Who hasn't heard about the supposedly ungodly Pacific Northwest? This morning, on the front page of Saturday's Oregonian, I read an article about a 68 year old Tigard woman and her 70 year old husband, medical professionals on their way to Haiti to help with the relief. This is so typical of the Portland area.
If Portland is such an ungodly place why is there 'always - always' such a willingness to help in times of disaster? Remember Katrina? Where does this willingness, this spirit to help others come from?
Am I a heretic because I believe God is more interested in whether or not we help each other than all our rhetoric regarding whether or not someone is a Christian? What is the parable of the good Samaritan all about?
I believe God is Spirit, I believe the Bible and I try to apply it to my life, but I also know we cannot put God on a shelf like we can and do the Bible.
Hundreds of years before Christ, Elihu confronted the same syllogistic reasoning we use today. Job must be suffering as punishment for sin. Even though Job disagreed with the conclusion of his three friends; Eliphaz, Zophar, and Bildad, he was helpless to argue with their premise or their logic.
Do we do that today? Do we think the way Eliphaz, Zophar, Bildad and even Job did? Do we look at those forced to live on the margins of life and unconsciously or consciously assume we are smarter, harder working, or simply a better person than they are? When through some accident or necessity we find ourselves driving through 'the wrong side of town' what do we feel? Maybe when some folks drive through our neighborhood they feel the same.
Jesus said the poor we will always have with us. Is this because of our propensity for taking a one up position on those we consider somehow less than us? That is an ugly question. Katie Skurja helped me realize it is a very appropriate question to ask ourselves because unfortunately, it is true of most, if not all of us.
What is it in our nature that strives for that one up position? We are getting better at not looking at the color of people's skin and making stupid assumptions, but what about the poor? What about those economically and socially restricted to a reservation? What about those who depend on the American Disability Act? What about the elderly? What about the unborn? Do we instinctively ... somehow think we are better than they are?
Learning to see people through the eyes of Christ is the great leveler. It strips away the economics, the education, the class, the genetics etc. Learning to see people through the eyes of Christ means we confront our original premise, the premise made by Job and his three friends; the premise that Elihu did not accept. When God confronted Job and his three friends what did God say to Elihu?
Elihu never said why God permitted Job’s suffering, but he did show that suffering may not be the consequence of sin. He pointed out that God's greatness, majesty, righteousness, justice and mercy will not fit into the box our assumptions have created.
Please do not hear me saying I do not believe in sin or its consequences. What I am saying is that Job is the perfect example of how his tragedy had nothing to do with what he did or didn't do. God said Job was righteous. That means that boil infested Job was in right relationship with God.
I was taught we are not supposed to read more into the Bible than what it says, but then I remember Jesus saying for those who can accept it; Elijah has come, referring to John the Baptist. Job 33:19-30 is an elegant response, not a definitive answer, to the question of pain and suffering.
Aren't our conclusions restricted to our original assumptions? How often have our conclusions been turned over when we discovered our premise; our assumptions, the projections we impose on other people are wrong? We do this to each other. Do we also do it to God?
I believe God loves Haiti. As for Portland, I love Portland and I believe God loves Portland too.
The follow ing day after I posted this I read this.
Comments
Ungodly and unreligious are two different things.
The religious tend to think that those of us without religion are lost souls.
The reality is most people are turned off by religion because they see what jerks it's made of some of the so called "believers". Then they know it doesn't work as promised.
I have no religion. That is to say I grew out of the need for such training wheels.
God realization cures spiritual blindness.
Belief belongs to those who remain blind.
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