Looking for God
Twenty-Second after Pentecost - Year A
Sunday, October 16, 2005

Let us pray: O God, you are in us and around us. May these words help us to know your presence, and to feel the stirring of your call to justice within us. Amen.

I received a phone call this week from someone who was despairing about the disasters that seem to be occurring with regular frequency in our world. The person on the end of the phone line was wondering what I could say about the presence of God amid all the destruction and human misery. In effect they were asking the same question that Moses asked in our reading from the Hebrew bible this morning. Where are you, God? I tried as best I could to give my perspective. While specific mention was not made of the earthquake in Pakistan or the flooding in Guatemala, I expect that these two latest examples in a season of hurricanes, typhoons, and terrorist bombings were the incidents that prompted the call.

It is common for natural disasters to bring about a crisis of faith. I am not immune from such thoughts myself. Whenever we see people who have lost loved ones and are living without food, water and shelter, we would have to be extremely callous to not be concerned for their welfare and wonder about the presence of God. The logic often follows this path - if God is all knowing, all powerful and all loving, then how could God allow such disasters to happen with the ensuing loss of life and misery? This week as I unpacked the books in my study, I came across the popular book by Rabbi Harold Kushner, "Why do bad things happen to good people?" I’m quite sure that it holds the record for the book most borrowed from my library. Of course, it is his answer to the crisis of faith that often comes when we see innocent people trying to deal with most horrendous events. Simply put, his answer to the question is this: How can a God who is all knowing, all powerful and all loving, allow bad things to happen to good people? If all three of these characteristics are part of God, then it creates a logical dilemma - an all loving God who is all knowing and all powerful would not be allow disasters to happen - for God would know about it, and in love with all power be able to fix it before it happened or restore things once they did happen. But we know that doesn’t happen, so Kushner says that one of the characteristics has to go. He refuses to give up all loving and all knowing, so the one that remains to be questioned is all powerful. God can’t fix everything or prevent everything from happening. There are powers that are beyond God’s control.

But that emphatically does not mean that God is not there! God is there, right in the midst of the pain and suffering, grieving with those who mourn, giving courage to those who are responding, giving strength and purpose to relief workers, creating resolve and determination in those who are left to pick up the pieces. God is there in the hearts and minds of those who offer their resources to work in the relief effort. God is there in the minds and intellect of those who work at limiting the destruction caused by future disasters. God is there.

I remember in the aftermath of the tsunami that occurred in Asia last Boxing Day that I did raise questions about the ways we organise ourselves on this earth. People flock to floodplains and many live on the coast. The poorest people with the least well constructed dwellings are often the first ones to suffer the consequences of a hurricane, flood, earthquake or landslides. I remember the questions about tsunami warning systems and the answer that many wealthier countries can and do have them. So, as is the case with many systems in our world, a lack of justice is also partly responsible for the results we see in any given disaster. We have a friend who does development and relief work in Guatemala. When we heard about the flooding and loss of life there, we were very concerned as we knew that she was planning a trip in October. We received an email from her this week telling us that she left three days before the landslides occurred, but also offering grave concerns for the people left to deal with this disaster. Not only were many people buried alive, but crops - the only source of income and food for many of the people in the villages were destroyed. As Jan put it, these people nothing, now they have less than nothing.

While natural disasters are not caused by God, they do point out in stark ways the injustices that are part of our world. One of the first concerns for people in the response to an earthquake, hurricane or tsunami, is the provision of food and water. But as our friend Jan put it, the distribution of food and water is a constant concern. A natural disaster just serves to highlight what is already a grave concern. World Food Day, is a day declared by the United Nations to highlight the injustices of food distribution on the earth. Note that it is a crisis of food distribution. There is enough food to feed everyone on this earth. It is not a matter of production. It is a matter of distribution. A few people have a lot of food. A lot of people have very little food. For the second week in a row I mention the shock experienced by people who spend time in the two-thirds world and then return home and visit the well stocked shelves of North American grocery stores. That is an object lesson with lasting effect.

God may not be the all-powerful God we expect or perhaps even want, but God has given us the power to work for good in this world. We are given the opportunity to show others that God is present in the midst of crisis and disaster. People are responding. We saw the incredible outpouring of support in the aftermath of the Asian tsunami. We see churches responding out of the concern and generosity of their members.

During the announcements I invited you to visit the United Church website or read the email that came from Church House this week telling of our response to the earthquake in Pakistan and India and the flooding and landslides in Guatemala and showing us how to respond.