Why, God?

Scripture: The Fourth Sunday after Pentecost (Lectionary 12), A.D. 2015 B

Sermon:

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

In the BBC drama Rev., Adam Smallbone is an Anglican priest tasked with rejuvenating a failing congregation in inner city London. He is told that if he can’t raise attendance at worship, his church will be closed. Adam is a short, plain, tired-looking fellow, prone to overwork, who loves his family but fails to give his wife and children the attentiveness that they need—a very common problem among clergy.

As the series progresses, everything falls apart for Adam, and his life unravels both personally and professionally. He is utterly burnt out. With a suffering marriage and a closing parish, he gets up early one morning, drags a large cross from the church, and proceeds to take a long walk with it up a tall hill. When he reaches the crest, he props up the cross and—seemingly unsure of what to do next—he begins to sing out over the city in the early morning air. It’s not a particularly profound hymn that he sings, but an old Celtic favorite, “The Lord of the Dance.” He starts out softly, but gets louder as he goes along.

Dance, dance, wherever you may be.

I am the Lord of the dance, said He.
And I lead you all, wherever you may be.

And I lead you all in the dance, said He.

And as Adam sings this goofy little song, he begins to dance, all alone atop that barren hill. At least, he thinks he’s alone. But as he turns his head, what should he see, but a disheveled Irishman in a mismatched track suit, holding a can of breakfast beer, singing and dancing just as ridiculously along beside him.

“Hello,” says the Irishman with a grin. “I like your dancing.”

“Yeah,” replies Adam, flustered at this sudden intrusion. “Thanks.”

They sit down together on a park bench. “You’re in a good mood, then?” asks the Irishman.

“Not really,” admits the priest. “I’m trying to keep something alive but I don’t think I can do it.”

The Irishman nods sagely. “You know,” he says, “I’ve learned a few things over the years. You can’t make an omelet without cracking a few eggs.”

“Right,” says Adam with a frown.

“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” the Irishman says.

“I see,” replies Adam, starting to fidget.

“We are what we eat!” the Irishman continues. “You buy cheap, you buy twice. The open hand has the strongest grip.”

“It’s okay, you can stop now,” says Adam dryly.

“Never parachute into an area you’ve just bombed.”

“Well, that’s a good one,” the priest admits.

And then, with sudden gravitas, the Irishman looks him straight in the eye. “Adam, Adam,” he says. “We all have our crosses to bear.” He clamps his hand firmly on the priest’s shoulder. “I’ll always be here,” he says. And with that, the stranger vanishes, leaving Adam atop the hill, alone with the cross.

Where is God when everything falls apart? That’s the great question in our Scripture readings this morning. Where is God when our world seems to come crashing down, be it due to our own mistakes or to forces beyond our control? Where is God when you’ve been diagnosed with cancer, or lost everything to a fire, or when a child has died? Where is God when we suffer?

Our first reading is from the book of Job, which exists solely to address this conundrum. Job is a good, pious, and prosperous man, who loves God and serves neighbor. And then one day he loses it all: property, possessions, family, health. He ends up sitting on an ash heap, using broken bits of pottery to scrape his sores. And all of his friends are at a loss to explain how such terrible tragedy could befall such a decent man. “Why has God done this to me?” Job wants to know.

It must be because you’ve done something horrible that you aren’t telling us about, insists his one friend. God wouldn’t do this to you unless you deserved it! All men are wicked, claims another friend, and so all deserve to suffer. Who are we to question the ways of God? But Job’s wife is perhaps the most honest of all. “Curse God and die!” she cries. Give up! If this is how good men are treated, then a pox upon this God and His world!

Yet Job remains faithful. He will not abandon his God, yet neither will he confess to a crime he did not commit. “Surely,” Job says, “I am far from perfect, but what have I done to deserve all this? I just want an answer. I just want to know why.” There are many kinds of suffering in this world. Some suffering is brought on by our own wickedness. Some may be used to build strength of character. Some may even work for the good of others. But none of these describe Job’s suffering. Job’s suffering is meaningless, undeserved. It brings no good to anyone. And Job wants to know what all of us want to know: Why, God? Why has this fallen to me?

That’s why Job’s friends offer explanations, easy answers. And that sort of thing may be helpful in the abstract; we can talk about reasons for suffering, reasons for different sorts of evil, in, say, an adult education forum, or over a pint at the pub. But when we’re actually living through terrible trial, when we actually find ourselves in the midst of suffering, no explanation will suffice. No “you deserve this” or “it’s not so bad” or “these things just happen” is going to make it better. At that point it’s all just platitude. You can’t make an omelet without cracking eggs; don’t parachute into an area you’ve just bombed. Who cares?

What we really want—what we in our suffering need—is not pithy explanation. We need to hear what Adam hears, what Job hears. We need to feel God’s reassuring hand, and to hear Him say: “I understand. I am with you always. You are never alone.” This is all the answer that Job receives. And it is all the answer that he needs.

The Lord God is no stranger to suffering. Almighty as He may be, our Lord knows just what it is to be betrayed by those whom He most loves. He knows what it is to suffer unjustly, to be humiliated, to have everything stripped from Him. And He knows exactly what it is to lose a Son. God’s response to our suffering is not to justify it or to ignore it or to wave a magic wand and make it all go away. No. God’s response to our suffering is to join us in it, to join the depth of love found in His suffering with our own; to be with us, to abide with us, through the valley of the shadow of death.

God’s love for us has caused Him unspeakable suffering. Why do you think the very symbol of our faith is the Cross?

The same can be said of our Gospel reading this morning. It is night on the Sea of Galilee, and a terrible storm has descended, swamping the Apostles in their pitiful little boat. They know that they are about to die—and where is Jesus? Where is God? Why, He’s asleep in the hold. It’s like He doesn’t even care. “Rabbi!” they cry to Him. “Do you not care that we are perishing?”

At which point Jesus rises and rebukes the waves, “Peace! Be still!” And the storm falls silent. Then He turns to His disciples and asks, “Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?” For now, it seems, they are even more terrified of Him than they were of the storm.

When everything falls apart, and life seems nothing but mourning and weeping, when we fear the storms without and the sins within, when God seems as though He is sleeping and cannot be bothered to care—Peace! Be still! The Christian life is one of suffering. Not because God wills it. Not because God causes it. But because this is a broken world in the process of being reborn. God does not ignore us in our pain. God does not sleep through it. But He is with us always, even unto the end of the age. “I’ll always be here,” He tells us. And He always is.

I cannot tell you why you suffer. I cannot tell you what, if any, good will come of it. But I can tell you two things, with absolute and ironclad certainly: the first is that Jesus Christ is with you and knows exactly what you suffer because He suffers it too; and the other is that suffering will not have the final say in your life. Job’s story has a happy ending. The Apostles’ storm was quickly quelled. And Jesus has shown the world that even the worst sort of death imaginable is no barrier at all to He who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

You can never be lost, and you are never alone. This is the promise of God. And God does not break promises.

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.