Job was a man who lived in Uz. He was honest inside and out, a man of his word, who was totally devoted to God and hated evil with a passion. Job 1:1 (TMSG)
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No rest for me, ever—death has invaded life. Job 3:26b (TMSG)
Why does bad stuff happen to good people? This question is such a complex issue that the more layers of this onion-like riddle you peel-back, the more questions you uncover (and, like peeling onions – the more you feel like crying!).
To ask the question opens an entire semester of study for anyone seriously desiring an answer! It could be the start of a lifetime of risky grappling with who God is, who I am, and just what the meaning of life might be – why am I here, anyway? A decade of sermons would merely dance around the edges of an answer to why bad stuff happens to good people. Perhaps the best I can hope for today is whetting your appetite to get in the wrestling match as an honest discipline of engagement with God.
And so, what I’d like to do is just introduce some of the onion layers in hopes of starting a conversation (not an argument). Here are seven of some of the next ISSUES that snap into focus when you begin to peel the layers off the onion.
1. God’s Existence
The very question, why does bad stuff happen to good people, is subjective at best – and, at worst, seditious for a member of God’s creation. It makes us a judge over God; it is the creation demanding an answer of the Creator. Just by asking the question we assert that we are the ones to define what and who is good or bad.
Collectively we know in an instinctive way, that people like Adolph Hitler do bad things. But, because we’re not God we cannot say with certainty that even the most heinous of actions are outside of God’s goodness. That may sound contradictory, but if God is truly God, and good – as His word declares, nothing escapes his view or his control:
And before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account. Hebrews 4:13 (NRSV)
An objective approach, where the answers come from the revealed nature of God in His Word, is more respectful for the creature when approaching what is clearly in the Creator’s hand. Moses put it this way:
29The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the revealed things belong to us and to our children forever, to observe all the words of this law. Deuteronomy 29:29 (NRSV)
Moses was declaring that some things are God’s alone, but what God has revealed is what we should be teaching to those who come after us, so that they can live within His will.
2. Human Limitations
We are certainly limited as to making judgments about eternal things because we are hemmed-in by time and space. I have trouble understanding some things I’ve seen. For instance, why did an eight-year-old girl who used to live near my daughter in Thomasville die of cancer? I buried a little infant girl several years ago – she only made it about half a day in this world. Her birth mother was barely into her teens, and the father had to get special permission to be released from jail to attend the funeral.
My friend in Florida was an excellent homicide detective. He helped bring serial killer Danny Rolling to justice; my friend died last year of brain cancer, not even 60 years old. I cannot fathom the depth of suffering of the people in Haiti, or starving children in this world.
But all that notwithstanding, I cannot see what God sees. Rabbi Shraga Simmons tells the story of a farmer who owned a horse. And one day the horse ran away. All the people in the town came to console him because of the loss. “Oh, I don’t know,” said the farmer, “maybe it’s a bad thing and maybe it’s not.”
A few days later, the horse returned to the farm accompanied by20 other horses. (Apparently he had found some wild horses and made friends!) All the townspeople came to congratulate him: “Now you have a stable full of horses!” “Oh, I don’t know,” said the farmer, “maybe it’s a good thing and maybe it’s not.”
A few days later, the farmer’s son was out riding one of the new horses. The horse got wild and threw him off, breaking the son’s leg. So all the people in town came to console the farmer because of the accident. “Oh, I don’t know,” said the farmer, “maybe it’s a bad thing and maybe it’s not.”
A few days later, the government declared war and instituted a draft of all able-bodied young men. They came to the town and carted off hundreds of young men, except for the farmer’s son who had a broken leg. “Now I know,” said the farmer, “that it was a good thing my horse ran away.”[1]
Our vision is limited and we have a long way to go before we will know if a good thing or bad thing has occurred. My five year-old grandson thinks it was horrible – that needle the nurse was wielding looked four feet long. But someday the vaccinations will make sense to him.
