More Random Thoughts From This Disciple

A Reflection on God’s Will During Crisis

“God is good.” I’ve been repeating this statement over and over to myself throughout the week: as a reminder, in a week of horrible events after hurricane Katrina. First, we had the utter decimation of houses and businesses in the areas surrounding New Orleans and Biloxi by high winds and an even higher surge of water that cleared out two stories worth of structure in a matter of seconds. Randele’s sister still cannot believe the pictures that show the ocean front suite she lived just two months ago; it is completely gone. We see that and I have to remind myself that God is good.

Second, we saw the waters rise in New Orleans, stranding people on their rooftops. When rescued they were brought to shelters where (in some cases) they were worse off because the shelter had less provisions for them. I watched on TV these people with nowhere to go; fearing for their lives. And I had to remind myself that God is good.

Third, we heard of the poor response to this crisis: the poor preparation for this crisis as 23 or so percent of the people could not evacuate because they were poor, partisan bickering firing up, and all of this while a fourteen-year-old girl in the superdome met her doom when she needed to use the bathroom. As she left her family and made her way to the bathroom at night, she was attacked, beaten, and raped to death; in a supposed shelter, in a supposed safe-haven, in the United States of America. And, I have to calm myself down and say again to myself that God is good.

I have to say that God is good because it is the truth, but it is a truth that is hard to accept when things like this happen. You see, it is the natural thing to say that all this is “God’s will.” I was tempted many times to speak those words. When I heard of the crime going on in the city I felt myself wanting to say, it is God’s will, they deserved to be washed away. In the earlier days, when all we knew was destruction I felt myself wanting to say, “it is God’s will,” in order to comfort myself when chaos seemed to be gripping the nation.

I suppose it is very natural thing to utter when bad things happen. “This is God’s will.” After all, we live in something of a chaotic universe where it’s often easy to feel out of control. It doesn’t feel good to be overwhelmed or devastated by some dreadful turn of events. And to say that something is God’s will does provide some holy sounding words to an event that may otherwise leave us speechless. (1)
But, time and time again, as I was slipping into this mind-frame, I had to remind myself of the truth of the gospel message, “God is good.”

Just because the words “It was God’s will,” sounds holy does not mean that it is an appropriate response for those called to proclaim God’s gospel of undying care and compassion. “It may feel good to assign blame or responsibility to God for the sake of trying to make an inexplicable situation more understandable.” (2) But it’s not right, at least not for those who are called to proclaim the good news to hurting people. Those who are suffering and searching, I allow them to blame God and God’s will all they want. God has big shoulders and can carry their pain. But for those of us called to proclaim the good news of Christ to these very people, it is not fair to the God shown to us in holy scripture. When you come right down to it, we have attributed some pretty outlandish things to God over the course of time.

“Credits that surely must stun God to hear,” Pastor Peter Marty says. I quote Peter Marty:

Do you remember when the awful tragedy of the collapsed bonfire happened at Texas A&M University some six years ago? When that 40 foot tower of logs came tumbling down, killing 12 people and injuring another 30?

News reports searching for hope focused the following day on the words of one surviving student. “It’s a freak accident,” he said. “That’s all it is. God wanted it to happen and so it happened.”

Helpful words for instantaneous comfort, I suppose, but not exactly words of faith. They rolled off the lips of a grief-stricken young man eager to explain the horror of the whole experience.

Disasters tend to prompt conversations about God. This can be good. But sometimes the content of these conversations is highly questionable. Especially when we start speaking as if we always know the will of God.

Pastor Peter Marty continues:

One of the best sermons ever preached on American soil came from the lips of William Sloan Coffin. Coffin is perhaps best known for being the prophetic chaplain at Yale University during the turbulent 1960s.

In this unforgettable sermon, William Sloan Coffin reflected on the recent death of his son, Alex. He particularly went after one thing that he said should never, ever be spoken after a tragedy.

The story he tells in that sermon begins in the home of his sister, where the Coffin family has gathered to grieve Alex’s death. The front door opens and a pleasant woman enters bearing the gift of all kinds of food. As she heads to the kitchen, she bends over to whisper to Bill Coffin, “I just don’t understand the will of God.”

Rev. Coffin immediately flew into a rage. “Instantly,” he says, “instantly I was up and in hot pursuit swarming all over her.” “I’ll say you don’t, lady,” he said. “Do you think it was the will of God that Alex never fixed that lousy windshield wiper of his, that he was probably driving too fast in such a storm, that he probably had had a couple of frosties too many? Do you think it is God’s will that there are no streetlights along that stretch of road and no guardrails separating the road from Boston harbor?”

“Nothing so infuriates me,” Rev. Coffin said, “as the incapacity of seemingly intelligent people to get it through their heads that God doesn’t go around this world with his fingers on triggers, his fist around knives, his hands on steering wheels.” (3)

What prophetic words to hear this week. God does not join in with a gang of violent looters and murderers, brandishing a weapon, killing and raping fourteen year old girls. God does not snuff out hundreds of innocent people just to teach one person who got away a lesson. God really does not.

There’s a story in the new testament that seeks to completely separate untimely death from a larger purpose of God. The story covers the gamut from human-initiated disaster to natural disaster.

I pick it up in the 13th chapter of Luke’s gospel: “At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. He asked them, "Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did." (4)

“Followers of Jesus have always been hungry for a cause and effect kind of faith. If they could make some sort of connection between the sins of both Galileans and Jerusalemites and the different calamities they suffered, they could create a world with a comfortable logic to it. If you understand the rules, you can control the hurt. But Jesus denies any correlation like this whatsoever.

The sort of person you are has nothing to do with whether bad things or good things come your way on any given day. Coincidence and randomness have as much to do with ill fortune as anything else.

We want answers and explanations; Jesus wants a relationship with us. We want to link our love of the Lord to whatever circumstances we are dealt. Jesus wants a love that is separated from those circumstances--a love that’s free from being all tied up with what happens to us in the way of good or bad happenings.” (5) No matter what happens to us, or to people down in the South or anywhere; God is good and God promises to bring new life out of destruction. God’s love rises above all that happens to us. It is a love that is not dictated by the horrors of nature or humanity. It is a love that is everlasting and will not be downgraded by a hurricane. God is good, all the time. God is good all the time. God is good all the time. Again, and again I will say it until I can believe it, until is imprinted on my brain, God is good all the time, God is good all the time, and only then am I in a position to share the truth about God to hurting people. No more cheap sentiments of “it was God’s will.” Only when I remember that God is good all the time, do I have something to share with someone who has lost everything.

“God willed your suffering” does not bring hope of a future to someone suffering. All it does it make me feel better that it didn’t happen to me. How can you hope in a God who intended your life to be destroyed in the first place? God is good all the time. And with those words we have a hope that this destruction is both a tragic end and a beginning of something new. It is fresh flowers poking up out of the sewer water.

“An act of God?” Never trust an insurance company to give you the good news of God. If left up to certain insurance companies, God’s love would be denied to bring down costs. It must be costly to care for so many people. Yes it was, it cost death on a cross. Take heart, my friends. Even in the middle of your worst disaster, the Lord will remain faithful to you at any cost. God is good, all the time.

1. This paraphrased paragraph concerning “Holy Sounding Words” comes from a sermon preached by Peter Marty on Grace Matters, the radio ministry of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. 8/14/05.

2. Peter Marty, Grace Matters, the radio ministry of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. 8/14/05.

3. Ibid.

4. NRSV, Luke 13: 1-5

5. Peter Marty, Grace Matters, the radio ministry of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. 8/14/05.

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