Suffer the Children

“Let the little children come to me, Jesus said, and do not hinder them -- for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven. Charlotte, Daniel, Olivia, Josephine, Ana, Dylan, Madeleine, Catherine, Chase, Jesse, James, Grace, Emilie, Jack, Noah, Caroline, Jessica, Benjamin, Avielle, Allison. God has called them all home."

That is how President Obama closed his remarks to the family of the murdered children in Newtown, Connecticut. He read their names one by one as the evening news flashed photographs of the children. It was too much for me. It made me cry, and it made me angry. I shouted at the television, “What does God have to do with this?!”

I confess to you that I am having a difficult time with this tragedy, even though I knew none of the victims or their families personally. Perhaps it was the proximity of the shooting to Christmas. Perhaps it was the name Noah in the list, which made me think of my little grandson, who is thankfully safe and sound.

It brought back powerful memories of a triple funeral I performed in Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1995. Three children of my church there were murdered in much the same fashion. A fourth child – a girl - was saved when her brother jumped in front of her and took multiple bullets. I will never forget the three open caskets in front of my church or having to physically restrain the grieving mother from climbing into the grave at the cemetery.

The Gospel of Matthew records the Epiphany story of “the slaughter of the innocents.” The visit of the Magi to the Christ child in Bethlehem was followed by a killing spree as brutal as that at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Seeking to kill the child Jesus, King Herod ordered his soldiers to murder every child in Bethlehem age two and under. Yet God warned Jesus’ family to escape to Egypt. Why did God warn only that family?

This tragedy in Newtown came on the heels of our church’s five week study of the Jewish Holocaust. There were moving presentations by eyewitnesses to the events. Many of the stories focused on the children saved and the children who were not saved. This had already got me struggling anew with the problem that theologians call theodicy: how can God allow such evil to happen to so many innocent children?

On the Sunday after the shooting I stood in the pulpit and shared my thoughts and feelings. I told the congregation that I did not have the answers. All I knew to do was to pray and grieve. After worship I had a long discussion with a friend who is a student at Fuller Theological Seminary. He had sung “Be Not Afraid” in church that morning; in my living room that afternoon we debated this age-old problem of evil and suffering.

I wish I had pulpit-worthy answers to proclaim that make sense of this terrible event. I wish I understood why these children had to die. I wish I knew why God chose not to intervene. Why did he not jam the killer’s guns, or cause his car to refuse to start, or have a police cruiser drive by the school as the killer arrived that morning? These would be such small things for Omnipotence to arrange, and they would have saved these innocent lives.

I know that pastors are supposed to have the answers. But this pastor has more questions than answers when it comes to the slaughter of innocents. For years I have studied the theological answers to this issue. To be honest, most of them make me cringe. I would never repeat any of them to anyone in grief or pain. It is better just to remain silent and suffer with them. That is the literal meaning of the word compassion.

“Suffer the little children to come unto me,” is the traditional wording of the verse quoted by the president in his address. My answer to that is “Amen.”

Not Dead Yet

For a week in August I was dying. The doctor solemnly informed my wife and me that he strongly suspected that I had pancreatic cancer. He was ordering a CT scan to confirm his diagnosis. He suggested we get people praying for us and assured us that he would also pray for us.

That was on a Tuesday - my wife’s 60^th birthday - which certainly put a damper on the birthday celebration! Due to insurance and administrative snafus (and my allergy to the injection used for CT scans), it was not until the following Monday that I had the test performed; it was another 24 hours until I heard the results. So we began a week of waiting.

For that week I thought I was dying. It took only a quick internet search to confirm that pancreatic cancer is one of the most lethal forms of the disease. Seventy-five percent of those diagnosed with this disease die within a year. 96% are dead in five years. I was probably dead within months.

I grieved. I woke up in the middle of the night and wept for the grandchildren I would never see grow up. I cried alone in the dark. I hugged Jude and we cried together. I grieved for her loss; I grieved for our children’s loss. I remembered what it was like to lose my father to cancer when he was 64 years old.

