by The Rev. Dr. Max Lynn
SCRIPTURE READINGS Luke 13:1-9, Isaiah 55:1-13, Luke 13:1-9
Transcribed from the sermon preached on MARCH 20, 2022
Is everything that happens the will of God, a reward or punishment for our moral or immoral behavior?
There are several spots where Jesus deals with the question of God’s will in human suffering. Be like God he says, forgive and love your enemy, for the rain falls on the just and unjust. Master, who sinned, this blind man or his parents? It was not that this man sinned, or his parents sinned, but that the works of God may be manifest in him.” God has not always determined what we are presented with by the natural world, or even the world of history, but how God works within us. How might grace call us forward? And when Jesus was asked about those killed by the fall of the tower in Siloam, “were they worse offenders than all the others who dwell in Jerusalem? I tell you, No!”
We hear of a group of people who Pilate murdered, apparently while they were making sacrifices. Jesus asks, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way, they were worse sinners that all other Galileans?” Once again, he says, “No.” Don’t attribute hurricanes and earthquakes, accidents, disease, and acts of violence to the will of God, as if God were singling out the victims for punishment.
Don’t try to use God to explain catastrophe and disaster and the chaos of natural and human life in a way that such events cease to be catastrophe.
Not everything is explainable, God is not micromanaging every single aspect of what happens in the world. We do not have control over everything that happens to us.
Of course, we will continue to pray. There is no simple correlation that gives easy understandable meaning to everything that happens. There is something spiritual and profound about prayer, something that takes us beyond our immediate myopic point of view and unites us to each other and to an ultimate God beyond the natural and historical world. And we know that intention, unified intention, spiritual intention can have a profound impact on our health and the workings of life and history. So, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters, and you that have no money come eat. This is Isaiah’s collective vision for what the new Jerusalem might be. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all people are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Get a bunch of people praying in a particular direction and who knows what can happen! But also, prayer helps us look at things from an ultimate perspective, it can take us out of our anxiety and monkey-mind and give us perspective and focus. It helps keep us humble which is such an important ingredient in wisdom. And wisdom helps.
Isaiah, or second Isaiah and scholars refer to it, speaks of a grand vision, and ideal vision of Israel to the people in Exile in Babylon. Come on back the author is saying, we have this great vision before us, calling us to come together to create a nation of justice, equity, and prosperity. God is calling us. We can do it. God will be with us.
Now there is a problem when we try to equate the vision with the reality to the degree that the ends justify the means. Where we are the righteous chosen who have this great vision given to us by God, and therefore we can destroy others who get in our way or who don’t share the vision.
There is a problem when we think that the good fortune of nature is a blessing from God because of our moral superiority. This is the flip side of the coin, the idea that suffering is always punishment: the poor and the unfortunate must be immoral, then the rich and lucky must be moral. When things go well for us, it must be because God is rewarding us. It has been easy for the United States for instance, with a broad land rich in resources and favoring economic and political success, to think we must be better than other nations and that God is rewarding us for it. This self-righteous idea that God has rewarded the morality of our nation with prosperity is no doubt part of the reason for the resistance to teaching some of the more brutal truths of our history, the theft of land from the natives and enslavement of African Americans for instance. On the other hand, some of us may be tempted to resist responsibilities of our current power, and abolish the police entirely, to have no immigration law whatsoever, or not send military aid to Ukraine, imagining we can live in history as morally pure and righteous. Barbara Brown Taylor in her book Speaking of Sin notes that it is frequent for us to define sin as what our enemies are doing and to ignore those sins that we tend to favor.
It is always important to honor the distance between ourselves and God, between our grand vision of a just and peaceful society and our own, to resist idolatry of self, group, or nation, and maintain humility before the ultimate: No matter what, we need forgiveness.
8For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.
9For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
Jesus doesn’t stop at saying those who suffer from natural disaster, disease or violence are not being punished by God for being immoral. “I tell you, Jesus says, unless you repent, you will all perish as they did.”
Just because everything cannot be attributed to God’s rewards and punishments, just because the degree of our suffering or prosperity doesn’t correspond directly to our moral righteousness doesn’t mean there are not consequences for our actions. Study hard and you are more likely to learn and succeed than if you don’t. A nation with education, freedom and creativity and hard workers will likely produce more prosperity than nations where all the money goes to support and protect the elite. Have unequal justice and racism and expect riots in the streets. Consume to excess and resist changing from fossil fuels, and we can expect greater extremes in weather, greater storms, and drought. Smoke pot all day long and you probably won’t get much done, and you will be emotionally unavailable to those around you. Sleep around and expect broken relationships and unplanned pregnancy. Broken relationships and unplanned pregnancy then lead to absent parents and greater child poverty. Manufacture and sell weapons, then don’t be surprised when those weapons come back soon enough to be used against you, or if refugees come flocking to your land as they flee from where you send your weapons. Build a community where mutual support and kindness and acceptance is the norm, and it will be contagious. Good and kind acts will be done by more and more. The measure you give will be the measure you get back.
Even if our moral order is not the ultimate moral order of God, and even though many things happen that have nothing to do with the actions or morality of the people affected, many things do. And perhaps more importantly, many things should. God has given humans a spirit of freedom, love, and justice for a reason. We want to live in a moral and just world, a world where both humans and nature thrive, so let us live and work for it. Keep the ultimate vision of that prosperous community where all can come and have their fill. We shall go out in welcoming joy and be led back in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall burst into song, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
In bible study this week we were talking about this lesson and Nigel said the main point is, “Don’t worry about what you cannot control, worry about what you can control.” I think he is right on. Don’t be anxious about what you cannot control, focus on what you can.
God, grant us the courage to change the things that can and should be changed, the grace to accept those things that cannot be changed, and the wisdom to know the difference. Amen