My first church was a small church in a small town northeast of Grand Rapids, a town called Belding, which will play a significant part in this story in a minute. The church I pastored was a very, very conservative church. As some of you may know, I’m not. The church fit me like a – what’s the opposite of a glove? – like a circus tent. To give you an idea of the kind of church it was, when I got there, on the cover of the bulletin were the words, “The Friendly White Church.” Thankfully, the building was white. I just assumed that it was a mistake, you know, they didn’t know any better. But then a few months later I heard the story of what happened 5 or 6 years before I got there. A fireman had died from Belding and the funeral was at my church. As you know, when firemen die, firemen from all over come to the funeral service, just like when a policeman dies, policemen from all over come. There were some African American firemen that came from the Grand Rapids area and they saw a stray bulletin. “’The Friendly White Church?’ What the, what the?” The way it was told me is, “Can you imagine that they thought we meant something other than the color of our building!” Well, you didn’t have to imagine it; you now knew that it could be misinterpreted! But they didn’t change it, until I got there and changed it to “A Community of Faith, Hope, and Love,” which was probably not true, but at least it wasn’t racist. They didn’t change it because I think that if an African American family had come there and sat down and saw the cover of the bulletin, “The Friendly White Church,” and got the impression that they didn’t belong there, that would have been fine with the church, because they didn’t belong there, they weren’t relatives and friends of the powers that be at that church. Or if a Hispanic family had come and sat down and saw the cover of the bulletin and saw “The Friendly White Church,” and felt, “Well, we don’t really belong here,” that would have been fine with the church, because they didn’t belong there. They weren’t relatives or friends of the powers that be at that church. That’s who that church was.
I lasted a year and three days there, which I think is somewhat of a minor miracle. I knew on Labor Day I was going to get fired. For some reason in the town of Belding they have a big Labor Day parade. Marching bands and floats and fire trucks and police cars. I’m standing there, watching the parade and thinking, “God, show me a sign! What am I gonna do? I’m gonna lose the first church that I’ve pastored. My career is over.” Just then, a Belding fire truck went by. I looked at the back end of it and it said, “BFD,” which, of course, stands for Belding Fire Department, but I thought it stood for something else and I laughed and I looked up to heaven and I said, “Thank you, God, for that sign!” If you don’t know what BFD means, I’ll clean it up for church. BFD stands for Big Freakin’ Deal. Big Freakin’ Deal, you’re gonna lose this little church in this little town. You’ll survive. I took it as a sign from God. Was it? Was God reaching out to me? Does God care when we suffer? Why does God allow suffering? Now when I say “God,” I mean God or the Spirit or the Universe or Fate or Whatever. I’m presuming God exists and if you don’t believe that, that’s fine, but I’m just using God as kind of shorthand for whatever. Why does God allow suffering?
A 16 year-old boy, the star quarterback, the star of the basketball team, scores the winning basket. His teammates hoist him up on their shoulders. A couple of minutes later, he collapses and dies right there on the court. Of course, I’m talking about Wes Leonard of Fennville. An autopsy showed that he had an enlarged heart. Why did God allow Wes Leonard to die? When he was 15, why didn’t God cause him to be examined by a doctor and it be discovered that he had an enlarged heart? Why did that 16 year-old boy die?
A couple of weeks ago, in Japan they had the worst earthquake on record, 8.9 on the Richter scale. The earthquake was bad enough, and then, of course, as you know, they had a tsunami that resulted from that. A wall of water dozens of feet high came onshore and we’ve seen the pictures where cars are pushed around like toy cars and houses are pushed around like toy houses. Thousands, if not tens of thousands, we don’t know the exact count now, died. Why did God allow that to happen? Why didn’t God cause that earthquake to happen somewhere in the middle of the ocean and the resulting tsunami might have washed up a little wave on the shore. Why didn’t God stop that from happening?
Jesus and Gandhi and Dr. King were all killed. Why did God allow that? The night before he was crucified, Jesus was sweating blood. He said, “Father, take this cup from me.” I only say that to remind those Christians who always say, “Well, it was a death he freely accepted.” No he didn’t. He sweat blood and he asked for the cup to be taken from him. He said, “Not my will, but Thy will be done.” Why didn’t God stop that from happening? Why didn’t God prevent nails from being hammered into the hands and feet of Jesus?
