CHRISTIANITY 101: GOD IS GOOD
My sister, Lora, and her husband, Mike, were married in September of 1982. For many years they tried to have a baby, without success. Then, finally, in December of 1995, they had a little boy. They named him Griffen. He was a beautiful, healthy, perfect little boy…and no parents ever loved their son any more than Mike and Lora loved Griffen. Their house had become a home; a couple had become a family.
When Griffen was eighteen months old, Lora was playing with him on a swing in the back yard. For some strange reason, he didn’t seem to feel very well, so they sat down together on a blanket. Suddenly, Griffen collapsed. Mike and Lora began a frantic trip to the hospital. As Mike drove and Lora held their little boy, she suddenly cried out, “Hurry, Mike! Griffen’s stopped breathing!” Mike quickly pulled into a fire station and those firemen – God bless every one of them – worked valiantly to restore that little boy to life. In the end, they were unable. No one knows to this day why that little boy died.
Mike and Lora were devastated. There was nothing anyone could say to make their emptiness go away. Yet believe it or not, there were some people who tried. One person said to them, “You’re young. You can always have another baby.” Another person said, “God never gives us any more than we can handle.” Another person said, “God just needed him more than you did.” And last but not least, another person said, “It was God’s will.” As you might suspect, Mike and Lora were not terribly comforted.
Does God sometimes give us more than we can handle? Did God need their baby more than they did? Was the death of their son really God’s will? What kind of God would allow his children to suffer so? Is that the kind of God we are called to worship and adore? Who is this God that we should love him? Keep that thought in mind as we move on.
Last week we talked about the contrast between our tendency to gratify the desires of the flesh and the Apostle Paul’s call for us to live by the guidance of God’s Holy Spirit. We noted how human will power lacks the capacity to change much of anything. Change happens when something else is modified. What needs to be modified? What needs to be modified is our personal narrative of who and what God is. We need to have the proper story in our minds as to who and what God is if we’re ever going to change who and what we are…because everything stems from our own internal narrative.
What does our internal narrative tell us about why bad things happen to people, like that which happened to my sister and her husband? People actually said to them, “It was God’s will,” and I have no doubt that they really believe that. Of course, it’s easier to see something as God’s will when someone else is suffering, but that’s beside the point. We see that same kind of narrative about God in the passage we read from the book of Job. Allow me to set the scene for you.
There once was a man in a land called Uz whose name was Job. Now Job was blameless and upright; a man who feared God and turned away from evil. He had seven sons, three daughters, a barnyard full of livestock, and a multitude of servants. He was considered by his peers to be the greatest man in the east. He was healthy, wealthy and wise.
As the story goes, God and Satan were having a conversation about Job. God says to Satan, “Have you seen my servant Job? He is upright, blameless and faithful. There is no one else like him on all the earth!” To which Satan replies, “Of course there is no one else like him on all the earth. You’ve given him everything anyone could possibly want. Let me take a few things away from him, and then let’s see how faithful he is.”
So Satan was given permission to wreak havoc in the life of Job. His livestock was stolen by plunderers. His servants were killed in a fire. His children lost their lives when a house collapsed upon them. Yet after all that, Job worshipped God and said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”
But the Devil wasn’t done just yet. He then afflicted Job with loathsome sores from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. Even his wife said to him, “Curse God and die!” At first, Job defended God. Yet soon after that, he came to curse the day he was born.
Now at this point in time, let me say that I do not believe for a minute that God and Satan have conversations about people where God allows Satan to destroy their lives. I think the book of Job is meant to be a metaphor. Oh, there may have really been a Job who suffered so, but it is highly unlikely that God made a deal with Satan to make it that way. The book of Job is probably a little bit like that movie where they tell us that it’s based upon a true story. What that means is that the writer has license to elaborate a little bit. Are you with me?
So there sits Job in a heap of ashes, cursing the day he was born. Three of his friends come to console him regarding the reason as to why he has suffered such a fate. One of those friends was Zophar the Naamathite. He says to Job, “You say, ‘My doctrine is pure and I am clean in God’s eyes.’ But oh, that God would speak and tell you the secrets of wisdom! Know then that God exacts of you less that your guilt deserves.” In other words, “It’s not as bad as it could be,” and “God is clearly punishing you for some sin you must have committed.”
That, my friends, is a narrative about God. Call it cause and effect. When we do good things, God rewards us with good things. When we do bad things, God punishes us with bad things. Truth be told, this particular narrative about God hearkens back to Greek mythology. Nearly all the ancient religions were built on a narrative that says we have to do something in order to get the blessings of the gods, and conversely, if we anger the gods we will surely be punished. It’s a narrative that can be summed up this way: “God is an angry judge. If you do well, you will be blessed…but if you do not, you will be punished.”
