Is The Lord In Our Midst Or Not?

[This post is a bit longer than some others. Forgive me, but I am trying to explain human suffering!]

The other day was not a good day for me. My car died for the 2nd time in about a month due to electrical issues that the dealership said were “fixed” – only to have the problem return. So I was scrambling to make alternative arrangements without a car. Of course in my haste, I spilled coffee on a document I needed, forgot some papers at home as I tried to catch a bus and dripped warm cream cheese onto my work pants as I tried to eat my bagel on the bus.

I sort of glanced upward and said, “Really? I don’t ask for much you know…”

Of course I can laugh at it now, and put it into perspective, but at the time, it caused me to complain. And believe me, on the scale of human problems, I fully realize that I am at the “nothing to complain about” end of things.

Yet complaining is something we all likely do on occasion.

In our first reading from Exodus today, the Israelites are complaining. But they’re not just inconvenience complaining (like I was). They are in a desperate situation. They are exhausted and tired and weary. They have no water. And they are pressing Moses to do something – to the point where Moses is starting to fear for his own safety. Sure they are free from the bondage of Egypt, but now they’re going to die in the desert!

The people start to question, “Is the Lord in our midst or not?” Another way we could say this is, “Where is God? And why isn’t God doing something about the situation?”

I imagine that many people – individually and collectively – could say this and feel it in the depths of their being. Where is God and why isn’t God doing something about the situation?

Perhaps you are saying it these days. About your life. About the world.

I am thinking two things.

First, when I think about personal suffering, I often think back to Harold Kushner’s When Bad Things Happen to Good People. Kushner, a rabbi, needed to explore the mystery of suffering after his son died and ended up sharing what he discovered in this book. Kushner said that most of us have been given some faulty ideas related to God and what we were taught goes a bit like this: God is an all-wise, all powerful parent figure who would love and treat people as our earthly parents did, or even better. If we are obedient and deserving, God rewards us. If we get out of line, God disciplines us.

This works OK until suffering enters the picture.

Kushner basically says that God does not desire to make people suffer. That is just cruel. God, however, does not spare God’s creation from the pain of being a created being (I’ll talk more about social suffering below). Things happen to us in this created order, and pain is part of the reality of living. God is not “trying to teach us a lesson” in our suffering. Human bodies get sick. Tragedies happen. The world is chaotic and unpredictable.

Furthermore, part of being human is the search for meaning, and we tell stories in order to try to explain things. Kushner said that the, “Why do I deserve this?” storyline, ultimately, needs to be abandoned because that’s just not how God or the universe works. Kusher didn’t know why some people got sick and others did not. He did not know why some got better and some did not. He said it’s just a mystery that must be held. Like in the Book of Job.

And so he offered a different question, namely, “What do I do now that this has happened to me?” He said that in this question lies the healing presence of God.

Last night I tuned in to say, “Hi!” to Spiritus’ SWIFT group. SWIFT (Surviving the Wilderness in Faith Together) is a group of folks living with chronic illness and/or disability who meet online for support and solidarity. Everyone in the group is struggling with something that they probably wish was not in their life – cancer autoimmune disorders, physical disabilities – and yet that very thing is partly responsible for their being together in community and finding God in each other and in their lives. Illness and disability are not what any of them “deserved,” yet their decision to come together (a response to “what do I do now”) helps them to find meaning and purpose in life in the wilderness together – just like the Israelites.

In an interview I read on RadicalDiscipleship.net (1/29/24), Jonathan Kattab, co-founder of the Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq and co-founder of Nonviolence International, was commenting on the expression “Allahu Akbar” which is repeated often in Muslim prayer. He said it’s best translation is probably, “God is Greater than…” It expresses the belief that God is greater than anything that life will bring our way – injury, sickness, tragedy, etc. – and that God can somehow use it for greater purposes. God doesn’t will it on us, but God can use it. I see this in the witness of the SWIFT group. God is greater than the power of illness and disability and can use it as a vehicle for connection, belonging and support.

Second, with respect to many global events and social realities.

In the same interview I referenced above, Kattab was reflecting on the tremendous suffering we are witnessing in Gaza right now (and we could just as easily name the Congo, Sudan and so many other places). Kattab acknowledges, like Kushner, that we’re asking the wrong question and focused on the wrong story line. Kattab says that  instead of asking questions like “Where is God during all of the atrocities happening in Gaza?,” we should really be asking, “Where are God’s People during it?”

Kattab wants to place the emphasis – not on the absence of God in these geopolitical events – but in the concrete, political action/inactions of the people of God who are its witnesses.

It is not God who should have prevented this and so many other tragedies. It is not God who should respond to social oppression, bigotry, economic inequality or violence. It is the people of God who should respond to it. This is where we are called to be visible, vocal and engaged in social realities around us.

I have always loved the poem by Teresa of Avila that beautifully invites us into this work:

Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which God looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which God walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which God blesses all the world.

Clearly one blog post (even an extra long one) will not explain suffering in the world and resolve all of our questions. It may not even provide much comfort. But know that when it comes to human suffering, God wills it on no one and asks us all to tend to those who are suffering (including ourselves).