Thought for Today
Genesis 1:10 And God saw that it was good.
Psalm 8:3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; 4 what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? 5 Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor.
Luke 18:19 Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.
1 Corinthians 13:12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.
Why do bad things happen to good people? Why do good things happen to bad people? Many of us have asked these questions, maybe repeatedly. I know that I cannot fully address this in the few words I offer each morning; but, these questions are on my mind this morning.
First, I believe that we incorrectly limit our consideration of this issue. We ignore the obvious fact that good things also happen to good people, and bad things also happen to bad people. The issue of good and bad is much more complicated and complex than we want to take into account. In May I wrote, “In seminary, I learned about Gotfried Leibniz and his realization that we are incapable of reconciling the idea of an omnipotent God, a loving God and the existence of evil.” Leibniz was correct!
Christians especially are frustrated in dealing with the existence of evil. We believe in an omnipotent God. We believe in a loving God. As young children, most of us learned John 3:16, “For God so loved the world . . .” We identify ourselves by the name of God’s Son, Jesus, the Christ. We have often heard the Creation Story and almost assuredly noted the repeated “And God saw that it was good.” Unless we are totally “off the grid,” we can look at the world around us and notice lots of “not good.” Many of us have wondered, could eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil really have made everything go wrong?
Theologians and clergy have long grappled with the issue and developed all sorts of doctrines, dogmas, theories and explain-aways to try to answer those questions about good and evil. And, like all the predictions about the apocalypse, they have all been inadequate and ultimately wrong. All have ignored Jesus’ own words, “Matthew 5:44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.”
In our attempts to understand why good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people, we reduce God’s Creation to a vast system of rewards and punishments. We learned as young children that we were rewarded for good behavior and punished for bad behavior. At home or at school, the same system prevailed. But, as children, we probably noticed that the same (other!) children consistently and continuously misbehaved. Punishment did not deter their misbehavior.
Things got even more complex when we emerged into adulthood and took our places in society. The same (other!) people consistently and continuously misbehaved. Punishment did not deter their misbehavior. That sun rose on the evil and the good; that rain fell on the righteous and the unrighteous. Some days it even seems that the evil are sitting in all the shade and the unrighteous have stolen all the umbrellas.
After banging my head fruitlessly against that brick wall of Leibniz’s observation, I have decided to go in a different direction. Rather than focusing on the inequity of the distribution of good things and bad things, I choose to focus on the good things in my own life. I will only think about all the ‘good stuff’ going on in my own life. I choose to listen to the words of Jesus, to aspire to being a child of my Father in heaven. Some days that whole “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” thing is difficult. Some days I fall flat on my face. But, I am surrounded by a lot of good things: my family, my family of faith, the nation in which I live, the circumstances of my life.
I choose to remember Paul’s words as I live and look toward the future, “now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.” I choose to worship the One Who Knows Me, our Creator God.
Stay safe, choose wisely, trust God,
Pastor Ray