This weekend while channel surfing I stopped on one of the religion channels. On this particular channel the speaker, who happened to be a priest, delighted his audience by saying, “If this country” referring to the United States “doesn’t straighten up morally, God will slap it across the face.” The speaker’s point was that current catastrophes must be understood as God’s punishment for what he was calling immorality. I thought we’ve grown beyond seeing current events as God’s punishments and rewards.
I searched my mind for precedents in the New Testament to support his statement. Even as Jesus hung on the cross the Gospel shares a story of forgiveness and compassion, “Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.” (See Luke 23:34)
In the Gospel for the Fourth Sunday of Lent we hear the reply of Jesus when his disciples asked, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus said, “Neither he nor his parents sinned” (Jn 9:1-3a). Long ago with the support of our tradition, I cast off images of an abusive God.
My own weakness rests in using God to do what I want rather than surrendering to God’s plan. Lent calls me to a profound change of heart to detach from my need to be in charge to be in control. The God I meet in the Gospels carries out his plan with love and not violence, with surrender and not control and with gifts of grace and not condemnation. Jesus death on the cross powerfully teaches that through death is life.
”May the Lord be glad in his works.” (Ps 104:31b)