Tag Archives: Theodicy

Elizabeth Glass Turner ~ Transaction vs Transformation: The Nature of Blessing

Recently, I noted someone online putting forward the idea that God blesses organizations, traditions, or denominations depending on their public positions on certain topics, or that God retracts a blessing on an organization, tradition, or denomination, if they do not issue a public position on one of a number of topics.

Let’s delve into some of the assumptions here and see what we find.

As a general statement, we can assert that New Testament language generally speaks in terms of the power and anointing of the Holy Spirit more than God sending or retracting “blessing” to particular endeavors. So, for instance, I might say that an endeavor may or may not be Spirit-led or Spirit-filled, or that it may or may not bear the marks of the Holy Spirit. All of these traits are fleshed out throughout the Gospels and Epistles: we see what it means to be Christlike (which is the purpose of being Spirit-filled), and we see what the Spirit-filled life looks like (“to live is Christ, to die gain”) and what it does not (“I plead with Euodia and Syntyche – please, be of one mind!!”).

However, we’re no longer living the dynamic threaded throughout the Old Testament of interacting with Yahweh through Abrahamic or Mosaic covenant language that structures how the people of God can know they are living in accordance with Yahweh. Quite often, when we talk about God’s blessings, that is what we’re saying: God’s blessing shows we are following God’s commands, and if we follow God’s commands, we will get certain blessings. There’s a fairly straightforward cause-effect assumption. Covenantal language borrowed heavily from suzerain-vassal treaty language of the Ancient Near East, in which terms of an agreement were set forth: if you will do this, I will do that. Here are the expectations; here are the consequences. Sometimes, in Old Testament wisdom literature, there were also descriptive if not prescriptive statements: the wise person who does this will be blessed, but the foolish person who does that will be cursed.

With the birth of Jesus, Word made flesh, God gave the world flesh and blood revelation of the nature and heart of God. The Messiah, foretold by many prophets found in the pages of the Old Testament, came to fulfill the law of the old covenant and to set in motion a new covenant. On the day of the crucifixion, an earthquake shook Jerusalem, and the thick woven curtain in the temple was torn: things changed irrevocably. With the ascension of Christ, disciples waited in prayer for the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost and was not contained in the Holy of Holies in the old tabernacle or the constructed temple, but enlivened every believer, male and female. The old priesthood, the whole temple system, was shattered.

We aren’t called or commanded to receive blessing; we’re called and commanded to be like Jesus through the Holy Spirit, and sometimes the results don’t look like blessing – shipwrecked, beaten, disowned, beheaded. How does that look like blessing, favor, best practices, or church growth?

How can you know you’re following God? Many ways. But attempting to measure whether you have the blessing of God by looking at outward indicators is like asking if your spouse is upset with you by looking at your car dashboard for clues- the RPMs are normal, no check engine light, full tank – my spouse must be happy with me. But of course we know your car dash illustrates the health of your car but doesn’t actually indicate whether you have the good favor of your spouse this morning.

To think that God will withdraw blessing assumes that we had a blessing to begin with; and that usually assumes that we had it because we were doing everything “right.” What then do we do when we do everything right but things go poorly? Like Job? Like Stephen, who was martyred while a young Saul stood by watching?

We aren’t able to dictate or control what we perceive as God’s blessing. Otherwise, innocent children wouldn’t get cancer; Christians wouldn’t get martyred. Yet both do. But that’s not evidence of a lack of God’s blessing on them. And a theological position isn’t insurance against hardship or struggle; believing certain things or doing all the right things will not ensure circumstances will go well.

You will be hard-pressed to find places where the Apostle Paul wrote, “and then God removed his blessing from you and your church shriveled up.” Paul was confrontational on a host of issues to be sure, but he always drove them back to a call to stick to the teachings of Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. When Paul deals with problems in churches, it’s a call to be holy in Jesus through the Spirit; but there’s always room for change and repentance, not a positional or fatalistic decree that Ephesus is doomed because they sinned and lost God’s blessing.

Where blessing language is transactional, Spirit language is transformational.

Where blessing language depends a lot on cause and effect – “I/We did this, therefore God will give/remove what I discern as marks of his blessing” – Spirit language invites us to grow and transform to become like Jesus. Rather than ask whether a denomination or Christian tradition or organization “has God’s blessing,” we can ask, “does it bear marks of being Spirit-filled? Spirit-led? Does it bear the fruits of the Holy Spirit?”

I want to be part of movements that are Spirit-led; but I hesitate ever to claim that orthodox theology and biblically shaped ethics and sound practice will result in church growth. Why? Because of what I know of church history. A church may have beautiful theology and biblical ethics and robust worship yet shrink. But it doesn’t matter: we pursue the truth of Triune theology and biblical ethics and robust worship anyway. One plants, another waters – but God gives the increase.

Leaving one group and joining another will not mean your ministry will be blessed or that your church will grow. Because it might not. And that’s okay. We’re not called or commanded to pursue God’s blessing, we’re called and commanded to pursue Jesus Christ and live in the power of the Holy Spirit. And when we do that the blessings that come may not be marked by an outward litmus test of divine favor but may appear in the midst of hardship – joy unspeakable and full of glory. We cannot substitute attempts to direct outcomes for the presence and power of Christ.

If you take a public position, what then? Does that ensure you’re Spirit-filled? Spirit-led? No. Does it change how your congregations engage with people on the margins, with people broke or unemployed or in recovery? Not really. Does it change how you minister the Gospel to broken people? By no means.

