What is in Kelvin's Head?

Why does God allow suffering?

01/03/2016

Why does God allow suffering?

Here’s my answer in the form of a sermon.

To be strictly honest, I’m not sure that it is particularly my answer. I think it may be the only answer.

And I’m moved to have seen that this has been shared by people since I preached it and has been avidly watched in New Zealand. It has also, apparently been used by a religious studies teacher today to engage with Higher Religious, Moral and Philosophical Studies students in a school in Glasgow.

This is a church which helps people to articulate questions.

Not just little questions but big questions.

I hope that we can help people to answer questions too, but in a way I’m more concerned that we keep building this place as a place where good questions can be asked and articulated.

Good questions. Big questions. Questions that matter.

That was a part of the diocesan pilgrimage days that we have had over the last couple of weeks welcoming friends from around the diocese. A key part of the day was gathering the questions. Indeed, one of the things that I’ve learned from working with Cedric is how important it is to devise processes for gathering questions and allowing people to give voice to what matters to them.

We’re now running God Factor 12 or 13 or something like that. I’ve started to lose count.

But one question keeps coming up – I think it has come up in most if not all the God Factor session at one time or another.

And it is some variation on one of the questions that is behind the gospel reading for today.

Why does God allow suffering?

Why does God allow bad things to happen?

Why do disasters happen and what is God’s part in it?

Why does God let people suffer? Make people suffer? Allow suffering at all?

And in the gospel reading this morning we have an attempt to answer that question.

I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s only one real answer to that question and that Christians keep on asking the question because they don’t like the answer but it is the only one that exists.

In this morning’s gospel reading we get the same and only answer that I can give to the question. But then we get a wee story tagged on the end.

And maybe the story is interesting.

Firstly, Jesus is asked about the Galileans who have been killed by Pilate. Were they worse than other Galileans?

No he says, but then says, “Repent, or you will die as they did”.

Then he remembers 18 people killed in a disaster when the tower of Siloam fell on them. Were they worse than all the others in Jerusalem?

Why do disasters happen to some people?

Why does God allow suffering?

No, he says, but then repeats, “Repent, or you will die as they did”.

So, does repentance stop you getting killed then Jesus?

The question lingers on the lips of people through the centuries. If you put things right will God will that stop bad things happening to you.

The trouble is, he’s already answered that. No, he has said clearly – the ones killed by the tower were no worse than the ones who were not killed. Repentance doesn’t stop bad things happening to you.

So why does he tell them to repent?

Well, I think it is because repentance isn’t a way to stop death, it is a way to bring life.

And that’s maybe why we read this difficult gospel in Lent rather than at some other time of the year.

Repentance, metanoia, turning around – it is good for us to turn ourselves around. Good for us to change. Good for us to put things right. It is life enhancing to take stock – to stop, to work out where we are going wrong and to turn towards what it good; to turn towards God.

Will it make bad things stop happening – well it might make us stop doing bad things, but no, it won’t make suffering come to an end

The Buddha said life is suffering. Jesus says take up your cross and follow me.

Part of having a mature grown up faith is accepting that this is just the way life is – being alive means knowing suffering and also knowing that it doesn’t seem to come fairly or equally. There’s a randomness to life that we can’t fathom and it won’t make sense even if we project it onto God and talk as though God afflicts us.

God never afflicts us. God loves us.

Bad things happen but not from God.

God still loves us.

Terrible things happen unfairly to some rather than others.

And God goes on loving us even as we rage about how unfair life is.

But Jesus isn’t finished there. He tells us this perplexing story about a man with a fig tree that won’t produce figs.

“Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?”

His gardener replies – ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’”

What on earth do we make of that. We never find out whether the tree ends up cut down or not? We never find out whether it bears fruit or dies? We never find out who the gardener or the man are supposed to be.

People say Jesus was good at storytelling but this time there’s no plot – no development, no conclusion.

Just the image of a tree that isn’t growing and a gardener who believes in second chances.

And the smelly reality of what they used to fertilize their trees with in those days.

Our translation describes it as manure but there are other rather earthy words that could be used.

You want my learned interpretation of this passage?

You want to know what I think Jesus might have been trying to convey in telling this story – a fragment, surely only a fragment of which survives in our gospel today.

It is a free translation and a flight of the imagination to be sure, but I think he’s saying this.

You grow best when the manure is piling up around you.

God loves you there just as much as anywhere.

You grow nearer to God when you just can’t seem to shake off the dung.

