Thinking About Disaster

August 30, 2017

It’s a sad commentary on modern American life when it takes a tragedy the magnitude of hurricane Harvey to unite us even for a few moments. For the first time in months, we are hearing of something other than the continual sniping going on in Washington. Unfortunately, the blaming will probably soon pick up once again after the initial shock of the storm has subsided. 

In many circles, religious ones included, people ask, “Why?” What did the people in Houston and environs do to deserve such devastation? Sad to say, there will be no shortage of right-wing religious pundits telling us that it is God’s judgment on America for her many sins. I hope my prediction is a total miscalculation, but it won’t miss the mark completely. 

No less than Jesus Christ himself weighed in on these kinds of tragedies when his disciples asked him about certain Galilean Jews who had been slaughtered while in the very act of worship. The story is found in Luke’s gospel, chapter 13:

Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices.

Jesus answered, "Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.

Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish."

Jesus categorically denies that human suffering, whether caused by deliberate human depravity or merely by the too-ordinary misfortunes of life, is necessarily the judgment of God. Bad things happen to all people, as do good things. God makes his sun to rise on the evil as well as the righteous, the Scriptures declare. It’s how Jesus ends his little lesson however, that makes people nervous. It sounds like a condemnation, when in reality, it is a necessary warning. His call for repentance is his way of telling us that in light of the uncertainties of life of which he has just spoken, it is well for us to be ready now for the death that can come at any moment. In other words, live today as one ready to die. 

Those of us fortunate enough to live in middle-class America expect to live a full and long life. When life is cut short, we not only take it as a tragedy, but almost as a personal insult. “This shouldn’t happen to people like me,” we think. But often enough, it does. And if it doesn’t happen to us, it comes to people no less deserving of long life than we. Human history is full of sorrow and suffering, undeserved pain. We can try to explain it or explain it away, but it persists. Jesus was a realist. So he told us simply to be ready. I am grateful that he did. It doesn’t change the tragedy, but it changes how I deal with it when it hits me. And it cautions me to be careful how I think, talk, and act about tragedy that hits others.