the ground has shaken and we are not the same

How do Christian people, living in God’s Word, understand and respond to disasters and human tragedies?  In our time, not a day goes by that we are not bombarded by stories of violence, bloodshed, and tragedy.  Children abducted and murdered.  Violence erupting on the streets of Jerusalem last week, when praying Muslims emerged to throw rocks at praying Jews, in retaliation to the news that Israel was claiming additional rights to land in the west bank, land Palestinians hoped would become there’s.  When you see what you see and hear what you hear, what do you think?  We are so desensitized to the disasters and the violence.  We simply move on, because tomorrow will bring another round of the same.  Empty platitudes and wishful hopes of brighter days ahead are insufficient at best and at worse diminish their suffering.  Haiti’s earthquake is overshadowed by Chile’s, which will be overshadowed by the next thing.  Katrina was overshadowed by Tsunami’s  On and on it goes.  We barely have time to consider the meaning of these things.  I guess we don’t.  What does the earthquake mean?  What is God’s role in human tragedy, natural disasters, or accidents, or violence?  How do we interpret events in relation to God, who speaks to us about the world and about our lives in scripture? As a proclaimer of the Word I am called to reflect on its bearing, its meaning for us as God’s people.  What does this mean?  What does this text, this word mean to us as a word of God?  And what do the events of the week mean.  What do various encounters mean?  Because the incarnate God is revealed not only in extraordinary happenings but in ordinary experiences and relationships.  What does this visit, this phone call, this email mean? I interpret all things in relation to the biblical narrative. I listen for the biblical narrative to emerge in all things.  Where do I hear God’s word come alive?  I ask this question every week. 

In Luke 13, Jesus discusses the meaning of two current events, one a random accident, and the other a heinous act of government-sponsored violence by the occupying forces.  He means to give them theological meaning, not as random acts of suffering, but as reminders to repent.  Life’s shortness and complexity mean that we cannot simply let things happen to us or around us without acknowledging them as having bearing on our lives.  What he means to say is, tomorrow you may die.  What you do today matters more as a result.  So will you persist in unfaithfulness and unfruitfulness as people lost in the dark or will you repent?  Will you change?  Will you be transformed into God’s own people or will you persist in your unruly stubbornness? Will you live for God or live for yourself?  Will you take part in God’s mission of love and mercy or will you try to obstruct it with your actions and words? Will you forgive others as God forgives you or will you complain in bitterness and anger?  God sends prophets, apostles and messengers to call a people from denial, despair, and death to real life; and people hate and kill prophets. Because the truth is hard to hear.  Paul talks about how some Christians abandoned the truth and paid the price.    

So how do Christians interpret genocide in Darfur, suicide bombings in Iraq, deadly stoning of praying Jews by praying Muslims in Jerusalem?  Or earthquakes destroying hundreds of thousands of people on an island already devastated by poverty, and political apathy?  Pat Robertson said,

Something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it," he said on Christian Broadcasting Network's "The 700 Club." "They were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon III, or whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, we will serve you if you'll get us free from the French. True story. And so, the devil said, okay it's a deal."

Robertson said that "ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after the other" and he contrasted Haiti with its neighbor, the Dominican Republic.

"That island of Hispaniola is one island. It is cut down the middle; on the one side is Haiti on the other is the Dominican Republic," he said. "Dominican Republic is prosperous, healthy, full of resorts, etc. Haiti is in desperate poverty. Same island. They need to have and we need to pray for them a great turning to god and out of this tragedy I'm optimistic something good may come. But right now we are helping the suffering people and the suffering is unimaginable.

So the earthquake was brought on by a pact with the devil.  Their rejection of God caused their own suffering over a hundred years later. 

As he has done before, Robertson blamed the devastation on the people themselves and upon God.  It is a sign of God’s anger and wrath.  I hope he is wrong, because if he is not, then we are in for a massive, massive disaster in the U.S.  Because if our faithfulness is keeping God’s wrath at bay, we are in huge trouble.   If the law of the jungle is “what goes around comes around” then we better duck.  Pat Robertson’s interpretation of the earthquake as judgment is only fair if he hears in it a call on his own life to change, to repent, to run toward God and away from self-righteous judgment.  God’s wrath is impartial; all have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory. 

But the God we believe in is a God who offers unfaithful people a way to return to faithfulness, beginning with a simple admission of hunger or thirst or lacking of the basics.  Beginning with the simple admission that I am not god, that I am wrong, that my judgment is likely incorrect, that my behavior is no good.  Beginning with the admission that I fail to live in harmony with God’s purposes and promises and that God has every right to cast me aside.  Suffering reminds us of our need for God in all things. 

The parable Jesus tells is important to hear, because we are exactly like the vineyard grower.  We want results.  We want fruit.  We want things to go the way we want them to for our benefit.  We want to be paid.  We want to be rewarded.  We want things the way we like them on our schedule.  And when things break we discard them.  When people fail us, we reject them too.  We treat people like they are disposable.  Uproot them and throw them out. This is not God’s way, though it is ours. 

Thank God for another way, the way of Jesus the gardener.  He is a gardener who knows what its like to be rejected, buried, cast aside for dead.  He knows what its like to be seen as a failure and as one who did not bear the expected fruit.  He knows what its like to be judged and condemned.  So he behaves differently than we do.  He offers another chance.  He is at work mulching and watering and fertilizing us.  He is at work to see if there is enough life left in us for value.  And he teaches his followers not to judge others, but to take the log out of our own eyes before removing the speck from a brothers eye. He teaches that anger toward another brother is equivalent to murder.  He teaches the law of repentance and reconciliation.  How might we imitate Jesus in our interpretation of events and in our relationships with others?  May we not abandon anyone along the way.  may we become patient and forebearing, and tireless in our efforts to restore, heal, build up, renew, cultivate, and bear fruit.  And what is the fruit of repentance?  Love that puts the other before the self everyday.  It is Lent.  Time to turn back to God.  Amen.