Wisdom
Many of you know that I used to post my sermons here regularly. That was back when I was preaching once a month and it was much easier to keep up. I don't always preach from a manuscript anymore, so I don't always have a written version.
This past Sunday I was wrestling with the destruction of the earthquake and tsunamis, and I offer it for others who may not only have difficulties with it, especially as it relates to faith in God. I know some don't believe in God and this just looks like more evidence for them. I doubt I'll convince them otherwise, and that's not really my goal. I know some believe and are able to not worry to much about what such a tragedy means to their faith or understanding of God.
But many will. I hope I can speak a word to them, not so much an explanation, as I have none to offer, but a word of understanding and perhaps even hope.
Wisdom
02 Jan 2005
Rev. Timothy Luoma
Gallipolis First Presbyterian Church
[Note: the sermon was part of a service where we celebrated communion.]
I had this whole idea for today’s sermon worked out. This is the day that we traditionally celebrate Epiphany, the arrival of the wise men from the east.
I had several interesting tidbits to share with you, such as the fact that the Bible doesn’t call them Kings, although we traditionally sing “We Three Kings” on this Sunday. For that matter, the Bible doesn’t say that there were three of them. We probably assume there were three because they presented 3 gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. I’ve got some trivia about those gifts as well.
Those seeds of a sermon were coming together around some of those thoughts.
But that was before an earthquake and tsunamis struck.
When I first heard about the tragedy right after last week’s worship service, the initial numbers were terrible: 11,000 dead. The number seemed to double every time I heard a report. Yesterday, estimates passed 150,000 dead and 5 million without homes. With so much destruction, the actual number may never be known.
150,000 is a number nearly too large to comprehend.
It is the total estimated population of Savannah, Georgia. It far exceeds the population of Gainesville, Florida where we used to live.
Ohio State University had the highest reported enrollment for 2004 with almost 51,000 students registered for 2004. The University of Minnesota and University of Texas (Austin) were right behind with over 50,000 each. Imagine all the students from those 3 universities wiped out in a single day. Or all the students at Penn State’s main campus and all the students from the University of Florida and all the students from the University of Michigan.
- Indonesia: At least 80,246 people were killed on Sumatra island, the government said. The health minister said Friday the country's toll could rise to 100,000.
- Sri Lanka: Some 28,729 killed. About 1 million people were displaced.
- India: The government said 8,942 deaths have been confirmed but nearly 4,000 more were missing in India's remote Andaman and Nicobar Islands, just north of Sumatra.
- Thailand: The government said 4,812 people died, including 2,230 foreigners.
The earthquake registered as a 9.0, making it the 4th largest recorded since 1900, and by far the largest since 1964.
The largest struck Chile in 1960, killing over 2000, leaving 2 million homeless, and caused about $700 million in damage.
The second largest struck Prince William Sound in 1964, killing 125 and causing $311 million in property damage.
The third largest struck Alaska in 1957, causing over $5million in damage but no loss of life.
Another earthquake the same size struck in 1952, causing approximately $1.5 million in damage, but no lives lost.
By my rough addition, those previous earthquakes killed less than 3,000 people and caused less than $2 billion in damage.
Preliminary estimate of the damage caused by this tragedy is over $13 billion. Even adjusting for inflation, this is far worse than all other combined, and the death toll is staggering.
3,000 miles of coastland was devastated by the tsunami. That’s twice the distance from Boston to Miami; roughly the distance from Boston to Los Angeles.
What do you say in the face of such a disaster?
I don’t know.
I don’t know what to say.
I can’t fathom the destruction. I can’t take in the death toll.
I feel like I should have something wise to say, something that will make it easier to understand or easier to accept. I have no such words.
That’s the best I can do. I don’t understand it any more than you do. If this was something caused by a person or a group or a country, we could rail against the evils of humanity. But this wasn’t caused by any group. Nor do I think this was caused by God’s wrath against the people of these countries. Scientists might be able to explain what happened, how the ground shifted and caused the energy to be released, how that translated into several different tidal waves, but no one can explain why. You’d be a fool to try,
An awful lot of life is like that. We’d like to be able to explain it all, to understand it, to be able to give grand speeches and hear comforting messages, to uncover some answer that will help us figure it all out.
But we don’t get it, most of the time. Most of the time we’re left with no good words to say, no good explanations of why, no quick remedy for the pain and suffering we see around us. That’s the reality of the world as far as I can tell. If we try to force out some words, it’s probably mostly to help us try to deal with our own discomfort. We can end up saying things that don’t help, or even make people feel worse.
