and questions. Perhaps you have pronounced words like these.

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Evangeline Baker
5 years ago
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1 Where is God when people suffer? She simply had to get home! She had taken the early bus to the factory, like every morning. But this was no usual day. The rain, it just kept coming! Streaming down, flooding the streets She had managed, alone, to feed and clothe her children thus far. Her husband had gone to the US in search of work and never returned. So she daily had to leave her seven year-old home alone, caring for the little ones while she worked to maintain them. The children were alone in the midst of the downpour; she had to get back to them! The roads had become rivers and the bus could go no further. Drenched to the bone, she fought her way forward through the storm. Juana s feet sank as she plodded up the muddy path. But deeper yet sank her heart when she got to the clearing where her shack had stood along with a few others. Gone! Everything was gone! Buried under the tons of mud washed down the side of the hill were her small vegetable garden, her home, her meager belongings and her treasured children! Eternal days and sleepless nights followed. Digging, searching, hoping against all hope... By Sunday the operation was called off: there were no survivors. Refugees from the area were crammed into the local school and the pastor led them in a service. Examine your conscience, he demanded, this is God s punishment for your unfaithfulness. Because, as the Bible says, Who being innocent has ever perished. Where were the upright ever destroyed? (Job 4.7-8). God is disciplining you so that you will return to him. Blessed is the one whom God corrects; so do not despise the discipline of the Almighty (Job 5.17). Confess your sins and God will forgive you! Words like these have been preached to victims of mudslides and earthquakes, tsunamis and wars, rapes and murders, illnesses and domestic violence. These words of judgment are drawn from the Bible. They were pronounced by Job s friends when he lost everything. You must have done something wrong. You brought this upon yourself. God is punishing you for your own good. If you have enough faith and behave properly, God will prosper you. Perhaps people have sought to comfort you with like-sounding judgment in the midst of your suffering 1

2 and questions. Perhaps you have pronounced words like these. Now, we must ask, is this teaching truly consistent with the God revealed through Scripture, through Jesus Christ, through God s Spirit? Where is God when people suffer? Does God will injustice, pain, oppression, disaster? Job asked himself similar questions when he lost his wealth, his children, the trust of his wife, and his own health. Juana cried out those questions when everything but her life was buried under heaps of mud. You, I expect, have also asked the very same things as you have gone through difficult circumstances. Where is God in the midst of suffering? I invite you to explore the story of humanity as narrated in the Bible, trusting that this will give us some clues for answering that question. Ours, we will be reminded, is a good God who created a world of abundant provision and right relations, a God who hears the cry of those who suffer from want and broken relations, a God who responds by entering into our story and taking unto God s self the burden of our suffering, and a God whose purpose of just relations and abundant life for all people will come to pass. In the beginning, God created life and all that was needed to sustain it: food and beauty, work and rest, friendship with God, and mutual enjoyment as men and women. The Genesis poem reveals a God who did not compose this good creation and walk away, leaving it to its own fate, but rather a God who walked in the garden, (Gen 3.8) a God who loved and provided, a God who remained near and involved. So involved was God that when men and women mistrusted God s goodness, believing the serpent s lie that depicted God as mean and needlessly prohibiting, and so broke their intimate relationship with God and with each other, God still provided clothing to cover their new found shame (Gen 3.21). Although God s provision did not fail, the book of Genesis narrates how people continued in that vein of mistrust. Unbelieving of God s goodness, human beings became violent with one another. Some accumulated; others grabbed by force. 2

3 Relationships were broken. Injustice ruled. People suffered. And though God grieved and regretted creating humankind, God provided the means for a new beginning and bound God s self to a promise of on-going forgiveness and provision symbolized in a beautifully colorful rainbow (Gen 6-9). And so continues our story. Humanity mistrusts God s goodness and provision and repeatedly seeks to grasp, to grab, to hoard. People suffer. And God remains involved. God hears the cries of the people of Israel suffering slavery and oppression in Egypt and leads them into freedom. God provides water, food, beauty and ritual and offers guidance day and night as they wander through the desert, even though the Israelites repeatedly question God s goodness. God never leaves them. Not even when they continue living as if they do not serve a loving, trustworthy, present God. Even when that life-style breeds yet more injustice and suffering. Prophets, poets, and songwriters incessantly call on the people, wooing them back to the God who loves them. But the calls fall on deaf ears. So in an extreme act of selfless love, God enters into the brokenness through Jesus Christ, a poor baby born in a relegated corner of the world that was suffering under the rule and taxation of the Roman Empire. Far from remaining distant in light of human suffering, God enters into it. And much to the shock of all who expected God to free them from the Romans through military might or some spectacular intervention, God inaugurates the rule of goodness and justice through Jesus, who embodied the suffering servant predicted centuries before by the prophet Isaiah. In a mystery beyond our understanding, Christ suffers human limitation, discrimination, injustice, and even utter separation from the Father at the cross, as ultimate evidence of God s loving provision and in order to set all things right. And set things right God will. To a people whose mistrust in God s goodness had landed them in exile and near loss of identity and hope, God promises provision and justice: 3

