Who’s Responsible for Viruses and Floods?

 

Romans 8:12-25

Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

 

            Summer is a time to get back to nature.

           

            Heavily influenced by the writing of Rosseau and Thoreau, and elements of Native American culture, nature enjoys an image as the clean, pristine state of being. There’s a Biblical influence, too, that supports this. We view the natural world as the Garden of Eden—the original, uncorrupted state of the world as God intended, until humans sinned and messed up the whole system. Much of history since then can be thought of as a long, difficult struggle to get back to nature, to get back to the Garden of Eden. 

 

            We do this by trying to limit the damaging effects of our industry and our lifestyle on the environment.

            We do this when we choose to buy all natural ingredients and support natural processes.

            We do this when we take off for the woods and the mountains and the wilderness lakes and rivers to enjoy the experience of being in the world in its natural state, unspoiled by human hands. Nature is the ideal, the way things ought to be.

 

            Except that nature is also the ice storm that knocks out power lines and makes travel hazardous.           

            Nature is the tornado that causes death and destruction at Parkersburg or at a Boy Scout camp.

            Nature is the rain that pours down relentlessly and causes flooding and misery all throughout Iowa.

            Nature is a cloudless sky, where rain never comes. It leaves entire fields of crops to die, and those who depend upon them to starve.

            Nature is a hurricane that strikes New Orleans, killing thousands and destroying a city, or a tsunami that wipes out entire villages in Asia, killing hundreds of thousands.

            Nature is a catastrophic earthquake, landslide, or volcano.

 

            You get stuck in the middle of all that suffering and suddenly nature doesn’t look so wonderful.

 

            When it comes to the cruel callousness of nature, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Have you ever watched those nature documentaries that show the lion closing in on the cute little baby zebra, or a great white shark tearing into a group of seals? It’s hard to walk away from that marveling at the beauty of nature.

 

            And what is more natural than a leech or mosquito, or any blood-sucking parasite? How many people want to embrace them? What about the virus, a strange little organism, neither plant nor animal, really? It contributes nothing to the world; its only purpose is to multiply as fast as possible, often causing incredible damage to the host.

 

            Disease-bearing pathogens, cancer cells, faulty chromosomes, poisonous plants and animals, toxic chemicals, and deadly radiation, all exist naturally in our world. This is what we want to get back to? This is the ideal type of world we’re shooting for?

 

            For those of us with religious convictions, this dark side of nature poses a hard question: where is God in all this? If God is the guardian of the universe, how can all those terrible things occur under God’s watch? If God is the creator of the universe and all that is within it, then God brought all those things into the world. Why? Are natural disasters the wrath of violent God aimed at especially sinful people, as so many televangelists claim? How is God going to come through on the promise of peace, that the lion will lie down with the lamb, when God was the one who designed the lion to eat lambs in the first place?

 

            Two weeks ago, we explored the nature of sin: destructive activity that is human-made. We can easily isolate and identify the causes of sin. But how do we deal with destruction and suffering that is outside human control? How do we make sense of that in a world where we worship a loving God who reigns supreme?

 

            It’s another side of the Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People dilemma. God is supposed to be powerful and good. If God is powerful, then God must allow evil to flourish in the world, and it’s hard to see that as good. If God is good, and suffering is not okay with God, then it’s hard to see God as powerful.

 

            We have two readings from Scripture today that offer very different insights into this mystery. The first is a parable from Matthew, the sequel to the parable of the sower and the seeds that we talked about last week.

 

            In that parable, the variable was the soil. The success of the crop depended upon where the seed happened to fall. In today’s sequel, the soil is assumed to be good. The variable is the seed. The farmer planted good seed. But while everyone was asleep, an enemy came and planted bad seed in the same field of good soil. So although the grain sprouted and grew, so did the weeds.

 

            The servants of the master offer to pull out the weeds, but the master says, “No. If you do that, you’re going to pull up a lot of good plants as well. Let them all grow. At  harvest time, we’ll collect the weeds first and get rid of them, and we’ll gather the grain to my barn.”

           

            Jesus explains that the master is the Son of Man, the enemy is the devil. Good seeds are God’s children; weeds are the devil’s children. The reapers are the angels and the harvest is the end of the age. The time is coming when God will separate the evil from the good. God will destroy the evil and welcome the righteous.

 

            The parable is more fantasy than reality. Having grown up in Minneapolis, I’m in no position to question anyone’s farming practices. But is planting weeds in your neighbor’s field serious problem? I suspect it would be a lot of trouble for little payoff. And I take it that the standard procedure for dealing with weeds is to get rid of them early, not to let them grow and then sort it all out at harvest time. In this and many other ways, the story uses a lot of creative license in order to say something about the nature of God, evil, and the world. 

