God and Earthquakes

On November 1, 1755 at about 9:40 AM an earthquake centered near the Azores destroyed about 80% of the buildings in Lisbon,  Portugal.  November 1 is All Saints Day, so most of Lisbon's population was in church when the quake hit. No one knows exactly how many people died in the quake and the subsequent Tsunami and fires, but 20% of the population is a likely estimate.  

Portugal was fortunate that it had a superior Prime Minister, who led the rebuilding of the capital and also wrote to every priest in every town surrounding Lisbon asking at what time the quake hit there and for their descriptions of the strength of the quake. The replies laid out on a map began the science of seismology. And modern seismologists studying these letters estimate that the quake may have been close in power to the one that hit Japan last week.  

Some say the Lisbon quake was also the beginning of Europe's skepticism about God. How could God, at least a good God, allow such a thing to happen to people precisely when they were praying to Him?  

The problem of evil is really two problems: Natural Evil or "Acts of God", as the insurance companies like to call it,  and Human Evil. Both call up the question Jesus asked from the cross, "My God, my God, why have your forsaken me?" .  

A  Rabbi who was an expert on the Holocaust once said that we should not say anything about God that we could not say in the presence of burning children.  I might add that words that can't be uttered on a beach filled with bodies that washed up to shore or in a city bombed by its own nation's planes probably isn't adequate either.  

That leaves  us preachers speechless.  

 In a sense, the Bible is speechless, too.  The one person in the Bible who really engages in a dialogue with God on the problem of evil is Job and he finally says, 

"No one can oppose you, because you have the power to do what you want. You asked why I talk so much when I know so little. I have talked about things that are far beyond my understanding".  (Job 42:2-3; Contemporary English Version (CEV),  © 1995 by American Bible Society)  

Instead of words, the Bible gives us two images. One is in the first chapter of the Bible, in which God creates light and order and life out of chaos. Creation is always taking place on the edge of chaos. There is nothing deader than complete stability.  God appears to work when people and history and geology and biology are in a state of change (Isn't that true in your own life?). So, green shoots begin to appear in the first rain after a forest fire; babies arrive in the delivery room down the street from the funeral home; and democracy (sometimes) rises from the dust of tyranny.  

The other answer is in the image of the empty tomb. The empty tomb is a sign that the most unchangeable thing in the world -  death - is changeable. Not even graves will last forever; to say nothing of dictatorships or continents.  Not everyone will buy that - or certainly not understand it literally.  But, frankly, if death does get the last word, then those who wield the power of death will reign forever and ever.

It's a little scary to live in a changing world. One expert points out that there were large earthquakes around the Pacific a couple of years before the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco. If, like me, you have loved ones on the West Coast, you don't want to hear that. But, what's the alternative? A world that is as unchanging as the grave. And, as I just said, the Easter story begins with a tomb that won't stay closed.  

As one of the great preachers of the 20th century once said:  

"The resurrection of Jesus Christ tells all who will listen that they are alive in a place that is itself alive, open at both ends, with the winds of eternity blowing through it." (Scherer, Paul. Love is a Spendthrift. Harper, New York 1961. p. 88)

What is Saving Your Life?

Peter Gomes died this week at the age of 68. As the chaplain of the Memorial Church at Harvard University, he managed to combine being both a committed Christian and an intelligent modern person - which is what a lot of people do, really, but they don't make the spotlight as often as those who are only one or the other and even they don't get attention as often as those who are neither.  

In the academic world of Cambridge MA, Gomes was in the spotlight or on the podium whenever some big event took place at Harvard. Being the ceremonial Holy Man is one of those ministerial duties that I neither enjoy or do well, and therefore I admire those who can pull it off. Asked to bless a traditional academic gathering, Gomes once said, "I feel like Zsa Zsa Gabor's seventh husband on his wedding night. I know what to do, but I'm not sure how to make it interesting."  

But those ceremonial duties also got him up close to some of the world's most interesting people, including Nelson Mandela who was honored by Harvard with a rare outdoor convocation. The kind of thing the University did for George Washington, Winston Churchill and very few others in over 300 years. Gomes was impressed with the crowd Mandela drew. Skeptical faculty and students with very short attention spans sat transfixed as the leader of South Africa's peaceful transition from minority white to majority black rule spoke to them.  

Gomes said "Mandela was not an explicitly religious figure; he preached no sermon and made no moral claims, but he didn't have to, for he made the ordinary and the politically extraordinary seem holy, even sacred. We saw transcendence in him, and it was powerful  because it was not a matter of piety, which would have allowed the secular to write it off." 

One student, reflecting on the college's experience that day said: "It wasn't about us, and it wasn't about him; it was about what he believed in that had saved his life, and saved his country." (Gomes, The Good Life: Truths that Last in Times of Need. HarperSanFranciso 2002 p.274).  

In her book, An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith, Barbara Brown Taylor writes about being invited to speak at a large church in the Midwest. When she asked what she would be expected to talk about, her host said, "Just come and tell us about what is saving your life right now".  

What is saving your life right now?  

What is saving the lives of the people around you? A lot of them probably don't look like they need anything to save them.  We are all pretty good at putting up a front that says, "Everything's fine here!"  A friend who is going through a hard time right now described another friend of hers who "has it all together". What I didn't say, but wish I had, is that she herself looks like she has it all together, too. That's appropriate I think. We don't all need to bleed all over each other all the time.  

But there are some things you can't hide.  

Mandela couldn't hide the fact that he spent half his adult life in prison - most of it in Robben Island's notorious Block D and then managed to lead his nation away from the bloodbath that everyone predicted would happen someday.  

The mother who has lost a child but keeps on caring for her other children can't hide that fact. The once-vigorous woman who can't make her feet move more than a few inches at a time can't hide the fact that she is suffering from a degenerative disease.  The guy who has been out of work for months can't hide the fact that he has to get up every day and put in another application for another job that a hundred other people have also applied for. You know some of these people. What is saving their lives?   

In Matthew 17, Jesus and Peter, James and John climb a mountain and, at the top, Jesus is transfigured - meaning his face shines and his disciples see him talking with Moses and Elijah, who were already legendary figures before the Old Testament was written down.  Whether you want to take this encounter literally or not, the important thing about it is that Jesus was connecting with "The Law (Moses) and the Prophets (Elijah)". There are many summaries of all that Moses and Elijah stand for including the one Jesus gave: "Love God with all your heart, your soul, your mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself". But it is more than piety and ethical action. It is also about hope - hope in the One who sets prisoners free and bends history toward justice and causes nations that have fought each other for months, years, or even centuries to finally beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.  

What saves your life right now? It may not be easy to summarize and it may not sound very religious, but my guess is that you may be fighting a harder battle than it looks to those on the outside. Or you may be looking at what life is throwing at people around you and in your heart you know that it could throw that same stuff at you and you wonder what would save your life if you had to deal with the grief or the pain or the uncertainty that haunts people you know. What saves your life? You may want to ask that question of a prisoner who became a president or of the best oldest person you know, or of a young mom who is juggling a job and kids or of a guy nailed to a cross.