God does not issue or revoke blessing transactionally; God transforms through the Spirit – thanks be to God.

Suzanne Nicholson ~ Suffering through Thanksgiving

This is the time of year when advertisements inundate us with images of happy families gloriously celebrating the holidays. Women in velvet dresses clink champagne glasses with men in suits and plaid bowties. Their beautifully decorated homes overflow with relatives who eat turkey and all the fixings from holly-themed china plates. You can almost smell the cinnamon and nutmeg wafting through the air.

Thankfulness comes easily under those circumstances. It is effortless to live in the moment, to seize the day, when all is sparkly and beautiful. But when the current moment is rife with injustice, living in the moment is nothing short of cruel. A loved one murdered, and the killer avoids prison. A child trafficked for sex, with no one to protect her. A pension fund plundered, leaving retirees penniless.

How does one rejoice in the midst of injustice?

Scripture is full of stories of injustice. After Joseph saved Egypt from famine and brought his family under the protection of Pharaoh, time passed. The new pharaoh failed to remember that a Hebrew had saved the land; instead, he suspected the Hebrews of planning sedition (Exod. 1:8-10). The Egyptians enslaved those who had saved them.

Job’s only flaw was being so faithful to God that Satan took notice (Job 1:9-11). In the testing that followed, Job lost his business, his family, and his health. Despite his faithfulness, disaster ensued.

Sometimes even justified suffering seemed to come through unjust means. God punished Israel and Judah for their great sinfulness by means of the exile. But the prophet Habakkuk questioned how God could use the wicked Babylonians to discipline the people of God. He cried out to God: “Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you are unable to look at disaster. Why would you look at the treacherous or keep silent when the wicked swallows one who is more righteous?” (Hab. 1:13).

Habakkuk’s outburst reflects common themes in the lament psalms. Psalm 22, which Jesus began to recite on the cross, starts with “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish? My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, but I find no rest” (Ps. 22:1-2).

Even after the resurrection of Jesus, unjust suffering continues. In 2 Corinthians 11, the apostle Paul recounts the numerous times he has been flogged, beaten with rods, pelted with stones, shipwrecked, and subjected to other horrors as a result of preaching the Gospel.

These injustices point to the “already/not-yet tension” in the New Testament. Jesus has already inaugurated the Kingdom by dealing with sin and defeating death. The fullness of the Kingdom, however, has not yet been realized. The Holy Spirit is at work in believers, transforming our lives and empowering us to be salt and light in a dark, decaying world. But until Christ returns to complete the process he started, we will continue to experience injustice in this life.

But the truth of Christ’s impending return is what keeps faithful men and women going. When we take a long view of history, our current injustices take on a different meaning. We look back at what Christ accomplished on the cross—a fact of history that can never be changed or reversed—and we understand that sin and death have met their match. We look forward to the fullness of the Kingdom and recognize that greater blessings are yet to come.

This is why Paul can write to the Philippians—while chained to a Roman guard!—that we should rejoice in the Lord always (Phil. 4:4). Earlier in the letter he told the church that he focuses on what lies ahead, pressing onward to win the goal of the prize for which God has called him (3:13-14). Paul’s reality is centered not on his chains, but on the promise of eternal life with God.

This does not mean that Paul somehow ignores his present pain or pretends it did not happen. In fact, in 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 he tells us that he had a thorn in his flesh that tormented him. Scholars have speculated on what this thorn might have been, based on hints in his letters—an eye problem? Arthritis? Some other physical deformity? Paul prayed three times for this thorn to be removed, and each time he was told no. Paul—who had healed the sick and raised the dead—was not given the power to heal himself. In Paul’s case, he needed to learn that God’s grace was sufficient to carry him through all weakness. His response: “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor. 12:9b-10). Paul defines his present and future by the power of God. In the current moment of pain, Paul takes a long view of history and rejoices in the ultimate victory of the God who overcomes.

This perspective is woven through the biblical narrative. The Hebrews experiencing years of slavery in Egypt cried out to God, who called Moses to deliver them. Job’s health and business were restored, and he was blessed with more sons and daughters. God promised Habakkuk that he would bring justice to the wicked Babylonians. And Psalm 22 reassures us that Jesus’ cry of abandonment on the cross is not the last word: the lament psalm remembers God’s past faithfulness and proclaims that God will triumph and all nations will praise him.

For those who are suffering injustice, the biblical narrative brings reassurance that God is at work in this world. While restoration may occur here and now, some injustices cannot be adequately addressed in this lifetime. For those who suffer in this way, Scripture proclaims that their story does not end here. Rejoice! The God of justice is coming.

Elizabeth Glass Turner ~ The Narrative of Evil

Note from the Editor: At the time of original publication, Wesleyan Accent suspended its usual posting of a weekend sermon to reflect on the 2015 coordinated terrorist attacks in Paris, France.

Where haute couture fashion houses dominate and the Mona Lisa smiles, where the Notre Dame cathedral towers with long-held cultural memories of a famed hunchback and the Eiffel Tower beckons to retainer-wearing junior high tourists, where Rick and Ilsa looked out as the Nazis rolled in.

What is the true narrative of Paris, a very old city with a colorful history, the grand dame of Europe whose eyes twinkle as she alludes to youthful scandal?

What is the true narrative of Paris, where St. Thomas Aquinas studied, wrote and taught? The same Paris that boiled with blood during the French Revolution? The same Paris overtaken by the Third Reich? The same Paris scourged by the Black Plague? The same Paris now in a state of emergency with enforced curfew marooned in a nation whose borders have had to clang shut.

