Tag: suffering

Sabbatical, Day 81: A Lost Day

On a schoolday my alarm is set for 7 am. Working from home and getting the children out of the door for 8:45, that’s fine.

This morning, though, I woke at 4:45. The reason? A fierce and vicious headache. I am occasionally prone to these, although less than I used to be. Sometimes, they are connected to the neck problem I have had since I was eighteen. However, osteopathy is progressively improving that these last few years.

Other times, they are connected to my slightly-higher-than-it-should-be blood pressure. Treatment for that is also reducing the frequency of those headaches, too. 

Debbie says I always get these heads after time out with her and the children, but that can’t be the explanation this time, as the school Easter break finished last weekend. How happy we were to get the monkeys back to school. They can squabble there!

Or, as I joked in a tweet this morning, punishment for blogging negatively yesterday about Todd Bentley and Rick Joyner. 🙂

I can joke about that, but so many people I encounter live as if every adversity is a punishment. How easily we say, “What have I done to deserve this?” Here are some preliminary sketches of a response.

Biblically, this is more complex thatn simple blame for our actions. There are strands in Scripture connecting moral misdemeanours with consequences. The Deuteronomic literature in the Old Testament is particularly strong on this. God is just: righteousness will be rewarded, sin will be punished. There are lists of blessings for the upright and curses for the unjust.

Yet that is only the beginning of the matter in the Old Testament. As one of my Old Testament tutors, John Bimson, memorably put it in a lecture in 1987, the forty-two chapters of Job are designed to answer one question: is there such a thing as innocent suffering? Their answer is ‘yes’. The book does not explain innocent suffering, it affirms that it exists and is mysterious. 

Jesus picks up this thread in John 9, where he encounters a man born blind. His disciples ask who sinned in order that he was born blind, him or his parents. It’s a ridiculous question, as if the man himself could have sinned before birth. Jesus detonates this nonsense and makes the innocent man’s suffering the arena where God will display his glory. There is innocent suffering, yes, says Jesus, but he develops the teaching in Job by saying that God can use it redemptively.

At the same time, what happens about the cry for justice? I have always found Psalm 73 an eloquent expression of this. The author spends the first half of the psalm lamenting the luxury and ease of the wicked, while the righteous suffer. It all changes for the author when he (?) enters the sanctuary and sees things from God’s perspective. There is a long-term picture, where evil people are placed on slippery slopes by God. This is given full eschatological rein in the New Testament, not with the judgment that all seems to be telescoped into ‘this life’ in much of the Old Testament (Daniel 12 excepted?), but with a picture of final and ultimate judgment. 

We also need to qualify the idea of innocent suffering. It is true in the sense that much suffering in the world is not a direct consequence of our sin. I don’t think something as mundane as my lousy headache was, nor are earthquakes and famines, despite the tendency of some parts of the Christian world to attribute blame rather quickly. We get caught in the crossfire of a broken world.

Yet in another sense none of us is innocent. All of us face God as sinners in need of grace. We simply need to resist the temptation to make easy linkage between particular suffering and certain sins. For although God will judge sin, and although sometimes, as C S Lewis said, pain is God’s megaphone to a deaf world, the basic truth is that the God of holy love is calling us to find his mercy and grace in Jesus Christ.

Meanwhile, I need to take some personal responsibility in order to avoid feeling rough tomorrow: I’m off to get some supper now before bed!

2

Judgment

Matthew 25:31-46

There is one line from an early school report of mine that I remember: ‘David takes simple things and makes them complicated.’

You may recognise that trait in me even today! And I have to say there is an element of it sneaking into this sermon. The Vision of the Sheep and Goats, as George Beasley-Murray called it (first complication there – it’s not really a parable!) seems to be a piece of teaching by Jesus that is very simple. Do good to the poor and you’ll receive eternal life; ignore the poor and you’ll burn in Hell.

Simple, isn’t it? No.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not about to find the get-out clause that means we don’t have to care for the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick and the prisoner. But there are questions of detail that readers of this vision have asked. And as we explore them, we fill out more of the meaning.

In particular, we need to think about who ‘the nations’ are that are gathered before Jesus, the Son of Man at the judgment. And we also need to think about who ‘the least of these’ are, who may receive acts of mercy. In considering these two groups in the story, I hope we’ll answer some questions that have troubled sensitive Christians about this passage.

The Nations 
Who are ‘the nations’ in the story? Are they everyone in history? Are they people who have never heard the Gospel, given the surprised ‘Lord, when was it we saw you …?’ responses? Do they represent Christians, or possibly the Jewish people? And why does the question matter?

It matters, because it ties into the question of salvation. Are we saved by good works? What is the relationship between good works and salvation by faith in Christ? Does God have a different way of judging those who have never heard of Jesus – would that explain the surprise?

I’m not going to bore you with academic arguments, except to say that this story comes at the end of the fifth and final block of Jesus’ teaching that we find in Matthew’s Gospel. The first block was the Sermon on the Mount, and that set a theme for teaching about discipleship. All the teaching blocks are about discipleship in one way or another. This final block in chapters 24 and 25 focusses on questions about the end of all things. It fittingly climaxes here with a story about the Last Judgment.

