|
 |
I. Introduction
How often have you heard or asked the question? Where is God in all of this suffering in our world? Or… Why do bad things happen to good people? What have I done to deserve this?
Eli Wiesel, the great lyrical writer of the holocaust experience, describes a scene where the prisoners were forced to watch a young boy being hanged and then, to walk by him in his last agony. He recalls a man in front of him muttering – “Where is God now?” and he remembers answering the question in his heart – “God is right here.”
In the past few weeks we have been exploring the images of the Cross and how we each tell that story, recognizing that how we tell the story reflects how we understand suffering and God’s involvement in our own suffering.
1. For example if we think of the Cross as a way that Jesus atoned for our sins or paid a ransom for our freedom, we might think about suffering as a hardship endured for a greater good. We saw that women in the face of hardship and abuse might mistakenly use this image to submit to the hardship of domestic violence or abuse for the greater good, perhaps of their children.
o Do I see suffering as necessary to make up for some wrong doing on my part?
o Do I endure suffering so that others might be free?
o Do I experience myself as unworthy and in need of atonement?2. Or another example might be if we think of the Cross as the fulfillment of a divine plan that was ‘meant to be’, we might look at suffering and feel helpless and we might be unable to act against injustice in society.
o Do I see suffering as inevitable in human life?
o Do I think of God as causing my suffering? The suffering of the world?3. Or perhaps, if we look at suffering as the consequence of the choices we make (or others make) in their lives, we might blame ourselves (or others) for the suffering we (or they) experience.
o Do I blame myself for the choices I have made that have caused me or others more suffering?
o Do I say that if only “she” had done “such and such”, she would not be suffering so….?We also saw that each of these interpretations has some positive and some possibly negative impact on our understanding of the Cross. What we say about the Cross reflects how we understand our own suffering.
We are very complex beings and one of these approaches is adequate in itself to explain suffering in human life. Trying to figure out God’s relation to suffering is an exercise within that complexity.
II. Theodicy
Theologians and philosophers and spiritual writers often engage
In long treatises on the justification of God’s goodness before suffering and evil or to justify who God is in the face of the Cross.
The term for this effort to defend God’s goodness in the face of suffering is “theodicy”.At times, some say, “God seems to require of his creatures a life of suffering….Submission to it (suffering) becomes for some a spiritual ideal or God sends suffering because people are sinners”. (Crowley, Paul – page 70).
Jon Sobrino, the great Salvadoran liberation theologian, says that the scandal of the cross is due to the “radical discontinuity” between the mode of Jesus’ death and his relationship with God throughout his earthly life.
Teilhard explored so much about God and he seems to have found no words to express the relation of God to evil and suffering.
III. “Searching for God on the Cross”
We continue to search for God in the reality of the cross and in the reality of ongoing human suffering.
Jurgen Moltmann speaks of the cross as the site of “God’s direct entry into the realm of human suffering”, as the real symbol of God’s participation in our suffering. (cf. Crowley, page 68)
The letter to the Philippians 2 claims that “There is no loneliness and no rejection which God has not taken to himself (herself) and assumed in the cross of Jesus.”
God, in the person of Jesus, indeed embraced suffering not in a fatalistic way but freely and intentionally.It is in the gospel moment of greatest anguish as Jesus cries out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” that the utter powerlessness of Jesus seems to have been expressed in a lament of great emotion.
Sobrino ponders the silence of God in that moment…….. and for him, that silence becomes a paradoxical expression of God’s solidarity with the victims of history. In that moment, Jesus (God) appears to be utterly powerless in the face of horrible suffering and of imminent death.
Perhaps that moment gives us the clearest idea of the reality of the paschal mystery in the face of suffering? Perhaps it is only in utter powerlessness (that is freely accepted and not resented in a sense of being a victim of something) that we, as human beings, can be open to experience the fullness of the Resurrection?
IV. Conclusion
I invite you to think about your own experiences of feeling powerless……
I invite you to imagine the experiences of people who suffer from hunger or incurable disease or disaster that traumatizes them…. With them and through our own experiences of feeling powerless, let us pray with Jesus, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Gustavo Guttierez, the father of liberation theology, cites this prayer of Jesus in his last cry as that which renders more penetrating the suffering in all of human history. (Crowley, page 72)
“Our image of the cross is not adequate….if it ignores, trivializes, or increases the suffering of others”. (Reid page 182)
The cross, thus, is a sign of our God who shares in our human suffering because in that moment of feeling abandoned and powerless and deeply emotional, we see love (God) enter into all of human suffering.
Sources for this reflection were: Barbara Reid, O.P.’s Taking up the Cross: new Testament Interpretations through Latina and Feminist Eyes and Paul G. Crowley, S.J.’s Unwanted Wisdom, Suffering, the Cross, and Hope.