The Not So Simple Supper

Our Simple Supper discussion of chapter 3 in Sara Miles' book, Jesus Freak, circled around one of the thorniest questions in all of religion--thorny not just for Christianity but for religions of every stripe.  The question, which commonly goes under the title "The Problem of Evil" is usually stated this way: If God is all knowing, all good and all powerful, why is there suffering and evil in the world?  If God is all we think God is, why do things have to be the way they are?  Why do good and innocent people have to suffer?

Alas, though some of the greatest minds and spirits in the history of religion have applied themselves to this question, none of them have come up with an acceptable answer.  Even one of the best attempts at an answer--"This is a mystery we can't understand but must accept", is really a non-answer that begs the question.  And the second-best answer--"People were created with free will and we chose evil, so it's not God's fault" helps very little in our attempt to understand why things are the way they are.

Our conversation Wednesday evening about the problem of evil grew out of a larger conversation we have been having about prayer--what it is and how it "works".  When we, or someone we love, falls ill we pray for recovery and cure.  Illness or disability, especially in a child, is a bad, unwelcome event.  It represents something gone terribly wrong in the world.  So we who try to be people of faith pray and ask the good, wise and powerful God to remedy the situation; to bring health where there is sickness.

But very often the outcome is not what we hope and pray for.  Very often the evil continues until the life affected ends.  And we are left, it seems, with only two possible conclusions: either something is wrong with prayer, or something is wrong with God.  Neither of those conclusions is comfortable; neither is acceptable.  But we are hard pressed to find any other alternative.

I would be the last one to offer a resolution to this dilemma.  Even attempting to do so is far above my pay grade.   Why?  I don't know!  Perhaps we might wonder, sometime, what we mean when we say God is all knowing, all good and all powerful and why we ascribe those traits to the Creator in the first place.  Or we might sometime wonder why we think the Divine nature should somehow fit within our meager human understanding of what it means to be "God".  But those conversations, while interesting, would bring no comfort in the face of the suffering that too often afflicts those we love.

There is something we can do, however, that for me at least suggests a reason for hope and offers some comfort.  We can pay close attention to the story we have been given--the story that is meant to give us some sense of what God is up to in our world.  And I'm thinking here of a particular detail in that story--one that tells us not why God lets bad things happen to good people (if that in fact is what God does) but where God is when the bad stuff rains down on us.  The "why" question, I think, is never answered in Scripture.  The "where" question, on the other hand, is often and resoundingly addressed all through the writings in the Bible--from Genesis to Revelation.

From "...even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, you are with me..." in the 23rd Psalm to St. John's assertion that "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us" ("moved into the neighborhood" in Eugene Peterson's translation) to the promise in the Revelation:

"the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them;
they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be with them;
he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away."

and in many, many more passages and promises in the Bible the conclusion is always the same.  No matter the darkness, no matter the pain, no matter the senselessness of the evil around us, God is with us; we are not alone.

We want to know why.  We can ask why.  But the reality of our lives, for now at least, is that we are not going to know why; and we aren't going to know why we can't know why.

But the "Jesus Freak" in me is ready and willing to answer the "where" question whenever and wherever it comes up.  "God has said, 'Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you'" (Hebrews 13.5)  and Jesus himself said, "I am with you, even to the end of the age" (Matthew 28.20).  

This is the promise.  It is true; we can trust it.  God is with us; we are not alone.  Thanks be to God.