The Third Sunday in Lent
March 11, 2007

One inescapable fact about the world that we live in is that bad things happen. A friend or loved one is diagnosed with terminal cancer. A teenager crashes a car into a tree. You lose your job and the bills pile up and you get sick and you have no insurance and the bills pile up some more. Countries go to war and bombs kill both soldiers and civilians. Jets crash into tall buildings and bring them tumbling to the ground in a fiery heap. A hurricane devastates an entire city. Yes, bad things happen.

The fact that bad things happen, , the prevalence of suffering, the existence of evil all come smack up against the notions of God we learned as children or as newcomers to the faith. If you, like me, grew up going to Sunday School chances are that you learned that God is “omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent” –in plain English, all-knowing, all-powerful, and always present. And likely you also learned that “God is love.” So how do we reconcile our notions of a powerful and loving God with the existence of so much suffering and evil in the world?

This is, of course, the question of theodicy: why does a God who called creation good and who has power over all that is part of that creation let bad things happen? This is the question that seminarians and theologians and philosophers and every day people have agonized over across the years. And despite all the speculation, all the theories, all the attempts to make sense of this, it is a question for which, there seems to be NO good answer. We can argue that without evil we would not appreciate the good or hone our moral qualities; or we can contend that when God endowed us with free will, human suffering became inevitable; or we can speculate that God has a plan in which all this will someday make sense, or suggest that suffering is punishment for our sins, or even conclude that God must not truly be all-powerful after all. But in the end none of these explanations seem adequate. There really is no satisfactory answer.

And so I wonder if we need to reframe how we think about evil and suffering. Perhaps instead of asking, “Why does God let us suffer? Why does God let bad things happen?” we should be asking, “How does God respond to our suffering?” and “How does God want us to respond?” Today’s readings offer some help with this.

In our OT reading we find Moses in the wilderness, tending his sheep. Moses is not an old man at this point, but he has already lived an eventful life, a life that has borne witness to plenty of suffering: born to Israelite parents, he was saved from sure death when his mother set him afloat on the Nile and one of pharaoh’s daughters found him and raised him in the palace. Brought up in a position of power and wealth, he nonetheless identified with the plight of the Israelites and had to flee when he killed an overseer who was abusing Israelite workers. Now living in a distant place, married to a local woman, it’s easy to imagine that he wants nothing more than to tend his sheep in peace. But God has other ideas. God calls to Moses from the burning bush and gives Moses the seemingly impossible task of delivering the Israelites from Egypt.
When we hear this story, we tend to focus on the dramatic call of Moses, on God speaking from a burning bush, calling Moses onto holy ground. It’s high drama, and it’s compelling. But in focusing on God’s call to Moses, it is easy to overlook another part of the story—why God is doing this:

"I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians…”

God is sending Moses to deliver the Israelites because God has seen and heard their suffering. God has seen and heard the suffering and God is acting to relieve it. God is not indifferent to the suffering of the Israelites; far from indifferent, God responds to this suffering with compassion and care. And God continues to respond with compassion and care throughout the long journey that follows: No matter how recalcitrant the Israelites become, no matter how much they whine, no matter how they turn away from God, God continues to care for them, to provide what they need to ease their suffering..

Knowing how much trouble the Israelites seem to cause for themselves during the exodus from Egypt and the long trip to the Promised Land, it would be easy to see their suffering as some sort of pay-back or punishment for their actions. But God does not treat it that way. God demonstrates instead an abiding love for the chosen people and an abiding concern for their well-being.

The notion that sin and suffering are connected continues to lurk below the surface and it is this notion that Jesus addresses in our gospel reading. A group of Galileans has been slain by Herod, and some residents of Jerusalem have been killed when a tower fell on them. Jesus addresses the issue directly when he asks his followers, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? ... Or those eighteen who were killed …-do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem?” And his answer to this query is “No.” No, these people did not suffer because their sins were greater than the others. In fact Jesus is very clear that all were sinners, that all needed to repent, but he did not connect that sinfulness with the suffering of those who died.

The parable of the fig tree returns to the theme of God’s mercy and care for God’s people. Instead of felling a tree that has failed to produce, the gardener offers to give it extra care, just as God offered care to the Israelites who strayed even as they were being led out of bondage in Egypt, just as God continues to care for us as sinful and broken as we are.

It is this care for those who suffer—the hungry, the sick, the outcast—that Jesus demonstrates throughout his ministry. Just as God noticed the misery of the Israelites in Egypt and responded, so too did Jesus notice the suffering in those around him. And just as he ministered to them, he calls us to minister to those who suffer in the world around us, to offer care and compassion without judgment.

We may never fully understand why bad things happen although I doubt we will quit trying to figure it out. But we can be sure of one thing: When bad things do happen, for whatever reason, God is right there with us in the mess. God walks with us through the pain and suffering even when we rail against all things holy. God’s love for us is abundant and unfailing., and perhaps that’ s all we need to know.

Amen