by Bishop Bill Gohl
This is for an especially important-to-me student I met at RoadTrip, "Kris," who’s struggling to hang on to this faith we share.
Many of us are afraid to say that we think about or wonder about such things - that we have questions or doubts about our faith. We’re afraid that we might be judged as not trusting God enough – or that we are somehow "less than" Christians when we doubt. Which is tragic, because there is often more faith in our doubts and questions than in our blind acceptance. And the truth is that some of the most devout and genuine people of faith I know have experienced some variation on this struggle: is there a God, why do bad things happen, does God care?
If God is so great, why do bad things happen to good people?
Mother Teresa once said, "When I see God, he has a lot of explaining to do!"
But until that day comes, we have to cope with life and all of its suffering and tragedy. We still have to live on through the bad and unfair circumstances on this side of the cross. And that’s where grace enters in again. Here. In us and through us.
To all of us who are experiencing some hard struggles in our lives, in our families, in our souls; Paul sums up our doubts, our fears and our questions with this small but mighty question: "What then?" What then can we say about these things?
And while we’re tempted to say, "Not much," Paul answers those, the broken and hurting places of our hearts, with the majestic promise that we are named and claimed as God's own in baptism.
He answers his own question. He says, "If God is for us, what can be against us?"
If God is for us, what can be against us? Paul is speaking strength and hope for the church, for this church, for you and for me and for all of us who dare to hope and keep faith in Jesus Christ, recognizing that we love others precisely because God loves us; each one of us beloved, gathered, bathed and fed with such a love that we are then scattered to carry these seeds of grace. As Archbishop Desmond Tutu puts it: "Ubuntu, I am because we are." That’s grace.
Life is full of circumstances and experiences that are totally unfair – and still we are challenged us to live through this question of bad things happening to good people, to not get stuck in our cynicism, to guard our hearts from becoming hard and our faith growing cold.
Don’t get me wrong. It is fair and healthy to ask these kind of questions and to wrestle with them privately and among friends – and the church should be a safe place to wrestle with our faith. And still I have seen too many people hold onto these questions almost in protest to the almighty, remaining stuck in that place – or using it as an excuse to stop believing all together.
And that's what Paul argues for. Do not let unfair pain and suffering define you or harden your heart. Instead of focusing on evil, look instead to the grace that abounds in you for the sake of our neighbor. Allow the goodness of God alive in his albeit imperfect people lead you back to the goodness of God alive in your heart. For ours is a loving God who knows something about suffering, a God who knows your needs, and to whom our weaknesses, he is no stranger.
And so, perhaps, the better question isn’t "Why do bad things happen to good people?"; but "What happens to good people when bad things happen?"
And that's what Paul is talking about. This life's pain and suffering, he describes it with powerful words like persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, sword - Paul and the early Christians were totally in touch with unfair suffering.
But then Paul turns us back to this spectacular promise and mystery in which our lives are intertwined forever: We are, he says, we will be, more than conquerors not by the sword, or a blind faith. We are more than conquerors through Jesus who loves us, and no matter how close evil and suffering come, Paul stakes his faith and claim, that his hope and ours is in Christ.
"For I am convinced," he says; "I am convinced that not anything. Not life or death, not height or depth, not angels, demons, governments. Nothing. Nothing can separate us from the love of God that is ours in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Evil and pain are never the will of God, and when we struggle and as our neighbor struggles: our God, by faith equips us to do good. Sometimes alone, but so often together, for Jesus' sake.
What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? Who will bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. – Romans 8:31-35, 37-38