St. Blogory’s— The internet café d’un prêtre à la retraite ac o offeiriad wedi ymddeol.

Two Kinds of Suffering. Conclusion

 

What is your Picture of God?

 

What is your picture of God when it comes to suffering from the consequences of living in a Real World with Real People?

 

Is it Jesus' picture of God?        

"Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for bread, will give a stone? Or if the child asks for a fish, will give a snake?

"If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him?" (Matthew 7:9-11)

 

Is it the picture that Jesus, the human face of God, has of himself?

"The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they might have life, and have it abundantly." (John 10:10)

and

"I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep." (John 10:11)

 

Is it St. John's picture of God?

"God is love." (1 John 4:8)

 

Finally, consider this picture which God revealed to the prophet Ezekiel (34:15-16):

"I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the Lord God. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak. . . ."

 

Conclusion

As I mentioned earlier, whenever we suffer, for whatever reason, in whatever way, we need to know that the God who created us is for us; the God who is Emmanuel is with us, and the God who is our Comforter is on our side.

And whenever we pray, and whenever we love and minister to others, we are cooperating with God's will— God's desire— God's delight— "on earth as it is in heaven."

 

Or, to use a perfectly correct substitute for

"your will be done on earth as it is in heaven":

"your thrill be done on earth as it is in heaven."

 

Finally, because I have spoken mainly about the chosen Suffering for the sake of the Kingdom of God, and the unchosen Suffering of Sickness and Injury, I want to say more about the unchosen suffering of innocent persons and peoples by persecution, oppression, institutional violence, prejudice, and state terror, domestic terror, and international terror.

The Slave Trade, the Shoah, or Holocaust, and the Sex Trade are among the great and terrible exemplars of this type, and the recent murderous violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, and at the Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, synagogue, are recent examples.

Confronting such evil for the sake of the Kingdom of God is a choice with which all persons of faith are called to struggle.

 

Hurricane Harvey's unprecedented flooding disaster in 2017 demonstrated another kind of unchosen Suffering from the consequences of living in a Real World with Real People. In this case, Real World climate change combined with Real People land development created an epic event.

 

Unchosen suffering, whether from sickness or injury or accidents, or from human evil or natural disasters, is never the will of God— they are the consequences of living in a Real World with Real People like us, who have been given the terrible freedom to love sacrificially and hate demonically, to choose wisely and recklessly.

 

In view of all this, I conclude with these comforting words from St. Paul (Romans 8:35, 37-39):

"Who will separate us from the love of Christ?

"Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

"No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

"For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In 1963, a racist bomb attack on an Alabama church killed four black girls.

John Petts, in Llansteffan, Carmarthenshire, designed this window,

with Jesus' words from Matthew 25:40: "You did it to me."

This window from the people of Wales was installed in 1965.

 

 

Two Kinds of Suffering. Part 7

 

Examining the Relationship Between Sin and Suffering

 

Yesterday's post concluded with this paragraph:

"Living among Real People puts us at risk in other ways— environmental pollution (pesticides, lead-based paint, asbestos, and smoking); road rage; drug abuse; antibiotic misuse, producing new resistant super-bugs; verbal and physical abuse; domestic and international terrorism. The list goes on and on."

 

Sometimes there is a relationship between sin and suffering, like polluters or terrorists who intentionally and maliciously harm others— and yet their victims' sins aren't the cause of their suffering.

And sometimes there is a relationship between bad choices and suffering, when people choose unhealthy practices, like smoking or using other drugs; or choose to live in flood plains; or choose to expose others to harm, like sending their sick children to school, or refusing to vaccinate themselves and their children; and yet even these bad choices may not qualify as sinful— especially when addiction is at work, or people are under financial stress.

 

Granted that sometimes there is a relationship between a person's sin and his or her own suffering, there isn't any support in the Scriptures for understanding sickness as God's judgment or punishment.

Jesus draws attention to an individual's sin in only two of the forty-one healing stories in the Gospels.

