Does anyone have any masking tape?
When I come across questions I can’t answer, I intend to tape those questions to my chest. I’m going to do this so that when I got to heaven, I can ask God himself for an answer.
The question of why God would allow the Coronavirus to happen, why he allows suffering and death, is not just a philosopher's question, or a journalist hook for a story. It is being asked by real people who know real suffering.
Pass the making tape!
There are answers that might satisfy to some extent, and some answers totally unsatisfying.
The man born blind was the perfect setup for people to probe Jesus for an answer.
"Who sinned?"
Adam did it. That’s what the story says. When God confronted him, Adam nervously blurted, "Eve made me eat that fruit." Well, Eve didn't want to take the fall, either. She blamed the snake.
This is the Bible's way of describing our instinct to dodge guilt by laying blame. Find a scapegoat, we think. When we don’t want to face the music, all too often we point fingers.
Since we do not want to take the fall, the fall keeps taking us, which is why even kids are naturals at the old dodge-and-point.
"Dad, Tony hit me."
"I did not. And anyway, she hit me first."
What's a parent to do? What's God to do?
Sometimes we point fingers to dodge responsibility, but sometimes we point fingers to explain what we do not understand.
Today's Gospel gives us some idea what Jesus thought about this habit of ours and, more importantly, what he did about it. Jesus bumped into a man born blind. In those days religious people assumed that blindness must come from God. If you were born blind, people wondered who was to blame, whose fault it was. Had you sinned or had your parents? It must be someone's fault. Even the disciples thought this way.
Jesus was ready for them. He always is. He answers quickly, sharply. "Neither," he says. "Nope. Nada. No." Jesus simply refused to help them lay blame.
You see, God does not cause human pain in order to punish us.
Last year I was at the funeral of the mother of someone I know from church who had experienced a string of tragedies. In 11 short months, she lost her father, her mother, and her husband. She said to me, "People say God doesn't send us more than we can handle. I just wish God didn't think so highly of me."
God doesn't send us more than we can handle? Of all the simple sayings of the Christian faith, I most wish we could reconsider this one. It suggests that God intentionally sends us hardships, tragedy to test us. I do not believe God does this. I do not believe that God killed the father and mother and husband of my friend merely to test her. Instead, I believe God promised that, though bad things happen, God will not abandon us.
You are probably wondering right now, and rightly so, that if God doesn't will human pain, why then does God allow it?
Well, as usual, Jesus is ahead of us. Immediately after he says that no one is to blame for this man's blindness, he adds that the man was born blind "so that God's works might be revealed in him." I think what that means is that God is going to use this seemingly random meeting with the blind man. You see, God is in the business of bringing good things from bad. Jesus knows that he is about to heal this man, and everyone who sees it will have a solid sign of who Jesus is and why he has come to us.
In other words, his blindness is not this man's fault and nor is it God's will. Yet God can bring good from even this apparently senseless tragedy. God did not cause this blindness, but God can work amidst this tragedy: God doesn't send us more than we can handle, but with God's help, there is nothing we cannot handle.
So, no answers there. And I’m sorry if you came here looking for answers. We’re not given answers. All I can leave you is more questions.
I think the best question amidst tragedy is not
Whose fault is it?
or
Why did God do this to me?
but rather,
Who?
Who will we be? How shall we love and do justice amidst tragedy?
How shall we hang on and trust?
How will we confront life's tragedies as people of faith?
These are the questions I intend to spend this life working through with you, but I’ll still tape them to my chest. Someone, please pass me the masking tape.