The true narrative of Paris is the narrative of any individual – at moments glorious, fallible, heartbroken, and exquisite.

Like the true narrative of Baghdad.

Or Damascus.

Recently Canon Andrew White, “the vicar of Baghdad,” alluded to his chiaroscuro life.

They were coming for him and his people. Friends were being killed or fleeing for their lives. So Andrew White did what he always does when faced with an enemy. “I invited the leaders of Isis [Islamic State] for dinner. I am a great believer in that. I have asked some of the worst people ever to eat with me.”

This extraordinarily self-confident priest is best known as the vicar of Baghdad, leader of a church in the chaos outside the protected Green Zone. He made his offer last year as the terrorist forces threatened to take the city. Did he get a reply?

“Isis said, ‘You can invite us to dinner, but we’ll chop your head off.’ So I didn’t invite them again!”

And he roars with laughter, despite believing that Islamic State has put a huge price on his head, apparently willing to pay $157m (£100m) to anyone who can kill this harmless-looking eccentric. Canon White was a doctor before he became a priest and could be one still, in his colourful bow-tie and double-breasted blazer with a pocket square spilling silk. But appearances are deceptive.

For the last two decades, he has worked as a mediator in some of the deadliest disputes on Earth, in Israel and Palestine, Iraq and Nigeria. He has sat down to eat with terrorists, extremists, warlords and the sons of Saddam Hussein, with presidents and prime ministers.

White has been shot at and kidnapped, and was once held captive in a room littered with other people’s severed fingers and toes, until he talked his way out of it. He is an Anglican priest but was raised a Pentecostal and has that church’s gift of the gab.

Canon Andrew has served as a voice from a region that we skim over in the headlines because it troubles us. But something that troubles you will eventually force its way into your consciousness, like a lump you want to ignore or the scrabbling of a mouse across the floor in the night.

Damascus, Baghdad, Paris.

What next? Miami, Atlanta, Boston? How might the narrative of more cities morph under the influence of evil? Paris is closer to the Western world than Damascus or Baghdad are in many ways. The American Statue of Liberty was a gift from France. French thinkers and writers have influenced intellectual development over the past few centuries. Our language is dotted with vocabulary we don’t think twice about because we don’t pronounce it in proper nasal fashion, but chaperone, restaurant, coup de grace – all these illustrate the invisible ties that stretch like cords across Atlantic waves. And so we sit up and take notice when Paris is beaten up and left bloodied on the roadside more than we do when Damascus and Baghdad are kidnapped and held for ransom.

Canon Andrew does not underestimate the strength of the evil that has been brutalizing Iraqis, Syrians, and now Parisians.

So what is to be done? “We must try and continue to keep the door open. We have to show that there is a willingness to engage. There are good Sunni leaders; they are not all evil like Isis.”

But surely there is only one logical conclusion to be drawn? He sighs, and answers slowly. “You are asking me how we can deal radically with Isis. The only answer is to radically destroy them. I don’t think we can do it by dropping bombs. We have got to bring about real change. It is a terrible thing to say as a priest.

“You’re probably thinking, ‘So you’re telling me there should be war?’ Yes!”

I am shocked by his answer, because this is a man who has risked his life many times to bring peace.

“It really hurts. I have tried so hard. I will do anything to save life and bring about tranquillity, and here I am forced by death and destruction to say there should be war.”

White had to be ordered to leave Baghdad at Christmas by his close friend the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev Justin Welby.

Evil is not the narrative of terror: terror is the narrative of evil. That which destroys for destruction’s sake; that which desecrates for desecration’s sake; that which relishes in inflicting suffering for suffering’s sake; that which forces death unannounced for death’s sake – this is the nature of evil.

And destroying for destruction’s sake, desecrating for desecration’s sake, inflicting suffering for suffering’s sake, forcing death for death’s sake – this leaves paralyzing fear in its wake, the kind of dry-mouthed, helpless terror that watches in vivid slow motion. This leaves night terror in its wake, thrashing in blankets from flashbacks. This leaves fear in its wake, the kind that bars windows and triple-checks locks, the kind that huddles in groups and squints in suspicion.

David wrote of this anguish in Psalm 22, and while it’s often read through the lens of the crucifixion of Christ, it also stands on its own, as his own distress:

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
    Why are you so far from saving me,
    so far from my cries of anguish?
My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer,
    by night, but I find no rest.

But I am a worm and not a man,
    scorned by everyone, despised by the people.
All who see me mock me;
    they hurl insults, shaking their heads.
“He trusts in the Lord,” they say,
    “let the Lord rescue him.
Let him deliver him,
    since he delights in him.”

My heart has turned to wax;
    it has melted within me.
My mouth is dried up like a potsherd,
    and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth;
    you lay me in the dust of death.

Dogs surround me,
    a pack of villains encircles me.

There is no shame in feeling fear, or sorrow, or terror. There is no shame in shaking with grief, and loss, and shock. There is no shame in finding your mind paralyzed, your heart numb, your eyes glazed. No, there is no shame in bolting awake in the dark night with your heart pounding.

But in the midst of fear, grief, paralysis, and panic, there remains a quiet, immovable promise – the kind of promise that doesn’t erase suffering, but buys it out and remodels it. This hushed promise of granite-like solidity transcends laughter, happiness, and joy. It includes hope but exists outside of your ability to hope. Truth exists outside of your ability to feel happiness.

