When Tragedy Happens If you are like me, you were utterly disheartened by the report of 50 Muslim worshippers shot to death in Christchurch, New Zealand nine days ago. Here they were, minding their own business, peacefully gathering for prayer in their mosque, when a self-described white supremacist open-fired. Then, three days later came the terrorist attack in Utrecht, Netherlands that killed three people. I wish I could say that these attacks are out of the ordinary, but I can t. They are becoming all too common. Thus far in 2019 there have been 132 Christians killed by Islamic radicals around the world, with 88 of those deaths in Nigeria alone. In 2017 terrorist attacks left 4,672 dead in Afghanistan, and 1,951 dead in Iraq. Think of the 2015 Paris terrorist attack that killed 130 people, or the extremist Islamic group al-shabaab murdering 71 Christians at a Nairobi, Kenya shopping mall, or the 2011 massacre in Norway when a white supremacist killed 77 people. Sadly, terrorism, whether motivated by religion, or hate, or ideology is a danger to any free people and a threat to civilization itself. And, course, the United States has not been immune from terrorism. Think of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting in 2018, or the Sutherland Springs church shooting in 2017, or the Orlando nightclub massacre in 2016, or the Charleston church shooting and the San Bernardino massacre in 2015. There are more, of course, and I haven t even mentioned any of the many school shootings like Parkland or Newtown or the horrific Las Vegas shooting in 2017. Even peaceful Canada has not been immune from terrorism. In 2017 there was the Quebec
mosque massacre that killed six victims. When we ask why God made a world with so much evil and suffering, we are never satisfied with the answer as if there is an answer. What did we do to deserve this? Why does God allow it? Doesn t God care about us? These questions were asked of Jesus two thousand years ago. Pilate had killed some Galileans who happened to be innocent of any crime. Why did they die? Were they greater sinners than other people? Or take the case of the eighteen people who died when a tower collapsed and fell on them. Were they the worst sinners in Jerusalem that God singled them out for death? Did they really get what they deserved? In both cases Jesus denies there is any connection between tragedy and sin. The Galileans were not the worst sinners in Galilee; those killed by the falling tower were not the worst sinners in Jerusalem. So, to the question of whether tragedy or suffering is punishment from God for sin, the simple answer of Jesus is No! But why do tragic things happen in this life? After all, couldn t God have made a better world than one with so much suffering and pain? Jesus doesn t answer that question. Bad things happen all the time, whether they are natural disasters such as tornadoes, earthquakes, hurricanes, and floods, or man-made disasters such as terrorism attacks, or a tyrant in Venezuela starving his people. Bad things happen, because that is the way the world is. And this should not surprise us. In a world shaped by God s creativity freedom is central to the energy of that creativity. And freedom means that God gives up some control and power not because God is impotent, but
because God is love. In other words, an all-powerful God allows evil and suffering in order to preserve the freedom of creation. Tragedy happens in the creative energy, the randomness, and the freedom of natural law. Tragedy happens in the perverse human freedom of moral law. And being true to the promise of freedom, God does not intervene. But that doesn t mean God doesn t care. Or that God is absent far from it. In fact, fear and intrigue and jealousy and ambition end up nailing God to a cross. And what does God do? God embraces the suffering. God endures the suffering. God transforms the suffering into the creativity of new life. So, the question is not why? Why do bad things happen to good people? The question is how? How do we live in a world where pain and suffering simply happen? That s why Jesus says, Repent or you will perish like they did. Repent means to turn away from the why question and turn toward the how question. Turn away from blaming those in authority, or blaming God, or blaming the victims, or even blaming yourself. Instead stay close to God. Stay grounded and connected to God s grace. Because then, when tragedy happens, God will sustain you. God will hang from the crosses of your tragedy and pain. God will weep with you. And God will never abandon you. You will suffer. You will die. But you will not perish unloved and alone when and if you stay close to God who is always close to you. In Thornton Wilder s novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey, a Franciscan friar explores the reason why five people died in the collapse of an Inca rope bridge in Peru. The friar investigates the lives of the victims, seeking some sort of cosmic answer to the question of why each had to die. Why were they on the bridge precisely when it collapsed? Were they being singled out for some reason? The friar interviews everyone he can find that knew the five victims. He spends six years investigating the people, their lives, their backgrounds, their character. He concludes,
Those five people were no worse, nor no better than anyone in the village. God does allow the sun and the rain to fall upon the good and the bad. The friar s book finds a place at a convent of nuns that care for the deaf, the mentally ill and the dying. The novel ends with the Abbess observation, There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning. That phrase, love, the only survival, the only meaning has stayed with me over the years, and I commend it to you. Those words were cited by British Prime Minister Tony Blair in his address at the 9/11 memorial service in St. Paul s Cathedral. They were cited by at least two American news commentators after 13 people died in a bridge collapse in Minneapolis in 2007. The book itself has been referenced by prominent writers from Ayn Rand and John Hershey to Stephen King. Love, the only survival, the only meaning that s the key to responding to tragedy and suffering in our world and with ourselves. Tragedy happens. That s the way life is. There is heartbreak and heartaches a plenty. The question is not why bad things happen to good people, but how do we respond to tragedy, to the pain and suffering of the people around us. The French writer Albert Camus wrote a story called The Plague. The setting is in Oran in North Africa, a city suffering from a plague. People were dying every day in great numbers, and the parish priest felt it his obligation to preach about what was occurring. In his first sermon, he told the people that the plague had come upon them because of their sins. Calamity has come upon you, my brethren, and you, my brethren, deserve it.