Sometimes it’s best to admit you just don’t know why, you don’t know what to say. Sometimes it’s best not to try and explain what we can’t explain, but just be there with it. Be with those who are suffering, with those who have lost loved ones or who fear they have.
When the wise men arrived on the scene, all the Bible tells us is that they presented gifts. It doesn’t record anything that they said. Maybe that’s on purpose. Maybe they didn’t have any words. All they could do was set down what they had at the foot of the stall where Jesus was and be there. Maybe sometimes there are some things that are just too wonderful to be tainted with words. Maybe some things are just too terrible to be softened with words.
I don’t remember anything that anyone said the day that Ethan was born. There were a lot of people talking, and I’m sure I was too. But there was a whole lot that just went beyond anything we could say.
A few of you know that we were supposed to have another baby before Ethan was born. He didn’t develop right in his legs and his spine. He never really had a chance. It wasn’t anything I did or Tracey did or anyone did. It’s just the way it happened. After about 20 weeks gestation, he was born but he never had a heartbeat, never took a breath. According to the science of life, he never really lived. We named him Gabriel. I don’t remember anything that was said the day Gabriel came into the world either. I know there were a lot of people talking, I don’t think either of us said much. There was a whole lot that just went beyond anything we could say.
Sometimes the best thing we can do is just put down what we have and kneel.
Maybe that’s what made me realize part of how amazingly wonderful and fragile life is, how precious and how terrible it can be. It makes having Ethan in our lives that much more special. Maybe that’s part of what makes it so hard to imagine 150,000 sons and daughters, brothers, sisters, husbands, wives, lovers, friends could be lost so quickly.
Science might be able to explain part of the what, but it can’t explain the why. No one really can. You’d be a fool to try.
But here’s what I learned, what I’m learning, what I believe… I still believe in a God who is good, even though terrible things happen with no good reason why. I still believe in a God who loves us, even when there’s too much tragedy and death and sadness. I still believe in a God who’s strong, even though there are so many times when I wonder why God doesn’t stop something from happening. I believe in a God who loves us and cares for us, who lives with us, who lived like one of us. I believe in a God powerful enough and mysterious enough to know that He was somehow with each one of the 150,000 victims of the earthquake and tidal waves ever bit as much as I believe that He was with Gabriel every step along the way.
I may not know the answers for why God doesn’t prevent all these terrible things from happening, but I believe in a God who is not absent and away from it all, but a God who is right down in the thick of it with us. If we needed any more proof of that, we have this season of Christmas when He was born as a fragile little baby, and we have this celebration of communion. It’s a celebration not of everything going right and life being simple. It’s a remembrance of Jesus’ sometimes-painful and confusing life in the midst of our sometimes painful and confusing lives. It’s a remembrance of Jesus’ death in the midst of the sadness we feel during the holidays and other times for our loved ones who have died, for those who have died too young, too unexpectedly, too unfairly. It’s a remembrance of Jesus’ resurrection, when we remember that the terrible and the awful and the bad don’t win in the end. We might not be able to explain exactly the how, but we believe that when it comes down to the end, God wins, and He chooses all of us to be part of the victory celebration.
So we come to the table, without all the answers. We come and we just lay down what we have and sit and be quiet, in the midst of all the questions we can’t answer and all the questions we want to ask. Amid all the sadness and pain and death, we stop and take a piece of the bread of hope, and drink a bit from the cup of faith, and we’ll remember that we’re not alone, that God has given us each other, and God Himself is with us through it all.
AMEN.
Comments
When "natural" events that are well understood in the scientific world such as rainfall, tidal action, seasonal changes or more severe events such as landslides, hurricanes and now, a tsunami, when these events are cloaked as something due to a higher authority, these ÒexplanationsÓ show mature humans the pomposity of organized religion: a set of rules divined by a few for use on fearful people to somehow invoke more fear in their lives and further perpetrate the myth of a superior power that somehow has itÕs rapture on us.
When natural events occur, when forces are exerted, then subsequent reactions come to bear. This is a simple fact and no other super-natural explanations are necessaryÉthat is unless you have a personal reason to exploit others for the fear they donÕt need now.
The above is not hysteria but based in emperical truths so if you believe in your request, to allow postings of honest feedback, you will leave for all to read. If you're like the rest, I'm sure it will be gone in a moment.