I planned everything I needed to do to get my financial affairs in order. I talked to our son, the banker, about annuities for Jude. I did not want to make any definite decisions until the test confirmed the doctor’s diagnosis, but I was pretty certain I was as good as dead.

When the results came in, the doctor phoned immediately. My CT scan was clear. Except for a few minor issues (such as kidneys full of stones) I was healthy. At hearing the news my wife immediately fell to her knees in thanksgiving to God. Then she got on the phone to share the good news with our prayer partners.

I was relieved, but strangely I had no strong emotional response to the news. As I write this article three weeks (and one gallbladder surgery) later, I still remain stoic concerning my newfound longevity. 

Of course I am glad I am not dying of cancer. I hope to live many more years. In fact the forty pounds I have lost to this mysterious ailment (probably gall bladder disease) will likely increase my chances of living longer. My cholesterol levels have never been better!

I now view that week of dying as a gift from God. It is one thing to intellectually know one is mortal. It is another thing to emotionally experience imminent mortality … and live to tell the story. I received the gift of dying before I died. I had a near death experience, but without the bright light and angels.

My brief experiment in dying has helped me appreciate the emotional depths of those who are diagnosed with life-threatening illness. It has put things in clearer perspective in my life. It has helped Jude and I to cherish each day as a gift from God, to value our family, our friends, our community, and our church. Dying has helped me live.

Christ Alone

My life begins and ends with Christ. This is the only way I can describe my spiritual journey. Christ is the only reality of which I am certain. Christ alone is the Rock upon which I stand. He is my door into the transcendent reality that is God.

When theodicy causes me to doubt God, Christ is real. When the Scriptures seem unbelievable, self-contradictory and in places immoral, the figure of Jesus shines from them like a beacon. When the Church and church people betray Christian values, Christ never fails.

In my intellectual life I am continually reexamining my beliefs. Socrates said that “the unexamined life is not worth living.” If that is true, then the old Athenian would consider my life very worthwhile. I question everything all the time. I am a Christian skeptic.

I accept nothing on blind faith. On Easter evening I would have lined up behind doubting Thomas to touch the wounds of Christ. Even then I would have thought Thomas too quick to believe his own senses! Socrates was accused of corrupting the youth of this day by teaching them to question everything. He would have welcomed me as a co-conspirator. I never stop questioning.

Sometimes I wish I were not so distrustful of Christianity. How much easier my life would be as a pastor if I could just accept Church teachings on faith! How nice it must be to never question one’s religious beliefs or assumptions! I envy believers who never doubt and are absolutely certain of everything Christian. I am not one of them. I am certain of nothing … but Christ.

Time and again, when I come to the end of a rigorous bout of spiritual self-examination, Christ remains true. This Christ is not just a subjective Savior apprehended by personal faith; I am talking about the historical Jesus. When I ruthlessly examine the Scriptures with the most critical eye, I repeatedly come to the conclusion that Jesus is the real thing.

In particular Jesus’ resurrection is irrefutable. I have studied all the arguments of the atheists and radical Biblical scholars. When all the arguments have been examined carefully, it is clear that as far as we can know anything about the past through historical science, then we can know this: Jesus’ tomb was empty that Sunday morning. As improbable as it seems, the most reasonable explanation for the empty tomb is that Christ had risen from the dead.

If you doubt this is true, then I suggest you do your own investigation. Please do not take my word for it; I wouldn’t if I were you. Examine all the possibilities; look at all the evidence. Leave nothing out. As part of your search you might want to read a book that recently finished entitled “Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics” by William Lane Craig, Professor of Philosophy at Talbot School of Theology. He does a very thorough job of exploring all the relevant issues.

If this is true – if Jesus truly rose from the grave - that changes everything. It changes the philosophical arguments for the existence of God. It changes the historical arguments for Jesus’ miracles. It changes our understanding of death. It changes our hopes and dreams. It changes our lives. It changes my life – over and over again. 

