So Do Something!

Below is the text of the message given in the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, November 4, 2012.  The Scripture used is John 9:1-7.

Today is the last entry in our current sermon series “Does God?”

Think of what we’ve talked about in this sermon series.  We’ve said God loves us and cares about us, God answers our prayers, God has a plan for our lives, and that God wants us to enjoy life and be happy.  So here’s the question:  If all that’s true, why do so many bad things happen?

There’s no question that they do.  Just this week we saw the destruction caused by Hurricane Sandy.  We’ve had plenty of examples of bad things happening right here in our community recently, too.

When these things happen, it’s pretty natural to start asking, “Where’s God? Where’s God in all this stuff?  Does God cause it?  Even if God does not cause it, could God not stop it?  If so, why does God not stop it?  And if not, is God really an almighty, all-powerful God?”

These are not new questions, of course.  They go back thousands of years.  The early Hebrews asked that question, and they thought they had an answer for it.  They said, look, God is just and fair, so we get what we deserve.  If good things happen to you, it means you must be a righteous person, and you did something to deserve having them happen.  If you bad things happen to you, it means you must have sinned; you did something to deserve having bad things happen.  Simple.

           

The trouble was that people looked around and saw that did not seem to be true. There were too many times when it seemed like people who were not good people, people who lied and cheated and stole, had wealth and happiness on earth, even though they did not deserve it.  There were also too many times when it seemed like people who were really good people, who loved the Lord and who did their best to serve God and follow all the rules, still had all kinds of bad things happen to them, even though they did not deserve it, either.
         

This is what the whole book of Job is about.  If you remember, Job was considered to be the most righteous man on the face of the earth.  He seemed to have been rewarded for that, because he had great wealth, a large family, and all kinds of happiness.  Then, all of a sudden, for no apparent reason, it was all taken away from him. He lost his possessions, all his children died, and he completely lost his health.  And he had no idea why, because he did nothing to deserve having this happen.

Then Job’s friends came, and they refused to believe him.  They keep telling him, look, you must have done something wrong.  This has to be a punishment from God.  You need to confess your sin and repent.  But Job kept saying, “I’ve not done anything to deserve this.  This has happened to me for no reason, and I don’t understand it.”

This idea that bad things happen because God is punishing us persists.  You can see it in our reading from John today.  Jesus and the disciples are walking along, and they see a blind man.  The first thing the disciples ask Jesus is “Who sinned to make this man blind?”  They just assumed that this man’s blindness must have been a punishment.  And even though Jesus said that’s not the way it works, there are plenty of people who still believe that, even today.

There are, of course, times when God makes us live with the consequences of our actions.  That’s where another explanation for bad things happening on earth comes in.  It says that God gave us free will, and that has to include the freedom to do wrong, or our will would not truly be free.  Whatever we do, good or bad, affects more than just ourselves.  Our actions affect other people, too, sometimes in ways that we don’t think about or even know about.  The things I do affect you, and the things you do affect me. So when you and I do wrong, bad things are going to happen.  They may happen to us, or they may happen to others, but bad things are going to happen.  That means sometimes bad things are going to happen to us, not because we did anything to deserve them, but because someone else did something that made them happen.

One of the things I always think about, when I think about this topic, is my nephew, Wade.  Wade was killed in a car accident several years ago, just a week short of his fourteenth birthday.  Wade was riding to school with his mom and another driver ran a stop sign and smashed into the car, killing him instantly.

Wade’s death was, of course, the result of the actions of the other driver.  That’s not to say the other driver was evil or anything, but he made a mistake, and that mistake had consequences.  It took Wade’s life, and it permanently changed the lives of everyone else in both of the families involved.

Now, I don’t think for a minute that this accident was a punishment from God, nor do I think that God in any way caused it.  Still, I wonder, even if God did not cause it, could God not have prevented it?  And if so, why did God not prevent it?  After all, it would not have taken much.  If either driver had left home a few seconds sooner, or a few seconds later, the cars would not have collided.  If either driver had driven even one mile per hour slower, or one mile per hour faster, the cars would not have collided.  Surely God, the almighty, all-powerful God, could have intervened and changed things so that the accident would not happen.  But God did not do that.  The accident did happen, and Wade did die.  And I really don’t understand why.