Time passes, and still more people die, including children. Father Paneloux enters the pulpit for the second time. Now the priest includes himself. It is not just your sins, but our sins. The issue is whether, in the face of the plague, we will deny everything or affirm everything. But when the plague continues its course, Father Paneloux returns to the pulpit for a third time, and the whole issue is recast. It is not now a question of punishment for our sins, and not a question of affirming or denying everything. The priest says to the people, My brothers and sisters, each of us must be the one who stays. That s what it comes down to, finally. It comes down to the issue of whether we will stay. The question is not why but how how can we live into the future in life-giving ways? How can we live for something that will make this world a kinder, better place for the people around us? How can we show love amid hate, kindness amid cruelty, compassion amid suffering, and hope amid despair? How can we shine with the light of God even when the darkness threatens to overwhelm us? This is the central task of a Christian when tragedy happens to be a light in the darkness and show the way of God s love, mercy and goodness to a world desperately in need of it. Yes, I know each day we are beset by our own tiredness, our weariness in holding on, hanging on, trying to make it through another week, another month. There is pain in the people around us and pain in our own selves and pain in our world. Sometimes we just don t know if we can cope anymore. But finally, as Father Paneloux said to his parishioners, it comes to this: Each of us must be the one who stays.
Each day the hosts of darkness gather around my bed, around yours, and we decide whether to hide or to throw back the covers and get up. This is the day the Lord has made. I am the person, you are the person, who will either stay or flee. I love the story about the university student who requested a few wise words from the noted German author Wolfgang von Goethe. Replied Goethe: Let each person sweep in front of his own door, and then the whole world will be clean. Each person doing their best, linked to other persons exerting their best efforts, can accomplish great things. That is our calling as Christians, dear people. None of us can accomplish everything but each of us can accomplish something. We all have our part to play to heal the world s wounds. We keep asking God to solve the world s problems, but God is asking us to do the same thing. We keep praying for peace, but God wants us to be peacemakers. We keep hoping for justice, but God wants us to build a just world. We keep isolated in our compounds, but God wants us to bring people together. We keep complaining about natural disasters, but God wants us to be good stewards of the planet. We need the spirit of Winston Churchill. When Great Britain was fighting for its life during World War II before the United States entered the war, Churchill wrote to President Roosevelt, Send us the tools and we will do the job. God has commissioned us to a ministry of reconciliation. We are empowered to be reconcilers. Now is the time to break down the barriers that divide people one from another. Now is the time to conquer our fear of the other and affirm our common humanity. Now is the time to be intolerant of intolerance, to call out hate for what it is, and to affirm the dignity of every human being as a precious child of God.
So, hang in there and keep the faith. Don t stop loving. Don t stop caring. Don t stop showing compassion and kindness and mercy. Don t close your heart to tragedy but open it wide to the people in need, whoever they are or wherever they are in this world, or even on our southern border. No matter what happens, or how many times it happens, no matter how many towers fall, or tornadoes hit, or rivers overflow, or terrorists strike, or bombs explode, no matter the anxieties, pains and sorrows in our own lives, God s love is greater still. This is our faith: God will prevail against all the heartbreaks and heartaches in our world, and in the power and strength of God, so shall we! Dr. Gary Nicolosi March 24, 2019 Text Luke 13: 1-9 Lent 3, C