When the floodwaters of Hurricane Katrina engulfed New Orleans in
2005, some rushed to help; others rushed to judgment. New Orleans is a
sinful city, cried some Christian preachers and their supporters, and
God is punishing them with a flood. Just a few months earlier, in
December of 2004, when a tsunami struck the Indian Ocean nations of
Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, and Thailand, some Muslim pundits likewise
claimed that Allah was punishing the people of those regions for their
lax observance of Islam. Similar sentiments are often expressed by
those of a religious bent after natural disasters strike, whether
earthquakes in Pakistan, hurricanes in Central America, or famines in
Africa. Where would people get the idea that the divine Sovereign of
the universe would use the forces of nature to castigate wayward
humanity? One source of such a way of thinking may be found in the
Genesis flood story, contained in Genesis 6-9. The narrator describes a
world that was becoming increasingly sinful and a God who was becoming
more and more sorry about creating humanity in the first place. People
often look on the flood story as a story of judgment, and it is that,
but more importantly, it is a story of salvation and a new understanding
of the world. Far from using the flood narrative as justification for
interpreting contemporary natural disasters as acts of an angry God, a
proper reading of the story shows just the opposite. After saving a
small group of people from destruction, God promises never again to
destroy the earth with a flood. Natural disasters, God says, are off
limits as a method of judgment. Of course the Genesis flood story
reflects a common ancient Near Eastern heritage of storytelling about an
ancient, disastrous flood that the gods inflicted on humans in their
wrath, but its presence in Jewish and Christian scripture (and an
abridged version in the Quran) suggests that it continues to be
meaningful to people of faith in the present. What can such a story
tell us about God's work in the world today? First, we note that
natural disasters of many sorts continue to occur throughout the world,
and that people often suffer loss of life and livelihood. God's promise
never again to destroy the world with a flood, and the covenant of the
rainbow, reminds us never to interpret natural disasters as the judgment
of God, and to strongly oppose those who do, for they are adding to the
misery of those already suffering. Second, when we look at the typical
victims of natural disasters, we find that the poor suffer loss in
numbers and to an extent far greater than their representation in the
general population. Yes, some in the middle and upper classes
occasionally suffer loss (think of Trent Lott's house, which he lost
during Hurricane Katrina), but it is the poor who suffer
disproportionately. It is not just coincidence that the poor suffer the
most during natural disasters, it is the result of sin: not the sin of
those who are suffering, but the structural injustice that permeates
societsiesy throughout the world. The poor in New Orleans drowned
because they lived in a part of the city that was prone to flooding and
had inadequate escape routes. The poor in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, died
because of substandard buildings and building codes, and because of
overcrowding in the city (contrast the number of deaths when earthquakes
of similar magnitude strike cities in developed countries). The poor in
Indonesia and Thailand lived in the lowlands along the coast, not in the
more sheltered upland regions populated by the rich. The poor who lived
in squatter camps on the side of a hill outside Tegucigalpa, Honduras,
were killed in a mudslide triggered by Hurricane Mitch; the rich and
middle class who lived in actual houses in developed parts of the city
survived. It was predominantly poor, rural Pakistanis who died when a
massive earthquake struck Kashmir in 2005, not only in the collapse of
buildings but also in the aftermath, when food and medical supplies were
unable to reach them because of poor infrastructure in the area. This
litany of natural disasters and their effects on the poor could be
continued ad nauseum, and it is tragic, but it doesn't have to be the
final word. Just as the flood story in Genesis is also a story of
salvation, so the world community, including people of faith, can
recognize the structural injustices that plague the planet and work to
alleviate them. No, we can't stop natural disasters, but we can
certainly work together to lessen their destructive effects, especially
on the poor.
Psalm 25:1-10 (first published 5 March 2006)
Former California congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham was sentenced
this week to eight years and four months in prison, after pleading guilty
to accepting $2.4 million in bribes. A contrite Cunningham said before
sentencing that he would accept without complaint whatever punishment the
court handed down. Although none of us has ever accepted $2.4 million in
bribes, we should all feel some empathy with the former congressman. We
have all done things that we knew were wrong, and we have all been in the
position of having to ask for forgiveness. The psalmist asks God, "Do not
remember the sins of my youth or my transgressions; according to your
steadfast love remember me, for your goodness' sake, O Lord!" Or maybe it
should say, "For goodness' sake, O Lord!" There come times in all our
lives when we want to ask God, and other people as well, "Please
distinguish in your mind my sins from me as a person!" There are certain
people who have gone down in history as those who have committed great
sins. When we think of Adolf Hitler, Timothy McVeigh, or David Koresh, it
is unlikely that we think of anything other than the Holocaust, the
destruction of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, or the
conflagration at the compound outside Waco. Several months ago I saw a
German movie called Downfall about the last days of Hitler, a true
story based on the account of his secretary. The movie makes no attempt
to mask the evil committed by Hitler, Himmler, or others who were in the
bunker during the last week of World War II in Europe, yet it also shows
Hitler as a human being, a person who grows tired, feels bewildered as his
world come crashing down around him, and even shows affection for some of
those around him. One of the problems with demonizing Hitler and others
who have committed horrific crimes is that it puts them beyond the pale of
humanity. When we cast another human being out of the human race for his
sins, we threaten ourselves with the same fate. Maybe our sins aren't as
great as a Timothy McVeigh, but who can really foresee the consequences of
our acts of greed, selfishness, or xenophobia? Fortunately for us, God is
perfectly capable of separating the person from the sin, and though we
deserve justice, God often grants mercy. If God grants mercy to us
sinners, we need to grant mercy to other sinners as well, for though their
sins may be more spectacular, at their core they are people like we are,
people God longs to bring back into the human-divine fellowship that we
can all share.
