God Questions
“Because many of his disciples turned back, Jesus asked the twelve, “Do you wish to go away?” Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life.”
My guess is a number of you have heard, even may have a copy, of the little classic WHEN BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO GOOD PEOPLE by Rabbi Harold Kushner. Surprisingly, without too much effort, I found my vintage copy with its dog-ears and underlines. One of its salient statements gets at reality...
“Laws of nature do not make exceptions for nice people. A bullet has no conscience; neither does a malignant tumor or an automobile gone out of control. That is why good people get sick and get hurt as much as anyone.”
At the heart of this is the faith breaker-faith maker question: how can there be a loving, powerful God, when life hurts so much. Albert Camus, the French author-thinker, protested the existence of a caring God in the name of suffering children. BTW: I have found my copy of his THE PLAGUE.
Bad stuff happening to people can be ‘sort of acceptable’. That is, if we can conjure how if not punishment exactly, they set themselves up for it... too much tobacco, fatty foods, unbuckled seatbelts, etc. But that’s hard to sustain with pandemics, concentration camps...and Camus’ children.
From Job who struggled mightily with these questions to Jesus who did not dodge them, we learn warming sunshine and refreshing rain cover us all. There is not a clear line between so-called good and bad, innocent and guilty people...though it’s pretty clear some are kinder and meaner than others (another conversation).
The theological word is “theodicy”. It comes from the Greek words for ‘God’ and ‘justice’: how can we ‘justify’, hold together, a loving God and suffering? Whether we know the word or consider ourselves theologians, most of us engage in theodicy. How can there be a loving God and such horrific things happen to innocent, or at least no guiltier than others, people.
Pan-global events contribute to our questions …Covid19…hurricanes…etc. But for most, there is a faith up for grabs-ness personal connection. How can this thing (fill in your own blank) happen to someone I love or me?
For Harold Kushner it was the ‘progeria’ diagnosis – rapid aging, premature dying – of his son Aaron.
For me, it started with my dad’s early death at 48 when I was 24... actually in a seminary course on Job. Ready or not, I joined the good company across the ages of people that have wrestled with these questions with integrity and honesty. That includes so many of you in churches I had the honor to serve.
Pandemic is from Greek: ‘pan’ = all; ‘demos’ = people. (democracy; demographics). Maybe a stretch, but when something affects all your or my life, it is at least pandemic for the ‘planet’ of you and me.
There is no ‘pat proof’ to whether we live and move and have our being in the life-giving mystery of the God we know in Jesus or whether we are floating/falling in God-free randomness. But there are responses and considerations, which perhaps Peter had in mind and heart, when he said to Jesus, “To whom (else) can we go?”
+ Hard, honest theodicy questions, more than easy answers, open us to a fuller, wider experience of the great joys and deep hurts of life… that abundant life Jesus says he comes to make possible. (John 10.10) Someone quipped, ‘the crooks in our question marks is one way God holds on to us.’
+ Gratitude for life does not sidestep the raw deal-ness galore. But makes the gift of life at all the more wonderfully, painfully amazing. Across the ages there is a basic wonder that there is something, not nothing. Maybe not proof, but a holy pointer to a great ‘something’ that makes more sense than a big ‘nothing’ can provide.
+ Paul’s Romans 8 affirmation that ‘God works for good in what happens...’ does not say that God makes everything happen in some lockstep, predetermined world. It says the great providence-provider is with us as we use the freedom, compassion, and creativity with which we are graced.
+ Although this may not conform to the cramped logic of our brainial-cranial synapses, perhaps even for the source-force-heart of it all, it is not easy to bring off love over hate, good over evil, healing over illness, life over death on a beloved but ornery little planet. Some slack for God?
+ Cause and effect explanations take us just so far as we navigate the myriad hurts that happen. All of us face a critical decision: do the raw deals make us bitter or better; callous or more compassionate? Do they paralyze or mobilize? I am fully aware of the imperfections of churches and church people. But I testify that hanging out with such folk tends to nudge – sometimes drop kick – us into the actions of compassion: giving, serving, showing up…maybe, in John Lewis’ phrase, causing some good trouble.
+ At the heart of Christian faith is the mystery of the cross, the undeserved suffering of the great innocent One. That for sure does not give us pat answers. But somehow that cross connects us to a great love than does not let us go, even when we let go. And in the fuller mystery of it all, that love empowers us not to let go of each other.