Sunday, October 21, 2018 ~ Pentecost XXII
Sermon: “The Problem with Evil, Part II”
Gospel Lesson: Job 38:1-7 (34-41)
© 2018, Dr. Tamilio
We’re not playing it today, but there is that great contemporary Christian song by Rich Mullins that declares, “Our God is an awesome God, he reigns from Heaven above with wisdom, power, and love, our God is an awesome God.”
All you need to do is look around you. There are dozens and dozens of Bible verses that speak of creation itself worshiping God. One of the most notable is Psalm 19, which begins:
The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Eugene Peterson’s contemporary translation The Message translates this first verse as:
God’s glory is on tour in the skies,
God-craft on exhibit across the horizon.
As some of you know, I have been asked to deliver the Congregational Lecture in Cleveland next summer as part of the National Association of Congregational Christian Churches Annual Meeting. Typically, they want lecturers to focus on some aspect of our history or heritage — to reflect on a theology or theologian who has been a big influence on our tradition.
I keep going back-and-forth and I’m not sure exactly what I am going to write about yet — but I am drawn to the eighteenth century American revivalist preacher, philosopher, and Congregationalist Protestant theologian Jonathan Edwards. Edwards is best known for his sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” It has become a literary classic. This homily depicts a vivid, dire image of Hell. We are depicted as insects hanging from a thread, in the hands of a God, who, at any moment, can let us drop into eternal torment. Legend has it that people fainted in the aisles of his Northampton Church when he delivered it over 275 years ago. Read it. It is more horrifying than any Edgar Allan Poe story or Stephen King novel. Edwards speaks of God’s arbitrary will, that he can withdraw his grace from sinners at any time: “There is nothing that keeps wicked men at any one moment out of hell, but the mere pleasure of God.” How delicious!
But there is another, gentler, lesser known side of Jonathan Edwards. Edwards kept notebooks in which he would jot down his observations of nature. He would go outside, get down on his hands and knees, and observe the most minute details. He would jot down the working of insects and the contours of blades of grass. Edwards believed that in cataloging such details, he was able to learn more about God. God was not just in the fire, not just a force bellowing down from the mountain. God was in the simplest corners of existence.
Think of it this way: you can take a macro look at life or a micro look: both are important, and both tell us a great deal about God. There is a great video on YouTube that illustrates this beautifully. (I’d be happy to show it to anyone who wants to see it after the service.)
A macro view of life is when you look at the big picture. When you look at (or think about) how vast and complex the world or the universe is, then you are taking a big or macro look at life. This is life through the telescope.
The micro is life through the microscope. This is when you look at or think about the smallest yet no less complex aspects of life: atoms, cell structure, one-cell organisms, fertilization, and, if your Jonathan Edwards, they why that ants move and work.
Both views give us fuller insight into God.
But wait a minute. This sermon is about theodicy: the problem of evil, the second part to what we discussed two weeks ago. How is this related to the problem of evil?
We need to go back to Job’s story. This week we are at a crucial junction in the narrative. Job has maintained his innocence all along and has demanded an audience with God. He wants answers. God appears out of the whirlwind and turns the tables. He tells Job, “I am going to question you. Let’s see if you can come up with some answers.” God then asks,
“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
Tell me, if you understand.
Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
Who stretched a measuring line across it?
On what were its footings set,
or who laid its cornerstone —
while the morning stars sang together
and all the angel shouted for joy?”
And the questioning continues far beyond this morning’s reading. Basically God, as the Creator of Heaven and Earth, says to Job, “Who are you to question me? Can you possibly understand why I do what I do?” Job concedes a few chapters later, saying, “Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know.” There are obviously some problems with all this, because God being the omniscient Creator of universe has nothing to do with why Job is suffering. But put that aside for now.
What is the point to God turning his defense into an offense, a prosecution of sorts. It’s hard to say, but let me take a stab at it.
God is the Creator of Heaven and Earth. All that was, all that is, and all that shall be exists by the grace of God and his creative will. The key word in my last sentence is creative. Ask any artist and she will tell you that “creativity” is complex. Great art gives us insight into the beauty of life, but it also shows us its horror. Maybe there is a reason why more artists have painted depictions of Hell than Heaven. Some say that Heaven is hard to capture, hard to imagine. Hell is easier to see, because we see it all too often.
Yet God is an artist: showing us life in ways we cannot imagine, and with that comes the bad. As deconstructionist point out, we wouldn’t know the good if we didn’t know the bad. It is as if both are necessary, both are needed.
Maybe we just need to look closer. Like Rev. Edwards, maybe we need to be on our hands and knees, which, according to the twentieth century Swedish theologian Krister Stendahl, is where we should be anyway. Maybe this is where we are to be, in a physical state of prayer, of contrition looking at all of life: the good, the bad, and the in-between — realizing that this is where God is: not just in the moments of elation, but in the mess of existence as well. God is the crap: the hospital bed, the orphanage, the homeless shelter. Yes, that’s where God is. Edwards was onto something. And we need to be there too.
Evil exists, and we know it, but we don’t have to accept it. We do not have to become complacent. You’ll find it mixed in with the good stuff. Look closely. Root it out. You don’t need to run from it, but you don’t need to accept it either. Forge another way with God by your side. Choose God. Choose life.
Get on your knees. Look closely. You’ll see it. You’ll see it! Amen.