I understand this is the 30th anniversary year of the game show Family Feud and that John O’Hurley is the current host but do any of you old cusses like me remember the game show when it was hosted by Richard Dawson? I can still hear him say, “Survey says . . .”
I’ve asked two teams of four people to do a little modified Family Feud as a way of introducing today’s sermon which is the last sermon in the Great Debates In The Bible series.
Be forewarned some of the Wedgewoodians get a bit wild, a tad rowdy when it comes to playing games. I’m not mentioning any names like Elaine.
Team number 1 is made up of Mike and Elaine Banister Frank Prevatt and Gary McLamb, and the captain is Elaine.
[Applause.]
Team number 2 is made up of Mike Sigmon, Emily Tadlock, Billie Hutchison and Debbie Kidd, and the captain is Mike Sigmon.
[Applause.]
Here are the rules. Each team gets one point for a correct answer and one point subtracted for a wrong answer. The team that gets the final answer gets two points. In case of a tie, the tie goes to the team that likes sermons the most. Each team gets 20 seconds to give an answer which will be provided by the captain. The game shall not exceed ten minutes. I’ve appointed someone good at Math, Marge Fowler, to be the official scorekeeper and timer.
We’ll flip a coin to see which team goes first.
O.K., Here’s the question. At Youdebate.com there is a category for religion debates. Name the religion debates currently in the religion debate section of Youdebate.com.
[Answers below.]
Founding Fathers debate Creation vs. Evolution debate Is America A Christian nation debate School prayer debate School vouchers debate Separation of Church and State debate 10 Commandments in the classroom debate Shroud of Turin debate Is it the burial cloth of Jesus?
Congratulations to the Elaine Banister team with a whopping -4 score.
Well, when it comes to religious debates in our country, in our culture, in our society, there’s never a shortage of topics, is there? That’s also true when it comes to the Bible. Yes, the Bible is just full of debates, disagreements, conflicting positions, arguments.
For this series on debates in the Bible I’ve focused primarily on the Old Testament utilizing the work of Israel Knohl, professor of Bible at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. In his book The Divine Symphony: The Bible’s Many Voices, Knohl observes that the editors of the Bible recognized that God speaks in many voices and people hear God in many ways. They did not want to mar the divine revelation so they created a pluralistic book. Knohl goes on to point out that all rabbinic literature follows this example and is based on debate. Contradictory views, opposing views, different views are in some instances even put side by side. The main exception in Judaism to this debate practice is the Qumran sect which harmonized the Torah.
I’ve met more than a few modern Qumranites who smooth over or deny problems in Biblical interpretation, haven’t you?
Interestingly, none of the religious debates at Youdebate.com are debates found in the Bible. We live thousands of years away from Biblical times. The world has changed and we have changed.
Well, some of us have changed and some of us haven’t. I’ve run into people who haven’t changed in a long, long time. The last major change they had was in the color of their pacifier. The last change they had was a change of Osh Kosh children’s clothing. The last change they had seemingly was a diaper change. To understand these people, you have to set your watch back 300 or more years. If you know someone like that, raise your hand.
The world we live in is not-----is not the world of Abraham and Sarah or King David or Amos or Hosea. We have new situations, new circumstances, new debates, but-----but, on the other hand, some of our debates are still the same. Some issues that were debated long ago are still being debated today. One such debate is a debate found in the Bible and I’d like for us to focus on it today. I’m referring to a debate which, unfortunately, more than likely has hit home with you, more than likely has played out in your mind and your life. It is the debate about suffering. Why do people suffer? What do good people suffer? Why do things happen like they happen? Why does life turn out like it does?
