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Sermon for Sunday, January 28, 2010


“Haiti, Tragedy and God

Lessons Learned…so far”

Romans 8:31-39; Revelation 11:15

“Leave God…out of the discussion about Haiti” stated the second page headline in Kathleen Parker’s syndicated column. She was reacting to the public comments made byevangelist Pat Robertson who connected the earthquake in Haiti to the wrath of God and the curse of Satan.  Both comments missed the mark.

The tragedy in Haiti is of a magnitude that I cannot comprehend it. I watch the news coverage and see it and still cannot imagine it.  When Hurricaine Katrina hit Louisiana several years I had the same emotional response…complete lack of comprehension. I, along with a number of you, saw the devastation in Louisiana and it was still too powerful to take in. Can you wrap your mind and heart around 200,000 plus being killed in a tsunami a few years ago, several thousand on 9/11, hundreds by Katrina, and now possibly as many as 200,000 perishing in Haiti and over a million being homeless? Those are just a few too memorable tragedies of a few years.

Haiti is the poorest nation in the western hemisphere. It is a place where malnutrition is widespread and less than half the population has access to clean drinking water on a good day and then came January 12 and January 20 when earthquakes rocked that little country. And the quake respected no person and the devastation and death toll continues to climb.

Pat Robertson says the Haitians were paying for their “pact with the devil.” And another would say “leave God out…”  I cannot park myself in either camp. You must know as I have said to you before that when I interpret scripture I do so through the person of Jesus Christ.  We’ve gotten cliché “ish” and it was popular not long ago the wear bracelets and tee shirts that ask, “What Would Jesus Do?”  WWJD.  That really isn’t a bad question to ask in life. I have a hunch that if the Christian community even remotely asked such a question we would be a better world.

How do gospel people respond to such tragedies? My first response has to do with what I have learned about life and about God.

You see there are some things that I have learned across the years. Life is so very fragile. We may have no more days to live; today may be the last day. It is the fragile nature of life that reminds me that as a Christian that I must take advantage of the time and opportunities that I have in life for gospel good. I do not choose to do good just to get me into heaven (although I want to go to heaven), I do it because I believe that living the gospel, being like Jesus, having an active faith is how I am to live. The Apostle would say it like this, “hate what is evil, hold fast to the good, rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer, be generous to the needy, practice hospitality.

It is within the fragile nature of life that I believe we are live out our faith with passion and love. It is the 25th chapter of Matthew’s gospel that Jesus shared words that can help us live a faith life…”I was hungry and you gave me something to eat…

thirsty…drink…

stranger…invitation…

naked….clothes…

sick….visited.”  In some way you and I can do gospel good for those people in Haiti that we will never know. Our prayers, our financial resources, and possibly the opportunity to “go” to the very “least of these” will be gospel living.

I have learned that we are all part of the human community and we are at the mercy of nature. Wind, fire, water, quakes have since the beginning devastated the natural and human communities. Jesus nailed it when he said in Matthew 5:45 “the rain falls on the just and the unjust.” Such tragedies are not the judgment of God, but are simply the fates of humans living on planet earth. The sun shines on us when we are the most wicked and the quakes rumble even among the most righteous.

I have learned that God gets credit for things He does not do. There was a time when I would say that in the face of pain and sorrow and tragedy something like “God is in control so this must be God’s will.”  It was a way of defending God, like He needed defending by the likes of me. And it did not take me long to realize that if I kept on saying that everything was God’s will, then I was going to have to be willing to attribute to the will of God some things that were not only terrible and tragic, but also violent and mean. Early on I had to stop saying in the face of tragedy, “God is in control so this must be God’s will.”  Rain falls on too many just people to affirm that.

There was a time when I would say, “God makes no mistakes regardless of how tragic this or that may be.” You see if I make that kind of statement in the midst of the storm I am implying that the tragedy is something God did. I do believe without a doubt, no hesitation, no second thoughts that our God is a perfect God. He makes no mistakes.  But if I say in the face of a catastrophe or untimely death, “This is tragic, but God makes no mistakes,” I am by implication saying this is something God did.

I couldn’t go to Haiti and say that to those folks who had lost it all…family members and material possessions. I couldn’t go to Haiti and even whisper those words, “this is tragic, but God makes no mistakes.”  Does that mean that I think God made a mistake in sending an earthquake to Haiti? No, It means that I don’t think God sent the earthquake at all. Could he have stopped it?  I am sure. Why didn’t God stop it? I am not sure. Did God send it?  I am sure not.

I don’t believe God makes mistakes. His perfection is the only perfection there is. For us/me to say that God makes no mistakes in the context of tragedy is misleading unless we believe that God is directly responsible for the tragedy.

There was a time when I would have said, “This is tragic, but God won’t put any more us than we can bear.” I then realized that if I adhered to that thinking it was an implication that God “puts it on us.”  What about I Corinthians 10:13? You know, the verse that says, “No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful and God will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but when you are tempted, God will also provide a way out so that you may be able to endure it.”

Context is important. This verse is not about tragic suffering, but about temptations to sin. We have shortened that verse many times by saying, “God won’t put any more on us than we can bear.” I cannot embrace that thinking either. If I say that I am suggesting to you that God is by His own purpose and design putting on us the disease, tragedy, earthquake that is tearing life apart. That does not square with my view of God with the Jesus in the Bible.  You remember I said a moment ago that I must interpret scripture through the person of Jesus. It is also through Jesus I get my best picture of God. I just cannot say anymore of those words that imply God puts on us, aims at us or sends to us the tragedies of that tear apart our lives.  Those words just don’t square with the God I see in Jesus Christ.

So what do we say? There are words to say. There is something to say in the face of tragedy and loss. I cannot tell you what to say, but I can tell you what I say.

And I do look at the scriptures, like that passage from Romans 8:31-39. Paul asks the question, “What shall we say about these things?” And he answers the question: “If God is for us, who is against us?”  That is something to say, “God is for us and with us, not against us and not away from us.”

And then there is something else I can say from the scriptures. I can say that God will have the last word. I say that because of what I hear in John’s Revelation. In fact, the entire book of Revelation is captured in that one verse from 11:15, “The kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our God and of God’s Christ and He shall reign forever and ever.”

For those who first heard those words in the late first century that meant they must not give up, because Emperor Domitian’s oppressive kingdom would fade from the scene and God’s goodness would triumph. For the rest of us, it means that ultimately, finally, all the hurtful and painful and tragic kingdoms of this world, those kingdoms that seek to hold us down and hold us under and hold us back will be swallowed up into the kingdom of our God and He will reign forever and ever. It is God who gets to have the final say.

It does not mean that the journey will be easy and smooth. Just ask the people of Haiti and every other place that devastation has visited. Just ask those in our congregation who have faced sadness, illness, tragedy. God never promised that the journey would be easy and smooth. He promises presence and ultimate victory. In fact, just ask God. It was His son who also suffered an early and unjust death. He understands.

In the face of Haiti and all the Haitis that will come wherever they may be around the world or at our doorsteps, if we must do anything, do good. Give our resources, pray fervently, go if possible, love always.  And if we must say anything and sometimes it is better to be quiet but if we must say anything, say words of truth. Say words that will ring true even in the darkest of nights….God is with us.

                             God is for us.

                                       And some day, some where, some how, God will have the last word.  Amen.

(Insights from Charles Poole, Time Magazine and Ethics Daily)

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First Baptist Church, Ashland
800 Thompson Street
Ashland, VA 23005

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  9:45 a.m. –  Sunday School
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