Then, too, there are all the natural disasters that happen all around the world, like the one we just saw this week.  Nobody does anything to cause those things.  Those things have been going on for thousands of years, and there’s nothing any humans have done to cause them.  They just happen.  They happen, and some people lose everything, and some of them die.  And we don’t understand why.

I referenced the book of Job earlier.  Job constantly asks that question of why.  He asks it of his friends, and they say it’s Job’s fault, but that’s not true.  So, Job asks the question of God.  He asks it several times, and finally, near the end of the book, God responds.  God’s response, though, does not answer Job’s question.  God does not tell Job why.  Instead, God says, essentially, that we’re not supposed to understand why.  We’re supposed to have faith.  We’re supposed to believe.  We’re supposed to trust that God is in control, and that things will ultimately go the way they’re supposed to, even if we don’t understand all the things that happen along the way.

We’re not really very satisfied with that answer.  I certainly am not.  I have a hard time accepting it, and I’m not sure how to respond to it.  If we’re not going to be told why things happen, it seems like we should at least be told why we’re not going to be told why.  But God does not tell us that, either.

In thinking about this, let’s look at today’s scripture reading from the book of John again.  I think one of the reasons this story is in the Bible is to show us how we’re supposed to respond to this whole question of bad things happening.  There’s a man who was born blind.  Now, I’m sure blindness is a tough thing now and I’m not trying to minimize it causes at all, but two thousand years ago it was a lot worse.  Back then, there was basically nothing a blind person could do but sit by the side of the road and beg, hoping someone would come by and give them something.  Hope to get enough to survive today so that you can get up and try to survive tomorrow.

So, Jesus and the disciples are walking by, and they see this man.  And what do the disciples do?  They immediately ask “Why?  Why was this man born blind?  We know somebody must have sinned, but who was it?  Was it the man himself, or was it his parents?”

Does Jesus tell them why the man was born blind?  Not really.  He says, instead, that this man’s blindness is going to be used to reveal the greatness of God.  Then, Jesus heals the man.

By asking why, the disciples did what it comes natural to us to do.  The thing is, though, that while it may be natural for us to ask why, it’s a question we’re never going to be able to answer, at least not in this life.  God did not answer it for Job.  Jesus did not answer it for the disciples.  And nobody’s likely to answer it for us, either.

What Jesus did, though, shows us how we should respond to the bad things that we see in the world.  Jesus did not stop to discuss the why.  Instead, Jesus did something about it.  Jesus healed the man.  Jesus did not get into a theological discussion about why such a bad thing should have happened to someone who, for all we know, may have been as faithful and upright as it’s possible for a person to be.  Instead of discussing why this bad thing should have happened to this man, Jesus took the bad thing away.  He healed him.  Through that healing, God’s greatness was revealed.

I think Jesus was telling us through this that when we ask why, we’re asking the wrong question.  The question is not, why do bad things happen?  The question is, how are we going to respond when they do?  Instead of sitting there looking at a situation and asking “Why did this happen?”, what we’re supposed to ask is “What can I do about it?”

You and I, of course, are not Jesus.  We don’t have the power to heal someone by rubbing mud on their eyes and having them wash it off.  Our job, though, is the same.  John Wesley has a famous quote about what that job is.  He said that we are supposed to do all the good we can, by all the means we can, in all the ways we can, in all the places we can, at all the times we can, to all the people we can, as long as ever we can.

I don’t know why the world is the way it is.  I’ll probably never know.  I know, though, that when bad things happen, it’s not because God is punishing us.  I also know that, when bad things happen, God does not want us to waste a lot of time wondering why.  Instead, God wants us to get off our rear ends and do something about it.  We may not be able to solve everything, but that’s okay.  God does not expect us to solve everything.  All God asks, as Wesley said, is that we do whatever we can.  

Even if there’s very little that we can do, it’s still important that we do the little that we can, and trust God to do the rest.  And sometimes, with God’s help, what seems like a little to us may make more difference than we ever imagine.  When we do our best to follow God’s will, God’s greatness can be revealed through us, just as Jesus said.