On Sunday I sit outside and watch the rain come down for yet one more time. I post on Facebook:
“I have always loved sitting outside when it rains listening to it come down. And rain in summertime has long been considered a blessing in Texas. But what I am envisioning right now is more flooding. Not the best of scenarios.”
A reply: “this is true Christy..but I think God knows what we need…more than we do”
Today on FB, a friend posts a photo of a hand carrying a gas can with this explanation: “Fortunately I was only a quarter of a mile from the gas station.”
Comment in reply: “There may have been an accident just a few miles up the road that God was saving you from! We never know why these things happen, but there is a reason!”
I see these comments as I’m in the middle of writing a column about the murders in the Charleston, South Carolina church. And I just want to scream, “NOOOOOOOO! That’s NOT what God is about.” At least I don’t think so.
I don’t think God has designed more road flooding, horrific traffic snarls, water seeping into people’s houses and huge economic disruption because he knows that is what we need. I don’t think God caused this man’s gas tank to mysteriously run out so God could spare him from a traffic accident a few miles down the road. I don’t think God planned that those nine good people would be at that prayer meeting so one hateful racist-formed human could systematically gun them down.
I suppose some find comfort to think that God sits around in heaven playing us like so many chess pieces. I also think that borders on magical thinking, on the need to know there is a discoverable cause and effect for every bad thing that happens.
This type of thinking is hardly new to us. In John 9, Jesus’ disciples see a blind man and want to know if his blindness was caused by this man’s own sin or can he blame his parents for the tragedy. Yeah, parents have long been blamed for their children’s problems. Anyway, Jesus turns it around and does the work of giving sight to the blind man–on the Sabbath of all days–so that people can see that God is at work among them.
I’m not denying that God is at work in the floods or in the empty gas tanks or even in the horrific murders. God does not choose to be absent in the midst of our human tragedies and daily challenges. Our job is to remove our blindness to the redemptive activity of God.
We need to see where we have become participants in perpetuating the tragedies: things like passive complacence with embedded racism, or unchecked development that pours so much concrete that it leaves inadequate ground for absorption, or just being foolish where a touch of wisdom would serve so much better.
We need to see where we can become participants in opening the doors to the kingdom of heaven wider as we live out of our baptismal vow to resist evil in whatever form it presents itself. We need to see ourselves as caretakers of creation and as participants in the health–or unhealth–of our ecosystem. We need to learn from our mistakes and become truly wise people who embed deep within our souls the knowledge of the Holy Presence of God.
Taking a deep breath now.
Thus endeth my rant for the day.
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