This was the morning of studying small children. I saw them in Trader Joe’s; I saw them in Von’s; I saw them in a parking lot. They were with their parents.
And they were adorable. So cute. So happy. So protected.
One little girl was with her sister and her father. Father and daughter were talking, and the only part of the conversation that I heard was this:
Little girl: "I’m not a sidekick. She’s a sidekick." (Pointing to her sister.)
Father: "Not sidekick. Psychic." (All adults grin.)
1. Theology lurking.
There’s theology lurking here somewhere.
Some of my friends who are not believers hold a theological magic lamp. Its genii banishes any notion of the existence of God. That magic lamp is evil in the world. If God exists and God is good, why does that evil exist?
I am mortal and limited in my understanding, like they are. So ultimately they should take up an issue this big with God. If they don’t wish to go to God with their accusation, then they might find someone who has really, really suffered, and who believes. And they should ask that person, "Why"?
But here is a limited answer from a limited man:
You are asking the wrong question.
2. Why is there good in the world?
Because the better question is this: if power is irresistible, and if power corrupts, and if some folk have an almost supernatural ability to accumulate power, why is there good in the world?
Why can these lovely children be fed and protected and loved by prosperous, safe parents?
3. The difference a question makes.
I heard of a scholar, a theologian, who studied God and evil. He spent years peering into grotesque events. After years of investigation, he ceased to believe.
I can’t judge him, but maybe that was bound to happen.
Maybe Paul had his reasons when he said in Philippians 4:4-9 (NRSV):
Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.
Maybe Paul had his reasons when he said in 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 (NRSV):
Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
In a world where circumstances and powers and principalities conspire to steal away confidence in God, this habit of thanksgiving shelters faith.
Not that our thinking can add or subtract from God. He is not Tinkerbell.
But Hamlet is a theological play, and that theological play says this in act 2, scene 2: "[T]here is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." Thinking affects belief. It affects how we know the world to be; that affects our ability to see what is within the cloud that surrounds God.
4. Easier for some than others.
It’s easier for me to give this answer, sitting in my office munching crusty french bread and sipping cold water, than it is for a woman sitting at the sterile bedside of her infant who’s lungs are failing. Or a holocaust survivor. Or a man without food for himself and his family. I cannot judge these people if they cannot believe, or if they cannot give thanks.
And maybe it’s easier for me to say what I say than it was for Paul himself. Or maybe not. But Paul did say these things, and in his life he was blinded, shipwrecked, beaten, whipped, stoned and left for dead, starved, exposed in harsh weather, and imprisoned. Yet he believed.
Thank you, Lord, for Paul. He inspires me.
5. What to do.
But the fact is that it’s easier to believe when your mind is not seized with suffering, as some people’s minds are.
So it’s right, first, to pray, as Jesus said, that we not come into a time of trial.(Mark 4:38 (NRSV).) He said this to his disciples in Gethsemane, as he knew he was about to be arrested, tortured, and crucified. Cruel circumstances have made the hopefulness of better people than me whither. Although for others, it has increased their faith.
Second, it is our missionary duty to help those who suffer. This theology regards the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamps) as a sacrament.
And we need to remember to be grateful to God in good times. We should remember to be grateful to see adorable, happy, safe, well-fed children. If we can’t do that, we have no hope when trouble comes.
More people talk about God than know about God. When it comes to God, we are all, as Marilynne Robinson says, biased toward error.
1. Suffering and the Book of Job.
That’s one of the points of the Book of Job. Job was a righteous man. God loved him. God boasted of him. But God permitted Satan to afflict him. And Satan afflicted him. It was a mauling.
As grief flayed a ruined Job, Job’s friends added to Job’s suffering by pouring the salt of their theology over his raw, wounded spirit. They said that God himself had ruined Job, and that God was in the right. They told Job that it followed that Job was in the wrong. Job defended himself to his friends and to his God.
At the end of the Book of Job, God restores Job. At the end, God addresses Job’s friends. He tells them that they are wrong and Job is right. He commands them to go to Job and offer up a sacrifice of seven bulls and seven rams. God tells them that Job will pray for them, and that God will not deal with them according to their folly, because God will hear the prayers of Job.
2. Richard Mourdock, rape, and the will of God.
Republican Senate candidate Richard Mourdock said, "[E]ven when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen." Based on this belief, he justifies denying a woman the right to end a pregnancy in a case of rape.
Now, that is not quite blaming the victim; that does not go quite as far as Job’s friends. But it’s not only that Job’s friends judged Job. It’s also that they presumed to tell a person who suffered why he was suffering. In saying what he said, Mourdock sits in the seat of Job’s friends.
But suffering-and-God’s-will is a great mystery. Maybe it’s a mystery that cannot be explained, only known, and only known by experience and reflection.
Everybody should be humble about the suffering of others. That's Job. Certainly, we should be careful about giving to one who suffers the book on suffering.
I’m glad for my suffering. It has made me, by the grace of God, wiser. And it gives me a little knowledge of suffering. But if a friend of mine suffers, I hope that I would have the wisdom and compassion to weep with them, rather then to piously heap on them my pious ideas.
4. Some questions for Mr. Mourdock.
And it’s not the case that Mr. Mourdock’s ideas about God are self-evident. Some questions arise about Mr. Mourdock’s theology. If rape is the will of God, does somebody who talks a would-be rapist out of raping thwart the will of God? Or is the fact that an intention is carried out proof that God willed that act? If that’s true, why would a rapist’s choice be the will of God, but a woman’s choice after rape would not be?
5. Suffering.
I’m going to do the thing I speak against. I’m going to dip into theology of suffering.
The Book of Job notwithstanding, the idea of blame for suffering persists, and it persisted in the time of Jesus. Jesus’s disciples saw a man born blind, and they asked Jesus, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" (John 9:2 (NIV).)
Jesus replied, "Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him." Then he spat on the ground, made mud with the spit, and pasted it on the blind man’s eyes. Then he told the man to wash the mud in a particular pool. The man gained sight.
This account says tells me that suffering doesn’t call for empty speculation; it calls for mercy and action.
6. Mercy.
Job’s friends put themselves at the mercy of Job and God. Mourdock puts himself at the mercy of rape victims and God. He needs to make his propitiation to God, and he needs to hope for the prayers of victims of rape all over the world and across time. Their pain is not fuel for him to burn under them for their choices.
If those who have been raped, and especially those who have been raped and who have had to make hard choices after being raped – if those women have the good and strong heart to forgive Richard Mourdock and to pray for him, God bless them.
