Sermon preached in the Parish Church of St Mary the Virgin, Primrose Hill Lent 3, Sunday 11 March 2007

Isaiah 55.1-9; 1 Cor 10.1-13; Luke 13.1-9

Were the 22 people who died in the plane crash in Indonesia this week any more guilty than the 106 people who survived? I tell you they were not. If Jesus were speaking today it's the sort of topical illustration he would use against those who believe that people who die in tragic circumstances are being punished by God.

In this morning's gospel we find him having to respond to the outrage experienced by local people on discovering that the Roman Governor, Pontius Pilate, had slaughtered a number of Galileans who had gone on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, their blood ritually polluting the temple precincts. People were outraged, but also frightened for two reasons: were those men sinners? Is that why this terrible thing happened? Secondly, Jesus himself was bound for Jerusalem. Was it safe for them to go there?

Were those who died terrible sinners? I tell you they were not, says Jesus. Nor were those who were killed in Jerusalem when the tower of Siloam collapsed any more wicked than those who survived. Or to re-state it in contemporary terms, 'On 9/11, were the people who were killed when the Twin Towers collapsed more wicked than the rest of the inhabitants in New York?' What utter rubbish, says Jesus.

For centuries the Jews had tried to make sense of the sheer randomness of life, 'the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune' Shakespeare called it. And we do too. The older we get the more difficult it is to come to terms with the opaqueness of life, with blatant injustice, with innocent suffering and tragedies like the Tsunami.

Belief in an all-powerful God who is just in his dealings had led some Jews to a mechanistic view of the world - the 'she got her just deserts' or 'he had it coming to him' school of theology. And for all our intellectual sophistication, those sort of feelings are not far beneath the surface in some people's thinking still.

But Jesus distances himself from all that - not least because it reduces our relationship to God to a tit-for-tat mentality. If you do that, God will give you a lollipop; but if you are naughty, he'll give you a damn good hiding.

With this sort of mindset you look at world events in a very blinkered way. Famines and droughts are seen as punishments meted out by a vengeful God to disobedient individuals and nations. You've got cancer? Well, you must be a really wicked person.

And we do indeed find this sort of view of suffering reflected in certain parts of the Old Testament - perhaps not as crudely as I am expressing it, but it is there. And of course, there is truth in this sort of view. For example, if we smoke heavily, we will become vulnerable to developing lung cancer. If we continue to pollute the world, global temperatures will rise, the ice cap will melt, sea levels will rise and many innocent people in London will drown.

Our actions and decisions have implications, for ourselves and for the world we live in. Indeed says Jesus in this morning's Gospel, unless you all repent, you will perish. There are things we need to repent of for our health and our salvation both as individuals and as nations.

But it's very important not to read the Bible selectively. Side by side with passages that suggest that God is there with a stick to beat us every time we step out of line, we find puzzlement with the fact that he doesn't do so.

'Why do the wicked prosper?' laments the Psalmist. 'They suffer no pain as other folk do. They are hale and fat, and smile at you from folds of fatness.' Big problem: why is it that terrible things happen to good people, whereas nothing bad seems to happen to wicked people?

It's a jolly good question and I don't have an answer.

In the Old Testament the Book of Job explores this issue. Poor Job loses his servants and livelihood in an attack by bandits, and his property and children are killed in an earthquake. Finally, his own health deteriorates in the shock of it all. 'Curse God and die,' says his wife. But Job refuses. And in the process utters one of the most famous statements in the Bible:

'The Lord gives and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.' And the writer comments, 'In all this, Job did not sin and refused to charge God with injustice.'

What is the solution to innocent suffering in the Book of Job? After forty chapters of argument the book closes with Job being granted a vision of God. When Job beholds the face of God his own suffering is eclipsed by the sight of God's majesty and it is sufficient for him.

And that's as far as the Old Testament will go. Is there anything more that as Christians we can say?

Perhaps two things.

First, Christians are not fatalists. Unlike Muslims who will declare, 'It is the will of Allah', Christians do not think that everything that happens in this world is the will of God. In fact some things are positively inimical to the will of God. For example, it would be monstrous to say that the holocaust was God's will. God did not desire the destruction of millions of innocent people in the gas chambers of Auschwitz.

It's why Christian theologians have always sought to distinguish the permissive will of God from the purposive will of God. God does not inflict suffering on people: But the way that God has created the world, which allows us the freedom both to bless and give, as well as to curse and to steal, means that, in effect, he permits certain things to happen, so that we can experience the freely-given love of another. Suffering is in part a consequence of the exercise of our freewill.

Secondly, the big difference between Christianity and Islam, and indeed Judaism, is that at the heart of our faith is a crucified God. In Christian understanding God is not remote from human suffering. He is in the midst of it. This is the message of the cross. Jesus' execution by the Romans is the supreme example of injustice. Here is one who did no wrong, who was entirely innocent of the charges laid against him and yet was still executed. God is in the midst of our human mess. He has staked his own claim. God answers our questions by being here with us and suffering too.

Let me conclude with a story. When I was a university chaplain, my boss, Bishop John Robinson, was diagnosed with cancer of the pancreas shortly before his 54th birthday. Only weeks previously he had been preaching in their family church in the Yorkshire Dales at the funeral of a young girl from the village who had died of leukaemia. In the course of his sermon he said that he believed that God was to be found as much in the cancer as in the sunset in their dale.

People were shocked, in part because he dared to speak the dreaded 'c' word from the pulpit. On the night before he went into hospital for surgery he preached in College Chapel. Referring to this funeral he said, 'What I preached over the summer holiday at the funeral of that little girl I truly believe. But now I have to see whether I can say it of myself.'

John died six months to the day he was told that he had six months to live. Each night of their married life he and Ruth had always prayed the Collect for Trinity IV from the old Prayer Book together:

O God, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy: increase and multiply thy mercy upon us, that thou being our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal, that we finally lose not the things eternal.

On the night in question, Ruth took him up a cup of hot chocolate. He said he was too tired to drink it and asked her to say their prayer so he could go to sleep. Ruth said the prayer. John said 'Amen', and died.

John discovered that God is indeed to be found as much in the cancer as in the sunset. Because of Christ and his cross, we have hope and grace to make the same sort of discovery, to deal with suffering and the injustices of life as they happen and to find a way through. This Lent let's cling to his cross and know it to be our light and our salvation.