David finishes his song like this:

All the ends of the earth
    will remember and turn to the Lord,
and all the families of the nations
    will bow down before him,
for dominion belongs to the Lord
    and he rules over the nations.

All the rich of the earth will feast and worship;
    all who go down to the dust will kneel before him—
    those who cannot keep themselves alive.
Posterity will serve him;
    future generations will be told about the Lord.
They will proclaim his righteousness,
    declaring to a people yet unborn:
    He has done it!

No one can obliterate the future. No one can obliterate your life so completely that it is irredeemable. This is the truth that was not burned up in the furnaces of death camps. It cannot be buried in a mass grave. It can’t be executed at a concert or detonated at a soccer game.

“For the Lord is the great God, the great King above all gods. Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker; for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care.”
Oh, the promise that trumps the narrative of evil. Oh, the promise that takes our sweaty palms in its hands.
We are not at the mercy of terrorists. They are at our mercy as we live in flesh and blood and bone the loving mercy of Jesus Christ, Emmanuel-God-With-Us, who was and is and is to come. As the orange-suited martyrs cried to Jesus on their sandy beach deathbeds, evil crumpled. They have no power over Jesus Christ, they have no power over the world to come, they have no power over your soul. 
And so today we do not pray first and foremost for safety – as if it could be achieved in this life anyway. We pray for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. We pray for boldness and courage. We pray for peace, for healing, for comfort, for hope. We pray for faithfulness, for wisdom, for vision. We pray for Spirit-led choices, for grace, for redemption. And we pray for those who blow themselves up, kill other people, threaten and bully, remembering the Apostle Paul, who, before he met Christ, harassed believers and breathed murderous threats against them.
Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.
And root out the sneaking parts of my own soul that wish harm on others, flare up in anger, or belittle my valuable fellow humans. For we all stand in need of the mercy of Jesus Christ.

Tom Fuerst ~ Mothers, Sons and the Crucifix

The fundamental difference between the Protestant’s cross and the Catholic’s crucifix lies in the Protestant belief that Christ is no longer on the cross. He has resurrected and ascended.

Or so Protestant polemics go.

In what follows, I do not care to discuss Catholic vs. Protestant soteriology or the differences between their accounts of the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus. All I wish to discuss is the fact that, a few years ago, this here Protestant found immeasurable comfort in Christ on the cross – a crucifix on the wall in a Catholic nursing home chapel.

I’d been in and out of the nursing home visiting my 51-year-old mom in the last days of her fight with cancer. None of us expected the illness to progress as quickly as it did. But in a mere month and a half, we went from optimism about her diagnosis to staring down her mortality and releasing her into the loving hands of Jesus.

My encounter with the crucifix began on the night I had to decide to sign my mom up for hospice care. She was so weak I had to help her hold the pen. Even then she could only make a scratch on the page. Her once-beautiful signature which used to sign my birthday cards, report cards, and detention slips was reduced to a single scratch on several pieces of hospice paperwork.

In this moment I was forced to grapple with the existential angst, fear, and brokenness that smothers ever-shattered souls stepping one inch closer to the inevitable realization of our mortality.

Mortality.

Mom is mortal.

I am mortal.

I needed to leave the room as soon as we signed all the forms. I didn’t know where I was going. I found myself in a wing of the nursing home I hadn’t visited before, looking for some privacy.

Barely holding back tears, I stumbled into the chapel.

Now, despite the fact that I’m a Christian – not to mention a pastor – I did not choose the chapel for some spiritual reason. I simply chose it because no one would be able to find me in there. Or more specifically, no one would be able to hear me weeping in there.

I looked around for a second or two, not noticing anything about the chapel except the fact that the least visible place in the room was on the floor behind the back few pews. It was the perfect place to hide. It was a perfectly private place to grieve.

I don’t know how long I sat there with my face in my knees. Fifteen minutes. Thirty minutes. An hour. I don’t know. But after a while, I looked around the room and saw a plethora of Catholic images and icons, most of which are probably quite familiar to Catholic Christians but are quite foreign to us Protestants, who sanctimoniously brag of our lack of “graven images” and our risen Christ.

It was clear in these various items that the crucifixion of Jesus and the sufferings of Mary are of foremost importance in the hearts of the persons who designed this chapel. From the seven depictions of Christ’s crucifixion story to the mother of Jesus holding her infant son as she stretched out her arms to the weeping worshiper, the entire chapel was an invitation to see our sufferings – our very humanity – in light of the fact that neither Jesus nor Mary was exempt from suffering, pain, or death.

In fact, the truth experienced in that chapel was not merely that Jesus was not exempt from suffering or death, but more specifically, that Jesus shares in our suffering and death and we share in his.

On the opposite wall from the statue of the virgin and her baby boy hung a wooden crucifix. Not a pretty one. Not a bloodless one. A horrific one. A crucifix agonizing to see, even though its monochromatic varnish shields viewers from all the viciousness of the reality it depicts. In this crucifix, I saw that with every broken rib and visible wound, our God hung naked before the world, taking upon himself, not only all of our sin but all of our suffering. This is a God who did not remain indifferent to our suffering, our illnesses, our cancers, but who on that cross waged war against our mortality.

This is a God whose resurrection was preceded by a deep and unrelenting experience of our mortality. Before he ever won the war, he first lost this battle to death.

