When
Bad Things Happen to Good People
Sermon preached by the Reverend Patricia Farris
July 17, 2005
Scripture:
Daniel 3:13-18 and Romans 8:35-39
This
morning’s sermon is another in response to your suggestions
and requests. You have raised some of the hardest questions of all,
questions that have plagued theologians, philosophers, writers and
people of faith since the beginning of time. Why do horrible things
happen in this life? Why do people suffer? Why are humans capable
of unspeakable cruelty? Why does God allow these things to happen?
I can only offer a piece
of a response in one sermon and I assure you that these are themes
I have addressed on other occasions and will continue to confront.
This morning, I want to lift up one faithful response that will surely
leave many of you unsatisfied and still questioning. Because it’s
a response that turns the questions inside out, much as we discussed
last Sunday. It’s a response that moves from “why”
to “how will I live, even when I don’t know the answers?”
From seeking to blame God to living out a passionate alternative rooted
and grounded in faith.
Again, events of this week
pressed the questions in very challenging ways. We now know that the
bombings in London were perpetrated not by foreigners, but by British-born
terrorists, the first suicide-bombers in Europe. All the “why”
questions loom large in the face of the loss of innocent life and
this unleashing of a hatred so deep and desperate. Closer to home,
I sat with a young mother whose baby was born with certain conditions
that may prove to be life-threatening. Her sorrow and fear are almost
unspeakable as she awaits the outcome of innumerable medical tests
and procedures. Again, the “why” questions hit close to
home.
This much we know. God
would never choose to hurt a child, yet sometimes even children suffer,
in a world where we are made of mere flesh and blood, not bionic perfection.
God would never want the world to be torn apart by violence, yet all
too often, in this world of hate and suspicion and ignorance and power,
humans choose the destructive path. Like the Psalmists of old, like
Job himself, we ask “why”? But the Scriptures keep pointing
us to a different question: “How are we to live when we do not
know the answers?”
One answer comes
from the Book of Daniel. If you were listening carefully, I’m
sure many of you thought that the verses from the book of Daniel we
heard Debra read were somewhat obscure. Well, I need to confess to
you that Daniel is one of my all-time favorite
(continued...)
"When
Bad Things Happen to Good People" Sermon by Rev. Farris, July 17,
2005
books
of the Bible, full of great stories of faithfulness. Probably the most
famous would be the story of Daniel in the lion’s den. What makes
Daniel so great is that is an example of apocalyptic writing, that is,
Scripture written for desperate and beleaguered people. The Jews were
horribly oppressed by the vicious tyrant Nebuchadnezzar and they were
at the point of almost giving up hope that God would ever rescue them.
They must have screamed out “why” a million times without
ever getting a satisfactory answer from the silent heavens.
Knowing
this, the little verse we hear this morning is one of them most astonishing
and audacious statements of faith found anywhere in the Bible. It speaks
powerfully to the questions we raise today. Because in it, the three
faithful Jews, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, adamantly refuse to turn
from God to worship the King’s golden statue, even knowing that
this would result in their being tortured and killed, burned alive in
the fiery furnace. In the face of this, listen carefully again to what
they say to the tyrant’s face: “If our God is able to deliver
us, let him deliver us. But even if he does not, we will still not serve
your gods, O King, and we will not worship the golden statue.”
It’s
that “even if” that is the key here. The three faithful
men are proclaiming that they choose to remain faithful no matter what.
They may well not understand what God does or does not do. Their prayers
for rescue may or may not be answered in the way they would want. But
they refuse to put God to the test, just like Jesus at the time of his
temptation. They take responsibility for themselves, for their integrity,
and for their faithfulness. They say: whatever comes, we will remain
faithful to our God.
This
is not faith for beginners, folks. It’s probably the hardest and
most mature kind of faith there is. It goes beyond what is logical,
beyond what is fair, to a deep, deep place of unshakable determination.
