Pembrey Parish Church St. Illtyd and Llandyry

From the Vicar

Monday 4th May 2020. ‘Loveliest of trees, the cherry now ..’ (A.E.Housman). We are at the beginning of May and what would have heralded a lovely Spring is overshadowed by the terrible statistics reporting CoVid19 mortality in the United Kingdom. As of last Saturday 28,131 people have died, either secondary to CoVid19 infection or as a direct result (no underlying health issues). It includes children. I think we all share a huge sense of gratitude for our health care professionals; doctors, nurses, hospital laboratory staff and researchers, porters, the multitude of people who provide care in the community and in residential and care homes for our more senior citizens. A great many of them spend their working hours in uncomfortably restrictive, hot and unpleasant protective clothing; dealing daily with the realities this viral crisis has brought. And please, let’s not forget our Government and their Health and Medical Advisers; it’s so easy to criticise from the comfort of our armchairs!

Our situation raises all sorts of complex questions for which there are no easy, straightforward answers. For people of Faith one nagging, sometimes not always expressed, question is ‘Why does God ‘allow’ this to happen?’. I wish there were a simple answer to that question. But there is not. Simplistic answers may make us feel more comfortable, and some people prefer them, but they seldom do justice to reality, or to truth for that matter. Life is a multitude of shades of grey, not ‘Black and White’.

At a philosophical level many responses could be offered to the question as to why a God we believe is loving ‘allows’ all this mayhem. The whirlwind so many are experiencing throughout the world at present. Earlier this year, when the reality of CoVid19 was breaking in China I had a rather bizzare conversation with someone who maintained that this (now) pandemic is God’s judgement and punishment on a world guilty of ‘sexual immorality’, quoting bits of the Book of Revelation. Last Friday Sky News gave some coverage to an American Pastor who referred to CoVid19 as the ‘work of the Devil’, encouraging people to come to him for exorcism. Such pronouncements and actions seem to me to highlight the dangers of religion when used in such an ill-informed and irresponsible way.

Some of you were, until CoVid19 interrupted, following the Bible study course I offered on the Book of Job. It portrays the situation of a man, who, seemingly innocent and upright, is blighted by the most extreme of tragedies; he is the victim of an immobilising illness and loses his family and all possessions. He wishes he were dead. His three friends (Job’s Comforters!) offer ‘stock’ answers: ‘Job, you must have done something wrong because this is your punishment’. Job refuses these neat, simplistic responses. They don’t fit to his experience or belief. The Book of Job is sometimes referred to as an ‘existential’ work, meaning that it is a reflection on human experience. It also focuses on what is called ‘Theodicy’; how do we justify faith in a Loving God in the face of suffering and evil, be it natural ( earthquake, tsunami or viral pandemic for instance) or moral ( caused directly or indirectly by human agency and sin)?.

It’s a long narrative; 40 Chapters. And, whilst it ends with God speaking to Job out of the whirlwind, personally I think the ending forces a number of questions, and is, in some ways, inconclusive. In response to Job’s desperate petitions God is depicted as ‘putting Job in his place’. ‘Where were you when I created the heavens?’ the Divine Voice asks, we are told. In other words, ‘Look Job, I understand how wretched you feel, but if you could see the bigger picture you’d understand’. It has been suggested that suffering is only experienced as evil because we can’t see how it fits into the bigger ‘jigsaw of life’. A response of sorts, I guess.

But, for me, that doesn’t justify the existence of suffering and evil, be it natural or moral. We couldn’t possibly say to the mothers of Auschwitz ‘Don’t worry my dears, it’s all part of a bigger picture’, as their children were marched away to the gas chambers before they themselves suffered the same fate. Suffering is still suffering, however great the cosmic plan, and we experience it as brutal injustice, physical or emotional, be it small or great.

Part of the answer, and I would stress only part, may be ‘Freedom-in-Love’. Perfect love demands, as part of its characteristics, the ability not to control; to let go. It is that ‘letting go’ that allows us to grow and mature; to make mistakes and hopefully learn from them. St. Paul, writing to the Roman church in about 56 AD, talked about ‘the whole of Creation awaiting its redemption’; for it too is free to evolve according to the laws that govern our universe. Love without freedom would today be called ‘abuse’. And the God who loves us so intensely, and the cosmos in which we are placed, has to give creative freedom to all that exists, as an act of generosity and love.

And, of course, ‘Freedom-in-Love’ means that things can, and sometimes tragically do, go wrong. In our bodies, cells multiply in abnormal ways; we call it cancer. In our daily living, our ego, pride and self-determination, when not tempered by justice, mercy, compassion and intellect, lead to acts of self and other harm. In our global village people often feel that they are ‘by social forces swept along’. And the CoVid19 virus is in the same category. It too has developed, mutated, from something else within the long chain of evolutionary biological development. It is a consequence of ‘Freedom-in-Love’. It does not know the damage it causes anymore than flames of fire know they are burning a house down. It is what it is. Harmless when confined to some environments; potentially lethal when located in others, whether by human ignorance or, at worst, irresponsibility.

There is, to my mind, no really satisfactory answer, philosophically, to the question of suffering. It seems to be a ‘given’, a part of the way the universe and its inhabitants are. It cannot be otherwise, because freedom ( and love) involves risk. That is always the worry for a parent who must let little Mark or Samantha go into the big, real world. Will it go well or badly?. How will they turn out? What may or may not happen to them?

God the Creator let’s His Creation go; we cannot stay in the Paradise of Eden. We must face reality and grow up ( C.S. Lewis). But we are not cast adrift. God the Creator is also the God who can Re-deem by the power of His Spirit. A new Creation can be a reality and through our struggles, like Job, we may learn more about ourselves and about the need for humility, trust and truth. There is no such thing now as going back to ‘normal’, whatever that may mean. We are invited to take stock; to learn from our current experiences and, whilst celebrating the freedoms we enjoy, learn the hard task of taking responsibility, personally and collectively, to forge a new global community which reflects the inter-dependent harmony, the ‘Shalom’, that is God’s dream for His creation. And there is the Cross; God sharing in all that struggle of re-creation (dare I suggest sharing responsibility: Freedom has a price tag that works both ways?); a symbol of strength, hope and encouragement. ‘In the Cross of Christ I glory; Towering o’er the wrecks of time ….’.

Prayers for Our Times.

Lord of Creation, we struggle to comprehend,
To understand.
We prefer cosy words that try to mask the
Reality of how we really feel; what we really experience.
Be with those who, because of the hurt and pain they carry
Feel angry; with other people and with You.
Give them the courage to tell you how they feel
And the Grace to bear the reality of their lives. Amen

Canon Dewi Davies