God and Our Suffering
When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men. Matthew 2.16
The murder of the innocents recorded by Matthew challenges us to reflect upon the relationship between God and the suffering of God’s world, the relationship between God and the suffering of those innocents killed in the search for the Christ Child and the relationship between God and our suffering.
The basic question is often posed like this: If God is all powerful, and all knowing and all loving why does God allow evil and suffering to run rampant in the world. In pastoral terms evil and suffering show themselves most fully in the phone call that brings the priest to the bedside of a mother and still born child or into the home of the young man whose fiancé has been killed in a car accident.
Reading through the passage this morning from Matthew we might too easily come to the conclusion that the killing of innocent children is part of God’s plan for the salvation of humanity. In that plan many more would be brought to salvation so we can blame the massacre on Herod and thank God that the Holy Family made it safely to Egypt. But lets stay with this just a little longer. Because even if some of us may be able to move on easily there are many who cannot. There are many looking for any excuse to turn God into the type of ruler humanity should rather be rid of.
In our Christian tradition there are two primary responses to what is known as the problem of evil. One is attributed to the fourth century bishop Augustine of Hippo and the other to the second century bishop of Lyons, Irenaeus. Augustine left us with the idea that sin, and hence suffering and evil, came into the world through the sin of Adam. Influenced by Satan, Adam and Eve disobeyed God and opened the flood gate on sin, suffering and natural disaster. Cast out from Eden, human life became an existence of "blood, sweat and tears." According to this view then, each of us, before we even lift a finger, participates in this ‘original sin’. According to Augustine there is no innocent suffering because each of us is connected past generations through the ‘sin of Adam’. The only escape is salvation in Christ lived out though baptism and membership of the Church. This thinking had a great hold over Western Christianity with people fearing death ‘outside the comfort of mother church’.
There are other ways of thinking about evil and suffering. Irenaeus of Lyons proposed that one God’s great gifts to creation was freedom. For Irenaeus the brokenness and incompleteness of the world is apparent because creation is on a path of growth from towards maturity. This growth can only emerge from the interaction of good and evil. For human beings life is about a gradual transition towards Godliness.
‘Could not God have displayed humanity perfect from the beginning?’ If anyone asks this he must be told that God is absolute and eternal, and with respect to himself all things are within his power. And so, just as a mother is able to offer food to an infant, but the infant is not able to receive food unsuited to its age; so God himself could have offered perfection to humanity at the beginning, but humanity being yet infantile could not have taken it.’ Against Heresies
These are not the kinds of explanations that are much help as we endure our own encounters with evil, or as we travel with others through their suffering but in one form or another both ways of thinking do emerge regularly. Perhaps you, like me, have heard the words, "What did I do to deserve this?" It is as though some evil or suffering was a punishment for a wrongdoing. There is a strong natural tendency for us to think this way, even in an enlightened scientific world. It is as though the balance of the scales of morality are more important than compassion. Read the account of Job and his so called companions for an example of this way of thinking. If only it were that simple. Certainly it one gets blind drunk and jumps into a car and races down the road there could be a resultant tragedy - yet tragedy strikes even the most careful of people.
Another common response to suffering is to say, "These things are meant to try us." I can hear echoes of Irenaeus in those words. And I’m sure that many people have taken comfort in them as they face their own sufferings and those of friends and family. In the Gospels there are two stories that shed light on Jesus approach to the connection between sin suffering and evil. Once his disciples came across a man born blind (John 9). With all the compassion they could muster they asked Jesus a question. "Who sinned that this man was born blind: Him or his parents?" Perhaps Augustine would have responded that it was the result of Adam’s sin, Irenaeus may have pointed to the yet imperfect state of creation. For Jesus the case was quite clear - "neither, he was blind so that the works of God might be done." In this man’s case healing resulted. This healing provides us with a sign about how to deal with evil and suffering, but not a magical solution. That sign points to the love of God that offers hope healing and resurrection and completeness to all.
In the midst of his own suffering on the cross Jesus does give us an insight into one way of dealing with suffering. Remember that from the cross he cried the words: "My God. My God, why have you forsaken me". This is no doubt a true moment of desolation, but these words are also the first words of a psalm known to us as Psalm 22. In this and other psalms like it there is a movement from despair, to a recognition of God’s majesty and grace and beyond to a renewed state of praise. Psalm 22 moves from its opening verse to a stark and honest description of the predicament. Verse 18 and 19 are familiar to us: "I can count all my bones: they stand staring and gazing upon me. They part my garments among them: and cast lots for my clothing." But later there is a transformation. In verse 20 the psalmist declares: "O, Lord, do not stand far off: you are my helper and my strength." With that realisation comes a turning point. The psalmist has realised the nature of God and his relationship with God. The tone turns to one of praise until in the penultimate verse the psalmist declares: "But he has saved my life for himself: and my posterity shall serve him." The process of the psalmist goes something like this:
1. Describing the situation and pouring out the emotions associated with suffering.
2. Allowing the realisation to surface that God is with us and that God will restor the sufferer to fulness of life.
3. Having realised again the goodness of God entering into a relationship of praise.
I have no answer to the presence of evil or the necessity of suffering. In the end neither do Augustine or Irenaeus fully answer this vexing question, and Jesus choses to confront rather than explain the presence of evil. I believe that the process of the psalmist offers a practical and effective way to encounter evil and suffering. In order that the process can get under way a sufferer must be open to laying bare the emotions and the situations of suffering. Beyond the cliches of "What have I done to deserve this." and "These things are sent to try us." is the terror, anger and pain of suffering and evil. Only when we place these emotions where they belong, with God, can we then begin the process to restoration. Jesus points us in this direction in his cry from the cross and so the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews writes of our Lord:
Therefore he had to become like his brothers and sisters in every respect, so that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself was tested by what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested. Hebrews 2.17-18