I. Newton
Posted by: I. Newton | January 5, 2005 12:50 AM
I won't delete the comment. As I state, I generally only do that when someone posts either total nonsense (along the lines of "i iz cool d00d, shout out ta all my homies in da land") or clearly just trying to get a link to their website to seel someone products for "natural enhancement" or videos of that poor, misunderstood Par1s Hi1ton.
That said, your comment does seem to miss the issues that I was attempting to deal with, issues that people of faith have been struggling with for millenia, namely, why doesn't God (in whatever name they call God) prevent such things from happening.
As I alluded to in my prefatory remarks, those were the folks who are the intended audience. Of all the explanations available to them, I doubt that a cold scientific explanation would bring them any further comfort or understanding. I don't begrudge those who are able to look at the world with that type of analytical thinking, but it's not a trait I've been given.
Posted by: TjL | January 5, 2005 09:08 AM
Wisdom is a good name for your contemplation here, Tim (read the first response... he musta skimmed your introductory comments...). But the question remains: how do we believe in a loving God and make that jibe with the destruction of life we've seen on an epic scale in the wake of the tsunami?I think it may be a question of expectations.., what are we expecting from God when we enter into a relationship with Him? Nowhere does he say follow me and I'll make everything hunky dory, no worries, mate. Jesus says God is Love, but then says He (Jesus) came to put son against father, mother against daughter... no promise of an easy life there.
Your last poster assumed a "mature person" cannot believe in God. I disagree. But I do believe natural disasters on this scale are most challenging to the faith of those believers whose faith is more "immature", whose belief is more Deist in outlook, those who believe God is a big guy who looks like Charlton Heston and sits on a big throne in the sky. You know the ones, always asking favors from God with their prayers akin to "adult letters to Santa Claus". I believe God IS Love, not a guy in the sky controlling the weather at His whim. I believe it is incumbent upon us as believers to embody, engender and, yes, incarnate that love. The responsibility is ours, not God's.If we attribute natural catastrophes to God's Will, we make him no better than the animistic nature gods of the polytheists. I don't believe God sent AIDs to punsh gay people, I don't believe a "Christian" nation is any more favored than any other, and I don't believe God uses the weather to dispense his justice, or lack thereof. The true measure of our faith is in how we react to these catastrophes: by just being there, as you say, or contributing, or helping somehow to let these people surviving in that hellish aftermath know that they are not alone. That is God in action in the world, when we come together so that someone on the other side of the globe can hear Him say, "You are not alone. You are loved. We care."
Posted by: Mike Luoma | January 5, 2005 02:15 PM
I found your site by doing a Google search on dual boot of all things! However, I would like to comment as I too wonder about God and this disaster. First, we have something in common, a child. I have a 3yr old boy who my wife and I love very much. He is amazing to say the least and words don't describe what he means to us. I am sure you feel the same way about your child.
Now, back to the mystery of life. Outside of our cocoon of Earth lies cold,dark, endless space filled with stars, planets, moons and galaxys. The vastness of space, the amount of stars and galaxy's and the great distances the represent the space between us and everything else is just way beyond the comprehension of myself and any other human for that matter. The point is we just don't know the answers, the reasons, the questions, the TRUTH of what life is all about. No religion can begin to explain what is really going on "out there". I am holding out till the truth comes. From God or otherwise.............
Posted by: paul | January 6, 2005 12:32 AM
Of late, there have been some interesting discussions of theodicy (that is, the defense of God as omnipotent and loving in the face of disasters or evil) on several other religion blogsites that I follow (namely, GetRelgion and Mere Comments).
The thread on Mere Comments was initiated by a WSJ column written by David Hart, an Eastern Orthodox theologian.
Original column:
http://www.opinionjournal.com/taste/?id=110006097
Subsequent discussions (which actually begin about halfway down the page):
http://merecomments.typepad.com/merecomments/2005/01/hart_by_the_num.html
But mostly, I wanted to use the word 'theodicy' correctly in a sentence this week.
Posted by: jquinby | January 6, 2005 12:30 PM
Up front, I must admit I didn't read the sermon (and I'm no christian), but wanted to say something about all the media coverage (which you are part of, Tim) about this huge tragedy: People die every day, every hour, every second. Jan Egeland, UN's Emergency Relief Coordinator, said that every day, more than a thounsand people die of cureable diseases and lack of money for humanitarian help. This amounts to one Tsunami catastrophe every four months - since years. Most people (me included) who are shocked by this recent disaster forget that many many more people have died and still die in other regions of the world, and that these people deserve our help just as well. If you ask yourself "how can god let something terrible like this happen?", well, how can he let all the pain, the suffering and dying happen every day? I don't say this to "bash" god (sorry for the poor choice of words, I'm not a native speaker), I just think we all should see what happened in the context of what happens every day on our world - and our world is so big that we cannot grasp it all, the sheer number of people on this planet means that something terrible just HAS to happen every day (which is not to say we shouldn't strive to make the world a better place to live for all).
