Why Suffering?
± Why God, why?
° This may be the most repeated prayer in history.
° Most people have said it at one point or another.
± In the world there is a lot of suffering causing us to wonder if God is in control.
° There are no easy or simple answers to the problem of evil and the suffering it produces.
° Life will send you suffering, but God can help through his own woundedness.
Decisions Play a Role
± Each day you make approximately 35,000 decisions.
° Most are micro choices that lead to bigger decisions.
° This complexity is multiplied by the amount of people in the world.
± A round estimate is 7.8 billion making 35,000 choices.
± That adds up to 273 trillion decisions each day.
± This complexity of human choice, as we know from experience and observation, leads to beauty and death each day.
° Many of the pains in our lives is a result of this web of free will.
° How do we live with faith and hope in a world where life is just a few bad choices away.
But Why?
± We understand that decisions play a part, but there is a depth to this topic that defies simplistic answers.
° It is human nature to speculate that if bad things happen to people, it is because they have done something wrong and are being punished.
° In Luke 13:1-5 Jesus discusses suffering that is caused humans and other tragedies that occurs naturally or accidentally.
± The Galileans Pilate murdered were not more terrible people than others.
± The 18 people who died when the tower collapsed were not more guilty than other citizens.
± Jesus said that suffering happens, and it isn’t because the victims did good or bad things.
° Jesus does use the occasion to call the people to repent from these common assumptions.
Assumption 1: God Controls Everything That Happens
± To say that God is in control raises questions about how God rules in the world.
° What is the nature of divine control?
° Does God control even evil things that happen?
± God could be in complete control if he wanted to be, but apparently God didn't set up the world that way.
° Nothing suggests God is orchestrating all 263 trillion decisions a day.
° If free will is real, often conditioned by circumstances and cultural realities, these decisions are not controlled by God.
± If our choices are truly free, then the future has some flexibility baked into it.
° The outcome of certain choices do not yet exist because they are conditioned on human choice.
Assumption 2: Suffering is a Part of God’s Will
± Some Christians believe that suffering is part of God’s will and plan for the world.
° In Calvinistic theology divine sovereignty is exalted over everything else which means suffering somehow (even if mysteriously) points to God’s glory.
° In Arminian theology there is the belief of God’s limited control over the world and therefore suffering is inevitable.
± Free will and God’s foreknowledge play into the scenario.
° Evil grieves God, but God is committed to a world that is truly free.
° God never makes evil happen, He is actively working in real time, to prevent evil without overriding our free will.
Assumption 3: God Can Always Intervene
± In theory, God can do what he wants, but if God governs the world with real choices and actual possibilities, then there are times when God cannot get in the way of suffering.
° We this hinted at in the life of Jesus.
° If Jesus wanted to, he could have leaned into his divinity and never failed at a miracle.
° However, when he visited Nazareth, Mark 6:5 suggests there were limitations because of the response of the people.
± God’s resources are infinite, but God chooses not to coerce human free will.
Suffering Can Make Us Human, Like Jesus
± We know that pain is real and doesn’t magically go away.
° We know that our choices stem from a web of free that will contribute to systems that oppress some and elevate others.
° We also know that God is love. (1 John 4:16).
± This love is enfleshed in Christ.
± It is this love in which we are invited to dwell and to have dwell in us.
± God meets us in time and space, in our space of anguish.
° When we hurt, God hurts with us.
° God borrows the context of that hurt, without causing it, to redeem something from it, if possible.
God Doesn’t Always Make Sense
± Genesis through Nehemiah tells a story of Israel that is black and white deterministic theology (obey = blessing, disobey = cursing – Deuteronomy 28-32).
± For the Psalms and wisdom literature, life isn’t black and white. Life is messy, unpredictable, and often makes no sense.
° These books take issue with the story line and its morals. In fact, they interrogate the black and white script.
± Job loses everything he has except his life. The script (e.g., Deuteronomy) says that such calamities are by God’s hand, a response to disobedience. Yet we learn from Job that this is not the case.
± Ecclesiastes questions the “world order” God has made: nothing we do matters, since we all die and are driven to the point of madness at the thought of our futile existence.
± A number of psalms lament God’s absence in the world. Like Psalm 73–where the author can’t get his head around how a just God can allow the wicked to prosper.
± Or Psalm 89–where God is in effect called a liar for promising that one of King David’s descendants would always be on the throne in Jerusalem and then allowing the Babylonians to kill off the last of David’s royal line and take the people captive.
± At the end of the day, the human thought process can only get you so far when it comes to God.
Three Possible Postures
± Jesus, you fix it because I can’t.
± Jesus, join me in my suffering because I need you.
± Jesus, I want to experience your pain, which includes mine and the suffering of others.
To Lament is Human
± Jesus lamented – even wept (John 11:35).
° Lament is a liturgical response to the reality of suffering and engages God in the context of pain and trouble.
± We need an outlet that allows us to offer our pain to God.
° See the book of Lamentations
° See Psalm 137
