More Thoughts on "The Missy Question"

I'm still thinking about evil in creation as it relates to the Missy question--"God, if you can't take care of Missy, how can I trust you to take care of me?" I think it might be helpful to include some very lengthy quotes from David Bentley Hart. These are taken from a collection of essays in his book, In the Aftermath.

In the first quote he's challenging the belief that Christians must believe God is behind everything--the good as well as the evil, or that God needs evil and pain to prove how good he is. He's writing about the Indian Ocean Tsunami of December 2004 that destroyed towns and villages. Let's listen to his closing remarks.

"I do not to believe Christians are obliged--or even allowed--to look upon the devastation visited upon the coasts of the Indian Ocean and to console themselves with vacuous cant about the mysterious course taken by God's goodness in this world, or to assure others that some ultimate meaning or purpose resides in so much misery. Theirs is, after all, a religion of salvation; their faith is in a God who has come to rescue his creation from the absurdity of sin and the emptiness of death, and so they are permitted to hate these things with a perfect hatred. For while Christ takes the suffering of his creatures up into his own, it is not because he or they had need of suffering, but because he would not abandon his creatures to the grave. And while we know that the victory over evil and death has been won, we know also that it is a victory yet to come, and the creation therefore, as Paul says, groans in expectation of the glory that will one day be revealed. Until then, the world remains a place of struggle between light and darkness, truth, and falsehood, life and death; and, in such a world, our portion is charity." (116)

I want you to listen carefully to what he's saying here. This is a very Wesleyan perspective, one that liberates us from having to believe that God sends pain to teach us lessons or even that God needs evil for some greater good. The struggle this side of heaven is real. And truth be told, we will lose some skirmishes, but we won't lose the war. The not yet victory has already been won in the death and resurrection of Jesus. In the meantime, while we wait for the final victory, our job is charity--to witness to God's grace and love.

But there's more that needs to be said. Let's listen again to David Hart:

"As for comfort, when we seek it, I can imagine none greater than the happy knowledge that when I see the death of a child I do not see the face of God, but the face of his enemy. It is not a faith that would necessarily satisfy Ivan Karamazov, but neither is it one that his arguments can defeat: for it has set us free from optimism, and taught us hope instead. We can rejoice that we are saved not through the immanent mechanisms of history and nature, but by grace; that God will not unite all of history's many strands in one great synthesis, but will judge much of history false and damnable; that he will not simply reveal the sublime logic of fallen nature, but will strike off the fetters in which creation languishes; and that, rather than showing us how the tears of a small girl suffering in the dark were necessary for the building of the Kingdom, he will instead raise her up and wipe away all tears from her eyes--and there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying, nor any more pain, for the former things will have passed away, and he that sits upon the throne will say, "Behold, I make all things new."

Amen to that. Let us rejoice in the hope that we have.

Peace.

The Missy Question

As we continue our series entitled "Reflections on the Shack," we have to deal with the Missy question. Mack asks God, "If you can't take care of Missy, how can I trust you to take care of me?" This question embodies much of Mack's pain. At the core of his being, Mack no longer believes that God is good. Mack can't bring together these two words--pain and providence. They don't fit together when he first enters the shack.

You see, Mack believes, at the start of the book, that God must be behind everything--the good and the bad, justice and injustice. So Mack assumes that God must have played a part in Missy's death. Mack even asks, God, did you take Missy away from me for the way I treated my father? Mack believes God sends evil and he authors wickedness . . . to make a point.

This view creates some very troubling questions. Does God take away loved ones? Is disparity part of God's plan?--some children have everything, some won't see their first birthday. Does God send pain to teach us spiritual lessons, as some suggest? In other words, does God need evil to show how good he is?

I can't buy this. Can you?

Thankfully, there is an alternative. Mack soon discovers, as he journeys with God in the shack, that God is not behind everything. God reveals to Mack that in world where freedom is a reality, freedom can be abused. If freedom is real, the consequences have to be real as well. If God takes away the consequences, he must also take away the freedom. He gave us freedom because he wants to be freely loved, and we've abused it. This world is marred by our sin. Humans are at the pinnacle of creation, which means when we abuse our freedom and reject God's love, we unleash evil forces in all of creation.

All of this means, we don't have to believe that God's hands are wrapped around steering wheels or that his fingers are on triggers. We don't have to look into the death of a child and try to discern the face of God. We don't have to look at disparity and try to talk about the inscrutable purposes of God.

Instead, we can hate evil, wickedness and injustice with a perfect hatred. We can state clearly that this is not what God intends. Death is the final enemy to be defeated. There are still forces opposed to God's purposes.

The good news: these forces are being overcome. Our salvation is about redemption and rescue.

Peace.

The God Who Heals

It was a rough Sunday in my estimation. The sermon (10-4) was a little flat.

Let me restate it as briefly as I can. God wants to heal us by setting us free from sin and evil so that we can love and be loved. Read that one more time. It's important that we understand it.

You see, we believe sin separates us from God and from one another. Evil, the evil done to us and the evil we embrace, does the same thing; it weakens the intimacy we can enjoy with God and with others. If this is true, then salvation is being reconciled to God as well as to one another.

Luke's gospel points us in this direction. In Luke's gospel we discover that salvation is holistic. The word saved is often translated as made whole or made well (cf. Luke 8.48). Furthermore, we discover that many people that are healed and made whole again are set free for community life--the leper (Lk. 5), the woman with blood disorder (Lk. 8) and the woman bent over by evil (Lk. 18).

I believe we can relate to this. Our sin makes us like lepers, it keeps us from others. The evil in our lives does the same. Does it shock us then that God wants to set us free so that we can do what we really want to do, love others in joy and freedom? It doesn't shock me at all. God's mission is one of healing--the healing of the world and the healing of our lives.

I believe this is the movement we find in The Shack as well. Mack needs to be set free from his pain, evil, and his idolatry (the ways he's made God in his own image). In meeting God, the real God he is now free for love.

We need to pursue the same movement in our own life. We need to pursue health. You can't be too passionate about your own health. So here's my challenge. I want you to think about the things that keep you from others. What keeps you from loving? Shame? Guilt? Poor self-image? Pride? Arrogance? Fear? Work on these sins as the Spirit leads and transforms. Peace.