|
|
|
|
|
|
There's a story about an old monk who was traveling by himself. He had reached the outskirts of a village and had just settled down for the night under a tree when a villager came running up to him and said, "The stone! The stone! Give me the stone!" "What stone?" asked the monk. "Last night the Lord appeared to me in a dream," said the villager, "and told me that if I went to the outskirts of the village at dusk I should find an old monk who would give me a precious stone that would make me rich forever." The monk rummaged through his bag and pulled out a stone. "He probably meant this one," the monk said as he handed over the stone to the man from the village. "I found it on the forest path some days ago. You can certainly have it." The man gazed at the stone in wonder. It was a diamond and it was the largest diamond in the world. He took the diamond and walked away. That night he was unable to sleep. At the crack of dawn, he ran to the monk, woke him and said, "Give me the wealth that makes it possible for you to give away this diamond so easily." That wealth, of course, was the monk's faith in God. It was not a blind faith, an I-will-follow-you-anywhere faith. It was not a faith that never doubted, that never questioned, that followed meekly. No, the monk's faith was deep and mature. It was a faith that comes only after a long life of struggle. And oftentimes it is a very difficult struggle. Faith is not so much searching for that diamond in the rough that will make us wealthy as it is discovering that our real wealth comes from the very search. Several months ago I was in one of those religious goods stores just looking over the merchandise. On the counter next to the cash register was a small plastic tray containing assorted crosses. Some were pins; some were pendants. The gold plate on most was tarnished or scratched; on others the enamel was cracked or chipped, and some, set with imitation pearls, were missing a pearl or two. All were left over odds and ends. The sign next to the tray read, "Crosses at reduced prices." I thought about that sign when I read over today's Gospel lesson. Jesus tells us that if we are to be His disciples, if we are to follow Him, we have to deny ourselves, take up our cross and then follow wherever He leads us in this life. We've all pretty much accepted the fact that during this life, while following Jesus, we will have to carry our share of crosses. We have accepted the fact that it will not always be easy to be a Christian, that living out our faith will sometimes be difficult. But sometimes we simply wish that the cross we have to bear would be of a cheaper, less expensive variety: perhaps we could them at a discount, half-priced, or certainly at a reduced price. We know that we have to pay a price for our faith, but would that it not be so steep at times. A little sacrifice, a little pain is okay. But too much and we have second thoughts about carrying our crosses. Too much pain also causes second thoughts about our faith. Two weeks ago I talked about two of the fundamental questions that face each one of us as Christians, questions that we ask and are asked of us, in one way or another, every day. Both questions have to do with pain, with the problem of evil: why evil exists and why it is done. We want to know why, if there is an all-good God, as we say we believe there is, why God allows so much pain, needless pain it seems, and so many bad things to happen to good people. We want to know why God allows bad, evil, pain to happen at all since God can always stop it if He wants to. A second question we are faced with every day also has to do with pain, with the problem of evil: Why do we good people deliberately do bad, evil things? Why do we deliberately cause pain to others, place needless crosses on their shoulders? I maintained then and I maintain now that having the answer to the God-question still does not answer the mankind question. It does not matter if we were to know why bad, painful things happen to good people if we still fail to answer the question as to why we good people do bad things, why we cause others, especially those whom we love, so much pain, needless pain. The reality of it all is that there is another question, a prior question, and a more fundamental question that we have to answer. How we answer that question determines how we respond to the answers we give and receive to the other two questions. The first question we must answer is not the God-question or the mankind-question but the Gospel question, today's Gospel question, the question Jesus asked of His disciples, the question He asks of us: Who do you say that I am? Who do we say that Jesus Christ is? Our answer to that question determines our ability to deal with the other two questions. It determines how we will deal with pain in our lives. It determines whether or not we will pick up our cross at full-price, at a reduced price or not at all. But let's face it, our faith in God, our faith in Jesus, our willingness to carry our crosses, in many ways depends on the answer to the question why bad things happen to good people. We simply want to know the answer to the problem of evil. There are two reasons why bad things happen not only to good people, but also to bad people and to innocent people. The first reason is sin: my sins, your sins, and the sins of others. When you and I deliberately do that which we know we should not do, when we sin, we hurt not only ourselves, we hurt many other people as well. The examples are countless: the drunken driver who kills someone else and walks away; the man who smokes too much or drinks too much or eats too much, who does not take care of his health and dies an untimely death and leaves his family wondering why. Sin always causes bad things to happen to good and innocent people. That is the first reason why bad things happen to good people. The other reason is simply that bad things happen. They just do. Rock slides, hurricanes, floods and forest fires; cancer, diabetes and Alzheimer’s, even crocodiles snatching innocent children -- nature at work kills and maims and destroys. Yet even admitting that bad things simply happen does not deter us from still asking why. Why didn't God stop that slide that killed my friend? Why didn't God stop the drunk from driving the car that killed Mary’s bother? Why didn't God stop Dad from smoking? Why did God allow cancer to kill Steve Kennel’s brother and allow Bob Fisher to drown? Why didn't God prevent the crocodile from grabbing Katy? Why did God allow so much needless pain, place so many heavy crosses on our shoulders, crosses that we don't think we deserved to bear? The answer to all those "Whys?" depends upon how we answer the Gospel question: who do you say that I am? Our faith responds with Peter: You are the Christ. But, again, let's be honest, believing with our whole heart and mind and soul, with our whole being that Jesus is the Christ does not really answer the question of the problem of evil. It only allows us to deal with the problems in peace. It allows us to carry those crosses and bear those pains that come our way, not with a benign resignation, but freely, with the knowledge that we don't understand and won't understand, not in this life anyway. Having Jesus as Lord of our lives neither removes the pain or crosses from our lives nor reduces the cost of those crosses. What we will discover, however, is that those crosses are easier to bear because He will help us carry them. The monk had discovered that. He had found that his faith was the real diamond that made his life rich. Everything else was mere rubble, stones to be given away. You and I can search for crosses at reduced prices. We can try to escape or run away from pain. We can look for diamonds that glitter. We can search for answers to the questions about good and evil. But all we will be doing is only chasing after windmills. Our real search, our real quest is the answer to the question: who do you say that I am? Unless or until we find the satisfactory answer to that one, all other questions and all other answers are useless and our hurts and pains and crosses will remain difficult to bear. But once we know who Jesus is, we have all the answers we need to be able to carry the crosses that come our way. |
