Sermon-The Art of Why?

Job: A Masque for Dancing - Original Production at The Cambridge Theatre, July 1931 (V&A Collection)

A sermon given during Choral Evensong at St Giles-in-the-Fields on Sunday 28th July 2024 based on the text of Job 19.1-17. A canter through the artistic masterpieces inspired by the Book of Job - one of which was premiered in this parish.

In July 1931 in this very parish – just down the road at The Cambridge Theatre, the premiere of “Job: A Masque for Dancing” was performed. The choreographer was Ninette de Valois, later known as the ‘godmother’ of English and Irish Ballet and the score was composed by Ralph Vaughan Williams.

Vaughan Williams disliked classical ballet, considering it effete, frivolous – and not nearly English enough – so insisted on calling the piece a “masque” for dancing ‘: a masque being a work which combines all the theatrical arts. Something that seems to have been achieved in this case. Reviewing the premiere, a critic in The Times wrote “here was that rare thing, a completely satisfying synthesis of the arts.” A new form of English Ballet had been born.

Today Job is most frequently experienced through the orchestral score alone – although not performed nearly often enough in my view. Until its next outing on stage, do check out some of the fantastic recordings that are available. Job is widely considered to be one of Vaughan Williams’ masterpieces and must have meant a lot to him - two sections from the work were performed at his funeral in Westminster Abbey. 

The scenario for this ballet-which-is-not-quite-a-ballet - was written by Geoffrey Keynes, brother of the economist Mayard Keynes. Geoffrey was a scholar of William Blake and based the synopsis on eight of Blakes twenty one “Illustrations for the Book of Job.” You may have seen these on display at Tate Britain a few years ago – now available to be viewed in the Print Room there on request. 

This fantastic series of etchings, produced in his two room apartment off The Strand shortly before he died, are described by Blake’s biographer Kathleen Raine as his crowning achievement. Job was a subject which Blake turned to throughout his artistic career as a source of inspiration – some have suggested that he found similarities between his own life and that of the biblical character.  

 

Raine and more recently Mark Vernon have written about Blake’s own particular brand of Christian mythology. To paraphrase – badly – Blake saw the arts; poetry, music and painting – rather than the authority of the Church – as the means of true revelation of divine inspiration. It is through engagement with the arts that man can come closer to the divine. He read the Book of Job as the story of man’s struggle to come to terms with the reality of God. Blake’s etchings at the point of Job’s awakening show him standing with his arms outstretched – like Christ on the cross.

The Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung, whose book entitled “Answer to Job” is considered to be his greatest work – is an upending of Christian doctrine. In what the church would call his heretical text, Jung argues that the suffering of humanity by God – through Job as a proxy - could only be responded to by the divine itself becoming human and suffering as well. Jung proposes that Christ’s incarnation was not to redeem humanity for sins against God, but to redeem God for sins against humanity. It’s all the parents fault! Typical psychiatrist! (No offence to any here present!!)

If novels are your thing, I offer you Job – The Story of a Simple Man by Joseph Roth, written in the same year as Vaughan William’s “Masque” and considered to be one of Roth’s  career highs. He portrays Job as a god fearing everyday Jew called Mendel Singer, who leaves Tsarist Russia for a room in a New York slum. Like the Biblical Job, he endures suffering – although the physical cruelty is replaced with mental cruelty in the novel. He appears to lose his faith but – as in the scriptural account - Job’s fortunes change at the end of the book once he unpacks his shawl and begins once more to pray. 

 

 

All these masterpieces in the performance, visual and literary arts have been inspired by the Book of Job - which itself is a magnificent example of biblical poetry in its own right. We’ll be hearing snippets from it over the next few weeks at Evensong, but it is well worth reading in full.

 

Why have artists, performers and writers been so inspired by this enigmatic book? 

 

That question - Why? - is one of the defining feature of the Book of Job. A masterpiece in the “Art of Why?”

 

 

Job is the story of a man who from the outside seemed to have it all going for him. But he starts to be afflicted by unimaginable suffering. The personal impact of which Job recounts in our first lesson this evening. Neither he nor his family or friends can understand why. Why has this happened? – they ask. Why has God let these terrible things happen? At first, Job remains faithful to God. But as the poem progresses – just as in many of our own lives – we see Job’s faith wavering – he calls upon God in anger.

And God appears, showing Job how beautifully complex the world is, created from an array of inter-connected systems. Addressing Job directly, God explains that his worldview is universal. Job’s is limited to his own life experience. 

Job comes to understand that the question which has been occupying his mind like a storm that won’t stop - Why? – Why have these terrible things happened? - is not a question that he will ever be able to answer fully, in this life at least. Job renews his trust in God – the only one who can. 

Something of the wisdom of Job is, I feel, reflected in what is known as The Serenity Prayer - the prayer I said a few moments ago. Written by the American theologian Reinhold Neibuhr in the early 1930s and popularised during times of suffering – printed on cards handed to American soldiers in World War Two and adopted for use at the end of meetings of Alcholoics Anonymous; it’s a prayer which, like the Book of Job, transcends time and context. As generation after generation seek to remain faithful amidst hardship and suffering. A prayer for the times when we cry out “why?” in our unknowing, in our helplessness, in our frustration - to the only one who can answer. The God who created and sustains us and who alone knows his purposes for us. 

 

Like Job, perhaps it is on crying out to God in prayer that we all become virtuosos in the “Art of Why?” 

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, 

the courage to change the things I can 

and the wisdom to know the difference.
Amen 

Image : Job: A Masque for Dancing, Original Production at The CambridgeTheatre, Seven Dials, July 1931 (Victoria and Albert Museum)

Links : Book Review : Job - The Story of a Simple Man by Joseph Roth