There are times when God speaks to us by name, summoning us to duty. As when Jesus summons the Apostles up the mountain that they may accompany him and that he may assign them their mission.
There are other times when we see God’s hand at work clear as day. Like when Saul is stalking David and his men, when Saul stops to relieve himself—of all places—in the very same cave David and his men just happen to be hiding.
But most of the time God’s will isn’t so clear. And to complicate things, events like the horrific earthquake in Haiti call many to suspect if God even exists.
As a chaplain, I have to do my theology from ‘ground zero' because during horrible moments like this others turn to us for meaning and support.
For instance, I was speaking recently to a friend who just came back from a tour in Afghanistan, and due to what she experienced she began to call into question the very nature of God. She could no longer believe that God was loving, as she had been taught her whole life. According to her, her eyes were now ‘open to reality’, opposed to her former sheltered life of comfort and security. For her, this fantasy of meaning and order in the universe was now shattered.
The question I immediately asked myself was: does such a traumatic experience really ‘open a person’s eyes’, or does the traumatic experience CAUSE THE DISTORTION of reality? Or another way of asking this question would be to ask if war and catastrophe are normative, or the aberration?
For most, this would be a ‘glass half empty/half full’ question that could probably go either way. But for Christians, we see creation as inherently good, and evil being like a parasite occasionally that worms its way in.
The Judeo-Christian answer to the problem of evil is most famously confronted by Job. Job calls God to account for the injustice he has suffered, and God offers an “argument by Majesty”, which is basically, “Little man, it’s not wise to question the Grand Architect whose wonder is beyond your wildest imaginings.” It’s a call to humility, and it’s a plea from God to weigh immediate tragedy against the scope of an infinitely rich and luminous creation.
The spirit of Job’s encounter with God resonates with something the great Rabbi Plaut once said when his beloved wife died. He was asked if this tragedy ever rattled his faith. His answer was “Did I ask WHY ME GOD, when I met the love of my life? Did I ask WHY ME GOD after every glorious year we spent together? Did I ask WHY ME GOD every time she gave birth to one of our beautiful children? No of course not. So why should I suddenly ask WHY ME God when it comes her turn to rest?”
But there is something in God’s answer to Job that leaves a lot of people cold, especially when confronted with epic tragedy or injustice, something on the magnitude of the earthquake in Haiti.
What wins me over personally is the New Testament. And when it comes to the big questions, it’s only fair to turn to the big guns. For me that’s The Beatitudes. Here Jesus doesn’t provide any easy answers that illuminate the mystery of evil. But instead, he makes perfectly clear the blessedness of those who suffer:
"When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying: ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.’" (Matt 5:1-12)
The contrast between Christians and Gnostics illuminate what I’m getting at. The Gnostics were a rival sect that competed with Christianity in the early centuries, and has made a revival with recovery of the Nag Hammadi library and more recently, with the so called Gospel of Judas. Gnostics believe that there is some kind of salvific knowledge that exists which is the ultimate goal of religious life; and that if we hunt it down we will pass through this veil of tears and find our promised land. But that’s not us. The difference with Christians is that we know that to be human is to live the tension, to bear the impossible weight of mystery, to walk the razors edge of faith. As Eric Voegelin once said, (and pardon the language, I’m quoting a philosopher):
“Ontologically, the substance of things hoped for is nowhere to be found but in faith itself; and epistemologically, there is no proof for things unseen but again this very faith. The bond is tenuous, indeed, and may snap easily. The life of the soul in openness towards God, the waiting, the periods of aridity and dryness, guilt and despondency, contrition and repentance, forsaken and hope against hope, the silent stirrings of love and grace, trembling on the verge of certainty which if gained is loss—the very lightness of this fabric may prove too heavy a burden for men who lust for the massively possessive experience.”
To simply BE in this unbearable tension between the immanent and the transcendent is to be living on holy ground. And we know how easy it is for people, including ourselves, to turn from this blessed state and satiate ourselves with that which is tangible; and this is not only the world of pleasure, but it is also the mindset of actualizing ourselves through our accomplishments, through our work. And as ministers in a largely secular world, how easy it is for us to become social workers, to put them in touch with support resources—rather than to hold them up in prayer… rather than to truly be spiritually present to them... rather than to really address what might be at the heart of the matter?
But although we are to live this tension between the immanent and the transcendent, the point of the Beatitudes is to tell us one thing: no matter how bad it gets—come hell or high water—that we’re not alone in any of this. God personally acknowledges our strife and is reaching out to us, in the Incarnation, through His Spirit, and in the diverse community known as His church. But most importantly, those who suffer have a special place in the heart of God. They are clearly and definitively marked by Jesus as ‘blessed.’
So the Christian answer to evil is not intellectual; it is relational. It is to know that we are always in the presence of an eternally loving God. That relationship tells even the forsaken, those decimated by natural disaster or strife, that God desires them. That God will always desire them. That no matter what, God holds them in the palm of his hand.
And so let us pray;
God of all compassion
We carry so many concerns
For ourselves, for others—especially those helping the relief effort in Haiti
And for our world—especially the people of Haiti
Help us release our burdens to you
Knowing you will receive them and carry them for us.
For You are our Father.
AMEN
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