 

In the healing of the paralyzed man (Mark 2:1-12), Jesus says to him, "Your sins are forgiven" without any reference to his paralysis; his subsequent healing has nothing to do with his sins being forgiven— it's about Jesus' authority both to forgive and to heal:

"Now some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts, 'Why does this fellow speak in this way? It is blasphemy! Who can forgive sins but God alone?'

"At once Jesus perceived in his spirit that they were discussing these questions among themselves; and he said to them, 'Why do you raise such questions in your hearts? Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, "Your sins are forgiven," or to say, "Stand up and take your mat and walk?"'

"'But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins'—he said to the paralytic— 'I say to you, stand up, take your mat and go to your home.'

"And he stood up, and immediately took the mat and went out before all of them; so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, 'We have never seen anything like this!'"

 

There's a story about another paralyzed man at the Pool of Bethsaida in St. John's Gospel, chapter 5, verses 1 through 4. In this story, it is only after the healing that Jesus tells him, "See, you have been made well! Do not sin anymore, so that nothing worse happens to you."

Although it's possible Jesus is suggesting a connection between the man's sins and his paralysis, it's likelier that Jesus is reminding him that the consequences of sinning are worse than paralysis.

This second interpretation is supported by an incident St. Luke records in his Gospel (13:1-5), when Jesus gets interrupted in the middle of teaching the crowds:

"At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.

"He asked them, 'Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did.

"Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them— do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.'"

 

The most striking repudiation of the Chastisement or Judgment Theory of Sickness comes in the first three verses of St. John's story of the man born blind (9:1-41):

"As [Jesus] walked along, he saw a man blind from birth.

"His disciples asked him, 'Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?'

"Jesus answered, 'Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God's work might be revealed in him."

The man's blindness is not the consequence of sin, either his or his parents', as was commonly thought in Jesus' day and is still too commonly believed even today.

Instead, Jesus saw his blindness as an opportunity for God, at work in Jesus, to reveal in the man born blind God's healing and mercy.

 

Charles M. Schulz, the creator of Peanuts, had fun with the Chastisement Theory of Suffering with a cartoon in which Linus and Charlie are climbing a wooden fence when Linus gets a sliver in his finger

Linus: Ow! I got a sliver!

In the next frame, Linus and Charlie encounter Lucy

Lucy: What's the matter with you?

Linus: I have a sliver in my finger. .

Lucy: Ah, Ha! That means you are being punished for something! What have you done wrong lately?

Linus: I haven't done anything wrong!

Lucy: You have a sliver, haven't you? That's a misfortune, isn't it? You're being punished with misfortune because you've been bad!

Charlie: Now, wait a minute. . . Does . . .

Lucy: What do you know about it, Charlie Brown? This is a sign! This is a direct sign of punishment! Linus has done something very wrong, and now he has to suffer misfortune! I know all about these things! I know that a. . .

Linus: It's out! It just popped right out!

Then, smiling sweetly at a scowling Lucy as she walks away, Linus says:

"Thus endeth the theological lesson for today!"

 

Tomorrow: What is your picture of God?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In 1963, a racist bomb attack on an Alabama church killed four black girls.

John Petts, in Llansteffan, Carmarthenshire, designed this window,

with Jesus' words from Matthew 25:40: "You did it to me."

This window from the people of Wales was installed in 1965.

 

Two Kinds of Suffering. Part 6

 

The Terribly Wrong Idea of Sickness as God's Judgment or Punishment

 

Another terribly wrong idea developed over time— that sickness was not only God's will; it was also God's judgment.

And the idea that sickness is God's judgment was reflected in the 1928 Prayer Book's service for the "Visitation of the Sick" and its language about "chastening."

 

Here's what Father Massey Hamilton Shepherd, Jr., wrote about that service in The Oxford American Prayer Book Commentary (New York: Oxford University Press, 1950):

"In the older form of the Office, before the 1928 revision, the suffering of the sick person was described as 'God's visitation' for the purpose either of trying his faith or of punishing his sin."

