They say that philosophy deals with two sorts of questions:
- Questions to which everybody knows the answer (eg. Do I really exist?).
- Questions to which nobody knows the answer (eg. Why do I exist?).
Religious teachers tend to deal the same sorts of questions, perhaps particularly questions of the latter variety – questions to which nobody has the answer:’What am I supposed to be doing with my life?’ , ‘Why are things so difficult for me?’, and perhaps most especially, ‘Why do good people suffer?’
This last question is very obviously a religious question. Some would say that it is the religious question. And so it comes as no surprise that people, on more than one occasion, confronted Jesus with this question.
‘Why did those people get killed during their worship at the temple – those people whose blood Pilate had mingled with the blood of their sacrifices?’
While we don’t know the details of this incident of police brutality, beyond what is detailed for us here in the Gospel reading, it is clear enough that it was a rather gruesome affair. These people were evidently at prayer when Pilate’s troops stormed in and cut them down, mingling their blood with the blood of their sacrificial offerings, which is just a tragic and disgusting detail.
And whatever these people were allegedly guilty of, it does make you wonder why things like this happen – perhaps most especially to people at prayer. And so it should not surprise us that people bring this situation to Jesus, asking for a response. What might surprise us though is His response: ‘Do you think you’re any better than those guys? Think again! You may be next!’
And in case you missed the point, Jesus reinforces it with the example of the collapse of the twin towers (or perhaps this one was a single tower). ‘ Do you think those people who got killed by the tower somehow deserved it? Think again! And don’t assume that the next tower won’t fall on you!’
I confess that I have never taken on Jesus as my model in this regard – in terms of modelling my own pastoral response to people who come to me with similar sorts of questions. I can think of two mothers right away who I have sat with in my study, soberly reflecting on the question of why their sons had died (both, in the cases I’m thinking of, as a result of heroine overdoses).
And while I can’t remember exactly what I said to them, I am certain that I didn’t follow the line that Jesus took here – ie. ‘Watch out. You might be next!’ – though of course, I don’t think Jesus would have made that sort of response in that situation either. For, with Jesus, the context in which such questions are asked is all important in terms of the sort of answer you get.
The Germans have a special word for this: ‘fragestellung’ (literally, ‘the putting of the question’).
I learned the word from Rudy Bultmann (Biblical scholar and theologian) who applied it to his study of the New Testament, recognising that the way in which a question is asked is all important in determining the answer you get.
The ‘fragestellung’ of the questioner is worth keeping in mind in all of the dialogues of Jesus we read about, but perhaps most especially in ones like this.
- Why did God allow 9/11?
- Why doesn’t God put a stop to the ongoing suffering in Iraq?
- Why did those worshippers die – their blood mingled with their sacrifices?
Why do you ask?
Was someone you loved killed in that tragedy or is this a speculative question, coming out of the fact that you find it hard to reconcile your concept of God as all-good, all-knowing and all-powerful with the brutal realities of life? With Jesus, the putting of the question (the‘fragestellung’) will be all important in determining the sort of answer you receive from Him.
And I think it’s clear enough in this account that the people who raise the issue with Jesus – the issue about the brutal tragedy at the temple – are not the next of kin. These are not people looking for answers from out of the midst of their grief. These are regular, good, church-going people, who probably didn’t know anybody who was killed that day in the temple, but who do find this issue confronting on a theological level.
And let’s be honest: the brutal death of these worshippers is confronting. It doesn’t square easily with our understanding of God – a God who intervenes for His people, who loves and protects His people, who has said that He will not allow His holy temple to be violated, and who surely would not allow good people at worship simply to be hacked down without good reason. This is an issue!
And of course it’s not just a theological/theoretical problem, is it, as in fact no theological problem is ever solely a theoretical problem? It’s a fundamental human problem, for it confronts our most basic and fundamental god-given moral intuition: that bad things like this just don’t happen to decent people!
Let me be frank here. Whether you think it’s a part of your upbringing, whether you think it’s a cultural thing, or whether you accept that it’s something deeply embedded in your own DNA, I do believe that all of us here have a deep-down moral sense that tells us that all good children go to Heaven!
Deep down we all sense this – that good should be rewarded and evil punished, that bad things should only happen to bad people and that good, fun-loving, clean-living persons like us should be protected from the tragedies of this life.
We sense that this is the way things ought to be, and yet this does not square with our experience of the way things are. Indeed, incidents like the tower and the police brutality in the temple confront us, not only intellectually, but at an existential level, for they remind us that we too are vulnerable, which is not something we want to hear!