So I do not think we can avoid the idea that Jesus is aiming this passage at those who claim to be his disciples. It fleshes out the statement in the Sermon on the Mount that not everyone who calls him ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only those who do the will of his Father. Obedience to the will of God is central and critical to Christian discipleship.

However, that raises the question I mentioned a moment ago. How does that thought sit with the teaching elsewhere in the New Testament that says we are justified in the sight of God not by our good works but by our faith in Jesus Christ? Doesn’t the sheep and goats story suggest that we are justified by good deeds?

To which I would reply that justification simply isn’t the issue here. The issue is one of identity: what does a disciple look like? And Jesus tells us here that a true disciple looks like someone who has compassion for the poor and needy – not just the deserving poor, but even the undeserving poor, because there is no hint that those in prison are in there for anything other than just reasons.

If we want to know whether we are progressing in discipleship, then the first test is not what dramatic spiritual experiences we have had. Nor is it whether we can muster a high score in a test of biblical and theological knowledge. Disciples are known by their actions for the sake of those in need. In his First Letter, John says that we cannot say the love of God lives in us if we see someone in need and fail to act. Such actions are the signs of true faith.

In that sense, it is connected to the question of justification, even though that is not Jesus’ particular concern here. It is rather like what Paul says in Galatians that faith works by love, and what James says in his Letter, when he maintains that those who are justified by faith show they truly are by their compassionate deeds of mercy.

So whether we care for people such as the hungry, thirsty, strangers, the naked, the sick and the prisoners is a test of true faith. Has God broken our hearts with the things that break his heart? And are we heartbroken enough to do something about it? This is a simple test of disciples’ obedience.

Nevertheless, we can probably extend this in a certain way to another question that is not Jesus’ primary concern in this passage. The question I have in mind is also one I mentioned earlier: how does God judge those who have never heard the Gospel? Some would argue that unless one actually hears the Gospel and responds, one is destined to damnation. It is a view that those who recognise other aspects of God’s character such as his mercy (as well as his judgment) find problematical.

And I suspect that the ‘Lord, when did we see you …?’ questions do give us a glimpse of how God would regard such people. Is it not the case that in Scripture God judges people according to how they respond to whatever light from him they receive? In Genesis, the priest Melchizedek appears out of nowhere and Abraham makes an offering to him – and God approves. Joshua is pleased to use the help of the Jericho prostitute Rahab. Isaiah 45 calls the pagan king Cyrus God’s anointed.

So might it just be that here in Matthew 25, we get an indirect view of how God will treat those who know that mercy to the poor and the weak is what matters? I can’t be certain, but I think it’s possible.

The Least Of These 
So the judgment of the nations makes us realise that compassion for the needy, whether they are ‘deserving’ or not, is a valid test of discipleship. It may also show a way in which God judges those who have never heard the Gospel.

But what about those described as ‘the least of these’ in the passage – namely, those who are hungry, thirsty, aliens, naked, sick or prisoners? Who are they? Some would argue they stand for anyone who is poor and in need in the world. Other say this expression ‘the least of these’ is similar to other terms Matthew uses in his Gospel to describe oppressed Christians or Christian missionaries facing hardship. There are some similarities of language, but they are not conclusive. In any case, if God only judges people on how they treat the Church, doesn’t that make God’s people into some narrow-minded sect, where it’s only what we receive (and not others) that counts?

So I suspect that the vulnerable people in need in this story, whom Jesus labels ‘the least of these’, stand for anyone in the world who may be suffering these or similar conditions. God does not simply call us to look after our own. Let’s assume, then, that God gives us a brief that covers the whole world in demonstrating his love to those in need.

But does the passage make an even larger claim than that? Some Christians think so. The first time I ever heard Tony Campolo speak, he told a story about a trip he paid to the Dominican Republic, where he witnessed terrible poverty. As he was about to board his plane back to the USA, a mother tried to give him her child. The child would stand a far better chance in terms of health, education and prospects in the States. Campolo felt he couldn’t. But as his plane accelerated down the runway, he could see the mother and child still there. On the basis of this passage, he had an awful realisation: he hadn’t left a child in the Dominican Republic, he had left Jesus there. ‘Just as you did [not do] to the least of these, you did [not do it] to me.’

Similarly, the great German theologian Jürgen Moltmann has invoked the old Latin phrase ubi Christi, ibi ecclesia: ‘where Christ is, there is the Church’ from this text. He takes it to mean that if whatever we do to the poor we do to Christ, then Christ is present in the poor.

So does this teach that Christ lives in the poor? Does Christ perhaps even live in everyone, rather like the Quaker belief that there is an inner light within all people?

No, I don’t think the passage means that. It is a very heightened metaphorical way of speaking that Jewish people employed. ‘This is my body’ and ‘This is my blood’ would be of the same order. ‘Just as you did to the least of these, it is as if you did it to me’ might be a paraphrase that brings this out. 

