Rick Bragg is one of those great southern writers in the long tradition of southern storytellers and authors. He wrote the introduction for a beautiful book my architect son gave me for Christmas a few years ago. It's entitled "Wooden Churches: A Celebration". Chris said it reminded him of a couple of the small wooden churches we served early in my ministry. Bragg talks about small southern churches and the people who worship there. He writes:
I used to think there was something magical about them, those people, and I believed that almost all of my life, until the spring of 1994. That was when a tornado ripped through a little church in northeastern Alabama the Sunday before Easter, killing old people, killing children. There was just something bad wrong about that. How could people die in His house? How could He let that happen? And then I heard a preacher say that faith had nothing to do with reason. Faith is what you have when there is no reason. Faith is what you have, he explained, when everything else is in pieces on the ground. "
I can't tell you how often I have heard that question, or wrestled with that question myself..."Why? How could God let that happen?" But long ago I gave up on the notion that God has a reason for everything. If God is the source of tornadoes that tear little churches apart, or cancers that tear bodies apart, or violence that tears nations apart, then I really can't worship that kind of a God. If "God has a reason" for the tragedies that strike us, then I gotta get me another job. I simply can't work for that kind of a God.
For your pastors, this past week has simply had too much death in it. I can't explain it, I have no answers for the "why" questions. In fact, I don't believe there is an answer for the "why" question. But I do know that God walks with us through the valley of the shadow of death. I know that God comforts in the hours of loss and God strengthens in the face of suffering. And above all, when we face the worst that life can do to us, God promises resurrection and new life. Now that's a God I can love. I can worship that kind of a God, and I'm even willing to keep working for Him.
I guess faith is what you have, maybe it's all you have, when there is no reason, when everything else is in pieces on the ground. Thanks be to God.
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