We don’t have to stretch our imaginations far to find contemporary correlations to the story of Job. I can imagine a father in Ukraine seeking vindication and an audience with God over the atrocities that have consumed his life and his country’s. A father who has lost his family, his home, his physical and psychological well-being to warring Russia. I can imagine the mother of a child gunned down in her Uvalde, Texas, classroom, crying her questions of “Why?” to the school board, the local sheriff and her priest. She, like Job, wants answers to the unanswerable. She wants justice. She wants the irrational, violent world she knows to make sense. She wants her child’s life back. I can imagine George Floyd pinned down by police officers, struggling to survive the knee on his neck, the oppressive forces of White supremacy and a policing system that targets Black men. Job wished for his words of protest to be written down, inscribed and engraved on a rock. Floyd’s words — “I can’t breathe” uttered more than 20 times— have been Sharpied on posterboard, spray-painted on confederate statues and inscribed on signs at street side memorials that call us all to vindicate social injustice. Beyond a desperate hope for the restoration of life, home and sense of safety, we wish that the suffering we have endured be known, that our tribulations may have meaning. We wish that however irrational the world, it is still possible to hope that injustice, deprivation and violence would somehow inspire their opposites — vindication, plenty and peace. Job 19:23-27a is a tricky passage for the lectionary to isolate. ... You can find the rest of the commentary on our website. | 
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