Allow me to insert a quick theology lesson here. As Christians we say, “What we know to be true of Jesus Christ, we know to be true of God.” Now this occasionally runs counter to what we might read in the Old Testament. That’s why, when we read the Old Testament as Christians, we must always interpret it as pointing to Jesus Christ. Thus, in Jesus Christ, in a manner of speaking, God is saying to us, “No, no, no…this is who I am!” What we know to be true of Jesus Christ, we know to be true of God. Therefore, our narrative as to who and what God is …must come from Jesus Christ.
So let’s look back to our earlier narrative. Is our suffering a result of God’s punishing us for our sin? Is God an angry judge who says to us, “If you do well, you will be blessed…but if you do not, you will be punished?” Perhaps we need to consider what Jesus would say about that. Perhaps we need to look at this from Jesus’ point of view.
Consider the passage we read from the gospel according to John. As Jesus and his disciples walked, they encountered a man who was blind from birth. His disciples – his own disciples, mind you – asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Do you see the narrative from which they were operating? If a man was born blind, it was clearly the result of some sin his parents committed, or the result of some sin he must have committed in the womb. Let me also say that those who believed in reincarnation would claim that his blindness was the result of some sin he committed in a previous life. In fact, reincarnationists believed – I am not making this up – reincarnationists believed that when a man was born blind, it was because he had killed his mother in a previous life.
The narrative from which the disciples operated was that God was an angry judge. Since a man was born blind, it must have been God’s will…it must have been some kind of punishment from God. So they said to Jesus, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” In their minds, it had to be one or the other.
Jesus set out to establish a new narrative within them. He quickly replied, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned. He was born blind that the works of God might be made manifest in him.” In other words, “God is good; God wills the good…and the glory of God will ultimately be revealed in him.” And upon saying those words, Jesus healed the man born blind. The point is that God wills what’s best for all of us. The problem is that we don’t see the big picture as God sees the big picture.
When I graduated from seminary in May of 1985, I had several viable options for employment. One opportunity was as a solo pastor in a dying church in St. Louis, Missouri. One was as a solo pastor in a very small town in Columbus Junction, Iowa…and one was as an assistant pastor in a fairly large church in North Platte, Nebraska. Plotting out my career path in my mind, I felt that accepting the call to North Platte, Nebraska would afford me the best opportunity to get where I wanted to go. Of course, that reminds me of one of my favorite sayings. That saying is, “If you want to make God laugh, just tell him your plans!” In any case, I turned down the churches in St. Louis and Columbus Junction, and accepted the call to North Platte.
Prior to accepting the call to a church, I had to go before what was called in those days, The Care of Candidates Committee. We debated various theological topics for six long hours, and I truly felt I won the battle…but in the end, I lost the war. By a score of three to two, they voted not to ordain me. They never really did say why. Needless to say, I was devastated. Four years of college and three years of seminary were down the drain. I thought about going back to school to get a Ph.D. to teach. I thought about switching over to the United Methodist Church. After several days of frustration and consternation – not to mention the crushing disappointment I saw in my parents’ eyes – one night, I flopped down on my bed, looked up to the heavens, and cried out to God, “God, I give up! What do you want me to do?” And suddenly I knew what I had to do. I had to contact the church in Columbus Junction again.
To make a long story short, everything fell into place and a very grace-filled congregation taught me how to be a minister. But here’s the point. When the Care of Candidates Committee refused to ordain me, I was more devastated than I had ever been in my entire life. It seemed like God had abandoned me and the world was coming to an end. But God had something else in mind. Had I not gone to Columbus Junction, I would not have the wife I have, I would not have the children I have, and I certainly would not be here.
Isn’t it amazing the impact one little decision can have on your entire life? And isn’t it wonderful that when you get it wrong, sometimes God intervenes to set things right? God is good. That’s my personal narrative about God. God is very, very good. When things initially went sour, naturally, I was not in a position to realize that. Yet perhaps our own experiences of disappointment with God say more about us and our expectations…than they do about God.
When you realize that God smiles more than he weeps; when you realize that his laugh is louder than his reprimand; when you realize that nothing can separate you from the love of God; when you realize that God’s arms are outstretched toward you; when you realize that God makes all things work together for good; when you realize that God has been calling you beloved, innocent and pure ever since he created the universe; when you realize that God has been proud of you every time you’ve succeeded and every time you’ve failed; when you realize that God is the one who’s responsible for every good thing you have; when you realize that God thinks you’re worth dying for; when you realize that God is for you, not against you; when you realize that God is good…everything changes. Now there’s a narrative about God that we would be wise to claim. Amen.
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