Skipping Church

I skipped church today.  Yes, I am on vacation and had no official responsibilities, and therefore my truancy is justifiable. But still it feels strange. I know that millions of people stay home from worship every Sunday and do not feel the least bit uncomfortable with it. For them attending worship would feel strange. Even many Christians regularly miss worship on little more than a whim and don’t give it a second thought.

But not me. Even during the year that I was out of ministry, I never missed a Sunday. I was a faithful pew-warmer even when I wasn’t in the pulpit. I have even made it a point to find a place to worship while on the road traveling long distances. I have had very interesting experiences visiting churches right off highway exits. But not this Sunday. This Sunday I was on vacation in Maine, and I chose the beach over the pew.

I was amazed at how many people were not going to church with me. I should not have been surprised. I have read the statistics on church attendance, especially in New England. But it still took me aback to see all these Sabbath-breakers in the flesh. And I am one of them.

Are these the ones who say, “I can worship God just as well in nature as in church?” Are these the people that the megachurches cater to? The “seekers” who are diligently searching for God?  I don’t think so. I think my fellow church-skippers were not giving a single thought to the Creator. They were busy building sand castles, deepening their tans, and cooling off in the surf.

As for me, I skipped church because I was tired. I needed to get away from church, if only for one Sunday. It didn’t stop me from thinking about God. Even while spending Sunday morning under a beach umbrella, I was reading a book on Christian apologetics and sharing theological insights with my wife. But every once in a while - every twenty or thirty years or so - skipping church just feels like the right thing to do.  

Struggling with God

Call me Israel. For I have wrestled with God. In Genesis Jacob wrestled with God all night and persevered until he received God’s blessing. In the morning God changed Jacob’s name to Israel, which means “one who wrestles with God.”

I chose this Biblical passage as the text for the first sermon I ever preached. I expounded it to a tiny congregation in rural Kentucky in 1974 while a seminarian. I have returned to this passage many times in the past thirty-eight years. I have proclaimed this scripture from other pulpits since then, each time approaching it differently. I am still wrestling.

I have struggled with faith, ministry, and theology all my life. Many times I almost quit. Recently I did quit ministry for more than a year. I assumed Christianity would get easier the more I studied the Bible and theology, and the more I matured in my faith. But in fact the struggle has become more difficult. My struggle has been compounded by sharing the struggles of my parishioners for so many years.

I have seen good people struggle through very difficult situations. People struggle to hold onto their faith – to believe and trust God in times of crisis. As their pastor I am there to share their pain, help them, and give them words of encouragement and hope. But many of these faithful Christians tell me that they experience no answer from God to their earnest prayers at such times. For many Christians God does not seem to be present when He is needed most.

Furthermore the problem of evil and suffering bothers me more than it used to. Maybe it is because I have seen evil firsthand. Child abuse, teen suicides, elder suicides, murder, good people facing deep depression worse than death. In one of my churches, four of our Sunday School children were shot in the head by the angry boyfriend of the mother. Conducting that multiple funeral changed my life.

If I had known that these shootings were going to happen, I would have done everything humanly possible to prevent it. God knew; God is omniscient. Yet He did not stop it. If I had been present in that apartment I would fought the man to stop those murders, risking my own life to do so. I would have killed him if necessary. God was present; God is omnipresent and omnipotent. Yet God choose not to act.

My experience with evil is insignificant compared to the experience of the parents of millions of infants who die of hunger, violence or disease each year. My familiarity with evil pales in comparison to the experience of Elie Wiesel. Listen to his description of arriving at the Birkenau Nazi concentration camp:

“Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp that turned my life into one long night seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky. Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget the nocturnal silence that deprived me for all eternity of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes. Never shall I forget those things, even were I condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never.”

I know the standard answers to the problem of theodicy. I have quoted them to hurting people a thousand times: “All things work together for good to them that love God…” Sorry, I don’t see the good that justifies such evil. Then there is the answer of “free will.” I could tolerate a little less free will for the perpetrators of evil if there was less suffering for the most vulnerable and innocent.

Many people quote this paraphrase of scripture: “God never gives us more than we can bear.”  Sorry, I don’t buy it. I have seen too many people given more than they can bear. The apologetic “ace in the hole” is that God’s reasons for allowing such evil and suffering are beyond our understanding; therefore we should just have faith.