The 1928 revision reinterpreted the meaning of "visitation" from God's visiting sickness to God's visiting mercy in this Collect:

"Hear us, Almighty and most merciful God and Saviour; extend thy accustomed goodness to this thy servant who is grieved with sickness. Visit him, O Lord, with thy loving mercy, and so restore him to his former health, that he may give thanks unto thee in thy holy Church; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."

 

Even so, the service retains many elements of the judgment theory of sickness.

 

For example, here's another Collect in the service (page 310):

"Sanctify, we beseech thee, O Lord, the sickness of this thy servant; that the sense of his weakness may add strength to his faith, and seriousness to his repentance; and grant that he may dwell with thee in life everlasting; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."

 

And this prayer (pages 313-314):

"O most merciful God, who, according to the multitude of thy mercies, dost so put away the sins of those who truly repent, that thou rememberest them no more; Open thine eye of mercy upon this thy servant, who most earnestly desireth pardon and forgiveness. Renew in him, most loving Father, whatsoever hath been decayed by the fraud and malice of the devil, or by his [the sick person's] own carnal will and frailness; preserve and continue this sick member in the unity of the Church; consider his contrition, accept his tears, assuage his pain, as shall seem to thee most expedient for him. And forasmuch as he putteth his full trust only in thy mercy, impute not unto him his former sins, but strengthen him with thy blessed Spirit; and, when thou art pleased to take him hence, take him unto thy favor; through the merits of thy most dearly beloved Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."

 

This terrible understanding of Sickness as God's judgment or testing is sometimes called the "Chastisement Theory of Sickness," or as the "Moral" or "Educational" Theory of Sickness.

To deal with this awful misconception, we begin by remembering that sickness falls under the category of "Suffering as a consequence of living in a Real World with Real People."

Living in a Real World puts us at risk to all the ambiguities of nature— to bacteria and viruses, cancers, genetic mutations, and chromosomal defects.

Living among Real People puts us at risk in other ways— environmental pollution (pesticides, lead-based paint, asbestos, and smoking); road rage; drug abuse; antibiotic misuse, producing new resistant super-bugs; verbal and physical abuse; domestic and international terrorism. The list goes on and on.

 

Tomorrow: Examining the Relationship Between Sin and Suffering

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In 1963, a racist bomb attack on an Alabama church killed four black girls.

John Petts, in Llansteffan, Carmarthenshire, designed this window,

with Jesus' words from Matthew 25:40: "You did it to me."

This window from the people of Wales was installed in 1965.

 

Two Kinds of Suffering. Part 5

 

How Did this Distinction Between Unchosen and Chosen Suffering Get so Muddled?

 

Over the centuries most if not all of our Churches, and most if not all Christians, lost sight of the crucial distinction between Suffering for the Kingdom of God and Suffering from Sickness.

 

In the Episcopal Church we've been using our current Book of Common Prayer for almost 40 years. Before that, we used the 1928 Book of Common Prayer.

So let's say it's 40 years ago, and you're sick in the hospital, and you ask me to bring Holy Communion to you.

After greeting and having a little conversation with you, I turn in my Prayer Book to a service titled "The Order for the Visitation of the Sick."

Here's the Collect— the first prayer I will offer on your behalf (emphases added):

"Almighty, everliving God, Maker of mankind, who dost correct those whom thou dost love, and chastise everyone whom thou dost receive; We beseech thee to have mercy upon this thy servant visited with thine hand, and to grant that he may take his sickness patiently, and recover his bodily health, if it be thy gracious will; and that, whensoever his soul shall depart from the body, it may be without spot presented unto thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

And then I will read you this Epistle, or Lesson:

"My son [I'm not sure what you're thinking if you're a woman!], despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: for whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth."

So as I pray that prayer, and read those words, while you lie immobilized on your back after surgery, all hooked up to various tubes, and suffering great pain, how are you feeling?!

 

There are two enormous problems with that Collect and that Epistle.

