Disastrous Thinking

The scriptures referred to are John 9:1-41.

In the insurance industry it seems that there is no such thing as an accident. Everything that goes wrong has to be someone's fault. Either it was your fault, or someone else's, or you both were at fault. If they can't blame it on a human being, then it's called an Act of God. Unfortunately, this kind of thinking goes deep in the human psyche. When things go bad we seek to blame someone, anyone, rather than see it as random or unintentional. Even in the Old Testament, anything outside of human control is often attributed to God, like calamities. (Isaiah 45:7) Only rarely are terrible events attributed to Satan, most notably in the book of Job. In that book Satan is mentioned 11 times, more than any other book in the Bible. By Jesus' day, illnesses of every kind were attributed to devils, also called demons or unclean spirits. But just as often, diseases and disasters were seen as a judgment by God.

And that's the situation we see in today's gospel. Encountering a man blind from birth, the disciples ask Jesus, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Such talk may shock us but that kind of thinking was common. It was hard for people to acknowledge that sometimes bad things happen to good people for no discernible reason. It's much less distressing to think they brought it on themselves. Or at least that someone else's bad behavior was responsible.

It's only been very recently that society seems to have realized that a rape victim was not asking for it by wearing provocative clothing, or being in a nightclub, or walking alone at night, or inviting a man to her apartment. Or that a man shot by police at a traffic stop was not somehow deserving of death because he didn't comply with what they said. Or that a disaster wasn't the result of God's judgment.

But people still blame the victims because that is more comforting than to think that it could somehow happen to us. We like the idea of a direct and poetic cause and effect.

And of course, certain types of behavior do increase the risk of bad outcomes. Hanging off of tall buildings to take spectacular selfies does heighten the odds a person will fall and die. Taking illegal drugs does increase the risk of dying from a fentanyl overdose. Driving like a maniac on US-1 does raise the odds of being in a bad accident. But you could be innocently walking down the street and have the selfie-obssessed person fall on you. Criminals could divert your legitimate medication to sell on the black market and replace it with something else. You could be driving safely only to be hit by someone who thinks that US-1 is a race track. A wise person does what they can to decrease obvious and probable risks but you can't ever eliminate all risk.

Sadly there are still Christians who think bad things primarily happen to people who do bad things. So it made sense to them when Jerry Falwell said that the Twin Towers fell on 9/11 because of “pagans, abortionists, feminists, gays, lesbians and the ACLU.” John Hagee said of hurricane Katrina, “I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God and that they were recipients of the judgment of God for that.” Pat Robertson said that the earthquake that hit Haiti was caused by its people's “pact with the devil.”

Which means these so-called Bible-believing Christians don't believe Jesus. In Luke 13 we read, “Now there were some present on that occasion who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate mixed with their sacrifices.” Apparently Pilate, the heavy-handed Roman governor of Judea, killed some people from Galilee who came to make sacrifices at the temple, which was right next to the Antonia Fortress where he stayed when in Jerusalem. Quite probably a crowd of pilgrims got out of control at a festival, maybe even Passover, which celebrated God liberating his people, and Pilate quashed it. Jesus' response? “He answered them, 'Do you think these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered these things? No, I tell you! But unless you repent, you will all perish as well. Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower in Siloam fell on them, do you think they were worse offenders than all the others who live in Jerusalem? No, I tell you! But unless you repent you will all perish as well!'” (Luke 13:1-5) In other words, don't assume God singles out a certain type of sin or a specific level of sinning for special punishment. Nobody is morally perfect. We all need God's grace. We all need to turn from the destructive and self-destructive things we think, say and do and turn to the one who loves us enough to die for us.

That said, there are 3 big disasters in the Bible that are connected to sin. The first disaster recorded in the scripture is the great flood in Genesis. And it says, “The earth was ruined in the sight of God; the earth was filled with violence.” (Genesis 6:11) And God tells Noah that because the earth is filled with violence he will destroy it. (Genesis 6:13) By the way, the Hebrew word for “destroy” is the same word as “ruin.” God is saying: humans ruined my creation with violence and so I am really going to ruin it for them. Although he is not actually destroying it. He is taking it back to its original state, when the waters covered the earth as in Genesis 1:2, and then starting over. And afterwards, he hangs up his weapon of war, his bow, in the clouds as a sign he will not flood the earth again. (Genesis 9:13) That's his part of the first covenant he makes with humanity. Our part is not to murder each other because humans are created in God's image. (Genesis 9:6) Each human has inherent worth. In this case the reason for the flood was violence.