That argument silenced Job, but it doesn’t stop my questioning. I need to know why, even if I can’t understand it fully. Throw me a bone, Lord. I have been struggling for a long time over this, and the night is far spent. But for now I will keep wrestling in the dark hoping that God will bless me with some tidbit of insight. Any answer is better than bad answers or no answer at all.

– Art is “Jacob Wrestling the Angel” by Karen Laub-Novak

Praying on Memorial Day

I am often asked to pray at public events. It is an occupational hazard. I am the official pray-er at community functions. Town meetings, school board meetings, graduations, baccalaureate services, public dinners, weddings, funerals - you name it. If the preacher is in attendance he is asked to pray.

Not that I mind it. It is a wonderful opportunity to usher people into the presence of God. I even get to do some disguised preaching. Those who would never sit in a pew and listen to a sermon will unintentionally hear a message in a prayer.

One of the most solemn occasions I am asked to pray is at Memorial Day ceremonies. There is a reverence surrounding these ceremonies that is absent at other times. It has to do with the atmosphere of sacrifice that permeates the service.

It is not too often that we can truthfully say that something is “a matter of life or death.” This is one of those times. Especially these days when we are in the midst of the longest war that America has ever fought.

I heard one young soldier say that when he came home from Afghanistan he tried to talk to his old school buddies about the war. Some of them were surprised to hear that our country was still fighting there. Afghanistan has become a forgotten war before it is even over. That is why I am honored to pray at Memorial Day services. It is my way of making sure their service is not forgotten.

It does not matter whether we think the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Persian Gulf or Vietnam were good foreign policy. All that matters is that these men and women put their lives on the line.  Many thousands gave their lives. Thousands more are continuing to give each day as they live with the physical and emotional wounds of war.

To pray is the least I can do. As my congregation knows, I do not pray for them only once a year on Memorial Day. I pray for soldiers  every Sunday morning in my pastoral prayer. I want to make sure that no one in my congregation ever forgets the great sacrifice given by so many.

Meeting Myself

I met Marshall Davis last Saturday night. I am not kidding. I went to hear a speaker in Madison, New Hampshire. A young man and I both drove up to the wrong location looking for the same program. We eventually found the correct building, and were greeted by one of the organizers of the event. 

She asked my name and I replied, “Marshall.” The young man said his name was Marshall also. What a coincidence. I asked him his last name. He replied, “Davis.” “You are kidding me!” I said. He wasn’t. We were the first Marshall Davis that either of us had ever met. There were only 30 people at the event, and two were Marshall Davis. I was glad we were not asked to wear name tags. 

I felt like I was looking at myself forty years younger, like I was in some type of time travel movie. I wanted to tell him that when I was his age I had as much hair on my head as he does now, but I didn’t have the heart. I wanted to tell him to take care of his teeth or he will be missing a few by my age, and root canals and dental implants aren’t fun. But I didn’t want to scare him. 

I wonder what he thought of me? I doubt that he thought he was meeting an older version of himself. “No,” he would think, “I will never become that bald or heavy … or wrinkled!” You just wait, Marshall Davis! Time has a way of doing things that you would never imagine!

The really strange thing is that when the program began, the speaker talked about our sense of personal identity. His main point concerned the illusory nature of the self. It felt like God was hitting me over the head with a message. “Listen up, Marshall Davis! Get this lesson through your hard heart!”

I did not talk much more with my namesake. He was a college student, and soon some of his college friends showed up. He spent the next few minutes before the program began chatting with them. Perhaps he had enough of Marshall Davis. Sometimes I feel the same way.

It was fun to meet myself. I looked good. I seemed happy and healthy. I hope Marshall Davis has a good, long and blessed life. I hope he meets the love of his life, and has a long happy marriage, as I have. I hope his spiritual quest results in knowing Truth intimately, as mine has. I hope he has a fulfilling career, and children and grandchildren. And I hope that forty years from now he meets Marshall Davis  ... again.