All of those questions were being asked in the sixth century B.C. E. when the Babylonians destroyed the kingdom of Judea, razed the Temple in Jerusalem, and exiled a sizeable portion of the populace to Babylon. The destruction raised doubts in the hearts and minds of many Judeans, especially in light of what had been a return to an untainted religious faith and purified worship during the time of Josiah. Imagine a big aisle walking at a Billy Graham crusade and you’ll get the picture. Of course, you know there is no such thing as an untainted faith but they believed they had one and that’s why their suffering was even more puzzling to them. Why do good people like us suffer? they asked.
A debate ensued, a debate about the reason for their suffering. Some people in the generation of the destruction claimed they were being punished for the sins of their fathers. They saw the destroyed temple. They saw the exile and they claimed that they were being punished because their fathers were the contemporaries of King Manasseh who had placed an idol in the Temple.
The scroll of Lamentations reads: “Our fathers sinned and are no more, and we must bear their guilt.” (Lamentations 5:7)
But, as I said, there is a debate. Ezekiel takes issue with the idea that “parents ate sour grapes and their children’s teeth are blunted.” Ezekiel reports God as saying, “As I live, declares the Lord God----this proverb shall no longer be current among you in Israel. . . . The person who sins, only he shall die.” (Ezekiel 18:2-3)
O.K. you folk who want the Ten Commandments put in school classrooms, and I’m definitely not among you, listen up. Ezekiel in reporting God saying the person who sins, only he shall die, argues with the 10 commandments. Write that down. Ezekiel says one part of the Ten Commandments is very wrong. Exodus 20:5 instructs that God visits the sins of the fathers upon the children. Ezekiel says not so, not so at all.
And Jeremiah (Jeremiah 31:29-30) agrees with Ezekiel (Ezekiel 18) against the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:5).
But the plot thickens. The debate grows larger. The Chronicler has a different position. In 2 Chronicles we have the statement that Jerusalem was destroyed not because of the sins of Manasseh (who according to this source repented before his death), but on account of the transgressions of Zedekiah and his contemporaries. In other words, against Ezekiel and Jeremiah, the Chronicler agrees with Lamentations and the author of Exodus and the Ten Commandments about the next generations suffering because of the sins of the fathers, but-------but the Chronicler says the culprit is not Manasseh but is Zedekiah. You’ve got the wrong man, the Chronicler says. Put someone else in jail and you’ll have it right.
There’s one more piece to the debate. The author of Job also has a take on the problem of suffering. I’m not exactly sure what his take is. Job is portrayed as faithful. He suffers tremendously. He takes his case to God, defends himself. His so-called friends offer the idea that he is suffering because of his sin. Job continues to vehemently disagree. God speaks up out of the whirlwind. Job shuts up. What God says doesn’t really solve the matter of suffering, but Job repents. And amazingly God says at the end of the book that Job has said what is true but Job’s friends, the ones who have been defending God, have not spoken what is true. (Job 42:7)
Confused? You should be.
The Bible very rarely speaks in one voice. It definitely does not speak in one voice when it comes to suffering.
I have a modest proposal. I’d like to propose that we be very careful about explaining the suffering of other people. And we should be very careful in explaining our own suffering.
Now we all know there are consequences to our actions. My mother smoked for years and she struggled with emphysema the last years of her life. We know that if we speed or drive and drink there can be tragic consequences. We know that if we have unprotected sex we can get AIDS. We know that if we don’t nurture a loving and caring relationship with our partner the relationship will suffer. There are some consequences that can be tied directly to our actions or lack of action. We do suffer from our behaviors make no mistake about it. But-----but from my perspective there is another category of suffering for which there is no correlation between our actions and the pain we experience.
A case in point is Hurricane Katrina. At least 1,836 people lost their lives in Hurricane Katrina and the storm is estimated to have been responsible for $81.2 billion in damage, making it the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history.
Enter Repent America, an evangelical Christian group blaming the devastation of Hurricane Katrina on the Southern Decadence gay pride celebration traditionally held in the French Quarter of New Orleans.
