Meditations with Pastor Tom (6/20/20)

As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’ ~ John 9:1-2

            There are people who are saying that God is trying to tell us something through this virus crisis.  Some even say that the pandemic is God punishing us for our sins.  God may indeed be trying to tell us something, but I cannot accept the notion that God is punishing us through this disease.

            The problem with the punishment theory is simple:  What is God punishing us for?  People will generally pick their favorite sin, typically one where they feel they bear no guilt.  Some will say it's allowing gay marriage or abortion.  Others will say it is for our destruction of our God-given planet, or for our failure to adequately address poverty, or for our way too long history of racial injustice.  Yet other Christians would say we are being punished for being an imperialistic empire in the vein of the Ancient Romans.  

            Do you see my point?  It would take an awfully mean God to punish a people and then not tell them what they are being punished for, especially when there are so many possibilities.  And don't forget: nearly every country in the world has been touched by this pernicious disease.  Are all those countries guilty of the sins we're blaming this virus on?  Are they being punished for America's sins?  Not only that, innocent children are dying.  Certainly they didn't deserve to die for the sins of our world.

            But that still leaves the other question.  Is God trying to tell us something?  For me, the answer depends on what you mean by the question.  If you are saying God deliberately unleashed this virus to tell us something, I would most definitely say no.  Again, I can't believe God would visit death on over 450,000 people worldwide and not make the message clear to us, especially when some of the victims are innocent children and not all countries are committing the same sin.

            But if you mean that God is trying to tell us something through this virus, I can get on board with that.  I believe God is always attempting to move us in the direction of Godliness.  I believe God is Still Speaking - all the time.  If you want to tell me that God is using this virus -that God did not purposely send - to awaken our hearts to greater love and compassion and to greater generosity and kindness to all people everywhere, I would agree with you. 

            People around Jesus asked why the man was born blind.  They expected - as a part of their worldview - that sin had to be the cause.  For them, there could be no other explanation.  But, today, we don't have to accept that perspective.   Our knowledge of science and the universe has rightly changed the way we see the world.  This virus plagues us not because God willed it, but because viruses just naturally exist on our planet and they sometimes cause havoc.  We could debate why God created viruses, but that's a subject for another day.

The Sermon this Sunday

An Old Testament prophet and a modern college student teach us a lesson.