Excerpts from
God, 9/11, the Tsunami, and the New Problem of Evil
"The Gospels
thus tell the story, unique in the world’s great literature, religious
theories, and philosophies: the story of the creator God taking responsibility
for what’s happened to creation, bearing the weight of its problems on his own
shoulders. As Sydney Carter put it in one of his finest songs, “It’s God they
ought to crucify, instead of you and me.” Or, as one old evangelistic tract put
it, the nations of the world got together to pronounce sentence on God for all
the evils in the world, only to realize with a shock that God had already
served his sentence. The tidal wave of evil crashed over the head of God
himself. The spear went into his side like a plane crashing into a great
building. God has been there. He has taken the weight of the world’s evil on
his own shoulders. This is not an explanation. It is not a philosophical
conclusion. It is an event in which, as we gaze on in horror, we may perhaps
glimpse God’s presence in the deepest darkness of our world, God’s strange
unlooked-for victory over the evil of our world; and then, and only then, may
glimpse also God’s vocation to us to work with him on the new solution to the
new problem of evil...
...When we then go
to the Gospels for help, we should listen to what they actually say. Matthew
tells the story of God-with-us, Emmanuel, with us in the middle of the
swirling, raging waters, asleep in the boat on the lake, vulnerable to the
screams of the demoniacs and the plots of the Pharisees, undermined by his own
associates and finally hunted down by the chief priests and handed over to the
imperial authorities. Matthew would forbid us to ask the question about the
tsunami in terms of a God who sits upstairs and pulls the puppet-strings to
make things happen, or not, as the case may be, down here.
We can and must
only tell the story in terms of the God who is with his people in the midst of
the mighty waters: the God who was swept off his feet and out to sea, the God
who lost his parents and family, the God who was crushed under falling concrete
and buried in mud. And then we have to learn to tell the story, as well, in
terms of the God who rescued others while not saving himself; the God who
worked night and day to recover bodies and some still alive; the God who rushed
to the scene with all the help he can muster; the God who gave not only
generously but lavishly to help the relief effort. Truly, if we believe in
Matthew’s God, the Emmanuel, we must learn to see God in that way. Remember
that when Jesus died the earth shook and the rocks were torn in pieces, while
the sky darkened at noon. God the creator will not always save us from these
dark forces, but he will save us in them, being with us in the darkness and
promising us, always promising us, that the new creation which began at Easter
will one day be complete, and that with that completion there will be full
healing, full understanding, full reconciliation, full consolation. The thorns
and thistles will be replaced by the cypress and myrtle. There will be no more
sea..."
Transcript of one
of N.T. Wright's May 18-19, 2005, lectures at the Church Leaders' Forum,
Seattle Pacific University.
To read the whole
lecture,
visit http://www.spu.edu/depts/uc/response/summer2k5/features/evil.asp
