God and Suffering

         When I was in a student in Europe, I took a midnight train from Paris to Zurich.  I was too cheap to pay for a sleeping car, so I ended up talking all night with a man named Yacov.  Yacov described himself as a secular Jew.  He grew up in Israel, where he was educated in the Jewish faith.  

However, when he saw a documentary on the Holocaust in middle school, he became an atheist.  He said to himself, “There is no such thing as God or the chosen people, or else this would not have happened.”

Yacov is not alone.  How can a good God allow so much suffering?  The Jewish prophet Habakkuk had the same question.  A few centuries before Jesus, the Greek philosopher Epicurus was wrestling with the problem of thinking of a good and strong God in a broken and bruised world.  A few centuries after Jesus, St. Augustine was still asking the same question.  He had some different answers, but he was still kicking the same can along the same street.  

How can a loving God allow so much suffering?  This question never goes away.   Everyone seems to ask this at one time or another.  Without a doubt, this is the single most common theological question voiced in movies.  “Why, God?  How could God let this happen?”

----  Let’s make this personal.  At the end of each row, you'll find some cards and pens. Take a minute and write down on the card one instance of serious suffering.  It can be global or hyper local.  You can make it as personal or impersonal as you want.  I’m not going to ask you to show it to anyone.

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Now, hold those up.  Hold up your example of suffering.  Raise your hand high.  This is why we are talking about this.  These cards are why we have to talk about this.  We know suffering.  We need some answers for why there are all these cards in the air and why there is so much suffering in the world.

Let me give a few disclaimers before we really get started here. 

1.  The Bible does not give a complete answer to this question.   The Bible is more focused on how to overcome suffering rather than focusing on why there is suffering in the first place.

2.  There is no way that I can give a complete answer today.  You and I both will probably leave here feeling a little unsatisfied with the answers we talk about today.  However, I hope that I can at least make this issue more manageable for us.

When we face the problem of suffering in the world, it can be overwhelming.  Hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, murders, poverty, starvation, cancer.  It all piles up, causing us to wonder how a loving God could allow so much suffering.  Sometimes, the mountain of pain gets bigger and bigger, and we get smaller and smaller, until we can’t see anything else but the pain.  One thing I hope to do today is to shrink that mountain so that we can move past it.  

The Hard Part - We're Moving

[I shared this at our church's annual meeting October 21.  I announced our plans in the worship service today, October 28.  I'm posting it now so that anyone who missed the meeting can read the full explanation.]

I’ve saved the hard part of the meeting for the end.  There is no easy way to do this, so I’ll just get started.  After much prayer and consideration, our family has decided to move back to the USA.  I have accepted a position at a Nazarene church near Chicago.  I will be an associate pastor, with an emphasis on missions and missional communities.  We expect to leave in late February, and in the meantime, I’ll be helping our church here prepare for the transition.

After some of my teasing sermon illustrations in the past, I feel like I should take a moment now to say that this is not a joke or a clever lead-in for a point later.  This is real.  For the rest of this time, I want to talk about four basic points

• Why we are moving at this time
• Why we are moving to this place
• Some confirmations I’ve experienced
• What’s next for our KNU International English Church.

I hope these will answer most of your questions, but after I’m done we will take time for some questions as well.

Why We Praise (Habakkuk 3)

This is a guest post by our assistant pastor, Matt Banner.

Habakkuk 3

3 A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet. On shigionoth.

² Lord, I have heard of your fame;
    I stand in awe of your deeds, Lord.
Repeat them in our day,
    in our time make them known;
    in wrath remember mercy.

³ God came from Teman,
    the Holy One from Mount Paran.
His glory covered the heavens
    and his praise filled the earth.
⁴ His splendor was like the sunrise;
    rays flashed from his hand,
    where his power was hidden.
⁵ Plague went before him;
    pestilence followed his steps.
⁶ He stood, and shook the earth;
    he looked, and made the nations tremble.
The ancient mountains crumbled
    and the age-old hills collapsed—
    but he marches on forever.
⁷ I saw the tents of Cushan in distress,
    the dwellings of Midian in anguish.

The Just Trust (Habakkuk 2)

You talked back, and we heard.

• Why does God create people with mental illnesses?
• Why do so many people do good with bad results or do bad and are constantly blessed?
• If God is love, and God is good, then why does a good God allow suffering?

You talked back, and God heard you.  Before you even asked the questions, almost a year ago, God led our worship planners to plan a series on the Minor Prophets.  Somehow,God led us to the book of Habakkuk, which answers your questions directly.  

Habakkuk has the same kinds of questions.  Adam introduced them last week.  

• Why is there so much injustice in the world?
• How can God allow evil people to prosper while good people suffer?
• Where is the God who is supposed to protect us and to take care of us?
• Where is the justice in this messed up world?

