Sam Bush, “Tell Me Why (Or, Making Sense of Suffering)”

My wife Maddy and I are traveling to Lisbon, Portugal in a few weeks to celebrate our 10th anniversary and we have divided our tasks appropriately - Maddy is researching hotels, restaurants and activities and organizing child care while we’re gone. I am reading a book about an earthquake that happened in Lisbon three-hundred years ago. We’re both doing our part.

Since I have your attention, let me tell you about the Great Lisbon Earthquake of 1755. Lisbon, a powerhouse of a city, was reduced to rubble in one day. Tens of thousands were killed, the city was in ruins, the economy devastated. But on top of that, the earthquake shook the world philosophically. People needed to make sense of the suffering. So what happened? Catholics blamed the earthquake on the Portuguese for their sinfulness. Protestants blamed the Portuguese for being Catholic (I’m sure, the Portuguese really appreciated everyone’s input?). Meanwhile, others developed a popular saying: “What is, is right,” meaning that God had ordained the earthquake and that people should accept it and move on.

In his famous work “Poem on the Lisbon Disaster,” the French philosopher Voltaire revealed that all of these answers were paper thin. To those blaming the Portuguese he wrote, “Did fallen Lisbon indulge in more vices than London or Paris, which live in pleasure?” To those saying “What is is right,” he wrote, “Come philosophers who cry, ‘All is well,’ the universe contradicts you. One day, all will be well — this is our hope. All is well today — that is the illusion.” Today, few of us would argue that all is well. But all of us, in some way or another, are searching for answers as to why.

Our need to explain tragedy and suffering is directly addressed in today’s gospel reading. The latest news story was that Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, sent his troops to murder his enemies while they were worshiping at the temple so that their blood mixed with the blood of their sacrifices (something right out of the Godfather!). People couldn’t reconcile that something so horrific could happen to pious, practicing Jews. Jesus is up to speed on his current events. He mentions another news story in which a tower in Jerusalem had fallen, killing eighteen people. The inevitable question is “Why?” Why would God allow this to happen? Why them and not others? Why him and not me? Why?

It is a question that can haunt a person’s life. Why did my parents have to get divorced? Why exactly were my 20’s so aimless? Why did I stay in that relationship for so long? Why are my kids struggling? Why haven’t I found a spouse or a job? Why can’t I catch a break?

If you gaze long enough into the abyss, the abyss will eventually gaze back at you. So, to fill the silence, it’s only natural to try to come up with some answers. This is why, after any natural disaster or national tragedy our first response is to figure out whose fault it is. When there’s no one to blame we spit out empty platitudes like “It could be worse” or “It is what it is.” Anything to fill the silence! Jerry Seinfeld, by the way, once said he’d rather have someone blow air into his face than have them say, “It is what it is.”

To make sense of our lives, we try to identify experiences as signs of divine favor or divine displeasure. Blessings are seen as rewards. Do you remember the song in The Sound of Music, “I Must Have Done Something Good.” Maria and Captain Von Trapp look into each other’s eyes and sing, “Here you are, standing there, loving me, whether or not you should. So somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something good.” Well, it’s a terrible song! They should have cut it. They think their love is a reward for good behavior, but, as our collect today confesses, we have no power within ourselves to help ourselves.

Jesus cuts down any correlation between what happens to you and how God thinks of you. “Do you think these people who died at the hands of Pilate and under the tower were worse offenders than you? No,” he says, “But unless you repent, you will perish just as they did." You see, he is taking a wrecking ball to their towers of self-righteousness. He’s saying, “If you think you earned the good things in your life, you’re mistaking yourself for God.”

You think your kids turned out well because you’re such a good parent? Repent! You think you had a great career because you’re a cut above the competition? Repent! You think you found someone because you’re God’s gift to the world? Repent! Any blessings that come our way are not rewards but gifts. It is not a result of your righteousness but of God’s mercy.

Likewise, we often perceive sufferings as punishments. When misfortune strikes, it’s instinctive to think “What am I doing wrong? Am I being punished?” But to see the events of our lives as either rewards or punishments is taking far too much credit. Your life has less to do with you than you think.

Jesus’ call to repent echo the only time the question “Why?” is answered in the Bible. After Job loses everything - his fortune, his children, his health - and demands an answer, God meets him as a raging storm. To Job’s surprise, God has questions of his own:

Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?

Tell me, if you have understanding.

“Have you commanded the morning since your days began

and caused the dawn to know its place,

“Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty?

Anyone who argues with God must respond.”

God’s defense is so profound that Job needs no convincing. “I lay my hand on my mouth,” he says. “I have spoken once, and I will not answer.”

God’s words may be harsh, but you know what’s far worse? Someone telling you “Everything happens for a reason.” Rather than shrugging your shoulders with an empty platitude, Jesus invites you to enter into the silence of not knowing and to throw your arms up in surrender to God.

And yet, even Jesus asks the question why. Several chapters later, he stands before Pontius Pilate in order to become his own tragic news story: Smalltown Prophet Crucified for Claiming to Be God. As he hangs on the Cross, utterly abandoned, he calls out, “Father, father, why have you forsaken me?” He is never given an answer. He dies without ever being told why. Because he asked “Why?” you are invited to do the same. But when you do, you will likely be given something far better than an explanation, but an answer that is far more personal.

The author Andrew Root was once researching people’s personal encounters with God for a book. One day he interviews a woman in her mid-30s who answers every question with a one-word answer, the constant phrase to excuse her rushed tone is that she’s a single mom. It’s a painful interview and it feels like a waste of time for both parties, but at the end, he asks her, “Rachel, have you ever had an experience where you felt so deeply ministered to that you were sure it was the very presence of Jesus Christ.” He says her whole disposition changed. She says the reason why she’s a single-mom is that her husband died suddenly on a routine business trip four years ago. The hotel clerk made the call to tell her that the housekeeping staff had found his body and asked her to fly out to Chicago to identify him. She looks down at the floor, sees her preschooler and her toddler and thinks “My life is over.”

She drops her kids off at her parents, gets on a plane, gets to O’Hare Airport, hails a cab, gives the cabby the business card with the morgue's address scribbled down because she can’t even talk, she’s just in a daze. When they arrive, the cabby parks the car but she doesn’t notice. She walks into the morgue and is taken to a side room. She says, “I stood there for a minute and a half, it felt like a day and a half.” Her husband’s body is wheeled out, under a sheet. And just as the sheet is being lifted, she feels a hand on her shoulder and an arm comes around the front with a water bottle and she starts to cry. And she said, “It was the cabby. It was the cabby.” She says, “I never felt more ministered to. I wasn’t sure how I was going to put my life back together but I knew that God had not abandoned me.”

In the earthquake of your own life, you may never get answers. But, as you wait in the terrifying silence of your confusion and despair, I pray you will hear God’s resounding answer in the Cross: “I will always be with you. I will never forsake you.” As the Psalms assure us:

Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change,

though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea,

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,

God is in the midst of the city; it shall not be moved;

Amen.