I call it THE QUESTION. I give it a title because I am asked THE QUESTION a lot, at least once a week. It comes in many forms, but it is always the same question. Whenever someone in the church falls ill or someone dies without warning, suddenly, the question is posed.
“Is God punishing me?”
There is a deep, primal part of the human being that believes that life should be easy and smooth. And when we suffer, be it from illness or job loss or tragedy, we always ask THE QUESTION. It stems from the belief that God punishes. It is an Old Testament notion. In the Old Testament, the Hebrew people believed that God punished, that God was disappointed and angry with humanity and that it was for this reason that we suffer.
The Old Testament understanding of God would lead us to believe that Japan had sinned in some way as a country and it was for this reason that the Japanese suffered such a massive natural disaster. Similarly, those with cancer would be said to be paying for the sins of our culture, which pollutes and profanes the earth. This reasoning is very easy to understand and quite natural to assume when something bad happens. It seems to make sense because suffering does not seem natura. It is just wrong, and there must be a reason for it. It must be a punishment for SOMETHING. But THE QUESTION was exactly what Jesus came to refute. Jesus came to show us that God does not punish us with suffering.
In the gospel of John, Jesus is walking along and he comes to a man who has been blind from birth. THE QUESTION is asked of Jesus.
“Rabbi,” his disciples ask, “Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
Jesus’ words echo across the centuries. I want you to hear them. Let them sink into your hearts so you can pull them out when you doubt or question God’s love. Jesus says, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned;
he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.”
He was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.
That means that suffering is not a punishment. It is an opportunity, an opportunity for God’s works to be revealed.
When you suffer, you can wonder about whether you are loved by God, or you can rise to see your suffering as a chance to manifest God’s love in the world.
Years ago, a woman in my parish became pregnant. She and her husband had two girls and at the age of 40, she became pregnant with a third daughter. But an amniocentesis revealed that the child had Down Syndrome and a hole in her heart. The woman’s marriage fell apart. So this 40-year-old woman, with two small girls, came to my office unsure of what to do.
“I am afraid that this little girl will die before her first birthday,” she said. “She will have no value in society…And what will I tell my daughters if she dies?”
We sat there together in silence. She cried. We prayed. We thought of what it would be like to give birth to a child who died before the age of one. We thought about what it would be like to give birth to a child who could never read or have a career, a normal job. And she asked THE QUESTION.
“Why has this happened to me? What did I do wrong?”
But then we began to think about this child as a gift. Yes, she might die. Yes, she would not be like other children. But what if her life was a gift? What if God was bringing her into the world so that his works might be revealed?
The woman decided to have this little girl and to try to raise her for as long as she lived. Her name is Savannah. She’s had to have three heart surgeries. But she survived. And that Christmas, I asked that Savannah play the role of the Christ child in the Christmas pageant. I don’t think that there was a dry eye in the place.
In her, God’s love is revealed.
When the blind man is given his sight, his life becomes much more complicated. Not only does he see color and shape, but he sees the cowardice of his parents who will not speak up for him and the crookedness of the Pharisees, who try to frame Jesus as a criminal. And the more that the blind man sees, the more he seems to realize that the world is broken. And the more he realizes that the world is broken, the more he wants to be near Jesus. Just when he is most alone, rejected by his parents and the Jewish leaders, Jesus comes back to him. “Do you believe in me?” Jesus asks. And the man says that he does believe.
Suffering produces a crisis in the human mind. It brings us to a crossroads. We have to choose. Will we despair and wallow in THE QUESTION or will we use the suffering as a chance for God’s works to be revealed in us?
What will you do? You can be assured that you will not escape this life without suffering. It is part of the brokenness of our world. How will you choose to respond? That is the true Question.
Do you know that it is not your body or your success that matters to God? God cares about only one thing, your heart. God makes that clear to us in the Old Testament passage for today…
The prophet Samuel is trying to find a king. God has left Saul and found another, and it is the job of the prophet to find this young man and anoint him as God’s chosen one, the true King of Israel. God tells Samuel to invite Jesse and his sons to a sacrifice. “I will choose a king from among Jesse’s sons,” God says.
So, one by one, the boys of Jesse parade before Samuel the prophet. And one by one, from the oldest to the youngest, Samuel rejects them. And Samuel begins to doubt. “Why isn’t Eliab, the oldest, the king?” he asks God, “He is big and strong and handsome.” But God answers with words that speak to the heart of our relationship with God. God says to Samuel,
The Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.
God does not see or value looks, how your body appears, how you present yourself, your career, your prospects. God sees inside. God sees the love that a person bears for others and that is how God knows who you are.
God’s perspective is totally different from ours. The core question that God will ask us when we come face to face upon our death will not be, “What have you accomplished?” It will be this question: How have you loved?
Suffering produces one of the greatest opportunities to love. Like Shannon Miller, the famous gymnast and a beloved member of this church who is undergoing chemotherapy. Did you see her on television recently? In an interview, she wanted to help all other women who suffer from cancer so she took off her wig, right there on the news. “Look at me,” she said. “Let my suffering be a gift to you. I am in pain but my heart is pure. Fight with me. Celebrate life with me.”
How do you love? That is The QUESTION. Not all this punishment stuff. We will never understand why suffering happens in our world. It is part of the fabric of our fallen world, that is all that the Scripture tells us. But God came to join us in suffering and to rise again. To love us even in the midst of the greatest pain that can be imagined. Jesus suffered on the cross and continued to love. Can you?