 

            What this parable does is establish a plausible explanation for sin being so prevalent, not just within human hearts, but within God’s creation. God created a good world. The devastation and the cruelty that exist in nature were not God’s idea. God did not create, plan, or endorse the dark side of nature. Evil entered the world through the work of enemies. And so one could assume that hurricanes, and viruses, etc. are the work of evil forces that have invaded God’s creation.

 

            The reason given for why God allows this evil to exist is that God is merciful and wants to prevent collateral damage to the innocent. Uprooting the entire system would hurt the good as well as the bad; so God will wait until all things have a chance to run their course, and then will set things right.   

 

            Compare that to Paul’s explanation in Romans of the dark side of the natural world. Creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God. So far that sounds like the parable in Matthew. Creation has been spoiled by evil forces who are allowed to exist until all things run their course, when God will set things right.

 

            But then Paul takes this in a new direction:

 

            We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now. 

 

            Why is there evil in the world? Why are the forces of nature as destructive as they are beautiful, as poisonous as they are nourishing, as cruel as they are uplifting? Why does this stuff exist in a world that a loving God creates and controls?

 

            Because these are growing pains. Nature is not a finished product. All these disturbing things about nature are part of the creative process, a birth process that is difficult and painful but will result in a truly astounding and beautiful and perfect creation some day. As Paul, a man who experienced far more suffering than most normal human beings, could say, “I consider the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us.”

 

            The question is, how do we reconcile these two very different and in some ways contradictory views on the nature of evil in the world?

 

            I think what these two Scripture readings reveal to us are how the two sides of God’s being relate to the world and its future.

            The Bible reveals that the two sides of God’s being are justice and love.

 

            Justice demands accountability. Love requires freedom.

            Justice demands consequences. Love requires forgiveness.

            How do you reconcile those two?

 

            It is mysterious and complex. But here’s one way to look at it. In creating the world, God, demonstrated his infinite love by giving creation the freedom to be.

            We know that God created the parameters of human relationship, ordered the laws and principles upon which it would run, and then set us free to be what we will be.

            Could God also have set the parameters of the universe, ordered the laws and principles upon which it would run, and then let go of it, set it free to be what it would be?

 

            It was all set up to run perfectly. If all of creation had evolved and ordered itself the way God envisioned, it would be in great shape. Just as if humans had developed the way God intended, we would be in great shape.

 

            God sowed the seeds for a tremendous world, and it was all good. But evil entered the world. Evil is a side effect of freedom. The freedom to choose good exists only if the choice to do evil exists along with it.

 

            We can describe evil in any number of ways. We can personify it. We can say that evil is concentrated in a specific force. We can say that evil is an absence of God. However you want to define it, evil exists, and has entered God’s creation. Weeds have been sown in the universe.

 

            Evil came into the world not because God was asleep at the switch, or because God was temporarily duped or outsmarted by an enemy; but because God loved the world so much. God loved creation so much that God was willing to sacrifice control over creation in order to give that creation the precious gift of freedom. God was willing to pay a steep price for that gift; the price being that God had to allow evil to be a possibility.

 

            As a result of choices made with that freedom, humanity has a dark side. As a result of random events that occurred with that freedom, nature has a dark side.

 

            So what is God to do with this situation in which evil now exists? Dig the whole thing up and start over? The God of love can’t do that.

            Just let creation do its thing? The God of justice can’t do that. God has to find a different way.

 

            The way God has found is to use the power of love to guide the world toward justice and away from evil. God has chosen a course that will honor the gift of freedom, and that means allowing the world to continue to be what it will be. But at the same time, God is continually creating, calling, inspiring, revealing—shining the light of truth and guiding the way to life.

 

            The good news in both Matthew and Romans is that creation is moving toward something better. Yes, evil exists but it is not going to last. God is moving creation to a place where peace and joy are the rule, not the exception.

 

            The Bible carries many messages of warning, but it always ends with a message of hope. It always points to a way out. Always points to a creation moving to the point where God wants it.

 

            Evil exists, not because God desires it or because of any weakness in God, but simply as a byproduct of the freedom God gives us out of true love. But evil is not going to last, because God is at work.

 

            Can a lion lie down with lamb? I can’t picture it. But right now the human race is coexisting with same germs that once destroyed most Europe, and who would ever have imagined that? Many of nature’s worst diseases have been eradicated. We have the capability to feed everyone on this planet regardless of local weather conditions. Through the study of ecology, we are learning, painfully and slowly, how to work with nature not against it.

 

            In Jesus’ parable, at the harvest, God does not just pick out the evil doers and cast them aside. The text says that God will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin. All evil will be eradicated and righteousness will shine like the sun. That’s what God has in store for creation.

 

            Not to discount sufferings of this present time. They are real. Evil dwells among us in many ways, natural as well as man-made. But its days are numbered. God’s promise is that the sufferings of the present time will not compare to the world that God is working on right now—the world that is to come. God is at work for good in this life, and in the life that is to come.