This, I think, would be more consistent with the rest of Scripture, which sees the Spirit of God as being directly involved in the creation of humankind but who only resides within people when they become disciples of Jesus. The idea that the divine is resident in all people is closer to the mystical beliefs of some New Age philosophies than Christianity. If we all have God within, there’s very little need for salvation.

Nevertheless, we still have incredibly strong reasons for serving all who are in need with the love of Christ.  We do not do it simply as robots obeying a command programmed by our Master. We do so, because when he, as the agent of God’s creation, and in partnership with the Holy Spirit, made the human race, he made them ‘in the image of God’. Our lives and relationships are meant to mirror something about God, and God’s love. 

There is no greater dignity anything in all creation has than to be made in God’s image. When the image-bearers of God are made to suffer, that is an attempt to obscure the image of God, and it is an affront to the God who made people with such a high status. Affording dignity, respect and healing to those who are suffering is about making the image of God more visible in creation. 

Conclusion 
So – it’s a clear test of discipleship whether we meet the practical needs of the poor and struggling. It may even be an indicator of how God judges those who have no genuine opportunity to hear the Gospel.  

Not only that, we have an imperative to do so, because all people are made in the image of God, however much it has been damaged by sin. That means our call to love and serve those in need cannot just be a paternalistic ‘doing good’ to those who passively, but gratefully, receive all the good things we have to give. It must also mean that in affirming their special dignity we give power back to those who have become powerless.

We may have had to take some complex diversions to arrive at these conclusions. You may well think that school teacher was right to say I am the sort of person who makes simple things complicated. At the end, however, we do come back to some simple challenges. We may not be able to meet all the needs that a satellite television and broadband Internet world flashes before our eyes. But we can ask ourselves this: what time, money and possessions have I given up in order to practise God’s love for the poor? 

My status as a disciple requires positive evidence in response to this question. So does my commitment to God’s revelation in Scripture. If I want to be a biblical disciple, then, I will know that I have responded to those who are suffering, and I continue to care for the suffering.

Can I answer yes?

2

Defending

God must be relieved! Read ‘Legal case against God dismissed‘. The plaintiff – a state senator for thirty-eight years! – claimed that since God is omniscient, he knows of the case against him. The judge dismissed the case, because there was no address at which God could be served with the papers. That’s a question of (a) not being able to deliver papers to Heaven; or (b) recognising that although God is omnipresent, he’s hard to pin down!

They forget the problem of how God would defend himself in such a case. Who would be his appointed representatives? How would that work in the USA, with its clear separation of Church and State? In the UK, the Church of England would be at the front of the queue – if they were brave enough! Would any representatives be self-appointed, as some in the religious world are? 

Even that begs the question of whether God would want to defend himself. He felt no need to do so in the story of Job. Or, indeed, whether he already has defended himself.

Which brings me to the old story ‘The Long Silence’, which I first found in Bob Moffett’s book ‘Crowdmakers‘ from 1985. I could quote some theodicy arguments from theologians such as Moltmann, but try this instead:

At the end of time, billions of people were scattered on a great plain before God’s throne. Most shrank from the brilliant light before them. But some groups near the front talked heatedly – not with cringing shame but with belligerence.

‘Can God judge us? How can he know about suffering?’ snapped a pert young brunette. She ripped open a sleeve to reveal a tattooed number from a Nazi concentration camp. ‘We endured terror, beatings, torture, death.’

In another group a black boy lowered his collar. ‘What about this?’ he demanded, showing an ugly rope burn: ‘Lynched for no other crime than being black!’

In another crowd was a pregnant schoolgirl with sullen eyes. ‘Why should I suffer?’ she murmured. ‘It wasn’t my fault.’

Far out across the plain were hundreds of such groups. Each had a complaint against God for the eveil and suffering he had permitted in this world. ‘How lucky God was to live in heaven where all was sweetness and light, where there was no weeping or fear, no hunger or hatred! What did God know of all that we had been forced to endure in this world? For God leads a pretty sheltered life,’ they said.

So each of these groups sent forth their leader, chosen because he or she had suffered most. A Jew, a black, a person from Hiroshima, a horribly deformed arthritic an a thalidomide child. In the centre of the plain they consulted with each other. At last they were ready to present their case. It was rather clever.

Before God could be qualified t be their judge, he must endure what they had endured. Their decision was that God should be sentenced to live on earth – as a man.

Let him be born a Jew. Let the legitimacy of his birth be doubted. Give him work so difficult that even his family will think him out of his mind when he tries to do it. Let him be betrayed by his closest friends. Let him face false charges. Be tried by a prejudiced judge. Let him be tortured.

At last let him see what it means to be terribly alone. Then let him die. Let him die so that there can be no doubt that he died. Let there be a whole host of witnesses to verify it. As each leader announced his portion of the sentence loud murmurs of approval went up from the throng of people assembled.

When the last had finished pronouncing sentence there was a long silence.

No one uttered another word. No one moved.

For suddenly all knew that God had already served his sentence.

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