Could it be that Catholics “leave Christ on the cross,” not because they fail to recognize his resurrection, but because they believe the God who lost his Son on the cross suffers with me as I hide on the floor of this chapel? Maybe God is not just up in the sky somewhere looking down half-callously saying, “Hey, don’t worry about how bad it hurts now. She’s going to heaven because Jesus died for her sins.” He’s not up there saying, “Here, have this opiate and buck up.” Instead, in the crucified Jesus, God draws near to us, weeps with us, feels forsaken with us, knows loss with us, and even dies with us. Even his mother shudders from the pain of it.

Mortality.

Mom is mortal.

I am mortal.

Jesus was mortal.

Jesus died.

God was dead.

And while I know that the story does not end there, while I know Jesus came down off that cross and ascended as the Lord of Life, there is a deep and infinite beauty in knowing that my mother’s broken body is preceded by the broken body of her Creator.

An empty cross certainly announces victory over death. But a crucifix, hoisting the dying Savior with outstretched arms, is a warm welcome to all who are wrecked and weary.

Resurrection is coming.

But for now, we suffer. Together.

If It’s Not Okay, It’s Not the End

I have a practice of sending morning texts to my family members. Sometimes it’s a meme, or a photo from the past, or just a quick morning hello to start the day. As I’ve continued this practice, I’ve come across lots of memes and cartoons and other silly things that seem to not only flourish but multiply on the internet. One of my favorites is this: “Everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.”

The joy of Christian faith is that the God who entered human history in Jesus of Nazareth, the God who is present in the here and now through the power of the Holy Spirit, that God will one day come in glory. In Jesus, God is telling us that everything will be okay in the end. No hurt is permanent, no sorrow is absolute, no loss lasts forever, no defeat is insurmountable. This joy is not a denial of the reality of suffering. If the life of Jesus tells us anything, it is that suffering, discouragement, disappointment, frustration, and even death, are very, very real. And yet, amidst that reality, Jesus shows us that the Kingdom of God will overcome it all. God’s love is so great, it will conquer all the world’s horrors. God’s love is so prodigious, no evil can possibly prevail against it. Everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.

He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever. Revelation 21:4 (NLT)[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Elizabeth Glass Turner ~ Three Essential Approaches to Suffering

There’s an overwhelming amount of beauty and awe in the world – from midday eclipses to bounding monkeys in jungles to the perfect curl of newborn baby toes.

At some point, though, we all encounter suffering. Sometimes it appears as physical pain; sometimes it’s in the form of prolonged waiting; sometimes it’s mental or emotional distress. Sometimes suffering occurs through our perception of loved ones’ suffering: others’ pain multiplies our own distress. If there is loss, there is the suffering of grief.

When I was in college majoring in Christian Ministry, I walked into a classroom one September morning to be told by a classmate that the World Trade Center and the Pentagon had been attacked. My brain struggled to process the news; like many, I was bewildered, at a loss. Throughout the fall semester of 2001 I grappled with feeling completely overwhelmed by the pain and need in the world. How could I possibly figure out what path to take? There was pain at home, pain abroad. Need around the corner, need on the other side of the equator. I signed up to go on an international trip the next spring, flying for the first time months after watching repeated footage of jets slam into Manhattan skyscrapers.

Sometimes our gut reaction to suffering is to sign up for a trip to Mongolia (maybe not, but maybe your reaction is to drive to Houston and help with cleanup, or donate money to help people suffering from catastrophic flooding in Bangladesh). Sometimes our gut reaction is to turn our face, finding oblivion in addiction, numbness, or denial. Sometimes our gut reaction is to raise the drawbridge, hunker down, and protect our own at all costs. Therapists can have fun teasing out why humans behave the way we do.

But beyond our emotional reaction shaped by our individual experiences, personalities, hopes, and fears, what postures can Christians have towards suffering? In other words, beyond behavioral tendencies, how does faith shape our approach to suffering?

1. When you’re depressed, troubled, and hopeless, you are called to shape your own response to suffering – your own suffering or others’ – by Christ’s suffering. This Christocentric response is essential for grounding your belief. It does not deny the realities of clinical depression or anxiety disorders: rather, it reorients pain so that it is placed in the context of the God who suffers. In Isaiah 53 we read:

He was despised and rejected by mankind,
    a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
    he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

Surely he took up our pain
    and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
    stricken by him, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions,
    he was crushed for our inequities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
    and by his wounds we are healed.

Christians believe that, “we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness,” but that Jesus genuinely suffered when he sobbed with Mary and Martha after Lazarus died, and that he genuinely suffered in the garden of Gethsemane when he struggled to accept what was coming. The portrait of Christ as the “suffering servant” is a familiar one, and whether you meditate on an icon of the crucifixion or rest in passages of scripture, it is crucial to form our response to suffering from the starting point that the Word who Became Flesh, God Incarnate, comprehends suffering, even if we cannot fully comprehend God.

2. When you’re grappling with why suffering exists, persistently explore the intellectual satisfaction that will form your feelings and emotions. Sometimes Christians look for their emotions to be shaped by inspiring worship, emotional testimony, or the good feelings that come from being accepted by a group. At the same time, sometimes using emotions as the starting place can be unsatisfactory.

One time in seminary a fellow student ran up to the philosophy of religion professor who was standing nearby. “I just need to say thank you,” she said. She explained that after losing her mother to cancer, she had struggled deeply with grief and anger, even in the midst of preparing for ministry at seminary. She had been to therapy, talked to pastors, but could not find peace – until she took a philosophy of religion class. During that semester, the problem of evil was addressed (how can an all-loving, all-powerful God coexist with suffering and pain in the world?), along with various perspectives responding to it. Part of her anguish had been mental, alongside the grief of bereavement. When she understood that philosophers had grappled with the question for centuries, and saw some of the reasoned response to the problem of suffering – including the role of human free will – she received some peace.