God loves you whether you smell of heaven or the “earth” from which you were made.

And, yes, oh yes, you grow most when you are in the shit.

God loves you anyway.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Christianity, providence, randomness, suffering, theodicy

11 responses to “Providence and Vocation for Liberals in Public Life”

David Evans

29/06/2015

I was one of the Lib Dems who did foresee the calamity in 2015 and actively campaigned to get the party to change leader – after 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014 it wasn’t difficult for anyone to see, but it was difficult for many nice Lib Dems to own up to the fact that they had allowed it to happen. I failed, but I don’t think it was part of anyone’s plan that I did (except possibly Ryan Coetzee and a few other true believers).

There’s a lot in your points I can agree with, particularly regarding the naivety of referring to God’s plan, when many Christian’s have a view that his/hers/its plan is to let us get on with it and find our own way to salvation. However, the most interesting question is when you say “The trouble is, these are not side issues, these are my rights.” Do you really mean that you have the right to force someone else to marry you who doesn’t want to and believes it is wrong, even though you have the right to and can get someone else to do the same job for you? Do individuals have the right to insist on being married by the registrar of their choice, or just the right to get married? Are you not perhaps just a bit assuming that your tree is that bit taller than the other guy’s?

Reply
1. Kelvin
  
  29/06/2015
  
  I think that people should be able to expect individual people who represent the state not to discriminate against them in any of the protected categories. I think that the equal rights tree is bigger than my tree and the registrar’s tree.
  
  I don’t claim that individuals should be able to force registrars of their choice to marry them, not least because I don’t think it is a very real question – few people want to be married by someone who doesn’t want them to be married. I do think that local authorities have not simply the right but the duty to remove public officials who can’t serve every member of the public due to their personal prejudices.
  
  Reply
  1. David Evans
    
    30/06/2015
    
    I think you are rather changing your ground here from your original piece. You started with “The trouble is, these are not side issues, these are my rights.”
    
    You have now moved onto “I think that people should be able to expect individual people who represent the state not to discriminate against them in any of the protected categories.” So we now have a right to expect, but only against a person who works in the public sector, and even if it is against that person’s conscience and only if you are in a specially protected category.
    
    It gets even more tenuous then as you accept when you then say “I don’t claim that individuals should be able to force registrars of their choice to marry them.” So the right is not to a person wanting to be married at all.
    
    Finally we get “I do think that local authorities have not simply the right but the duty to remove public officials who can’t serve every member of the public due to their personal prejudices.” So the right is not to an individual at all, so definitely not “your rights” but to a public sector organisation. Hardly a human right, more of an employer’s right by your own statements.
    
    I rather think that your equal rights tree, however high you think it is, has decidedly peculiar roots.
    
    Reply
    1. Graham Evans
      
      05/07/2015
      
      David, I thought most liberals accepted the view that in the provision of services to the general public, whether provided by the public sector or private sector, a policy of non-discrimination was an essential ingredient of a progressive society. I accept that there is a notable exception to this rule in terms of the provision of abortion, but this arises from the broad range of medical procedures undertaken by one type of doctor or another. Surgeons are specialised medical practitioners, as are nurses who assist them, so it is most unlikely then anyone who opposed abortion on conscience grounds would actually be faced with having to refuse to conduct an abortion. The provision of most services to the general public is also a specialist activity, and no-one forces people to engage in any particular activity. The idea that a registrar should be able to opt out of undertaking a civil gay marriage represents the thin edge of a dangerous wedge. If such people wish to opt out of doing so, then they should act as part of a religious community, such as a deacon in Anglican Church, which has the legal power to conduct religious marriages, are still recognised by the State.
      
      Reply
      1. David Evans
        
        18/07/2015
        
        Quite simply Graham I disagree with your view that this is a level of discrimination in the provision of a public service of anything like the scale you imply makes it essential that every individual has to comply with it. The “go with it or get out” philosophy demanded of the state by so many in pursuit of their personal view of their rights is to my mind a greater threat to liberty than the fact that Fred or Freda don’t agree with something and don’t want to do it but George, Georgina, Harry, Harriette etc etc etc etc can do it instead. Ultimately you aren’t stopping someone from exercising their right; you are preventing someone from imposing their requirement on someone else.
        