First, the Collect is against Scripture, because Jesus never visited (to use the Prayer Book's language) or inflicted sickness on anyone, nor did he ever refuse to heal the sick.

Second, the appointed Epistle is a misuse of Scripture, because the context of the passage, from the Letter to the Hebrews (12:1-6, King James Version), is not suffering from Sickness; it's about Suffering for the Kingdom of God:

"[Let] us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin. And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth."

 

Exacerbating the problem, the author of Hebrews is quoting Proverbs 3:11-12, which the author also misused, because this passage from Proverbs is about instruction rather than suffering of any kind— apart from whatever form the "chastening" and especially the physical "scourging" may have been (emphases added):

"Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the LORD, and depart from evil. It shall be health to thy navel, and marrow to thy bones. Honour the LORD with thy substance, and with the firstfruits of all thine increase: So shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new wine. My son, despise not the chastening of the LORD; neither be weary of his correction: For whom the LORD loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth. Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding."

The only other time the word "chastening" appears in Proverbs (19:18) confirms the nature of chastening as discipline rather than suffering:

"Chasten your son while there is hope, And do not set your heart on his destruction."

 

If the Gospels are clear about the difference between Suffering for the Kingdom of God and Suffering from Sickness, why did the Church begin to embrace the idea of Suffering from Sickness as "God's will?"

In ad 313, the Emperor Constantine the Great published the Edict of Milan, and from that moment Christianity was legal and Suffering for the sake of the Kingdom of God all but ended in the Roman Empire.

Because Christians no longer faced persecution and death for the sake of the Kingdom of God, they could no longer suffer in solidarity with Jesus' suffering on the Cross.

In its place, some Christians began to offer up their Suffering from Sickness as a way to identify with the Suffering of Jesus on the Cross.

There's nothing essentially wrong with that approach devotionally, because God is compassionate, and whenever human flesh suffers, God suffers.

But while it might be helpful devotionally to identify our (by comparison) trivial aches and pains from the flu, or, less trivially, our suffering before and after extensive surgery, with Jesus' suffering on the Cross, it's disastrous theologically.

Eventually, some Christians began to think of sickness as a cross they had to bear.

 

And because Jesus had prayed "thy will be done" in the Garden of Gethsemane, some Christians began to pray for their healing with the words, "if it is your will."

As Christians, our prayers for healing— for ourselves and for others— should always be "according to your will," because our healing and wholeness is always according to— in accord with— God's will for us.

 

Tomorrow: The Terribly Wrong Idea of Sickness as God's Judgment or Punishment

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In 1963, a racist bomb attack on an Alabama church killed four black girls.

John Petts, in Llansteffan, Carmarthenshire, designed this window,

with Jesus' words from Matthew 25:40: "You did it to me."

This window from the people of Wales was installed in 1965.

Two Kinds of Suffering, Part 4

 

Two Kinds of Suffering— Unchosen and Chosen

 

People who are struggling with terrible and terrifying sicknesses or injuries often draw on traditional folk sayings, family proverbs, and other cultural expressions to help them cope in the face of their suffering.

 

Please note:

In the midst of people's grief or shock, it is seldom, if ever, helpful to try challenging these expressions, because those who are suffer are drawing on whatever resources they have to give them comfort and a way to cope.

Later, when a time for reflection opens up, there may be an opportunity to say a word of real comfort about the God who suffers with us and in us.

 

Here are a few examples:

"It's God's will."

"God is punishing me."

"God only tests his 'special ones.'"

"This is God's judgment."

And, occasionally, a Christians may say, "It's the cross I have to bear."

 

These expressions are wrong Biblically, theologically, and pastorally, because they confuse two different categories, or kinds, of suffering.

 

The first kind is "Suffering for the sake of the Kingdom of God."

For Christians, the crucifixion of Jesus is the ultimate example.

 

The second kind is "Suffering from the consequences of living in a Real World with Real People."

Suffering from illness or injury falls into this category.

 

Let's take a first example of wrong expressions— "It's God's will."

