Why Bad Things Happen to Good People

Reverend Vann Knight, Parish Minister

October 12, 2003

            Why do bad things happen to good people?  This is a classic theological question, but it is also a deeply personal one.  Most of us can recall personal or family tragedies that evoked the challenge, “Why?”  A mother is taking her six-year-old to school, and the child, without warning, breaks away in excitement to reach a new friend, only to run into the path of an automobile and be killed before the mother’s eyes.  The mother will never be the same.  Life will never be the same; and for 50 years, the question lingers, “Why?”

            Today I want to grapple with this question.  In the book How Do You Spell God, Rabbi Marc Gellman and Monsignor Thomas Hartman suggest three reasons bad stuff happens to good folks.  As an aside, I highly recommend this book, especially to parents who are struggling to find answers to their children’s theological questions.  Rabbi Gellman and Monsignor Hartman suggest the following.

            First, they say that some of what happens is our own fault.  “What goes around comes around.”  This means that what we do comes back to us.  If we do bad things, bad things come back to us.  If we do good things, good things come back to us.  If you lie, people won’t believe you.  If you cheat, people won’t trust you.  If you are cruel, people won’t love you.  What goes around comes around.  Many religions teach that some of the ways people die are just plain and simple their own fault.  People smoke and die of lung cancer.  People use drugs and die of overdoses.  People eat food full of fat and sugar, then don’t exercise, and die of heart attacks.  People drive too fast and die in car crashes. 

Now this does not mean that all the bad stuff that happens to us is our fault.  Let’s look at another idea:  The bad stuff is nobody’s fault.  The babies who die did nothing wrong.  The people who get hurt in accidents caused by other people did nothing wrong.  For Buddhists, the bad stuff in the world happens because of the way the world is.  The world and everything in it comes into being, gets old and broken, and dies.  That is the way of the world for everything, and this way makes us sad.  That sadness is the reason for suffering.  Jews also teach that the world goes along just the way it goes and some bad stuff happens just because of the way the world is.

According to Rabbi Gellman and Monsignor Hartman, another way that some religions teach that bad stuff is not our fault is to say that the bad stuff comes from the devil or bad spirits.  It was certainly the sense of Jesus that he was tempted by the devil.  We may not be comfortable using that language, but I think we need to be careful not to prematurely discount spiritual forces of evil just because we don’t understand them.  Whether we call it mental illness, addiction, or something else, there are people who feel that their lives are controlled by powerful evil forces.  This, by whatever name, is a cause of suffering.

Another possible cause for suffering not mentioned by Rabbi Gellman and Monsignor Hartman is that we reap the consequences of actions in previous lives.  This concept is common in Hinduism, Buddhism, and to many people’s surprise, in ancient Jewish and early Christian thought.  In the 9^th chapter of the Gospel of John, we hear these words:   “As Jesus walked along, he saw a man blind from birth.  His disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’”

Jesus answered that neither the man nor his parents had sinned.  But two things are obvious:  First, a question regarding one committing sin prior to birth into this life was asked within the Jewish religious context; and second, Jesus didn’t respond as if the question were unusual or inappropriate, and he didn’t refute the possibility.  He simply said that the man had not sinned before being born.  In our culture, we are generally skeptical about the notion of previous lives and future reincarnations, but if we want to consider all possible reasons for suffering, I think we have to include consequences from previous lives.  Personally, I do not think karma, consequences of actions, ends at the death of this body.

Another reason we sometimes suffer is for the sake of conscience.  There are times when we know that if we stay true to our conscience, we will pay a price; and all we have to do to avoid suffering is to not speak, or to take no action, or to quietly yield to the prevailing authority.  Suffering experienced as a consequence of acting on our conscience is “voluntary suffering.”  This was the kind of suffering taken on by Jesus, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and countless ordinary people every day.  If there is nothing in our lives big enough to suffer and die for, there probably isn’t anything in our lives big enough to live for.

At this point, I want to turn our attention to the theology of suffering that I  have gleaned from the Jewish book of Job.  In the prologue, suffering is presented as a time of testing.  Hear these words from the first chapter of Job, verses 6 through 12.

“One day the heavenly beings came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them.  The Lord said to Satan, ‘Where have you come from?’  Satan answered the Lord, ‘From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.’ 

