Innocent Suffering

Understanding how God orchestrates our salvation

10/26/2024

LK 13:1-9 Some people told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with the blood of their sacrifices. He said to them in reply, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were greater sinners than all other Galileans? By no means! But I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did! Or those eighteen people who were killed when the tower at Siloam fell on them– do you think they were more guilty than everyone else who lived in Jerusalem? By no means! But I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did!” And he told them this parable: “There once was a person who had a fig tree planted in his orchard, and when he came in search of fruit on it but found none, he said to the gardener, ‘For three years now I have come in search of fruit on this fig tree but have found none. So cut it down. Why should it exhaust the soil?’ He said to him in reply, ‘Sir, leave it for this year also, and I shall cultivate the ground around it and fertilize it; it may bear fruit in the future. If not you can cut it down.’”

One of the hardest questions you will ever attempt to answer is, “Why do innocent people suffer?” Have you ever tackled that? And that question becomes very personal and more pertinent when we face our own suffering, “Why am I suffering?” For example, in 1981 Rabbi Harold Kushner wrote a New York Times bestseller called “When Bad Things Happen To Good People.”

He wrote it as a response to the tragedy of losing his son when the boy was only 14 years old. He suffered from a rare disease called progeria, which causes premature aging. The young lad died as an old man. Now, Rabbi Kushner writes well and makes many good points, but he also commits a big theological blunder. See if you can catch what is wrong with this statement from the book.

Kushner reflects: “God does not, and cannot, intervene in human affairs to avert tragedy and suffering. At most, He offers us His divine comfort and expresses His divine anger when horrible things happen to people. God, in the face of tragedy, is impotent. The most God can do is to stand on the side of the victim, not the executioner.”

In other words, God has no direct control over the events of our lives. He can only react and try to help pick up the pieces after Humpty Dumpty falls off the wall. Now, the benefit of seeing suffering like Kushner does is that it lets God off the hook. God is not to blame because he did not cause Kushner’s son to be afflicted with progeria.

Now, I cannot judge if that is the authentic Jewish understanding of the suffering of the innocent. But I can say a word about the Christian perspective, as Jesus articulates it in the gospel today. The Jews ask if certain examples of extreme suffering and even sacrilege were caused because God was punishing their sins.

That is, they presume God’s wrath is directed at sin, which you may recall was one of the theories presented in the Old Testament book of Job. By the way, that book was the original New York Times bestseller on the topic of innocent suffering. But while that answer addresses the suffering of the sinner, it leaves aside the question about the suffering of the saint.

But Jesus’ answer is decidedly different from Kushner’s. He unflinchingly affirms that God is in control of the universe, and nothing happens without his directly willing it, or at least not without his indirectly permitting it. In other words, Fate and Chance are not the masters of the universe while God remains an innocent and impotent bystander.

Rather, God is the great Conductor and the universe is his symphony orchestra. No one plays a note without God’s knowledge and his head nod to do so. And what is this universal symphony’s musical score – by hitting high notes as well as low notes – trying to achieve? Simple: our salvation.

And so Jesus responds in the gospel, “But I tell you if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did.” In other words, everything that happens in our lives – the good, the bad, the ugly, and yes, even the suffering of the innocent – is all orchestrated by God for our salvation. Put differently, everything happens – even the movement of a molecule – for our ultimate happiness, attaining heaven.

Perhaps the famous poem called “The Weaver” by Grant Colfax Tullar will help to weave together these different and divergent threads of theology. Listen carefully: “My life is but a weaving, / Between my God and me, / I cannot choose the colors / He weaveth steadily. / Oft’times He weaveth sorrow; / And I in foolish pride, / Forget he sees the upper, / And I the underside. /

Not till the loom is silent / And the shuttles cease to fly / Will God unroll the canvas, / And reveal the reason why / The dark threads are as needful / In the weaver’s skillful hand, / As the threads of gold and silver / In the pattern he has planned. / He knows, He loves, He cares; / Nothing this truth can dim. / He gives the very best to those / Who leave the choice to him.”

I know that poem does not take away the pain of our losses, but it is a little more theologically rigorous and more spiritually satisfying than taking shortcuts answering the question, “Why do the innocent suffer?” Or more urgently, “Why do I suffer?”

Praised be Jesus Christ!