The Rector Writes

Dear Friends,

It goes without saying that we have all been shocked and moved beyond words by the Indian Ocean Tsunami tragedy. As a parish we have responded magnificently with over €6,000 raised through various events as you can see elsewhere in this issue. The loss of life on such a huge scale also raises other issues for thinking people, but especially for a Christian community: where was God? How could He allow this to happen? A number of you have asked me to repeat some of the points I made in the sermon I preached in the immediate aftermath of the disaster, and I am using this letter to reproduce some extracts. I am always conscious of the difficulty in such a task: the short length of a sermon can easily lead to appearing to give glib, easy answers. But perhaps these excerpts can act as encouragement to do our own thinking.

“Why? Why does God let this happen? Is he totally capricious or unconcerned? In the end there is only this one question that really matters: why do bad things happen to good people? Suffering has been called the rock of atheism - the one fact that turns people away from belief in God more than anything else.

It remains the greatest, most important problem that we face as a Christian community, and each of us has to find our own answer. I want to sketch for you some answers that are, I think, better than others.

First, we can reject the idea that people deserve the suffering that they receive. God does not send suffering on people because they happen to upset him. The idea that God gives people what they deserve, that our misdeeds cause our misfortune, has a number of big problems. It teaches people to blame themselves. It creates guilt where there is no cause for it. It makes people hate God, even as it makes them hate themselves. If we believe in a God of love, we cannot hold to the idea that He sends suffering as a punishment for bad behaviour, real or imagined.

Neither can we seriously suggest that God sends suffering to test us or teach us a lesson. Are we really prepared to say that God causes someone to be injured in a road accident so that her friends and family might learn to be more compassionate towards disabled people? That is hardly the action of a just and loving God. Nor should we deny the awful agonizing reality of suffering. It is too easy, too smooth to say "It’s all for the best" or "It’s all God's will in the end". That will not wash this week. The idea of some grand design in which everything turns out best is little comfort to those who are suffering here and now, and can hardly justify 150,000 innocent victims.

For Christians, the answer to suffering is not to see it as a punishment or a lesson or to deny its reality but to look at it from a different view, from two decisive moments in history: the incarnation (God becoming human) and the cross of Jesus. Seen from the foot of the cross, God is no longer some remote figure who sends suffering on us from far away in the sky but instead God reveals Himself as the one who suffers with us. He is the crucified God. God doesn't look down on us, He is right here with us, sharing the pain of the dying, the grief of the bereaved parents, the distress of the orphans. The poet G. W. Studdert Kennedy saw this clearly as a priest working in the slums of England and later as a chaplain in the trenches in France:

It’s always the cross in the End - God the Father, with a Father's sorrow and a Father's weakness which is the strength of love. God splendid, suffering, crucified - Christ. There's the Dawn.

Only by accepting the reality of the cross can we begin to grasp the power of the resurrection. Only when we accept that God is with us in our suffering can we begin to look towards the future with the first signs of hope. Only when we have endured everything winter can throw at us can we see the first signs of spring. This is not easy this week, as it is not easy to say to anyone in raw pain. Instead we can point to the presence of God in so many places this week: friends and strangers helping each other, the care for victims and the bereaved, the tireless work of aid agencies, the generosity which encourages us to put our hands deeper into our pockets. That's where God is this week and every week. Even this week we can still say Emmanuel, God is with us.”

Yours in Christ

Andrew

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