“The Lord said to Satan, ‘Have you considered my servant Job?  There is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil.’   Satan answered the Lord, ‘Does Job fear God for nothing?  Have you not put a fence around him and his house and all that he has, on every side?  You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land.  But stretch out your hand now, and touch all that he has and he will curse you to your face.’ 

“The Lord said to Satan, ‘Very well, all that he has is in your power; only do not stretch out your hand against him!’  So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord.”

In the story, Satan says the reason Job worships God and is good is that God has protected Job and his family, blessed his work and increased his prosperity; but Satan contends that if all this is taken away, Job will curse God to his face.  Suffering can test our motives for why we worship God and/or live good lives.  The fundamental question is, “Are we willing to be good for nothing?”  Suffering can test this.

A significant part of the book of Job is a series of speeches.  One series of speeches is given by three of Job’s friends.  These speeches present suffering as punishment for sin.  Representative of this view would be the words of Job’s friend, Zophar, when he says to Job, “Know then that God exacts of you less than your guilt deserves.”  (Job 11:6)

Job also presents a series of speeches, and the essence of what he says is that suffering is a sign that God doesn’t care about us.  If God cared, God would do something to stop our suffering.  In the story, all of Job’s children had been killed.  His wife had come to despise him.  He had lost all of his land and possessions.  His neighbors were ridiculing him.  He was living at the garbage dump, sitting there scraping his running sores.  He had lost everything.  All that had given him his security and identity was gone.  Listen to this outpouring of Job to God (Job 7:11-20)

“Therefore I will not restrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.  Am I the Sea, or the Dragon, that you set a guard over me?  When I say ‘My bed will comfort me, my couch will ease my complaint,’ then you scare me with dreams and terrify me with visions, so that I would choose strangling and death rather than this body. 

“I loathe my life; I would not live forever.  Let me alone, for my days are a breath.  What are human beings, that you make so much of them, that you set your mind on them, visit them every morning, test them every moment?  Will you not look away from me for a while, let me alone until I swallow my spittle?  If I sin, what do I do to you, you watcher of humanity?  Why have you made me your target?  Why have I become a burden to you?”

Suffering certainly has the capacity to cause us to question both the reality of God and God’s care for us. 

The next explanation for suffering in the book of Job comes from a young man named Elihu, a friend of the family.  Elihu says that suffering is a warning from God that something is wrong in one’s life.  He then goes on to say that if we heed the warning and correct our ways, we will be restored and prosper.  Elihu says, “If they listen, and serve God, they complete their days in prosperity, and their years in pleasantness.” (Job 36:11-12).

Many of our frustrations, setbacks, and problems are the results, and indicators of moving in the wrong direction or of having wrong values or wrong commitments.  Sometimes the best thing that can happen to us is to get laid off from a job, or have our business fail, or spend a night in jail. There is suffering that tells us we’re gong in the wrong direction and that we need to change what we’re doing.

The last set of speeches comes from Yahweh, one of the Hebrew names for God. Guess what God says about suffering?  Not one thing; and this may be the key to the book:  Job never knew why he suffered; and unless it is very, very obvious, we probably will never know why we suffer.

Let’s recount all the possible causes for suffering:

            -Some suffering is our own fault.  It’s simply cause and effect.

            -Other suffering comes about simply because this is the way the world is.

            -Some people believe that Satan causes suffering.

            -Others credit karma from past lives.

            -All of us have the option of suffering for the sake of conscience.

            -Certainly suffering has the capacity to test our spiritual motivations and

commitment.

                        -Many see suffering as a punishment from God for past sins.

                        -Suffering can also be interpreted as evidence that either there is no God

or that God does not care about us.

                        -Some also see suffering as a warning that there is something wrong in our

life and that we need to change our ways or direction.

            Except for seeing suffering as punishment for past sins, and except for seeing Satan personified as a cause for suffering, I see all these as either possible causes or possible outcomes of suffering.  But in the final analysis, I agree with the writer of Job.  If the cause of our suffering is not very, very obvious, we probably never know why we suffer.

Conclusion:

            But when we do suffer, I would suggest that we remember this:  Suffering, tragedy and death are a natural part of life; and in the midst of our worst suffering, God is with us.  God will never leave us or forsake us; and there is nothing in life or in death that can separate us from God.