3. Accountability
When we talk about “bad” things happening to “good” people, it would be helpful to define “good” the way God does. Ultimately there are none who are good in the Biblical sense:
10as it is written: “There is no one who is righteous, not even one; 11there is no one who has understanding, there is no one who seeks God. 12All have turned aside, together they have become worthless; there is no one who shows kindness, there is not even one.” 13“Their throats are opened graves; they use their tongues to deceive.” “The venom of vipers is under their lips.” 14“Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.” 15“Their feet are swift to shed blood; 16ruin and misery are in their paths, 17and the way of peace they have not known.” 18“There is no fear of God before their eyes.” 19Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. Romans 3:10 - 19 (NRSV)
Now there are plenty of people who are “good people”. I say that all the time; you do as well. But our frame of reference is with adjectives like “nice, helpful, not quick-tempered, and reasonably trustworthy”. But the problem is one of relativity – we judge our “goodness” by the wrong measure – each other! One preacher put it this way:
“Regretfully, we humans suffer from a religious version of Tallest Pygmy Syndrome (TPS). TPS is what causes a full-grown pygmy man who is only 4’9” tall to boast that he is so much taller than everyone else. He prides himself on his soaring physical stature, but he can do this only because he is comparing himself to a room full of other pygmies – all of whom are shorter than him. His boasting is almost comical: far from being tall, he is actually quite short. He is only the tallest pygmy! We sinners display something like TPS when we assess ourselves and think that we are good. Far from being good, we are only good in a world full of moral and spiritual pygmies. We are actually quite bad.” [2]
Unfortunately most of us (like the Tallest Pygmy) don’t really get it – that we are accountable to God, because we fall short of His standard – and when He is the Creator and we are the creatures, our standard is only spiritual TPS syndrome. And even when we suspect that is true – that we are accountable – we normally reject it with excuses, blunt it with denials, or ignore it because when you’re guilty, it leads to the next issue:
4. Punishment
Again – ultimately there are no “good” people because we are all children of Adam. When Adam sinned, he then passed on that sin nature to all humans born since. And since sin and guilt are universal, so is punishment for sin.
Rabbi Simmons: “For choice to be authentic. There have to be consequences. If every time I get in trouble, dad comes to bail me out, that’s not really choice. Choice means consequences. Think about it. All of history – whether in our personal lives or from a global perspective – is based on the decisions that human beings have made – and the consequences that flowed from that. [3]
Punishment is not to be equated with revenge; it is rehabilitative. When I was younger I had a temper. Some of my behavior was just plain anger or frustration unleashed on people. The cost of those outbursts made me realize that I was punishing myself. God used the cost in friendships to reconstruct the way I treat people. I am happier; I know others must feel the same way!
5. Purpose
Eventually we had to come to this one; what purpose in the world could bad stuff serve? Paul gives us a glimpse:
For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure, 2 Corinthians 4:17 (NRSV)
When bad stuff happens there is a testing that changes us. Let me cite four examples, recalling that, in Biblical times, a name told everyone what your character was like. In each of these examples, God tested, and then gave the person a new name to indicate a new level of relationship:
• Abram – Abram’s way was not easy. God told him to go live in an unfamiliar place, and to seal the deal he had to sacrifice his own son. Even though it never really had to happen, you cannot tell me it wasn’t a supreme test. It changed Abram to Abraham, father of many nations!
• Jacob – Jacob was a hustler and a con man. When troubles came, Jacob wrestled with God, got honest and became Israel, literally “he will rule as God”.
• Simon – wanted to serve God, but he had a cowardly streak. The test came…he flunked, many times, but Jesus said, “You’re Peter – a rock; I’m going to build my church…and you’re part of it.”
• Saul – also wanted to serve, but his ego and ambition got him turned around to be an enemy of God. God made him blind, humiliated and attacked by just about every religious thinker, and then God changed his name to Paul who wrote a huge portion of the New Testament scriptures.