As a Christian, you do not need to be able to comprehend everything about God or everything about the world in which you live. But even if you cannot know exhaustively, it may be possible to know truly, and if that is the case, you can receive intellectual satisfaction even if you don’t hold all the answers.

This means that your approach is shaped by the realization that sometimes the best thing you can do is to allow your thoughts to shape your feelings.

A vivid example of allowing subjective perception to shape your thoughts and decisions is the tragedy that occurs when a pilot doesn’t use a horizon instrument, gets confused, and believes that he is flying even with the ground, when in fact, he is flying straight at it – what experts believe happened when John F. Kennedy, Jr died in a plane crash. This “spatial disorientation” occurs when there is no visual reference point. Similarly, our emotions can mislead us, shape our perception so powerfully that our instincts are tricked into faulty convictions about who God is or where meaning comes from. But sound theology and the resources of Christian philosophers can help guide our thinking when all our instincts point toward hopelessness and despair.

3. When you’re overwhelmed by the sheer scale of pain and need, allow the Holy Spirit to guide your discernment on your immediate path of action. There is a great temptation to become overwhelmed by the trauma and tragedy in the world, and because of the inability to do everything, to then do nothing at all. But Mother Teresa is famously quoted as saying, “Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.”

Christians’ posture towards suffering cannot be to internalize the burden and responsibility for everyone else’s pain; this kind of unhealthy response leads to burnout, bitterness, and depression.And it does not trust the prevenient grace of God that is already working in places we cannot reach.

What we can do confidently is to trust that if we ask God to show us where we can go and what we can do through the power of the Holy Spirit, God will be faithful to show us what our part can look like. God may not unfold a giant map showing what your part will look like in 20 years, but in this season, the Spirit will put on your heart new ways to be the hands and feet of Jesus Christ. As Frederick Buechner wrote, “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”

Look to the example of Jesus Christ, shape your thoughts deliberately so that your feelings will follow, and trust that the Holy Spirit will give you the joy that comes from doing what you uniquely can do as you explore how to be a witness to the beauty of God’s love in a hurting world.

Featured artwork by Vasily Perov, “Christ in Gethsemane.”

Tom Fuerst ~ Mothers, Sons and the Crucifix

The fundamental difference between the Protestant’s cross and the Catholic’s crucifix lies in the Protestant belief that Christ is no longer on the cross. He has resurrected and ascended.

Or so Protestant polemics go.

I’d been in and out of the nursing home visiting my 51-year-old mom in the last days of her fight with cancer. None of us expected the illness to progress as quickly as it did. But in a mere month and a half, we went from optimism about her diagnosis to staring down her mortality and releasing her into the loving hands of Jesus.

My encounter with the crucifix began on the night I had to decide to sign my mom up for hospice care. She was so weak I had to help her hold the pen. Even then she could only make a scratch on the page. Her once-beautiful signature which used to sign my birthday cards, report cards, and detention slips was reduced to a single scratch on several pieces of hospice paperwork.

In this moment I was forced to grapple with the existential angst, fear, and brokenness that smothers ever-shattered souls stepping one inch closer to the inevitable realization of our mortality.

Mortality.

Mom is mortal.

I am mortal.

I needed to leave the room as soon as we signed all the forms. I didn’t know where I was going. I found myself in a wing of the nursing home I hadn’t visited before, looking for some privacy.

Barely holding back tears, I stumbled into the chapel.

I don’t know how long I sat there with my face in my knees. Fifteen minutes. Thirty minutes. An hour. I don’t know. But after a while, I looked around the room and saw a plethora of Catholic images and icons, most of which are probably quite familiar to Catholic Christians but are quite foreign to us Protestants, who sanctimoniously brag of our lack of “graven images” and our risen Christ.

It was clear in these various items that the crucifixion of Jesus and the sufferings of Mary are of foremost importance in the hearts of the persons who designed this chapel. From the seven depictions of Christ’s crucifixion story, to the mother of Jesus holding her infant son as she stretched out her arms to the weeping worshipper, the entire chapel was an invitation to see our sufferings – our very humanity – in light of the fact that neither Jesus nor Mary were exempt from suffering, pain, or death.

In fact, the truth experienced in that chapel was not merely that Jesus was not exempt from suffering or death, but more specifically, that Jesus shares in our suffering and death and we share in his.

On the opposite wall from the statue of the virgin and her baby boy hung a wooden crucifix. Not a pretty one. Not a bloodless one. A horrific one. A crucifix agonizing to see, even though its monochromatic varnish shields viewers from all the viciousness of the reality it depicts. In this crucifix, I saw that with every broken rib and visible wound, our God hung naked before the world, taking upon himself, not only all of our sin, but all of our suffering. This is a God who did not remain indifferent to our suffering, our illnesses, our cancers, but who on that cross waged war against our mortality.

This is a God whose resurrection was preceded by a deep and unrelenting experience of our mortality. Before he ever won the war, he first lost this battle to death.

Could it be that Catholics “leave Christ on the cross,” not because they fail to recognize his resurrection, but because they believe the God who lost his Son on the cross suffers with me as I hide on the floor of this chapel? Maybe God is not just up in the sky somewhere looking down half-callously saying, “Hey, don’t worry about how bad it hurts now. She’s going to heaven because Jesus died for her sins.” He’s not up there saying, “Here, have this opiate and buck up.” Instead, in the crucified Jesus, God draws near to us, weeps with us, feels forsaken with us, knows loss with us, and even dies with us. Even his mother shudders from the pain of it.