Gandhi was killed by an assassin’s bullet. He was in his eighties. Gandhi said, according to the movie Gandhi, “I am a Muslim and a Hindu and a Christian and a Jew.” I love that quote. That’s how I feel. That’s one of the reasons why I’m glad we started Interfaith Congregation. Gandhi was a devout Hindu, but he also saw universal truths. He was trying to bring Hindus and Muslims together. His fellow Hindus, some of them, didn’t like that and he was shot by a Hindu. Why didn’t God cause that gunman to be captured before he could shoot Gandhi?
Martin Luther King, Jr. was in Memphis. The night before he was killed he spoke to striking garbage workers. It was as if he had a premonition of his death. He said, “We’ll get to the Promised Land. I may not get there with you, but we as a people will get to the Promised Land.” The next day he was killed. Why didn’t God cause the gunman to miss? Why does God allow suffering?
Buddhists, I think, speak to this very well. When I read the Dalai Lama’s “The Four Noble Truths,” which is the teachings of the Buddha, it was as if scales fell from my eyes. The first noble truth is “Life is suffering.” Wow. That went against my Sunday School theology that I had learned as a kid and kept as a young adult, that if I just prayed to God or Jesus that maybe other people would suffer, but I wouldn’t suffer. I believed that in spite of the fact that I did suffer. Then to read “Life is suffering,” to read the Dalai Lama saying that even a newborn baby is suffering because eventually that baby will grow up and die, that even a 21 year-old, a good-looking man or woman in the prime of life, is suffering because eventually they’ll get old, they’ll lose their looks. I know you’re probably thinking, “But Bill, you’re obviously the exception to that rule.” [Laughter] Be that as it may, most people will lose their looks and eventually die. Why does God allow suffering? Buddhists will say that the way to overcome suffering is to achieve detachment, to let go of your ego. Now while I believe a lot of that, some of it I’m not sure about, because a couple of months ago when we were on vacation and driving to Florida, I had excruciating back pain, the worst pain I’ve ever had. I was living in the moment, but I wish I hadn’t been living in that moment. I couldn’t detach myself from that pain; it was like…ugh! I can only imagine what it must be like for people who have chronic pain, who have that kind of pain every day of their lives. Why does God allow that?
Rabbi Harold Kushner wrote a book many years ago, “When Bad Things Happen.” He asked the same kinds of questions. Why would an all-powerful God allow suffering? The conclusion he came to basically was that God must not be all-powerful or God would stop suffering. Maybe God suffers right along with us.
William Sloane Coffin, one of my spiritual heroes (I think everybody I’ve mentioned are my spiritual heroes, but I especially like William Sloane Coffin.) In 1983 he was the senior minister at Riverside Church in New York City. His 24 year-old son, Alex, died in a freak car accident – his car went off the road in Boston and went into Boston Harbor and sank and he drowned. William Sloane Coffin was sitting in his sister’s living room, when people brought casseroles and quiches, because, at a time like that, people don’t know what else to do. He was sitting there when this pleasant looking, middle-aged woman came in carrying many different quiches. As she passed him, she looked back and said, “I’ll never understand the will of God.” He said he was up and after her before he knew it. He told her, “You’re right. You never will understand the will of God because it’s not the will of God that Alex died.” He said this in a sermon preached ten days after Alex’s death. He said that Alex beat him in sporting contests and now beat him to the grave. He told that woman, as he said in his sermon, “It is not the will of God that Alex died.” He said God does not have his hand on steering wheels, God does not have his fist around knives, God does not have his finger on triggers. He said, “When Alex’s car went under the water, God’s was the first of all of our hearts to break.” I like that. I don’t know if it’s true, but I like to think that it’s Truth, that God suffers right along with us.
Why does God allow suffering? I don’t know. If God exists, I don’t think anybody knows why God allows suffering. But I do know two things. When we suffer, we shouldn’t keep it bottled up inside of us. We should reach out to those who care about us and let them know that we’re suffering and let them help us through that suffering. The other thing that I know is when we see other people suffering, we need to reach out to them, to let them know that somebody cares, to offer them a hand to hold or a shoulder to lean on or to cry on. I think that’s one of the main purposes of our lives is to help others when they’re suffering. That may not make suffering any better or explain why there is suffering, but at least we can reach out: reach out when we’re suffering and reach out when other people are suffering.
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