In Memoriam for Haiti
1.17.10
Rose City Park UMC
Isaiah 49:13-16
Matthew 28:20b
On Tuesday of this week, late in the day, a powerful 7 magnitude earthquake rocked the inland of Haiti. We have seen the images of suffering and the aftermath on the internet, television and now here in this service. The horrible irony is that Haiti is considered by many to be the poorest country in the western hemisphere. They had nowhere to go but up. They were already crushed by poverty, and now they are buried by this calamity.
The needs are beyond our comprehension: the basic necessities of life are needed: Water, food, shelter, clothing. Rubble and bodies cover roads preventing transportation vehicles from traveling. One woman here got a call from her brother that their sister has been killed, and will have to be put in a mass grave because they can’t get to the family cemetery. Estimates began at 50,000 dead. Now they are considering that number could go to 200,000 – Now comes the huge health hazard from disease.
This tragedy has hit our United Methodist Church in an especially painful way. There was a meeting being held at the Hotel Montana. There, Sam Dixon, head of our churches emergency arm, UMCOR, United Methodist Committee on Relief, and Clint Rabb, head of our Volunteer in Mission program directing thousands from our local churches in mission teams around the world, both were killed in the disaster.
Katie Couric of CBS news held the hand of a 13 year old boy wailing. His leg was broken, his head bruised. He cries: “Why?” A Catholic Priest was interviewed outside his church that is no more. I wonder what he will say to his flock. He is their shepherd. They are looking for answers. They want to know “Why?” They look for compassion, for a place to be out of the chaos. I wondered what mass looked like this morning when those left of the congregation gathered outside the crumbled walls and longed for a word from the Lord.
We wonder about this. Thinking people wonder about this, and about a God we affirm to be good and how these things can be allowed to happen.
We do live in a less than perfect world. There are accidents that happen. People are allowed to make poor choices; we call it free will. We also live in a world that is imperfect in nature: Storms of many kinds, volcanoes, earthquakes. These remind us that planet earth is alive – always changing. We know the earth is alive and moving and always recreating itself. Still when it recreates itself in way that destroys human life, like the young boy, we ask, “Why?”
I don’t listen long to radio preachers. They usually say things that just upset me. But this morning I was reminded of something: Earthquakes are how the earth continues to recreate itself. It is through earthquakes that mountains like majestic, beautiful Mt. Hood come into being. The earth surface is made up of huge plates that shift, creating a new earth, continually. If there are no earthquakes it means the earth does not change and change is its nature, as is all of life. Then the person in the radio said, earthquakes don’t kill people, it’s the buildings we construct that usually kill people. And, when that construction is done in impoverished countries, it isn’t very good. They can’t afford to have reinforced concrete and rebar. I’m not saying that if they had enough money to build well no one would be hurt – of course there would be death and destruction. But, my guess is, poverty adds to the death toll and the number injured, a great deal.
A question for the philosophers among us is, “Does there have to be the dark, unhappy side of life to know happiness and joy? Do we have to lose to know the meaning of winning? Only in knowing sadness do we know joy? It is also true that it is easy to discuss the philosophy of life as we sit in a warm sanctuary with full stomachs and homes to go to where there is plenty of food and water. To say that we need to have suffering in the world to know joy, seems from here, to be cavalier and callous. Nevertheless, they are good questions and through it all, we wonder about the nature of life and the nature of God.
A theologian, John Dominic Crossan, asks a very helpful question in times such as this. He says, “Don’t tell me if you believe in God. Most of America, 95% believe in God. Rather, tell me the character of your God.” That makes a lot of sense to me for by identifying the character of our God, we reveal a great deal of our own character.
Pat Robertson identified the character of his God this week once more: You might recall, following 9/11, it was the Reverend Pat Robertson who claimed that America was attacked “because of our low moral standards.” Following Hurricane Katrina the good reverend identified the reason for that as “God’s disapproval of homosexuality in New Orleans.” Now, this theological giant has stuck once more: According to Robertson who has the ears of millions, the people of Haiti made a pact with the devil years ago when the French were there, to get them, the French, off the Island, and because of that pact, God allowed or caused the earthquake. (I’m sure which) Is that the character of God: a punishing God who visits us with earthquakes? If God punishes for sin or perceived wrong decisions, I wonder why a whole lot of places haven’t been hit.
There are many in this world who hold to the creed that says, “We believe in the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth,” and for them God determines everything. If God is God, then God makes these things happen. Why? Well, we aren’t sure, but that is in the mind of God. I don’t believe in a God who causes it all to happen. I believe that theology leads to some very dangerous conclusions about people.
There is a story of Jesus where he is approached by some folks with a theological question. A tower had fallen in Jerusalem and killed some folks. They asked Jesus, “What gives?” The implication from the point of view of those asking the question is that those who died did something to deserve death. That was the main stream of thinking in Jesus’ day – the Pat Robertson school of Theology. Jesus’ reply was, “Don’t think you are any better than they because you are alive.” Conclusion: “They died because they were there.” Stuff happens.
I believe in a God who has made a world that is imperfect – death and destruction are here. I suspect it has to be that way for life to have value. I don’t know how else it could be made and still be interesting, offering challenges to the human spirit. I don’t think God arranges certain ones to live and others to die. I believe in world where there is a God of love who has made chance very possible, and where “Stuff happens.”
If you want some theological meat to chew on, the story of Job is helpful for many. Job is the man who had it all and lost it all and who’s faith was strong enough to shout at God. Sometimes shouting at God can be the best affirmation of faith. Those who quote, “The patience of Job,” have not read the book. Job shakes his fist and stomps his feet and curses God, because he believes God has caused it all. But the story says, even though you may not know how or why things happen, keep the conversation going and hopefully, in time, God will meet you. And in the meeting, the very meeting with God, life takes on meaning, and hope.
I don’t believe God causes these things to happen. I do believe that God created a world that is forever changing. Many things happen in it that don’t affect human life. There are many things that happen that affect animal life. It is the way of things and when it does hit we humans, we say, “Why did you do this to us?”
Isaiah offers a picture of God that helps me. The prophet speaks for God saying,
“Sing for joy, O heavens and exult O earth; break forth, O mountains, into singing!
For the Lord has comforted his people, and will have compassion on his suffering ones.
But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me, my Lord has forgotten me.”
Then the prophet says for God, “Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget yet I will not forget you.
See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands;”
What is the character of your God? Does God punish? Or, does God meet us in the disasters of this life to comfort? I choose to believe the later, because that is my experience with God’s spirit and God’s people. A God of endless compassion makes sense as I view the words, life and intent of Jesus.
It is also true that out of these times amazing love will be seen and known. I don’t believe God causes the suffering, but I always hold to the belief that God’s spirit is in the midst of it, helping, enabling, prodding, directing and bringing about love in extraordinary ways. A man about 40 or so walked into the channel 8 building in Portland with a check for $20,000.00 for Mercy Core. It’s half his savings. He said, “I just feel good doing it.” From the Blazer game the other night, to people texting in at $10.00 a pop, to thousands of church goers and non-church goers, people are responding. We probably will take a team from this church next year when they want teams to come in and our lives will be more changed than anyone’s we help. We find our true self in the discipleship of love.
I’ll end with this: There was one picture tonight we saw that speaks to me of the power of Jesus’ words. It was the picture of the church in ruins with the crucifix - a statue of Jesus on the cross in the midst of the rubble. That picture shouts at me the good news folks need to hear in such circumstances: God has not forsaken them. The psalmist says, “Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil for you are with me.” In the crucifix in the rubble, I feel our Lord’s spirit and hear our Lord’s words, “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world.” Amen