Why, God?

I recently saw a series on Netflix called “Black Earth Rising.”  Much of it dealt with trying to hold accountable those people who caused the genocide in 1994 of the Tutsi people in Rwanda, almost a million people in only 100 days.  It’s heart wrenching to think of the number of people who died, men, women, and children, and the effect it had on the country of Rwanda, then and today.  It was one of those events in my lifetime that had people asking how a loving God could allow such evil to happen.  Events like the shooting on Friday in New Zealand, have us continuing to ask that question.  Then there are times when seemingly random events, like hurricanes and tsunamis devastate a region, and we wonder again why a loving God would allow such suffering to happen.  Also this week, 157 people, of all ages, were killed in a plane crash in Ethiopia.  Why?  Why does God, who we are told loves all, how could this God allow such evil and hate, such suffering to exist in our world?  

Some try to rationalize these events by coming up with explanations.  It all happens for a reason.  Unfortunately, it’s sometimes Christian people that are offering some of the most hurtful explanations.  For example, there were preachers who compared New Orleans to Sodom and Gomorrah and that Hurricane Katrina was a sign of God’s disapproval and judgement of the immorality of this city.  Some will turn a blind eye to the shooting of people based on their race or their religion.  Some will say that God has a purpose and that God has a plan; we just may not understand it yet or may never understand it.

And we want to understand.  We want to find meaning behind suffering, evil, natural disasters, disease, dementia, greed, poverty, and violence.  For thousands and thousands of years, people have been trying to explain our world in a variety of ways.  Our bible offers some of these attempted explanations.  

Over my sabbatical last winter, I read a book by Harold Kushner called, “Why Bad Things Happened to a Good Person,” his commentary on the Book of Job.  You might recognize this author because of his bestselling book, “Why Bad Things Happen to Good People.”  Kushner has been fascinated by this question since his school days and the question truly hit home when his son was diagnosed with progeria, or rapid aging syndrome.  His son stopped growing and starting growing old at age three and died when he was fourteen.  

Kushner writes, 

“Human beings are meaning-makers, constantly trying to understand our world in terms of cause and effect.  We desperately want to believe the world makes sense, that it is a place where things don’t just happen, they happen for a reason.  Painful as it may be to conjure with, we want to be told that it was not by accident that a family member got cancer or an earthquake struck a given city, that there was a purpose to it.  An unpredictable world, a world of randomness unregulated by cause and effect, would leave us uncomfortable.” Ch. 1, pg 2

How could a loving God allow evil and suffering in this world?  When people attempt to answer this question or attempt to explore this question, this is called theodicy, and there are books, essays, speeches, poetry, prose, tons of writing on this very question.

The book of Job is one of those attempts.  The book of Job is part of the Wisdom Literature of the Bible.  I’ll repeat a quote I shared last week from Rachel Held Evans, in her book, “Inspired,” She writes that “the aim of wisdom literature is to uncover something true about the nature of reality in a way that makes the reader or listener wiser” (pg 96) and that the book of Job “favours the wisdom of those who have actually suffered over those who merely speculate about it (pg 97).”   

In my last post, I talked about the chapters that bookend this story of Job, chapters 1, 2, and 42.  In these bookend chapters, Job accepts his suffering as God’s will.  “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away,” and “Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?”  The Job within these bookends though is a different character.  He questions; he doubts; he rants; he practically shakes his fists at God and begs for an answer to why he is suffering.  He has had everything taken from him: his oxen, his sheep, his camels, and even his seven sons and three daughters, and then finally his own health, being covered from head to toe with painful and itchy sores.  Why, God?  Why me?  Why this?  What did I do to deserve this?  What does it all mean?  

At the end of chapter two, Job’s three friends have come to be with him in his grief.  Some see this action as the Jewish ritual of sitting Shiva, a seven day period of time in which family and friends sit with someone grieving the loss of a loved one.   These friends, it reads, barely recognize Job in his grief and maybe because of physical disfigurement.  They lift up their voices and weep for Job.  

Job, then, for the first time in our story, speaks.  From his very first words, we get a sense of Job’s well-being or lack thereof.  He says (translation by Robert Alter):

“Annul the day that I was born 

and the night that said, ‘A man is conceived.’

That day, let it be darkness.  

Let God above not seek it out,

nor brightness shine upon it.

Let darkness, death’s shadow, foul it,

let a cloud-mass rest upon it,

let day-gloom dismay it.

That night, let murk overtake it.

Let it not join in the days of the year,

let it not enter the number of months.

In other words, Oh that I had never been born or even conceived, and that that very day be only darkness and not be numbered.

Job’s story is one of grief, despair, of one who has lost hope.  His story is of one who questions God, an action that we are not always encouraged to take.  Some call this blasphemy.  Some will encourage only acceptance of God’s mystery and God’s plan.  Others will say that there must be a reason and that God would never do anything without a reason.  I say that there are times when we need to express with God our anger, our sorrow, our confusion, and our frustration.  Being in relationship with God means being able to express ourselves, share our thoughts and feelings, be open and true to ourselves.  I think that this is what God wants.  As a parent, I know that I would rather have my child yell at me and disagree with me, no matter how difficult that may be, then to cut me out of their lives or pretend to be someone that they’re not.  

It’s how I’ve learned to read the psalms.  We love the psalms of joy, the ones that praise God and make a joyful noise, but there are other psalms that ask God to thrash our enemy, to tear them limb from limb, make them suffer.  These psalms are expressive of a people who have been trampled and now want their enemies trampled.  People have fantasies about harming those who have harmed them and as long as they remain fantasies, that’s OK.  It’s better to express our anger, whether it be in poetr, music, or in stories, by screaming at God, than to let it fester and grow.

The hatred expressed on Friday in New Zealand is a sign of brokenness.  It’s not the way we want to see anger expressed, killing innocent people, because of their religion.  Hate spreads.  Many people lost loved ones in this shooting and there will be anger and hate.  How do we show our support?  How do we extend the hand of friendship to our Muslim neighbours?  How do we overpower that hatred with our love?  It’s won’t be easy.  I saw people standing on a street corner in London Ontario on Saturday with signs that read, “Not in My Name” and “Muslims Are Our Neighbours.”  We need to show our solidarity, especially now and especially as Christians.

God wants all that we have, all that we are, even if that means our anger and grief.  God especially wants to be near us and a part of us when we are suffering.  And we can also be that for others.  We can be there for people in their anger and their grief.  We can be that presence of God for people who need to vent and grieve and be angry.  The hate will sometimes wear itself out if it is absorbed with love by others.  

Read the words of Job.  Hear his anguish.  Hear his grief.  Job lost all that he had, including his beloved children and his health.  During those times when you are experiencing loss, sit with Job and feel free, like Job, to question God, question why me, why this.  Shake your fists at God.  God won’t mind.  In fact, I believe God will wrap you in God’s loving embrace and hold you until you’ve gotten it all out, until you’ve exhausted yourself and just sink into that loving presence  May it be so and thanks be to God.  Amen.