As we read about the devastation and suffering wrought by
the tornadoes in Oklahoma, we may feel frightened by the capricious of the
creation. We are reminded that in a
stroke all we have and the settled patterns of our lives can be wiped away;
most sobering is the realization that those we love and who love us can be
taken from us in a moment. We read of
infants and seniors, mothers and children who were killed by the violence of
the storm and realize that there are some pieces of creation that are not
friendly. The Apostle Paul told us as
much long ago. He wrote in Romans 8:
18 I consider that the sufferings of this
present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us.
19 For the creation
waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; 20 for the creation
was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who
subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set
free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the
children of God. 22 We know that the whole creation has been
groaning in labor pains until now; 23 and not only the creation, but we
ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we
wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not
hope. For who hopes for what is seen? 25 But if we hope
for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. 26 Likewise the
Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought,
but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep
for words. 27 And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind
of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the
will of God. 28 We know that all things work together
for good for
those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.
Something long ago went wrong in our world, so wrong that
the creation itself is askew and seems to know it! The creation “waits with eager longing” to be set free from this
state of affairs. It is “groaning with
labor pains.” Like us, the creation
knows things are not the way they are supposed to be. These tornadoes simply make vivid what we already knew.
I heard a story once about a father whose daughter was
injured during a softball game. The
ball hit her square in the face, and she lapsed into a coma. Her father sat by her hospital bed in agony
asking himself heartbreaking questions:
“Why did this happen? Was I not
listening to God and this is God’s way of getting my attention?” A friend walked in and said: “Calvin, I can tell you why your daughter is
lying there in a coma.” The father
thought that he finally would get an answer to his questions. The friend went on: “God has a rule. A face and a softball cannot occupy the same space at the same
time.” The world in which we live is
dangerous. Sometimes we are in the
wrong place at the wrong time, and the givens of our world hit us square in the
face. As the singer Mary Chapin
Carpenter laments: “Sometimes you’re the windshield, and sometimes you’re the
bug.” This is not what we want to
hear. We want to hear that everything
has a good reason; nothing is random.
This illusion gives us the false hope that we can control all those
forces that affect our lives. We want
to believe that if we make the best, brightest, truest, holiest, most
responsible choice every time, we can insulate ourselves from the vagaries of
our tragically broken world.
Barbara Brown Taylor tells the story of a hospital chaplain
who was talking with a mother whose daughter had a brain tumor and likely would
die. The mother said that she knew why
her daughter was dying. God was
punishing her, the mother, for continuing to smoke. The chaplain assured the mother that God did not take the life of
young girls because their mothers would not stop smoking. The mother responding angrily, asserting
that this was, indeed, what was happening.
Taylor observed that the mother preferred a God who punished a young
girl for the nicotine addiction of her mother to a world where children get
sick for no good reason. This is how
strong our desire is to make sense of the senseless. We cannot cautiously protect ourselves from the senseless.
The Apostle Paul, after lamenting the futility of life at
its worst moments, finishes by asserting: “We know that all things work together for good for
those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.” Paul carefully avoids saying that God causes
all things that happen or is pleased by all things that happen. Rather, he asserts that God is Lord of all
things that happen and can use them in redemptive ways to bring good out of
them. Tragic things are simply
tragic. There is no health in dressing
them up as anything else; our faith does not demand that of us. Rather, we accept that we live in a world
where a softball and a face cannot occupy the same space at the same time;
sometimes they collide. We can become
comfortable living in a world where we cannot insulate ourselves from all
tragedy and loss when we come to believe that even in the worst moments God is
working to redeem and renew. Loss is
not the last word, even in a world with tornadoes.
Yes, the creation groans and so do we. We know that things are not supposed to be
this way; something has gone wrong. We,
along with the creation itself, wait for that better day. We call this patient waiting in hope
“faith.”
“For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not
hope. For who hopes for what is seen?
But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.”
James Kelsey
Executive Minister
The American Baptist Churches of New York State.