Some
of you in business may have read a very helpful book by Jim Collins
entitled Good to Great. One of the lessons Collins teaches business
leaders is an insight gained from the story of a prisoner of war that
he calls the Stockdale Paradox. It applies well to all of as well. “You
must maintain unwavering faith that you can and will prevail in the
end, regardless of the difficulties, AND at the same time, have the
discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality,
whatever they might be.” This is a definition of Christian faith
as well. While confronting the most difficult, the honest facts of our
current reality, in our lives and in this world, we choose to maintain
unwavering faith that God can and will prevail in the end.
I
want to tell a story this morning that I used last month in one of my
sermons in North Carolina, a story that speaks so powerfully to the
kind of faith I’m describing for when there are no answers, only
the determination to live with integrity. Some of you may already know
it, the story of a man now known to the world as “The Cellist
of Sarajevo” from Central Europe. Vedran Smailovic, 37 years old,
was principal cellist of the Sarajevo Opera Company, a Muslim man deeply
committed to the rich beauty of a cosmopolitan, (continued...)
"When
Bad Things Happen to Good People" Sermon by Rev. Farris, July
17,
2005
multi-ethnic,
multi-racial
Yugoslavia, where Serbs and Croats, Muslims and Catholics were friends,
neighbors, intermarried, and created a society of tolerance, learning
and art.
But
war came. Neighbors turned on neighbors. Hatred and suspicion took
hold. Serb troops took position on the hills surrounding the center
of the city of Sarajevo and shelled it regularly.
On
May 27th, 1992, a bakery in Sarajevo had flour and so was making bread
and distributing it to the starving, war-shattered people. At 4 p.m.,
a long line of hungry people stretched into the street. Suddenly,
a shell fell directly into the middle of the line, killing 22 people
outright. Smailovic, who lived just a hundred yards away, was driven
by his anguish into action, and so he did the only thing he could
do. He made music.
Every
day at 4 p.m. precisely, Mr. Smailovic would put on his full formal
concert attire, and walk out of his apartment into the midst of the
battle raging around him. He would place a little camp stool in the
middle of the bomb-craters, and play a concert to the abandoned streets
while bombs dropped and bullets flew all around him. Day after day
for 22 days, one day for each man, woman and child killed, he made
his unimaginably courageous stand for human dignity, for civilization,
for compassion, and for peace.
As
though protected by a divine shield, he was never hurt, though one
of his darkest moments came one day when taking a little walk to stretch
his legs; his cello was shelled and destroyed in the very spot where
he had been sitting.
News
wires around the world picked up the story of this extraordinary ordinary
man, playing his cello defiantly in the face of bombs, death and ruin.
A fellow cellist later wrote: “[His cello] became the mightiest
weapon of them all.”
Only
a person of deep faith can face head on into the pain and sorrow of
this world and draw from a deep, deep taproot of assurance and conviction
that wrong and suffering do not have the final word. That God, that
Allah, does not will suffering or violence on his people. That people
of faith must persevere with love and compassion even if we do not
understand. That the answers have to do with how we choose to live,
the relationships we will not let go, the pain we will bear. That
everything finally depends on our remaining true to what is beautiful
and just and lasting and true.
Even
when we cannot understand the mind of God, we put our trust in the
faithfulness of God, whose heart is pure love. Over and over and over
again, we must choose to live the truth that defines us people of
the resurrection: love always triumphs in the end. And so, we choose
to hold steady, doggedly insisting, as the apostle Paul proclaimed
“that neither
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"When
Bad Things Happen to Good People" Sermon by Rev. Farris, July
17,
2005
death,
nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to
come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, or anything else in all creation,
will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our
Lord.”
This
is the faith into which we baptize our new baby sister, Lainey, this
morning. May our lives witness to her a faith that is stubborn and
determined and bold, that she may grow into the wisdom and the courage
she will need to live in this world as a disciple of Jesus Christ.
AMEN.
© Patricia Farris, 2005. Permission is given for brief quotation
with attribution. All other rights reserved.
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