Everything we know about Jesus assures us that it is never God's will or desire that we get sick or have an accident.

On the contrary, Jesus' life and ministry assures us that God's will and desire is our healing and wholeness.

Jesus never inflicted sickness on anyone, and never refused to heal the sick.

Here's a typical passage from St. Mark (1:40-42), which speaks explicitly about God's will as demonstrated in Jesus' ministry:

 

"A leper came to him begging him, and kneeling he said to [Jesus], 'If you will, you can make me clean.' Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, 'I will. Be made clean.' Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean."

 

The distinction between what God wills and what God permits is embedded in one of the petitions of the Lord's Prayer, and many Christians recite it without fully recognizing what it's saying: "Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."

This petition tells us that God's will is not always done on earth as it is in heaven, and that's why we pray that God's will may be done on earth.

Only in heaven is God's will always done.

 

The crucial distinction between Suffering for the sake of the Kingdom of God, and Suffering from the consequences of living in a Real World with Real People, is choice.

Sickness and accidents and being injured happen to us— we do not choose them.

Suffering for the Kingdom of God is something we choose.

Here are several examples:

 

In St. Mark's Gospel (8:34), and in parallel passages in St. Matthew's and St. Luke's Gospels, Jesus calls "the crowd with his disciples," and says to them:

"If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me."

Jesus' words could also be literally translated this way: "If anyone wills to follow me"; or "If anyone desires to follow me." Jesus is clearly offering a choice to follow or not to follow.

 

In the Garden of Gethsemane before his arrest, Jesus is also wrestling with his choice to suffer for the Kingdom of God, as St. Matthew describes it (26:37-39 and 42):

"[Jesus] took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be grieved and agitated. Then he said to them, 'I am deeply grieved, even to death; remain here, and stay awake with me.' And going a little farther, he threw himself on the ground and prayed, 'My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want.' . . . Again he went away a second time and prayed, 'My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.

In this passage, the emphasized words want and will come from the same Greek verb  thelo, which may be translated as "to be willing, disposed, or inclined; to choose, intend, or design; to wish, want, or will; to take pleasure in and to desire."

Jesus' "your will be done" in the Garden made its way into Matthew's version of the Lord's Prayer (6:9-13); "your will be done" doesn't appear in Luke's version (11:2-4).

 

Although it is not God's will for us to suffer from sickness and injury, it is true that doing God's will sometimes brings suffering.

If someone is being abused and you intervene, you may be attacked as well.

If a corporate policy is unethical and you object, you may find your position imperiled.

If you minister to the hungry, the naked, the sick, those in prison, or a stranger (or a strange person!), others may avoid you, or scorn you, or your health or wealth may be threatened.

We do not choose to be sick, but we can choose to do what is right, to do God's will, and sometimes that will bring suffering.

 

On the other hand, when we are sick, it is hard, if not impossible, to "love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind" if we think that our unchosen suffering is God's will.

In fact, it would only be natural to be angry at God, if we believed that God wills our pain.

It is also difficult— and contradictory— to pray for healing if we think our sickness is God's will.

And so, when Christians confuse bearing illness or injury with bearing the cross, they are confusing two different kinds of suffering.

 

Yet whenever we suffer, for whatever reason and in whatever way— physically, mentally, emotionally, or spiritually— we need to know in the depths of our hearts that the God who created us is for us; that the God who is Emmanuel is with us; and that the God who is our Comforter is on our side.

And whenever we pray, we need to know that we are cooperating with God's desire to heal us, to save us, and to make us whole.

 

Tomorrow: How Did this Distinction Between Unchosen and Chosen Suffering Get so Muddled?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In 1963, a racist bomb attack on an Alabama church killed four black girls.

John Petts, in Llansteffan, Carmarthenshire, designed this window,

with Jesus' words from Matthew 25:40: "You did it to me."

This window from the people of Wales was installed in 1965.

 

Two Kinds of Suffering, Part 3

 

Theodicy

 

Pronunciation Guide:

The the- in theodicy is pronounced like the the- in theology.

