Bible Study Reflections: Testing and Suffering

In our Women's Bible Study this week, looking at the book of Isaiah, we got onto the topic of God's role in suffering.  The early parts of Isaiah are full of passages detailing God's frustration with his people and their misguided ways.  The prophet predicts disaster coming upon them as God's hand is stretched out against them.  Granted, they deserved it.  Their behavior included stealing other people's homes and livelihoods, oppressing the poor, passing laws to make themselves rich on the backs of others, following false gods...the list is nearly endless.  You can see why God couldn't support this, why it had to be wiped away.  Still, the idea of God's wrath kindled against us begs the question:  Is all suffering punishment?  Is everything that goes wrong a test, a trial sent by God to teach us something?  Or worse, does God send bad things into our lives as direct retribution for our sins?

At the risk of tipping my hand, the answer to that is no.  Here's why.

God's story always leads to a place beyond suffering.  In the early parts of Isaiah we read about his anger and the impending fall of the people of Judah but the later parts of the book are full of his redemption.  The same hand outstretched against the people early on lifts, comforts, embraces, and redeems at the end of the story.  The bad gets turned to good by God.  THAT is the point of the story...not God following our badness with more of his own.  Suffering exists only for the sake of redemption.

I think we can claim that some suffering in this life is redemptive.  We've all had bad experiences teach us valuable lessons that turned us into better people.  In those cases I believe we can see God's hand in the mix, bringing good from bad.  Even then, though, I'd fall short of saying that God parceled out the bad to us just so we could get to the good.  As a parent I don't intentionally get my kids into bad situations just so I can teach them a lesson.  Rather I walk with them through the bad situations they wander into, trying to make sure they're safe and to make good come of them if I can.  I believe God does this too.

But not all suffering is redemptive.  When you lose a child or when an earthquake kills hundreds...those things are pretty much just bad.  God still works healing in the midst of them, but the idea that God made this tragedy happen so we could learn something from it is abhorrent.  It's a sneaky way of putting ourselves in the center of the universe.  "God killed all those people in that far away country so we could learn!"  Really?  You're really that important? Weren't they important too, those people who lost their lives?

Some suffering happens because the world is broken, period.  It doesn't work like it's supposed to and neither do we.  God could fix this but it would mean wiping out all of the world's imperfections, including us.  That's not an option he'll take, so he lives with the world being broken for a while until the last one of us is born and we're all ready for heaven.  In the meantime, we suffer.  No matter how much we learn or don't learn, no matter how often we proclaim we're Christians or not, whether we're good or bad, whether we're rich or poor...everybody will find life imperfect.  The only differences are occasion and degree.  Nobody escapes unscathed.

More importantly for our purposes, it's not like God is up there with a box full of sufferings handing out misery to people who deserve it.  Nor is he trying to test us by making us hurt.  The world makes us hurt because it's broken.  When we hurt, he hurts along with us.  When we cry, he cries too.  He's not punishing us, he's holding onto us in the midst of evil.  He wants us to hold onto him too, because he saves us.

If every bit of suffering was either punishment or a test of our faith, then as one of our Bible Study members put it, we wouldn't dare to interfere.  Who could stop God's plan?  Helping someone would be akin to sinning, going against God.  But we're not called to look at people who are suffering and say, "God is punishing you" or "God is testing you so I can't interfere".  That would be horrible!  Fortunately that's the opposite of what God calls us to do.  Instead he wants us to do as he does:  reach out, lift up, hold on to his children and walk with them.  If anyone is being tested when the world suffers it's us...not the people suffering but God's followers.  Will we respond with compassion?  Will we give up our time and resources to help?  That's the only test I see.  People affected by tragedy have suffered enough.  They don't need to give any more.  They need to be given to.  They need a chance for the world to be OK.  Will we love them enough to help in that process?  That's what God wants to know.  That should be our first instinct when we encounter suffering in this broken world.

In some ways we shouldn't even ask the questions, "Did God cause this?  Is this punishment?  Is this a test?" when we see someone suffering.  They can ask it, but if we do we're looking the wrong direction.  Instead of looking up and over our shoulders and waiting for an answer we should be looking forward and moving and asking what that person needs.  When we've done everything we can and we've all come through the other side together, maybe then we can ponder on sin and redemption.  But the road to that other side is long and there are plenty of other things to do before we reach the end of it.

I suspect that our only real answer comes through walking it together, helping each other out as we go.

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)