Mortality.

Mom is mortal.

I am mortal.

Jesus was mortal.

Jesus died.

God was dead.

An empty cross certainly announces victory over death. But a crucifix, hoisting the dying Savior with outstretched arms, is a warm welcome to all who are wrecked and weary.

Resurrection is coming.

But for now, we suffer. Together.

Kim Reisman ~ The Cross-Resurrection Contradiction

One of the fears many people have when they think about evangelism is that they will be asked questions about Christian doctrine and belief for which they don’t have adequate answers. One of those questions is: Why would a good God allow suffering to exist?

I understand the fear (and often the stunned silence) that might follow a question like that. It’s a big question! Yet, the reality is that no one—no Christian, or person of another faith or even no faith—can fully and completely answer a question like that. It is simply too deep; the mystery is too great.

And yet although the question of why may be shrouded in mystery, the question of meaning is not. As Christians, we have a great deal to say about the meaning of suffering, the way God attends to it, enters into it, and ultimately redeems it. About that we have much to say.

So a better question might be: Given the reality of suffering, where is God, and what does God intend to do about it?

At the heart of Christian faith is a commitment to a God who enters into suffering. Frequently, in evangelism, our conversations focus on explaining who Jesus is as divine; and yet, especially in the context of suffering, we need to help people understand who God is by focusing on who Jesus is as human. When we do that, we see that the crucified Jesus is the revelation of God.

The crucified Jesus stands at the center of our understanding of God, and the cross stands at the center of God’s relationship with all of creation. God’s compassionate love for the world takes on the form of suffering. As we walk with those who are suffering, hoping and praying that they might experience the saving love of Jesus Christ, we do well to remember that the atonement offered through the cross of Christ reveals God’s faithfulness to those God created. It lays bare God’s indestructible love, God’s willingness to experience pain, God’s commitment to endure and overcome a world which stands in direct opposition to Him.

In the profound words of Jürgen Moltmann, God “molds and alchemizes the pain of his love into atonement for the sinner.” [1]

The cross of Jesus reveals that the experience of suffering is contained within God’s own nature. It reveals a God who is intimately involved in the world, who is moved and affected by all that we experience, and who willingly becomes vulnerable to suffering.

So while we may not have a definitive answer to the why of suffering, we can and must proclaim without hesitation that God is in the midst of it, ready and able to share it with, and carry it for, those who are walking a dark road.

When we seek to share the gospel amid evil and pain, moving outward from an interior experience of the cross to an understanding of shared suffering is imperative. Our world does not fully correspond to God. It is filled with brokenness, suffering, and death—a reality made severely apparent in the cross. On the other hand, the Resurrection points to the promise of a reality that will correspond to God.

This ‘cross-resurrection’ is a profound contradiction. Yet the cross shows God present even in the midst of that contradiction. In God’s love, God embraces the very creation that does not correspond to God, and thus God suffers. God’s love is not simply active kindness toward humanity; rather, it is love that suffers as it embraces the very evil that stands in opposition to it.

In modeling this love, we join God’s protest against all infliction of suffering, standing in solidarity with, and sharing as much as we are able, the suffering of others.

Several years ago, Kayla Mueller was martyred for her faith at the hands of Islamic State militants. In the public statements issued after her death, her family quoted from various letters she had written:

I find God in the suffering eyes reflected in mine. If this is how you are revealed to me, this is how I will forever seek you.

I will always seek God. Some people find God in church. Some people find God in nature. Some people find God in love; I find God in suffering. I’ve known for some time what my life’s work is, using my hands as tools to relieve suffering.

Kayla discovered the truth that God inhabits suffering. She encountered God there and did not shrink from the danger of joining God there.

Our witness for Christ is strengthened when we open ourselves to the possibility of encountering God in suffering as well. We need not set out to the farthest corners of the earth. Suffering is all around us, often residing quietly but powerfully within people we encounter every day. We need not have an answer to the question of why. Rather, we need only to enter in, willingly making ourselves vulnerable as we offer the compassionate, indestructible love of Christ.

[1] Jürgen Moltmann, The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation [1992], trans. M. Kohl (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001), 136.

Reprinted with permission from www.gospel-life.net.

Photo by James on Unsplash.

The Cross-Resurrection Contradiction

So a better question might be: Given the reality of suffering, where is God, and what does God intend to do about it?

At the heart of Christian faith is a commitment to a God who enters into suffering. Frequently, in evangelism, our conversations focus on explaining who Jesus is as divine; and yet, especially in the context of suffering, we need to help people understand who God is by focusing on who Jesus is as human. When we do that, we see that the crucified Jesus is the revelation of God.

The crucified Jesus stands at the center of our understanding of God, and the cross stands at the center of God’s relationship with all of creation. God’s compassionate love for the world takes on the form of suffering. As we walk with those who are suffering, hoping and praying that they might experience the saving love of Jesus Christ, we do well to remember that the atonement offered through the cross of Christ reveals God’s faithfulness to those God created. It lays bare God’s indestructible love, God’s willingness to experience pain, God’s commitment to endure and overcome a world which stands in direct opposition to Him.

In the profound words of Jürgen Moltmann, God “molds and alchemizes the pain of his love into atonement for the sinner.” [1]

This ‘cross-resurrection’ is a profound contradiction. Yet the cross shows God present even in the midst of that contradiction. In God’s love, God embraces the very creation that does not correspond to God, and thus God suffers. God’s love is not simply active kindness toward humanity; rather, it is love that suffers as it embraces the very evil that stands in opposition to it.