Posted by: Friedrich | January 6, 2005 05:39 PM
TjL: Thanks for your polite response and yes, I did understand your point; however, much like ML's read of my opinion, you may have failed to understand my point; I'll be brief:
If one, if only for a fleeting moment, makes a leap of faith and argues the point that there isnÕt a god (Éforgive the pun), then all the hype posed by op-ed summons such as yours (albeit well written however flawed) seem self serving and fodder for the sheep you may propose, need a shepherd.
If science can, or someday will, explain all the tragedies as well as our fortunes, then why continue the myth of a god less to continue to fool the people who call these events ÒwondersÓ, take their easy route and say these events are caused by some god instead of taking the time to learn the facts of why rain falls, why the tide ebbs and why when tectonic plates translate and cause sea swells, that then kill thousands of humans who are only too ignorant and construct their million dollar houses on a California fault line then seek divine guidance Ð again?
Thanks for the free speech box Ð youÕre at least a good sport.
Posted by: I. Newton | January 6, 2005 10:54 PM
I understood your point. My point in writing this was not to answer the "Is there a God?" question, but to give my thoughts as one who believes that there is to others who believe similarly.
Yes, I allow for the possibility that I'm wrong. That's why they call them beliefs instead of proofs :-) and I'm comfortable with that.
Posted by: TjL | January 6, 2005 11:14 PM
I Newton, you must have misread me. Like my brother Tim, I understood your point entirely, but perhaps you are unwilling to see or consider ours. And, may I add, blind, dogmatic belief in "Science" is as much a leap of faith as belief in God. Science is but another of man's attempts to explain the "why" of human existence, as is religion. I don't find the two to be mutually exclusive, nor either more compelling or comforting. The comfort you draw from "Science"'s ability to "explain all the tragedies as well as our fortunes" is as fragile a thing as the comfort some draw from their faith in God. Substituting one blind belief for another is not progress, nor is it truly scientific.
Ah... too much digression. I Newton, you seem to draw your comfort from the fact that science will explain these natural disasters, and that's good. The question remains for those who draw their comfort from God: How does a God of Love allow mass destruction of life like we've seen? What sort of God lets this happen?
Two final points for pondering: Nicholas Kristoff in the New York Times this week pointed out that deaths from Malaria in the "third world" dwarf the current death tolls from the Tsunami, but without the media spotlight, no one is appalled by that kind of mass destruction of life, it isn't leading most people to question their faith... why is that? Secondly, Indonesians are flocking to their mosques to ask for Allah's forgiveness, for they must have strayed from His path badly to deserve such punishment... we want explanations even when the explanation offers no assuagement of pain, because there's more comfort if there's a reason for it, evidently, than if it's just chaos and indifference. "Stuff" Happens isn't good enough... why is that? (Even I Newton draws comfort from his scientific explanations for these events...)
Posted by: Mike Luoma | January 7, 2005 12:29 PM
I read your sermon this morning and now feel that I've had my "church" experience for today, as I prepare to leave San Diego for San Francisco. For that, thanks. As to your content, how can I disagree? I can say that I remember *exactly* my first words upon learning of Ryne's horrible accident. I put my head down and said, aloud, "Don't take my son". I didn't ask, I told. As you know, from that day we have walked in the Valley of the Shadow with him, and we have found our God every step of the way, providing us with evidence of His care for us in the way He has returned our son to a livable life, and still continues to do so. I cannot fathom the tragedy in the lives of so many people, nor do much to relieve their suffering except give money and some meditative thoughts, but I can never deny the actual presence of Gods love and light in my own life after all that has been done for me and mine. Why doesn't everyone recognize this "presence"? It is a huge mystery because, to my way of thinking, we have done nothing special to deserve any of it. I, also, don't think of myself as a Christian, but I know that there are wonderful surprises and love awaiting us all in the life (or lives) to come. I will spend this life trying to live a life that honors all that has been given to me and others. After all, Tim, there is a God and She does provide.
With Love,
Rita
Posted by: Rita | January 9, 2005 11:22 AM