1 Peter 3:18-22 (first published 5 March 2006)
When someone sins, who suffers because of it? In some cases no one
suffers, and the persons simply "gets away" with the sin, at least
apparently. In other cases the person who sins suffers. For example, if
a person who breaks into a house and steals something is caught by the
police, that person will go to jail, suffering for his sin. Another way
in which the person who sins might suffer is through guilt over the sin,
even if no one else knows about it. In many cases, however, it is not the
person committing the sin who suffers, but rather another, innocent
person. When an individual commits armed robbery and isn't caught, it is
the person who was robbed who suffers, both in the immediate fear and loss
of the robbery and also over the long term in the loss of a sense of
security. The first verse in our reading from 1 Peter begins, "For Christ
also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in
order to bring you to God." As Christians, we're used to language of this
sort. We understand that Jesus died for our sins, and in fact, many
manuscripts actually say that Christ died rather than
suffered for our sins, though the original reading was almost
certainly suffered. I want to focus on two aspects of this verse
that we might not think about quite as often. First, if we set aside
traditional soteriological thinking about Christ's death as an Atonement
and focus on the act of one person suffering because of another's sins, we
realize that this sort of thing happens every day. Victims suffer for the
sins of the criminals. Women suffer for the sins of men. The poor suffer
for the sins of the rich. The weak suffer for the sins of the powerful.
Jesus is a perfect example of the latter. So are the victims of wars from
Iraq to the Sudan. The powerful flex their muscles and struggle with one
another, and those without power suffer disproportionately. Second, the
reading says that Christ suffered in order to bring us to God. How does
one person's suffering bring us to God? The traditional theological
answer is that Christ's death in some mysterious way (which varies,
depending on the theory of the Atonement that is applied) reconciles us to
God. Viewing Jesus as a representative of those most often victimized in
society, how does the suffering of the poor or weak reconcile the rich or
the middle class to God? It doesn't, unless we are able to see Christ's
suffering in the suffering of those most like him. Only when we see
Christ in the face of the poor who suffer will we realize our need not
just to feel sorry for them but to repent of our sin, the first step in
being reconciled to God. We who are rich need to repent of our greed, our
selfishness, our nationalism, our arrogance, and our apathy, because all
of these sins lead to the victimization of the poor. Just as important as
these personal realizations, we also need to recognize the structural sins
that cause the poor to suffer and work to rid society of these unjust
structures as well. Sin will always cause suffering, so the best way to
reduce suffering is to identify the sins, personal or structural, that are
causing others to suffer and eliminate them.
Mark 1:9-15 (first published 5 March 2006)
Although the first three gospels are called collectively the Synoptic Gospels, their outlook on the life of Jesus is hardly identical. Matthew and Luke follow Mark, each in its own way, and sometimes they share a story with one another that is not found in Mark at all. The origin of these passages in Matthew and Luke that agree with one another where Mark has little or no text is generally attributed to a now missing source called Q, an abbreviation for the German Quelle, or source. The temptation of Jesus is one of the earliest such passages in the Synoptic Gospels, but unlike most examples of Q in Matthew and Luke, there is a corresponding fragment of the story in Mark. We almost never read it, however, for it lacks the dramatic scenes of Satan tempting Jesus three times and Jesus overcoming the temptation three times while quoting scripture. Verse 13 provides a cursory sketch of Jesus' temptation experience: Jesus was there forty days, he was tempted by Satan, he was with the wild animals (a point not mentioned in Matthew and Luke, a discussion of which will have to wait for another occasion), and the angels ministered to him. Verse 12, however, offers a picture that is considerably different from Matthew and Luke. Whereas the latter two both use different Greek words to explain that Jesus was led into the wilderness, Mark uses a much more forceful word. Most modern versions of Mark say that Jesus was driven out into the wilderness, which is a good translation, but it is important to note that this word in Greek is the same that Mark uses in 1:34 to describe Jesus' ministry of casting out demons. An equally valid translation, then, could say that Jesus was cast out into the wilderness. The contrasting use of this verb in these two passages signifies an important theological point. In 1:12, the Spirit (of God) casts Jesus out into the wilderness, a place of desolation often thought of as the abode of demons and remote from God. However, although Mark offers no details, Jesus clearly overcomes the temptations and defeats Satan, robbing him of his power (the angels signify Jesus' triumph). Fortified by his experience in the wilderness, Jesus returns to the "civilized world," the world where Satan traditionally has less sway, and he begins casting out unclean spirits, also called demons. The Spirit casts Jesus into the wilderness to confront and overcome the forces of evil, and when Jesus returns from the wilderness, having already demonstrated his prowess over evil there, he demonstrates his power over evil in the inhabited world as well. The temptation story in Mark, then, functions not as a showcase for Jesus' knowledge of scripture and intellectual defeat of Satan, but as an explanation of the source of Jesus' power over Satan in the world of ordinary humans. The same Jesus who, almost unbelievably, was driven by the Spirit of God into the jaws of evil emerges triumphant, ready to take the fight to the enemy. Jesus has been empowered for ministry: he has submitted to the power of the Spirit of God, and he has appropriated the power of God for his work in the world.