The -odicy in theodicy is pronounced like Homer's Odyssey.

 

Now we turn our attention to Theodicy, the justification of God in the face of evil, from the Greek words for God (theos) and justice (dikaios).

 

Theodicy goes right to the heart of the Problem of Evil.

And the Problem of Evil is this:

As Christians, we believe that God is benevolent and almighty, and yet evil is real.

 

So the logical dilemma is this:

    If God is almighty and there is evil, then God is not benevolent; OR

    If God is benevolent and there is evil, then God is not almighty.

 

The religious dilemma is this: is God good, or evil?

 

How can we begin to approach the Problem of Evil?

 

First, we need to admit that God is ultimately responsible because God initiated and continues to create everything.

Having said that, evil exists not because God isn't almighty, and not because God isn't benevolent; evil exists because God chooses to create Real People in a Real World.

Let's look at each of these aspects of Creation.

 

First, God chooses to create a Real World— a world which has an objective reality, a world which is predictable enough that we can speak meaningfully about "laws of nature."

If you have read Mary Poppins, you will remember her magical medicine: when she gives it to Jane, it tastes like Jane's favorite flavor; when she gives it to Michael, it tastes like his favorite flavor.

Of course, the Real World doesn't work that way.

When a batter hits a ball, she knows that if she hits it just right she'll get a home run; but if the catcher gets in the way of her swing and the bat strikes him full in the face, the bat will not cease being a bat for the catcher's sake.

There is also ambiguity in a Real World:

Water is necessary for life, and it can drown us. Fire warms us and cooks our food, and it can burn us.

All of this follows from God's creation of a Real World.

 

Second, God chooses to create Real People, and Real People must be able to make real choices.

A coerced choice is not a real choice.

In order to be truly free to choose what is good or holy, we must be truly free to choose what is bad or evil.

To be truly free to love, we must be truly free to hate.

God did not create us to be marionettes on strings, doing only what God manipulates us to do.

 

And because God chooses to create Real People in a Real World, we need to recognize the difference between what God permits and what God desires.

God permits evil so that Real People in a Real World may fulfill God's desire that we truly love one another and that we truly love God, and truly choose what is good over what is evil.

In short, God has given us freedom— a terrible freedom as well as a glorious freedom.

Here's what St. Paul says in his letter to the Galatians (5:1, 13-15):

 

"For freedom Christ has set us free. . . .

"For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another.

"For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'

"If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another."

 

Although God is ultimately responsible for evil because God initiated and sustains a creation of Real People in a Real World, Christians also know this:

In Jesus of Nazareth, God submitted God's very self to the consequences of God's own creation by taking on the same risk of life and suffering as we do.

Charles Williams, a brilliant British novelist and theologian, and member of the Inklings, who flourished in the 1930s and '40s, put it starkly. He began by quoting St. Paul in Romans 8:22, King James Version:

 

"'The whole creation groaneth and travaileth together.'

"This then is the creation that 'needs' justifying.

"The Cross justifies it to this extent at least— that just as He submitted us to his inexorable will, so He submitted Himself to our wills. . . . If he would not cease to preserve us in the full horror of existence, at least He shared it."

 

The Incarnation of God also means that we know that God knows from experience what it is to be human; what it is to be hungry and thirsty, what it is to be rejected and ridiculed; what it is to be abandoned, and even what it is to "die as one of us."

And the Incarnation also means that when-ever and where-ever human flesh suffers, God suffers.

In St. Matthew's Gospel (25:42-43), Jesus says this in one of his parables:

"I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me."

 

Monday: Two Kinds of Suffering— Unchosen and Chosen

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In 1963, a racist bomb attack on an Alabama church killed four black girls.

John Petts, in Llansteffan, Carmarthenshire, designed this window,

with Jesus' words from Matthew 25:40: "You did it to me."

This window from the people of Wales was installed in 1965.

