A problem of assignment

 Throughout time humanity has suffered from a number and numerous calamities of one sort or another If we think about it in terms of disease, violence, nature or any other means we can come up with a long list of resultant calamities from Ebola and the Black Death to COVID and Tsunamis; from the Titanic to the Hutu / Tutsi massacres. Often when we think about these disasters we automatically think "Where was God?". In all of these situations somewhere someone has got up on a pulpit and either suggested that it is all our fault through sin or else that God was missing in action and there is no point in continuing to worship the so called God if he cannot do anything in the face of such disasters. Classically for Christians these scenarios are seen in the book of Job.  We often struggle with his situation and how we interpret it. Just as we struggle with our own interpretation of disaster situations. What is the point of Job's story or the story of our own disasters and pandemics? Do we become apathetic bystanders who accept everything thrown at them, which appears to be Job's point or do we battle on for ourselves refusing to bow to the inevitable?

Job's story is more than just sitting back in apathy listening to a bunch of people try and argue about God and God's presence. God is not a humanised personality that gets you out of everything. God is not living up there somewhere as an all seeing all powerful entity laughing at the fate of us all. If we begin on this premise then we are more likely to be starting to look for God's presence in the world rather than for an outside source. God came to humanity in the form of a person who we acknowledge as being Jesus the Christ and it is to Christ that we look in times of disaster. In the passage from Mark's gospel which is tied in with Job, we see Christ suffering the little children to be brought to the front and not shunned (Mk 10:13-16). It is in this moment we see the possibilities of God's presence in our lives during the disasters that surround us. Huh! Yes, in the eyes of a child and the presence of children we see God's presence in the midst of disaster not looking towards adults and a seemingly unresponsive God. Children often do not see the disaster unfolding around them and it is we who dismiss this as their incomprehension of the facts. Perhaps we need to look at this from a very different aspect rather than from the all knowing, not, eyes of adulthood.

Seeds of hope in the midst of disaster

It is often said that out of calamity comes resolution and strength. There are many stories that anecdotally tell us of this from social media rescues in the aftermath of hurricanes to shopping mall survivors following floods and typhoons. All of these tell of one thing and that is the resilience of people in the face of disaster. A resilience that for some is created by faith and an understanding of God's presence in the closeness of their lives. What has this to do with children? The point is that this is how children to a certain extent view disaster as it occurs in their midst. They move forward with a clarity of vision that is based on trust, admittedly not in God, but on their adults who will find a way through the awfulness to bring them into joy. This is the attitude that needs to be taken as we move forward in the face of disaster and it is what scripture from Job through Hebrews to the Gospel are seeking to outline for us. It is not that God will intervene and make things right, it is that things will work through and we have hope in God to suggest that these disasters will form us in such a manner that we can begin once more to act with God's love and understanding in the world.

A while ago I spoke about how we have lost, in this country, our understanding of love of neighbour. Perhaps, out of the disasters of the present age we will begin again to see the need for this community action in the world. Not just locally but in terms of the wider context of our world. We always raise the concerns of those who are refugees, of those who are using violence to achieve ends, of those who do not look to others around them as people but rather as objects to be used. This is the answer that Job provides for us, it is not that we can survive as individuals but that we can survive anything that comes away with God's love expressed through our love of the other. Even when the other is so monstrously different to ourselves that we fear for our own identity.