Where is God when evil happens?*

One of the great conundrums of Christianity is the presence of evil in a world created by a good God. Indeed, we believe not only that a good God created a good world, as told in the Genesis accounts, but we believe also that the same one and only God is all powerful and could stop or prevent evil in the world at any time.

Of course, we have the story of the fall of Adam and Eve to explain how evil came into the world. As a woman, I am all too aware that much of humankind throughout history would really like to blame it all on Eve!

But Bishop N.T. Wright points out in his book, Evil and the Justice of God, that all of our discussions that begin with Adam and Eve as the ones who introduce evil into the world really ignore an important question: What was a snake with evil intentions doing in Paradise anyway?

Adam and Eve sure didn’t put it there. I am reminded of a Far Side cartoon that depicted God--as an old white man with long white hair and beard, of course--rolling clay into snakes, and saying to himself, "Boy, these things are a cinch!" Perhaps that's why he made so many of them!

The Far Side, by Gary Larse

How evil came into the world is a subject worthy of consideration; it might be less simple than we tend to think. But  I want to turn our meditations in a different direction.

Nine years ago today, a great evil happened here in these United States. Airplanes crashed into buildings in New York City and Washington D.C. Another plowed a furrow into a field in rural Pennsylvania. Several thousand lives were snuffed out—some instantly, others horribly, by being forced to jump to their deaths from the Twin Towers.

Several thousand families lost loved ones, and thousands more lost friends, co-workers and neighbors. We all lost our sense of security, a certain feeling of invulnerability, and of control of our own destiny, as the wealthiest, strongest nation on the planet.

The horror of those events continues to haunt us today. Their repercussions continue to strain social and cultural relationships and to distort our politics.

Today’s meditations are offered to the glory of God, and with special intention for helping us re-think the questions we ask about evil and how we respond to evil.

When Christians turn their attention to the conundrum of evil co-existing in the world with a good, all-powerful God, it is often with a question that implicitly blames God. “Why did God ‘allow’ that to happen?” we ask. And our answer: “God must have had a reason."

It is almost as if we have to give God an “out,” as if the possibility that evil just happens... is too terrifying for words. Or, perhaps we’re thinking, if God doesn’t have a reason, then God must not be so good after all. And that too is terrifying.

Fr. Richard Rohr is a Franciscan friar and Roman Catholic priest who publishes a daily online meditation. He says that “loss of control” is the very definition of human suffering.

I think “reasons” are the product of human attempts to control suffering by explaining it. Who are we to say that God must have a reason? WE need reasons. God does not.

Rationalizing evil typically involves both fixing blame and figuring out “what God wants us to do,” given that God must have had a reason for the evil happening in the first place. I suggest that it is precisely this kind of reasoning that leads to all kinds of problematic responses, from using God to justify one country invading another to a pastor in Florida thinking he is called by God to burn the Koran in protest against an Islamic center near Ground Zero in New York City.

Let us ask a different question: Where is God when we suffer? Where is God when evil happens?

For a period of several days after the Twin Towers fell in NYC, I was profoundly troubled by the nightmarish TV images I could not get out of my head. Then one night I had a dream. I was on the top floor of one of the Twin Towers. I and a bunch of people were standing in the elevator lobby. We were waiting for an elevator that, at some level, we knew would not be coming. We could smell the smoke and hear the roar of the fire below us. We were terrified. Then suddenly, miraculously, the elevator doors opened. We stepped forward. And just as we crossed the threshold into the elevator, the building, the elevator, the elevator shaft, the smoke and the fire... all fell away beneath us. We were instantly lighter than air. We looked at each other and laughed as we soared off into the heavens.

I rarely claim to receive messages directly from God. I don’t hear God’s voice in my ears or head. I question the source of every thought. But that dream was from God and the message was simple and clear. God said, “I was there. I was there when the Twin Towers fell. I was there in the Pentagon. I was there in rural Pennsylvania.”

AMEN.

For this first period of quiet, you might want to read Psalm 73, for it expresses both our lack of understanding of evil and the faith that, indeed, God is with us when evil happens.

*September 11, 2010, I led a Quiet Day at St. Patrick's Episcopal Church in West Monroe. Here is the first of three meditations, each guided by a question that will serve as title for these postings. I will post the other two meditations over the next few days.