        However, I note Kelvin hasn’t responded to my substantive point and I await that with interest.
Iain Brodie Browne

02/07/2015

Firstly thank you for your posting.
I have been expressing my concern elsewhere that the main voices we have heard in the debate about Tim’s faith have been firstly from those who think that it wholly a private matter and because his opinions are sincerely held and are derived from his faith the rest of us should back off and secondly those who seem to imply that having a religious faith at all is a negative factor. Until your contribution I am not aware that anyone has directly addressed the issue from different Christian understanding.
I cut my political teeth at the end of the 1960s opposing the all ‘white’ rugby and cricket tours from South Africa. The dominant voices from the churches were from Trevor Huddleston and David Sheppard. They effectively contested the assertions of those who told us (and they did) that apartheid was part of God’s plan.
Earlier in that decade Michael Ramsey spoke up clearly in support of what was then called homosexual law reform. David Steel, who pushed through the 1967 Act did so at a time when he was regularly introducing Songs of Praise.
I regret that equal marriage and the removal of other discriminations against gay people –including the issue you raise about Registrars- have not been as effectively championed by Christians as those earlier reforms. It is fair to say that in the minds of those who you describe as ‘decent people in society’ Christians are seen as opposing these reforms. The priority for the churches appears to be to gain protection for those who oppose such reforms. Imagine if that had been the approach to apartheid.
My own experience gives me hope that things are changing. Our local church got a new vicar who immediately began to pray for the defeat of the Equal Marriage legislation, got up petitions and lobbied. His views on women priests were no more in tune with ‘decent society’. In common with many churches these matters had not really been properly discussed. It was heartening how many members did openly contest his views and a significant portion of the congregation felt so strongly the eventually relocated to other churches. There is a good deal more support for liberal values amongst church goers than is popularly conceived.

My view is much the same as expressed in the Independent’s editorial this morning which endorsed Tim but added the rider that : ‘It will be for Mr Farron to make clear to party members, the public at large, and this newspaper, that his faith can indeed be reconciled with a liberal view on matters of birth, marriage and death.’ If faith is the opposite of certainty then I have enough to believe that can be achieved but if would be of assistance not only to Tim but to others struggling to reconcile their faith with liberal views if more church leaders provide a Christian narrative as effectively as did Michael Ramsey and Trevor Huddleston did in their day.

http://birkdalefocus.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/influencial-divine-former-libdem-ppc.html

Reply
Andy

18/07/2015

Personally, as a non-Christian, I find the attack on Tim Farron’s Christian faith distasteful, even disturbing. With the issue of gay marriage, something I wholly support, it is clear to me that Farron was trying to protect freedom of religious thought whilst also legislating for LGBT equality. There is nothing illiberal about that. Freedom of religion is one of the most fundamental human rights, and something liberals should defend. Any definition of liberalism which does not include freedom of conscience, is one I have no interest in supporting.

Reply
1. Kelvin
  
  18/07/2015
  
  Thanks for commenting, Andy.
  
  I’m not aware of people attacking Tim Farron’s faith. I am aware of people questioning whether someone who apparently has anti-gay views is an appropriate person to represent the Lib Dems as leader.
  
  When it comes to the vote about the registrars, that can either be interpreted as defending religious thought or as defending discrimination. I come to the latter view because if I substitute a couple who are gay for a couple being say mixed race (something many people would once have objected to on religious grounds) then I see clear discrimination at work.
  
  It is a strange day when people are arguing (as some are) that the leader of the Liberal Democrats has the right to hold distasteful views about gay people in private so long as he defends their rights in public. He does have that right but not the right to be taken seriously as well.
  
  Reply
  1. David Evans
    
    18/07/2015
    
    Sadly there have been many who have been attacking Tim’s faith, some directly and some more with disdain. Comments such as listening to his sky fairy are not uncommon. Also portraying his views as apparently anti-gay are without doubt over egging it massively as opposed to the simple fact that as a liberals we should all have views which take into account the “balance of fundamental values of liberty, equality and community” and that this inevitably leads to differences of judgement on lots of individual issues, but do not undermine the fundamental decency and liberalism of many people like Tim, who have proved it over a great many years.
    
    Reply
David Evans

13/11/2015

Kelvin,

It is a great disappointment to me that you have not come back to me with any further reasoning in response to my post on 30 June 02:19. Have you changed your views, reinforced them with new vigour or simply moved on?

Reply
1. Graham Evans
  
  13/11/2015
  
  David, perhaps you could clarify what your substantive point is. Having reread the whole thread it’s certainly not clear to me.
  
  Reply