In modeling this love, we join God’s protest against all infliction of suffering, standing in solidarity with, and sharing as much as we are able, the suffering of others.

I find God in the suffering eyes reflected in mine. If this is how you are revealed to me, this is how I will forever seek you.

I will always seek God. Some people find God in church. Some people find God in nature. Some people find God in love; I find God in suffering. I’ve known for some time what my life’s work is, using my hands as tools to relieve suffering.

Kayla discovered the truth that God inhabits suffering. She encountered God there and did not shrink from the danger of joining God there.

Our witness for Christ is strengthened when we open ourselves to the possibility of encountering God in suffering as well. We need not set out to the farthest corners of the earth. Suffering is all around us, often residing quietly but powerfully within people we encounter every day. We need not have an answer to the question of why. Rather, we need only to enter in, willingly making ourselves vulnerable as we offer the compassionate, indestructible love of Christ.

[1] Jürgen Moltmann, The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation [1992], trans. M. Kohl (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001), 136.

Reprinted with permission from www.gospel-life.net.

Jeff Rudy ~ What If I Get Nothing Out of Lent?

“What if I get nothing out of Lent?”

We’re so pragmatic!

We want results, or if nothing else, explanations. It is so like us to approach in this way even these times in the liturgical seasons that urge us to take a break from something for a few weeks. “What sort of epiphany am I going to discover through this practice? What golden nugget of truth will I dig up by giving up chicken nuggets and their kind during these 40 days?”

Or even if we’re in some other season of life that is awfully burdensome and beyond our control, we are so frequently prone to think, “What am I supposed to be learning in this time?” or “What is God trying to teach me?” Often these ponderings come from a premise that is more cliché than it is true – “There’s a reason for everything.” Really?

Thomas Merton once wrote: “We cannot avoid missing the point of almost everything we do. But what of it? Life is not a matter of getting something out of everything. Life itself is imperfect. All created beings begin to die as soon as they begin to live…” Well, that’s awfully morbid, Fr. Merton! But these words are not all that different than the ones I spoke to those who gathered for the imposition of ashes last week: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

Numerous people come forward who have just lost a friend to death from pancreatic cancer four days prior. Another with tears in her eyes just brought her husband home from the hospital…a husband who had pancreatic cancer six years ago and still has days and weeks where the effects take their toll on his health. Children looking up at me in their innocence with a smile on their face as I kneel down and tell them the same thing I tell the 90-year-old woman who makes her way forward with a walker to the chancel to receive the ashes: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” It is closer for some than others.

“What am I supposed to be learning in all this? What can I get out of this?” And I’m wondering if I need to learn to be content with this response: “Perhaps nothing.” I’m not trying to be nihilistic, but I wonder if lingering too long looking for some hidden meaning or hoping for an epiphany might not provide the satisfactory explanation I desire. Perhaps the only desire that can only be fully satisfied, as Merton had said earlier, is “…the desire to be loved by God.”

One of the passages for that somber day – Ash Wednesday – is from the prophet Joel, who speaks to a people who are coming to grips with their own frailty as a nation – threatened by either: (1) a mighty Assyrian empire with an overpowering military; (2) a plague of locusts that would devour their crop and drastically affect their livelihood and health; or (3) both. Speculation can abound as to theodicy – why was this evil coming upon them? “It’s punishment from God for their unfaithfulness.” “It’s to enter into suffering so they can grow in their awareness and dependence on God.” And so on. For Joel’s situation, there seemed to be a clear explanation as to why – they understood it as punishment for their unfaithfulness, their lack of trust in God to provide whatever they needed.

The explanations might look different in our frail circumstances. But what stands out to me is that his response gives utterance to a resignation from trying to control the outcome and rather to simply do the right thing – to repent in dust and ashes. After the call to repent, to return to the Lord, Joel offers up a rather peculiar, ambiguous outcome. “Who knows whether [the Lord] will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him…” (Joel 2:14). Quite an interesting level of uncertainty in the prophet’s words. “Who knows…?”

In grief, in contemplation and a growing awareness of our own mortality, in view of circumstances that are beyond our control, in humility, and in repentance of past mistakes, we turn to God with ashes on our heads in the shape of the cross – the ultimate sign of mortality and the reminder of what it cost our Redeemer Jesus to rescue us from the pit of death.

And so, among other things I’m giving up for Lent, I’m trying to give up the search to find some other hidden meaning. Perhaps I won’t get anything out of it. We don’t enter into the Lenten season practicing disciplines in order to achieve a particular return. It’s not an investment. Fasting and praying are not disciplines that we engage in in order to “cash in” on some prize later. Whether we offer the prepared prayers of the liturgies or in extemporaneous manner, it is not for the sake of getting what we want, as if God were a vending machine sort of divine being – but our prayers, our fasting, our disciplines…these are for the sake of training our minds and bodies and souls to grow in our desire to be loved by God and to take one step closer in our desire to faithfully follow Jesus. And when the former is realized, the latter may be more likely to become a part of who we are as we find ourselves embracing those who are poor or grieving or meek or lonely or embattled or any other attribute so given by Jesus in the beatitudes – and doing this in compassion, carrying on our foreheads, but more importantly in our hearts and actions, the sign of the cross.

Who knows? Maybe there’s nothing more to get out of it than to know that we are loved by God. Isn’t that enough?