Michael Marcavage, the director of Repent America, told his members it was no coincidence that the storm struck New Orleans just days before Southern Decadence, the city's annual gay pride celebration. "We take no joy in the death of innocent people," Marcavage--a former Clinton White House intern--told one reporter. "But we believe that God is in control of the weather. The day Bourbon Street and the French Quarter was flooded was the day that 125,000 homosexuals were going to be celebrating sin in the streets. We're calling it an act of God."
This is not the first time gays and lesbians were blamed for tragic events. In 2001, Jerry Falwell blamed homosexuals along with other such "sinners" as feminists, "abortionists," and the American Civil Liberties Union for the terrorist attacks in New York City. "I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen," he said on Robertson's television show, The 700 Club.
For argument’s sake let’s say Repent America and Falwell are right. New Orleans the sinful city got what it deserved but far more than New Orleans suffered from Hurricane Katrina. How does one explain the damage done to a chunk of the country known more for piousness, known more for so-called Bible-believing than paganism? After all, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama are Bible Belt red states.
Marcavage of Repent America had an answer. He said there were no innocent bystanders and that most of the victims of Hurricane Katrina erred by not standing up to the gay community.
Barry Keim, state climatologist for Louisiana and associate professor for Louisiana State University observes that such talk is scientifically ludicrous. Keim says he closely tracked Katrina and notes that the storm cut such a wide swath that it did not appear to be targeting any one segment of the Gulf region--or even the city of New Orleans itself. Scientists studying the storm have found no evidence that the storm exhibited signs of meteorological homophobia, he says. Furthermore, the French Quarter--the area most associated with Southern Decadence and the gay community--suffered less damage than other parts of the city. Keim commented, "If God is trying to punish us in some way, he sure blew it."
Listen, I’m all for debate. Debate school vouchers, whether the Founding Fathers wanted a Christian nation, whether students should be forced to listen to a Christian prayer in school, more than likely a fundamentalist prayer. Debate if you want whether the Shroud of Turin is Jesus’ burial cloth but please, please be careful about debating someone else’s suffering. The last thing suffering people need is your unsympathetic analysis of their suffering.
And I tell you something else they don’t need. They don’t need any glib statements about suffering from you or anybody else, including famous authors.
C. S. Lewis wrote, “God, who foresaw your tribulation, has specially armed you to go through it, not without pain but without stain.”
Not without pain, but without stain. Oh that helps.
Actually, I don’t find that very helpful at all. I can do without rhyming pain and stain. Please! Or have you heard the anonymous saying, “Suffering colors life, but you can choose the color.”? Well, I choose Carolina Blue and for the record even that wonderful color does not soothe the my suffering or the suffering of the world. Al Mohler, President of Southern Baptist Theological Serminary says, “Briars grow on trees.”
How idiotic!
Someone else has observed that “You can't have an omelet without breaking eggs.” (Utah Phillips, musician, in Hip Mama #20) Many more comments like that and I’m going to make sure your eggs get served with bad biscuits and scorched gravy.
Then there’s this horrible story, a story of a dear old saint, incurably ill, who was visited by a younger friend. "You are suffering very much, I am afraid," said the younger woman, trying to be helpful. "Yes," said the older woman, "but look." She held out her hands. "There are no nails there. He had the nails; I have the hope." She pointed to her head. "There are no thorns there. He had the thorns; I have the hope."
I think I’m going to vomit. So I didn’t die on a cross. So my suffering doesn’t count. It is of no significance.
I don’t think so!
And be forewarned if you ever say when a baby dies, “Well, God must have needed another angel.”------if you ever say that in my presence be forewarned I may have to slap you silly. Listen to me. There is suffering that has no name. There is suffering that has no explanation. There is suffering that deserves not a debate, but empathy and presence and active participation in healing of the one who is suffering.
Be careful. Be careful debating the suffering of others. And as for your own suffering, may it be infrequent and of small degree. But in all your suffering may you know the comfort of God and the care of this your faith community.
Print in pdf