Beyond Words

Scripture: Mark 10.2-16; Job 1.1; 2.1-10


There was a donut missing the other day at our house. Seth has picked one out and put it on a plate with the note, “Seth’s donut.” Pretty clear, right? Only, someone took it, and I assume, ate it. There was a search involved, some unpleasant questioning. Accusations flew. The perpetrator, amid some laughter, confessed. The name will be withheld to protect the guilty.

But the scene reminded me of a story that has been in my family involving my brother, myself, and a donut. I’ve told this story before. Upon close inspection there’s really not much to this story except my brother’s line – “I had my eye on that donut.” Outsiders may listen and be slightly amused or not. But if you mention that line to one of my sisters or myself, we will still crack up, almost twenty-five years after we first heard Scott say it. It’s one of those stories that you end the telling with, “You had to be there.”

The telling doesn’t do justice to the reality. That’s the limitation of language, especially, of words.

You have heard me say how important and powerful words are. Words shape reality. Mere words call reality into being. “Then God said, ‘Let there be light. And there was light.”

“In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God. And the Word was God.”

The Word is living and active and powerful. However, at least from mortal mouths, words have limitations. Words sometimes strain to capture the reality of life.

Consider the story of Job.

“There once was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job. That man was blameless and upright, once who feared God and turned away from evil.”

Bible scholars believe that the book of Job was the first book of the Bible to appear in written form. As such, it’s older than than the stories of the Kings and the Judges. It’s older than the Law of Moses and the Exodus. As a written story, it’s older than Genesis, the book of beginnings.

The story of Job is archetypal. It has the power of myth that actually happened. The ancient Israelites probably all knew that opening line by heart, “There once was a man in the land of Uz. . .” For them, it was like “Once upon a time. . .”

And the story has the charm and gravitas of both fairy tale and epic. It has cosmic forces and personalities dipping in to our everyday world and affecting the life of an ordinary Joe named Job. The sons of God (principalities, powers, spirits, angels) come before God and so does Satan (because he is one of them, though obviously now fallen). God says, “Have you seen my servant Job?”

Like a proud parent, God holds Job up for display. God says, in effect, “Look at my boy! He’s getting straight A’s! He’s so well behaved. I am so proud!”

And of course, Satan scoffs. No wonder. You’ve given him everything in life a man could want. Make him suffer. Make him hurt. See what happens to your boy then.

And so the story of Job is a study in the problem of pain and suffering and evil. This is why Job is an archetypal story. This is why it’s an epic. Because humanity has wanted to know the answer to this problem since before time – if God is good, why is there evil and suffering in the world?

Satan tempts and accuses, and God takes the bait - and Job suffers. The rest of the book of Job, all thirty-nine chapters, is really commentary on that question. Job’s wife and Job’s friends all weigh in on that question, and some, with many words.

I won’t give away the whole ending, but suffice it to say, Job’s friends answers are less than satisfactory. Their words sound good and logical, even pietistic and religious. But they fail to capture the reality that Job is experiencing. At one point, Job cries out, “If only there were a mediator between God and man, to state our case!” Job is looking for a reality that has not yet happened, but we know will. Job is waiting for God to do something about his suffering. Job is waiting for God to answer.

Our religion is a religion of words. But not words only. If we’re not careful, we can sound like Job’s friends in the face of other peoples pain and challenges. We can pretend to have all the right words and answers to people’s questions – but we would be wrong.

The issue of divorce is a good example. The Pharisees come to test Jesus again on the very difficult question of “When is it lawful (right) to get a divorce?” Jesus asks them what does the law of Moses say?

Well, the law of Moses gave certain provisions and conditions for divorce. Moses, in turn, had been interpreted by two main schools of rabbinical thought, by two key rabbi’s, Shammai and Hillel. One was much stricter about who could divorce than the other. In the Gospels, Jesus is stricter yet. But Jesus main concern is not the rules of divorce but rather the reality of marriage. Jesus points to the physical and spiritual reality of what it means for “the two become one.”

One might ask, why is there different sayings and interpretations on divorce in the Bible? Because words strain to capture the reality. That’s why we say context is so important. That’s why a good student of the Word reads the whole Bible and lets “the Bible interpret the Bible,” so to speak.

Does this make the words less important? By no means! But we must humbly confess our limited understanding of the reality of God’s power and Word. No matter how well we think we understand, we know that our doctrines and sermons and beliefs about God do not define, capture, or corral the reality and experience of God.

There were certain questions that Jesus refused to answer. Some things were simply on a need to know basis only. Some, Jesus said, were beyond our understanding, beyond words.

“If I tell you things of earth and you do not understand how shall you understand when I tell you things of heaven?”


In the end, God has spoken most clearly to mankind not in what He said but in what He did. The best language is the language of the Creation, the Incarnation, the Crucifixion, and the Resurrection. If you can’t hear that language then you are less alive than the rocks and the trees and the very skies.

Or as St. Francis of Assisi is to have said, “Preach the Gospel at all times; if necessary use words.”

Our task is not only speak about God as correctly as we can (God’s answer to Job’s friends was “you have not spoken about me correctly”) but to experience God in reality.


“This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me.” Matthew 15.8

We must give our hearts to God and living in His presence.

Beyond all religion lies Something, or rather Someone, that religion can never capture, Who is more real than any practices or doctrines.

As C.S. Lewis wrote, “We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade, the presence of God. The world is crowded with Him. He walks everywhere incognito. And the incognito is not always hard to penetrate. The real labour is to remember, to attend. In fact, to come awake. Still more, to remain awake.”