The next major disaster in the Bible is the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah by sulfur and fire. This also is explicitly said to be a judgment from God. (Genesis 19:13) But people often take the incident where the men demand the angels be handed over to them as the primary reason for its judgment. The Bible says it's not. In Ezekiel we are told, “See here—this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters had majesty, abundance of food, and enjoyed carefree ease, but they did not help the poor and the needy. They were haughty and practiced abominable deeds before me. Therefore when I saw it, I removed them.” (Ezekiel 16: 49-50) The people of Sodom were arrogant and had an abundance of food and time on their hands but didn't help out those who lacked the necessities of life. And the book of Proverbs says that to God abominations include “haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that are swift to run to evil, a false witness who pours out lies, and a person who spreads discord among family members.” (Proverbs 6:16-19) Even if the attempted gang rape is included, the majority of these sins are not sexual but injustices towards other people. In fact only 9% of the sins condemned in the Torah are sexual sins. We prefer to say it's sex than to acknowledge our widespread inhumanity to each other.

In Jewish eyes the biggest disaster in the Old Testament was their exile to Babylon. And the reason for that, according to the prophets, is that they have broken their covenant with God. In Jeremiah God says, “You must change the way you have been living and do what is right. You must treat one another fairly. Stop oppressing foreigners who live in your land, children who have lost their fathers, and women who have lost their husbands. Stop killing innocent people in this land. Stop paying paying allegiance to other gods. That will only bring about your ruin. If you stop doing these things I will allow you to continue living in in this land which I gave your ancestors as a lasting possession.” (Jeremiah 7:5-7) Notice that these are violations of the two great commandments Jesus listed: to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself. 

But let me point out something else. In each of these cases, the disaster does not happen first and then a prophet comes around later to pin it on sin. If it's God's judgment, he gives plenty of warning ahead of time. Because God desires people to repent. In the book of Jonah that's the whole point. Jonah doesn't want to warn Nineveh, capitol of the Assyrian Empire that took the northern kingdom of Israel into exile. Because he knows how God works. When the people of Nineveh do repent, Jonah tells God, “Oh, Lord, this is just what I thought would happen when I was in my own country. This is what I tried to prevent by attempting to escape to Tarshish!—because I knew that you are gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in mercy, and one who relents concerning threatened judgment.” (Jonah 4:2) The prophet knows that God gives fair warning, and if people heed the warning, he relents. If there's no warning beforehand, it's not God's judgment. So if anyone does some Monday morning quarterbacking by saying that a previous disaster or illness was God's judgment, he is a false prophet.

When Jesus' disciples ask him about whose sin is the cause of the man's blindness, Jesus says, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God's works might be revealed in him.” Jesus doesn't see this an an occasion to debate theology; he sees it as an opportunity to show God's love in action. He isn't interested in fixing the blame but in fixing the problem. He isn't going to delve into the cause of the man's suffering but is focused instead on how he, Jesus, can alleviate that suffering. And that should be our approach.

And a lot of Christians understand that. Indeed 89.3% of nurses are religious, with 86.4% of them Christian. 76% of doctors believe in God. 45% of Americans who pray daily and attend services weekly also say they volunteered in the last week, compared to 28% of those who are not highly religious. 65% of the highly religious say they have donated money, time or goods to the poor in the past week, compared to 41% of all other adults. The book of James was right: those who have real faith show it. (James 2:17-18)

It's time we listened to Jesus and stopped blaming people for things beyond their control. Obviously this means not blaming people for illnesses. This includes mental health problems, like depression, and even addiction. Some people are more susceptible to such diseases than others are. Only 30% of people who try heroin actually become addicted. Those who get hooked physically respond differently than most folks. And we have seen people get addicted to pain medications that were legitimately prescribed to them initially. The problem is not a weak will but a problem with the way their brain responds to the drug. Our approach should be to help them get free of the addiction.

Even getting out of poverty is difficult. For those who spent their childhood living in moderate to severe poverty between 35 to 46% are poor throughout their early and middle adulthood. The odds can be beaten but it is not easy. And as we've seen God expects us to help the poor and needy.

Jesus' reaction to suffering was not to judge the person but to help and heal them. But we see that the religious leaders cannot simply praise God for the man's cure. They just want to discredit Jesus and so they go after the man and even his parents. Eventually they blame and expel the man who had suffered. Jesus, though, when he hears of this, does a follow up visit. He finds the man and, now that his physical problem has been resolved, Jesus deals with his spiritual needs. He lets him know who it was who healed him and the man worships Jesus.

People came to Jesus to be healed and then stayed to hear what he had to say. Because it's hard to think about spiritual matters when you are hungry or in pain or are homeless or have some other overwhelming physical problem. We need to remember that. Because we are now the body of Christ on earth. And a body consists of more than just a mouth to preach with. We are Christ's hands, his ears, his eyes, his feet. When we see someone in need, our first response should be to give them concrete help, not just quote Bible verses at them. If they experience the love of God in our actions, they will be more likely to listen to why we act as we do. As someone said, preach the gospel always and when necessary, use words.