Even a prophet has doubts and questions.  Perhaps, it’s the prophets especially who voice the questions and doubts.  Maybe they are the honest ones who say what everyone is thinking and feeling.

It’s time for you to get a little prophetic.  In your bulletin, you’ll find a piece of black paper.  On this paper, write down your biggest doubts and questions about our world.  How is our world unjust?  What bothers you the most about our world?  When you think abou the global situation or your personal life situation, what makes you really angry?  Write it down.  I’m not going to ask you to read it to anyone or to talk to anyone.  The paper is black so that even your neighbor or your spouse can’t read what you’re writing.  Be completely honest.  Use all caps and explanation points and curse words if you want.  No one will see it.

OK, go ahead and write.

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Now, hold on to that paper and that doubt for a few minutes as we turn to Habakkuk.  He asked God his questions.  He shouted at God, and then God answered.  Today, we’re going to read Habakkuk 2, which gives us God’s longest answer to Habakkuk.  We’ll start where Adam left off last week.

Why Does God Allow Suffering? (Talk Back Series)

If God is love, and God is good, then why does a good God allow suffering (emotionally, physically, socially, etc.)?
[This is a response to a question shared on a "Talk Back" card at our church.]

When I was in Europe, I took a midnight train from Paris to Zurich. I was too cheap to pay for a sleeping car, so I ended up talking all night with a man named Yacov. Yacov described himself as a secular Jew. He is Israeli and grew up in Israel. He was educated in the Jewish faith.
However, when he saw a documentary on the Holocaust in school, he became an atheist. He said to himself, “There is no such thing as God or the chosen people, or else this would not have happened.”
Yacov is not alone. Many people have lost faith in God because of the suffering they see in the world. How can a loving God allow so much suffering? This is a huge question.

Take a minute and think about one instance of serious suffering. It can be something you went through, something that happened to someone you know, or something you just heard about. You can make it as personal or impersonal as you want.

How can a loving God allow so much suffering? This is one of the hardest questions for both Christians and non-Christians. I want to give a few disclaimers before we set into our discussion tonight.
1. The Bible does not give a complete answer to this question. The Bible is more focused on how to overcome suffering rather than focusing on why there is suffering in the first place.
2. There is no way that I can give a complete answer today. You and I both will probably leave here feeling at least a little unsatisfied with the answers we talk about today. Even though I can’t answer the question completely, I hope that I can at least make this issue more manageable for us.

Why did David wait 20 years to help Mephibosheth? (Talk Back Question 3)

After David became king of Judah (in the south), there was a long civil war with most of the tribes of Israel following Ishbosheth (Saul’s son and Mephibosheth’s uncle) in the north.  After the David’s side one, he became king of the united Israel.  Next David dealt with Israel’s external enemies - either winning wars or making peace treaties.  After David’s kingdom was solidly established and Israel had a period of peace, David seems to have taken time to reflect on his promise to look after Jonathan’s descendants.  

So basically, David seems to have forgotten about his promise (or to have been to busy to fulfill it) until there was peace.  But then he did right by Mephibosheth.  Even though it was late in coming, it was still a pretty courageous act, considering that David had fought a civil war against Ishbosheth.

Denominations: What Happened & What Now?

There are almost 7,000 languages currently spoken on earth.

  We started with one.  Then came the tower of Babel - when God confused our languages and sent us running to the ends of the earth, scattered into the small groups of people who could understand each other and get along together.

There are some 33,800 different Christian denominations around the world.

  We started with one.  Then came a host of historical events, which sent us running to the ends of the earth, scattered into the small groups of people who could understand each other and get along together.

What happened?  I feel like Rodney King, after the Los Angeles race riots, “People, I just want to say, can we all just get along?  Can we all just get along?”

  Apparently not.  No, we can’t just all get along.  

Today, we’re talking about denominations (교단) - all 33,800 of them, and we’re going to do this with a few different basic questions.

• What happened?  
• Why?  
• What now?  

What Happened?  The History.

 1. The Early Breaks -  The first major breaks within the Church - kind of like denominations - happened in the 5th century.  Both splits were about one issue: How is Jesus both divine and human?   In 431 the Assyrian Church of the East, centered in ancient Iraq, split away because they insisted on the separation and clear distinction of Jesus’ divine and human natures.  20 years later, the Oriental Orthodox Church, split away for the exact opposite reason.   

Interestingly, in 1984, the Pope and the Syriac Patriarch issued a joint statement about these divisions: “The confusions and schisms that ... arose only because of differences in terminology and culture and in the various formulae ... express the same matter.  Accordingly, we find today no real basis for the sad divisions and schisms that ... arose between us ...”

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