 

Two Kinds of Suffering. Part 2

 

Anthropology

We usually think of cultural or social or physical anthropology, but there is also the religious anthropology of the Psalmist who asks God, "What are human beings that you are mindful of them?" (Psalm 8:4).

There are two major religious anthropologies: one is Hebraic; the other Greek.

 

Hebraic anthropology begins with Genesis: "God saw everything that God had made, and indeed, it was very good" (Genesis 1:31).

In the Hebraic view, the Creation— including humankind— is "very good."

Second, humans are a psychosomatic unity. As we read in Leviticus 17:11: "the life of the flesh is in the blood." Or, more literally, "the psyche of the flesh is in the blood."

Of course, this is something we know from our own experience of living.

When our stomachs are uneasy, or our heads ache, we can't think clearly.

When our minds are agitated, or our emotions jangled, we lose our appetites— or, we eat voraciously!

The state of our bodies affects the state of our minds and our spirits, and vice versa.

Third, and finally, salvation in the Hebraic view is the restoration of whatever is broken in God's very good Creation.

 

The Greek view is diametrically opposite.

First, in the Greek view the Creation is not "very good"; it is corrupt and evil. Creation emanates from the degradation of the divine essence.

Second, in the Greek view humans are not psychosomatic; they are sparks of that divine essence that have become imprisoned in our evil and corrupt flesh.

Third, and finally, salvation in the Greek view occurs when the divine spark escapes from its prison of flesh and returns to the divine essence.

 

In addition to the Hebraic and Greek views of Creation, Humans, and Salvation, we now add a third religious anthropology— the Christian anthropology.

Christian anthropology presupposes the Hebraic view that the Creation is very good, and that humans are a psychosomatic unity.

But it adds a new dimension, the dimension Christians call "the Incarnation"— the in-flesh-ment— of God.

In the words of Eucharistic Prayer A in our Book of Common Prayer, God "sent Jesus Christ, your only and eternal Son, to share our human nature, to live and die as one of us" (p. 362).

I will say more about the Incarnation and the problem of suffering later.

 

Tomorrow: Theodicy (the- pronounced like theology; -odicy like Homer's Odyssey)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In 1963, a racist bomb attack on an Alabama church killed four black girls.

John Petts, in Llansteffan, Carmarthenshire, designed this window,

with Jesus' words from Matthew 25:40: "You did it to me."

This window from the people of Wales was installed in 1965.

 

Two Kinds of Suffering. A Christian’s Answer to the Problem of Suffering

 

Part 1: Introduction.

 

In the summer of 1976 I began my Clinical Pastoral Education (or CPE) training at Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke's Hospital in Chicago.

On my first day I was assigned to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit to see a young girl named Terri who was dying from lupus disease.

I hadn't a clue what to do. I just introduced myself to the girl and her mother, and then stood in silence at the bed.

Suddenly Terri's mother started to cry and ran from the room. I followed her out and led her to a nearby lounge where she could sit.

And then she blurted out, "If God is merciful, why does he permit suffering?"

I hardly knew what to say. All I could manage was this: "If God weren't merciful, I wouldn't be here."

There's a lot that was wrong with my answer. It avoided the core issue. And though I meant it sincerely, it may have sounded pretentious.

But it did capture a truth, one which Terri's mother did let me know she realized: God's compassion is revealed in and through the lives of God's people.

As Christians, we believe that God is present not only as Holy Spirit, but tangibly in the flesh and blood of God's ministers— lay and ordained alike.

We show God's mercy— we prove God's mercy— in the compassion we show one another.

Yet the inadequacies of my response impelled me to search for a better answer, and this is it.

Before we can tackle the subject of suffering, we must consider two even larger subjects: Anthropology and Theodicy.

 

Tomorrow: Anthropology

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In 1963, a racist bomb attack on an Alabama church killed four black girls.

John Petts, in Llansteffan, Carmarthenshire, designed this window,

with Jesus' words from Matthew 25:40: "You did it to me."

This window from the people of Wales was installed in 1965.