Neither do we.

TW+ 

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, The Yearling