Westerners awoke to the horrible news of earthquake and tsunami damage in northern Japan, with MSNBC's 'copter capturing images of flood waters raging over farmlands as drivers raced to evacuate. We hovered a while over these images, listening to descriptions of how tsunami warning systems work, looking at maps estimating time of impact around the Pacific basin, running through our mental address books to think if anyone we know is in harm's way. We imagined for a moment what it's like for buildings to shake for half and hour - or relived the experience - and maybe thought about the implications for humanitarian aid, basic modern services, economic impact.
Then the day goes on for us with meetings and school and errands and appointments and deliveries. Pastors and Rabbis and Imams are mulling over what to say to their congregations and, I'm sure, the comments will run the gamut from a "God's Judgment" kind of railing against unholy pagans to an "It's Not God's Fault" protectionist position delivered to people looking for someone to blame. There will be calls to prayer, calls to action, calls to God to relent and show mercy and calls to donate, all to bring order to the chaos and make sense of it all.
That is a dangerous practice to try to make sense of it all. It's an automatic theological reflex. Even humanists and atheists engage in it. Humanists try to make sense of it by analyzing stuff that can be measured. Atheists try to make sense of it by issuing statements that illogical tragedy is evidence that there is no such thing as god. And faithful people try to make sense of it through ancient stories turned into metaphors and didactic scriptural references.
But the thing we've got to remember is that this doesn't make sense. It can't. It won't. Not to the people whose homes are gone and who don't know if the ones they love are okay, injured or alive. It will always be chaos. I believe the push to make it make sense will only make things worse. There will never be a satisfactory answer to profoundly simple questions like "Why me?" for the suffering or "Why not me?" for survivors.
Rational analysis and theological musings are not a satisfactory salve. Suffering doesn't need explanations. Suffering needs compassionate relationship, another who understands pain inexpressible, an ear to listen to wailing and confusion. Suffering needs a person to hold on to while finding a new way to exist in a world with such profound changes.
Now, to jump from here to the purpose of this blog - it's not just in the face of suffering that trying to make sense is actually making a mistake. Appeals to logic to explain such oblique concepts as "sin" and "atonement" and "sanctification" in a post-Christian world may be well-meaning in their attempt to bridge the gap from biblically illiteracy to faithfulness, but these appeals mostly succeed in emphasizing that there is one more barrier between the believer and the theologically befuddled, one more obstacle for them to overcome before coming to faith.
Those outside the church need what suffering people need - a compassionate relationship. They need to know that Jesus is on their side, is their friend, and that his love is not a reward one receives only after grasping basic theological concepts. His love is boundless, grace-filled and available to all.
May our relationship with Jesus speak more loudly and clearly than our confessions and creeds. May our relationship with Jesus bring this One we love into relationship with others. As a child finds comfort in the arms of a parent, may all those suffering find comfort in the arms of God.
Finally, to my sisters and brothers in the pulpits, may we learn to show God's love better than we can explain God's love.
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