I’ve recounted before, I know, a memorable story told to me by a French Episcopal priest that I met in the Philippines, when I was there in the 80’s.
One day the bus this priest was travelling on stopped, to reveal bloody corpses in the gutter at the side of the road. His fellow-passengers, he said, looked out briefly and then returned to reading their newspapers saying – ‘They must have done something really bad’!
Now the Philippines was a rough place back in the 80’s. It”s still a rough place, but I was there at election time and there were regular riots and bombs going off at street corners and in all sorts of places you least expected.
How do you maintain your sanity in an environment like that? How do you live with the insecurity of never knowing where the next bomb is going to detonate? How do you deal with the sense of helplessness that comes with knowing that you are vulnerable to the swift hand of fate at any moment?
The answer is that you reassure yourself by telling yourself that you are not in fact vulnerable – that bad things like this only happen to bad people, and that a good, god-fearing person like you will be protected from all such calamities and, if all else fails, that all good children go to Heaven!
It is a security issue! We don’t like feeling vulnerable. We don’t want to believe that we could be the next person to be hit by the falling tower. We don’t want to live our lives constantly worrying about whether the storm troopers are going to break in to hack us down. We want feel safe!
And so we wear our lucky talismans and we say our special prayers and make sure we cross ourselves multiple times before we step out into the ring. We protect ourselves with special charms, special spells and powerful beliefs and is this not what religion is really about? Or should we ask, rather, ‘is this not the essential point of departure between true religion and superstition?‘
It’s about security. It’s about feeling vulnerable. It’s about wanting someone to protect us from the evils of this world and the harsh and seemingly random nature of fate. And yet if there’s one thing that Jesus was made keen on attacking in His ministry, it was a reliance on false securities!
Do you think that having lots of money is going to make you secure? Think again! There was a rich man who thought that – broke down his barns to build bigger ones – thinking that he’d have comfortable days for the rest of his long life … ‘Fool! Tonight you die, and how are your riches going to help you?’ (Luke 12)
Or power? Do you think being powerful is going to make you secure? Do you want to be the greatest? Be assured that human greatness will not save you from calamity and suffering, for God is in the habit of bringing down the mighty from their thrones and lifting up the lowly! (Luke 2)
Or is that what brought you to religion? Did you start coming to church because you wanted to feel safe? Have you been hurt in one too many relationships and you’re here because you want God in your corner (so to speak), guiding you into consistently successful relationships and simultaneously protecting your business?
Now we know that there is a security that comes with following Jesus, and we know that there is wonderful safety and nurture for those who life is hid with Christ in God. And yet, following Jesus will not guarantee us earthly success. It will not mean that all our relationships will now work, and it will not give us any special elevated status where we are protected from tragedy and pain.
St Augustine reflected on this in ‘City of God’. During the great suffering that occurred when the barbarians sacked Rome, Augustine noted that, when the barbarians raped and pillaged, Christians suffered as much as everyone else! ‘Where the axe fell, there people died!’ And he wrote, “Christians differ from pagans not in the ills that befall them but in what they do with the ills that befall them.”
Good point, and one that forces us to reflect on what sort of Christians we are and what sort of church we have become and what sort of fruit we are producing.
Jesus indeed concludes this dialogue with a story of a fig tree that isn’t bearing fruit. ‘Rip it up’, the boss says to the gardener, but the gardener says, ‘Give me one last shot. Let me heap manure all over it, and see if it doesn’t produce something worthwhile?’
We students of the Bible are familiar, I think, with the image of the fig tree as a symbol for Israel or the church. We are also familiar, I think, with the experience of having manure heaped all over us.
In truth, we can’t avoid the crap. We’d like to think we can but we can’t. It’s not fair of course that good, decent, peace-loving, clean-living folks like us can’t get away with hassle-free lives, but we can’t. That’s just the way it is, and no amount of philosophising or theologising or wishful thinking is going to change that. In the world to come, yes, things will be different, but we ain’t there yet! This life is not fair, and Jesus does not seem to see it as His role to make it any fairer!
We can’t avoid the crap, but we can (at the risk of sounding clichéd) grow through it – not just as individuals, but as a community, so that we might become the sort of hard-nosed but soft-hearted, battle-scarred, long-suffering, persevering, ever-loving, non-judgemental, nurturing, fruit-bearing tree that God requires.
First preached by Father Dave Smith at Holy Trinity Dulwich Hill, October 2007.
Rev. David B. Smith
Parish priest, community worker,
martial arts master, pro boxer,
author, father of four.
www.FatherDave.org
