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In 1973 I was a science teacher. Among my 7th and 8th grade students were a brother and sister, Tom and Carol. They were both quiet, but good students. A year later on the day after Easter I was walking on an Atlanta street when my eyes caught a glimpse of a newspaper stuffed in a newstand. The headlines read, "Eleven Family Members Murdered." Among the dead were Tom and Carol. An uncle had gone berserk and gunned down the entire family as they enjoyed their Easter dinner. In 1981 a book was published that created quite a stir. It made a lot of people start asking the age old question again, "Why do bad things happen to good people?" This book was written by Rabbi Harold Kushner. He penned the book in reaction to a personal tragedy--his son Aaron died early in life due a rare disease which causes premature aging. In his crisis of faith he wrote the book, he says, for people "who have been hurt by life." Have you been hurt by life? Have you experienced the wrenching grief in the aftermath of the death of a loved one? Have you known depression and loneliness? Have you walked with physical pain for long periods of time? Many of us could answer YES to these questions. We have been hurt by life. And we know of others who have been desperately hurt by senseless tragedy and suffering. Because we humans are born with a penchant for curiosity we naturally ask questions about what we see in this world. Asking WHY led us to the scientific method. And this process has helped us uncover some of the mysteries of the universe. So it is a very natural thing when confronted with human suffering that we ask the question, "Why did this happen?" Just because a question may be natural, does this make it a good question? Do you ever wonder why we ask this question in the first place? Why do we persist in believing that bad things happen for a reason? Let's look at what Kushner says. "It is tempting at one level to believe that bad things happen to people (especially other people) because God is a righteous judge who gives them what they deserve. By believing that, we keep the world orderly and understandable. It is hard, let us say for example, to live with multiple sclerosis, but it is even harder to live with the idea that things happen to people for no reason, that God has lost touch with the world and nobody is in the driver's seat." So the question, "Why do bad things happen?" has more to do with our need to live in an orderly world, a world that has rules and makes sense. Kushner lists seven ways we try to explain suffering. As you hear them see if you have ever used them or heard them used by others. 1. Suffering occurs because someone made a mistake, or failed in the observance of some religious duty. 2. Suffering occurs because God has a hidden purpose, or is making use of knowledge we don't have. 3. Suffering itself will turn out to be good for us. 4. God's purpose is in the grand design of the universe (which is good and beautiful), not in the life of the individual. 5. Suffering teaches something, either to us or to those who see us suffer. 6. Suffering is a test. 7. Death leads us and our loved ones to a better place. Do any of these reasons why suffering exists satisfy you? Kushner rejects every one of them. "All the responses to tragedy" he says, "have at least one thing in common. They all assume that God is the cause of our suffering, and they try to understand why God would want us to suffer. There may be another approach. Maybe God does not cause our suffering. Maybe it happens for some reason other than the will of God." In his book Kushner offers four alternative explanations for suffering. 1. Suffering is random and circumstantial. Suffering is caused by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. We may understand why an irrational person picks up a gun and begins blasting. Perhaps he is haunted by violent memories. Maybe he encountered more frustration than he could bear at home or work. Perhaps he was treated as a non-person until his rage boiled over. While we may understand the reason for a random act of violence we cannot understand why Mrs. Smith should be walking on that street at that moment while Mrs. Brown chose to step into a shop on a whim and saves her life. Rabbi Kushner is saying, "Sometimes there is no reason." 2. Suffering is caused by the workings of natural law. Not too long ago in India tremendous forces were being exerted under the surface of the earth. A violent earthquake killed thousands of people. A snowmachiner in Alaska gets caught in the white fury of an avalanche. Nature is governed by rules. Shifting of massive rock plates beneath the surface of the earth causes earthquakes. Unstable snow and gravity combine to make avalanches. When people are present suffering will happen. 3. Suffering is caused by the actions of evil people. Because God desires that we live in freedom we are free to do right or do wrong. Kushner writes, "If we are not free to choose evil, then we are not free to choose good." However horrific an act of evil may be the suffering is caused by persons who have made the wrong choice. The Holocaust is a reminder of the suffering that can happen when people give themselves over to evil. 4. We create additional suffering by the way we handle our initial suffering. Rabbi Kushner tells the story of visiting two families of elderly women who had just died. The son of the first woman said, "If only I had sent my mother to Florida and gotten her out of this cold and snow, she would be alive today." The son of the second woman said, "If only I hadn’t insisted on my mother’s going to Florida, she would be alive today." When things don’t turn out the way we would like them to, it is very tempting to assume that had we done things differently, the story would have a happier ending. It’s called Survivor Guilt and it often compounds suffering where it already exists. Perhaps Rabbi Kushner’s views will help you in your own struggle with suffering and evil. Maybe they won’t. It seems to me that the central question is, "Is God in control of the universe or not?" Our answer to this question will determine which path we travel to explain the presence of suffering. In the midst of our search to understand this mystery I want to add an insight I believe to be true. Whenever and wherever suffering exists, God suffers too. Listen to this story. Trevor Beeson stood at the high altar of Westminster Abbey to celebrate the marriage of his daughter, Catharine, to Anthony, aged twenty-three. Nine months later he stood before the same altar for Anthony's funeral, who was killed when his car ran into a wall in East London. Four months later, Trevor returned to the altar beside the coffin of his friend and hero Earl Mountbatten, who died when his fishing boat was blown to pieces by terrorists. Reflecting on the experience, he said he could not blame God for these senseless tragedies. He wrote: "I should find it impossible to believe in, and worship, a God who arranged for the great servants of the community to be blown up on their holidays and who deliberately turned a young man's car into a brick wall. . .. This is not the God of love whose ways are revealed in the Bible and supremely in the life of Jesus Christ." Beeson found two insights that helped him to cope with his tragedy and to look beyond it: "The first is that, although God is not responsible for causing tragedy, he is not a detached observer of our suffering. On the contrary, God is immersed in it with us, sharing to the full our particular grief and pain. This is the fundamental significance of the cross." Second, although we naturally ask, "Why did it happen?" Beeson discovered that the more important question is "What are we going to make of it? Every tragedy contains within it the seeds of resurrection." This is, after all, the whole point of our pilgrimage through Lent, to Good Friday, and Easter morning. Jesus had arrived late to Bethany where his good friend, Lazarus, was already dead. Jesus saw Mary weeping and was disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. Now the Bible has many Greek and Hebrew words for weeping, wailing, and crying. But there is one Greek word used only once in the Bible. That word is dakreeo. That single word is part of the shortest verse in the entire Bible. John 11:35…Jesus wept. This is no quiet expression of grief. Upon further research I discovered that it also means, "Jesus burst into tears." Can you picture in your mind our Lord bursting into tears, sobbing? If Jesus is giving us a picture of God then we what we have here is an image of God weeping too…God bursting into tears. Listen to the words of this song by Eli and the movement of our liturgical dancers as they interpret the song, "God Weeps Too." Think about your pain, your suffering. Take that hurt to the cross of Christ. Take that pain to the heart of God. And there you will find in the midst of your tears that God weeps too. [Song/Dance] Let us pray. Holy and compassionate God, we have questions about the presence of evil and suffering in this world. Help us as we struggle with our desire to understand. And most of all help us to know at the deepest place in our hearts that you hurt with us. When we hurt may we take that pain to your heart and there discover that your tears are for us. For it is when we live close to your heart and it is in your tears that we will find our healing and our wholeness. Thank you, Jesus, for your tears and your compassion. Amen. |
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04/01/01 - God Weeps Too