Life, even with tests, is good, because God always has a purpose.
6. Human Freedom
With the incredible beauty of creation, a garden home, wife and everything he could need or want, Adam still managed to mess up. God gave mankind a gift of free will; we can choose. The ability to recognize how this sets us apart from the rest of creation is also a gift – it is called conscience. But free choice also created the possibility of evil. Man chose (and still chooses) evil!
Being created imago dei (in the image of God) describes that very freedom to choose between good and evil. Animals and plant life have no such self-awareness, no soul. Had God never given that free will there would not be sin; but the world would be populated by robots, automatically doing God’s bidding. God prefers the risk of evil, so that there is also the possibility of love.
Stacy James was paralyzed in a diving accident when she was in college. She speaks of her free choice: “God did not push me in the water to punish me or necessarily teach me a lesson; I chose to dive off my friend’s shoulders. As horrible as the consequences were, I can blame no one but myself. Of course, God could intervene and control everything about our lives – the good and the bad – but then we would merely be robots and not truly free. He could even force us to love him if he wanted, but then forced love isn’t true love. He gives us the freedom to choose or not to choose him, the freedom to live and enjoy life, and the freedom to make right and wrong choices. Unfortunately, we are left to deal with the consequences of our own and other people’s actions. [4]
Human freedom, choice! The sheer magnitude of this level of the “bad stuff happening to good people” onion we’re unraveling, demands a lot more weight and consideration – free will is at the back of all our problems and all our joy. But we move on to…
7. Engagement with the Mystery of Pain
I read an article by another rabbi, one who lives and teaches in Australia, Aron Moss. He posed these questions about us seeming to need/demand a definitive answer from God about why bad stuff happens to us. He said this, and it really grabbed me:
“Are you sure you want an explanation? Do you really want to know why the innocent suffer? I think not. You are far better off with the question than with an answer….But what if we found the answer? What if someone came along and gave us a satisfying explanation? What if the mystery were finally solved? What if we asked why, and actually got an answer? If this ultimate question were answered, then we would be able to make peace with the suffering of innocents. And that is unthinkable….And so, if we could make sense of innocent people suffering, if we could rationalize tragedy, then we could live with it. We would be able to hear the cry of sweet children in pain and not be horrified. We would tolerate seeing broken hearts and shattered lives, for we would be able to neatly explain them away. Our question would be answered, and we could move on.” [5]
I assumed I would have a closing that would put a cap on this sermon, but Rabbi Moss beat me to it…listen to the challenge:
“But as long as the pain of innocents remains a burning question, we are bothered by its existence. And as long as we can’t explain pain, we must alleviate it. If innocent people suffering does not fit into our worldview, we must eradicate it. Rather than justifying their pain, we need to get rid of it.
So keep asking the question, who do bad things happen to good people. But stop looking for answers. Start formulating a response. Take your righteous anger and turn it into a force for doing good. Redirect your frustration with injustice and unfairness and channel it into a drive to fight injustice and unfairness. Let your outrage propel you into action. When you see innocent people suffering, help them. Combat the pain in the world with goodness. Alleviate suffering wherever you can.
We don’t want answers, we don’t want explanations, and we don’t want closure. We want an end to suffering. And we dare not leave it up to G-d to alleviate suffering. He is waiting for us to do it. That’s what we are here for.[6]
When I read that, I said: “Amen, and amen!”
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ENDNOTES
1] Judaism.about.com/library/3_askrabbi_o/bl_simmons_murder.htm
2] Robert G. Spinney, Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People?, (Hartsville, TN, Tulip Books, 2006), 7
3] Judaism.about.com/library/3_askrabbi_o/bl_simmons_murder.htm
4] www.everystudent.com/wires/stacyjames2.html
5] Rabbi Aron Moss, Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People?, Chabad.org
6] Ibid.
