Before the Burning Bodies

Sadly, I’m not going to be able to preach when I’m in Arizona next month. But I’d like to offer my own take on the lectionary texts for that particular Sunday.
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Jesus told his disciples a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. He said, "In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, `Grant me justice against my opponent.' For a while he refused; but later he said to himself, `Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.'" And the Lord said, "Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?" -Luke 18:1-8

In the summer of 2009 I attended the house blessing for a family of refugees from Africa. It was a well-attended event, marking the completion---or near completion---of a habitat house. It was a very emotional moment; the family had been through so much in leaving their country, coming to America, adapting to our culture, and starting from nothing but what Catholic Charities and church could offer. We arrived at the place in the service where an organizer offered a prayer, and we all prepared to enter the Presence of God. But something jarred me during the prayer, and it was when the organizer said that she was thankful that the family had survived a horrendous attack on the refugee camp they had been living in and “that God had a plan for them and brought them here.”

I don’t want to be misunderstood. I thank God that the family survived. My problem is with the concept of “God’s plan” and “God’s will” in this context. Many died during that particular attack on the refugee camp that the family survived. Was the entire massacre a function of God’s will? Can we arrive at that conclusion by positing that if that particular family’s survival, by God’s providence, means that God could have saved others by providence…but that God chose not to because of God’s carefully orchestrated plan?

We tend to say things in generalities when bad things happen and then claim the reason for it may be the work of God. “Perhaps God is testing your faith.” “He wouldn’t lead you to it if He could not lead you through it.” Fill in your own blank here: “_______ seems bad but I’m sure God knows what he is doing.” All of these assume that our particular circumstance in life is simply the working s of God.

We have all heard these. We probably have all given our own versions of these to other people. We may take comfort from these. They come in handy when we do not know what to say when we are confronted by another’s suffering.

I cannot.

I think the general way the response is given helps us to provide comfort…our own comfort in the face of another person’s trauma… at the expense of God’s goodness. To offer some examples of my point, let me take you from the generalities above and plug in some specifics, and I’ll use some examples that I’ve come across recently. Maybe we shall see if these words of comfort can really stand.

A US-born nun went to Guatemala in 1989 and, while she was there serving God, she was abducted and tortured by members of the Guatemalan security forces. These particular Guatemalan personnel were taking orders from an American man somehow connected to the American embassy. At that time, the U.S was selling weapons to Guatemala. The first time of many times this sister---our sister--- was raped, her attacker (a Guatemalan police officer) whispered in her ear, “your god is dead.” Perhaps God was testing her faith.

A massacre in which hundreds die while they are supposed to be under the protection of the United Nations… child soldiers… and the bodily mutilation of many seems bad… but I’m sure God knows what he is doing.

This sounds atrocious does it not? Surely I can’t be seriously saying that God is responsible for such acts?

No, I am not blaming God for these atrocities. I simply wish to point out that in our daily conversations we attribute many things to God... but when we increase the level of evil the reasoning falls to shambles. We realize that we attribute evil to God in the hope of comfort and to grasp at some sort of understanding of pain…and we want that comfort and understanding now.

Of course, many would reply to me that God is not responsible for evil… that man is responsible for evil. I agree; my problem is when we attribute man’s evil to a plan God may have. We do this, all the time, when we tell someone that “God led you to this problem” or that “God is testing you.”

I suggest what we need is a way of talking about God that works across the spectrum of evil. But I need to confess that I cannot explain evil. No one can. Instead I wish to offer you a theological framework that I learned by reading Jewish theology. After the Holocaust, Jewish thinkers know quite a bit about evil and suffering… and unfortunately Christianity seems to have sidestepped the issue. So I offer a simple statement by which you can test your own theology. It has served me well as a way of testing my own theology:

“No statement, theological or otherwise, should be made that would not be credible in the presence of the burning children.”- Rabbi Irving Greenberg

Imagine standing in front of the large open-air cremation pits the Nazis ordered to be dug using Jewish slave labor. Now imagine that in that pit are the bodies of burning children…charred flesh and hair, some reduced to bones, and in others you can see the still-open lifeless eyes. Now, imagine saying “God is testing us,” “God knows what he is doing,” or “This is God’s plan.”

Can you do it? Can you really mean it?

This sermon is shaping up to be quite a bummer isn’t it?

I want to be clear about this: I am not trying to refute the day’s Gospel reading. I know that what I have described up to this point can be interpreted as a refutation. But I want to be clear about the state of the world we actually live in. Injustice is rampant. People the world over are exploited, kidnapped, raped, and murdered. Entire populations are subject to policies that seek to eliminate them. The 20th century was by far the bloodiest in human history.

We DARE NOT forget these facts when we read this Gospel text. We DARE NOT in our own relative comfort think that justice is easy.

Justice was not easy for the Jews before the Exodus.
Justice was not easy for the Jews in the Babylonian captivity.
Justice was not easy for the Jews and Christians under Roman rule.
Justice was not easy for the Jews under Christian rule.
Justice was not easy for the Caribbeans and Native Americans under European Christian rule.
Justice was not easy for the Native Americans under American rule (and still isn’t).
Justice was not easy for the Africans who were brought here and kept here in slavery, and whose descendants then suffered second class status, under American (supposedly Christian) rule.
Justice is not easy for many religious people living in oppressive societies today.
Justice is not easy for those who seek to not be harassed by paperwork while trying to earn a living wage.

And we live with many other examples… along with the ramifications of all of the injustices that have come before us.

But we inherit a promise… that in God’s good time all things will be set right. That God, being the good judge, will give justice to all who are wronged.

So pray. Pray fervently. Pray without ceasing. Be like the widow and constantly demand justice. Believe that those prayers matter to God. However, our duty to pray is not enough for those of us who can do more. While I don’t have an answer for the problem of evil, I have a position I take in opposition to evil:


“To talk of love and of a God who cares in the presence of the burning children is obscene and incredible; to leap in and pull a child out of a pit, to clean its face and heal its body, is to make the most powerful statement— the only statement that counts.” -Rabbi Irving Greenberg

…And I am reminded that, “That which we do for the least of these…you did for me [Christ].” (Matt. 25:40)


Christians are a commissioned people. We are called to action. Love is a verb and so is prayer. We are called to the work of God: to heal, to reconcile, to save, and to sacrifice. Our neighbors near and far cry out justice and mercy, shall we not love them as ourselves?... as our very children?...As Christ? How often we have lost sight of these goals within the church… and how often we need to be reminded.

So pray, and let your prayers do their work within you and inspire you to action. Know that we do not work alone, that God works through us and is present to us in our prayers. Do not lose heart, for God will preserve the works of His mercy through us. Live in the faith that while justice may be slow, it does come incrementally as God enables us and as we learn to follow God in Christ.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, we have work to do. Will you jump into the fire?