4 See, I will create new heavens and a new earth The sound of weeping and of crying will be heard in it no more Never again will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not live out his years They will build houses and dwell in them; they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit. No longer will they build houses and others live in them, or plant and others eat They will not labor in vain, nor will they bear children doomed to misfortune; for they will be a people blessed by the Lord, they and their descendants with them. (Isaiah 65) Centuries later, to a beleaguered people, suffering persecution for daring to confront the idolatrous claims of the Roman Emperor, words of encouragement come through the apostle John, Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Look! God s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. (Rev 21) The same words come to us. Current suffering is not the end of the story. Jesus God with us- entered into our suffering. But he did not remain a victim of human sin, religious and imperial oppression. In rising out of death Jesus gives evidence of God s loving and life-giving power. And the Holy Spirit walks with us today in the midst of the pain of our broken bodies, our broken families, our broken social systems, our broken world, reminding us that God is good and we can trust. What then might all this mean to Juana? What might this mean to us when we 4

5 experience or witness suffering some of which is admittedly heart wrenching and unspeakably deep? It means at least two things: In light of God s good creation, God s good provision, God-with-us, and God s re-creation of all things, we are free to hold unto God with confidence and we are free to question fearlessly. Job s friends had insistently questioned two things. First, they had questioned Job s condition before God. They accused him of being in bad standing, of having sinned and so of having brought suffering upon himself. Bad things, they believed, never happen to good people. So if Job was suffering it was, obviously, because of his personal sin. Secondly, Job s friends had questioned his right to ask where God was in the midst of his suffering. He is a mere human, they believed, and it was totally unfitting for him to question God. Juana s pastor did the same: For him, the mudslide was brought about by the sin of the villagers. And there was no room for questioning in the midst of suffering. But God s response to Job s accusing friends was: I am angry with you, because you have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has. My servant Job will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer and not deal with you according to your folly. You have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has. (Job ) Who in this passage, we must ask, is God angry with? Is he against Job for some personal crime? Did Juana lose her children in repayment for her personal disobedience? No! Truly, suffering and all forms of evil are the natural consequence of human mistrust and disobedience, greed and self-sufficiency. But rarely is there a one-on-one correlation. People suffer because our world is broken. And often it is precisely the least guilty that are victimized the most. Strikingly, however, it is not Job but his smug, self-satisfied friends, the self-appointed judges, who stand in need of prayer! And the accused Job is the one whose prayer on their behalf is acceptable to God, a clear indication that God has never stepped away from him. Their bond is 5

6 strong and Job can count on that. So can Juana. So can we, even in the midst of our suffering and in the midst of our painful awareness of the suffering of others. I m going to invite us into silence for moment. As you quiet your mind, identify one or two concrete experiences of suffering, yours or of others. In light of the biblical portrayal of God s nature, can you re-affirm your relationship with God in the midst of those circumstances? Take a moment to pray. Ask God for the grace to celebrate God s presence, to trust God s goodness, to know yourself cared for by your Creator. Listen again to God s response to Job s accusing friends: I am angry with you, because you have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has. My servant Job will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer and not deal with you according to your folly. You have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has. (Job ) The second inappropriate judgment of Job s friends was criticizing him for questioning God in the midst of his suffering. But God actually affirmed Job s words as words of truth. You see, God is God enough, and close enough and good enough that we are free to ask, to cry, to yell, to rebel against everything that deprives us or others of the full life God intends for all creation. God actually welcomes our questioning and invites us to speak the truth about all that is wrong. This questioning is actually a deeper, more truthful, expression of faith and trust than skirting the issues, pretending all is well when it is not, or painting a religious veneer over honest doubt. Job could question. So can Juana. So can we. We need not fear falling away from the faith. We need not shrink from people in doubt. We can be real and express our deepest fears, in full knowledge that God will not turn us away. In a broken world, marred by human mistrust and greed, all of us, to a larger or lesser degree, must learn to co-exist with pain and suffering. But we can do so with 6

7 confidence that God is with us, that God accepts us, questions and all, and that God s good purposes of full life for all people will come to pass. So be it! 7

For as long as we have written record of human existence, man has sought to answer the question of existence. Simply put, Why am I alive?

For as long as we have written record of human existence, man has sought to answer the question of existence. Simply put, Why am I alive? Jeremiah 20:18 (NIV) Why did I ever come out of the womb to see