God's role in disasters

God has been in the news a lot lately. From CNN, BBC and NPR to The New York Times and Wall Street Journal, the role God played in the tsunami was probed. People from all religions asked a question similar to that of a woman from southern India: "Why did you do this to us, God? What did we do to upset you?"

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams created a minor buzz when he examined God's role in an article headlined: "Archbishop of Canterbury: This Has Made Me Question God's Existence" (Sunday Telegraph of London, Jan. 2). But his press secretary, Jonathan Jennings, said the headline misrepresented the archbishop's comments. Williams didn't say the tsunami caused him to doubt God's existence, Jennings said, but "that the Christian faith doesn't invite simplistic answers to the problems of human suffering."

ELCA pastor Gary Harbaugh would likely agree. The author of Act of God/Active God (Fortress Press; 2001), he worked for 10 years with Lutheran Disaster Response helping caregivers. He said when a natural disaster occurs, "people of faith often struggle to understand what the world may call 'an act of God.' seen through the eyes of faith, I believe what sustains us as we go through a disaster is not 'an act of God' but the promise of 'an active God.'"

Many people discover the Psalms at such times of walking "through the valley of the shadow," he said, adding, "Sometimes we are tempted to run through the valley, but the psalmist knew that God is also active in our questions, confusion and doubts. More than a third of the Psalms are laments. They aren't just cries, but cries of faith directed to God: Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord. Lord, hear my voice.''My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' The theology of the cross doesn't lead us away from suffering but into the dark heart of it-and there we find Christ for us and with us, a light shining in the darkness. When we walk through the valley of the shadow, the Lord walks with us."

As another ELCA pastor said in a sermon, "Then where is God? Perhaps God is made known in the response of our hearts." In our response to those suffering because of the tsunami, he said, we "reveal the very will and heart of God."

For a study guide, see www.thelutheran.org/study.>