Fighting in church

Worshipping God when I don’t like him.

The news of the rising death tolls in Texas were heavily on my mind as I stepped into church this morning. As I write this, 70 people are dead and many more – including about a dozen little girls from a nearby church camp – are missing, feared swept away in the waters. It’s a tragic, awful story, the kind that shakes faith.

It’s easier for me to handle the news when there’s a clear-cut villain. Our elected officials cut people off Medicaid and nutritional assistance? Blame the politicians. A mass shooter opens fire? Rage at our gun laws and the mental and social forces that too often cause dangerous people to slip through the cracks. War erupts? You can usually find a good guy and bad guy pretty quickly for the way violence seems to be the answer to our problems.

And when tragedy comes via an act of God, it’s only natural for our questions and blame to be directed upward.

It’s the sheer senselessness of this tragedy that wore on me this morning, probably coupled with the fact that many of those girls who are missing are my daughter’s age (although you don’t really need any explanation for why the death of children hurts so bad). These were kids just having a fun weekend at camp – I’ll be dropping my son off at a camp this week to have his own good time. They were young. They had their lives in front of them. And to add insult to injury, they were at a camp designed to teach them how to worship and love the person who made the world and controls the weather.

I got ready for church with that in my head. I drove down the road thinking about how we believe God is powerful and good; a tragedy like this, however, suggests that he either can’t stop these tragedies or chooses not to. I don’t have an answer. I know that the pat response is that God “has a reason.” But I can’t imagine any parent’s grief is assuaged by knowledge that the death of their kid is part of some giant piece of spiritual calculus. Could God have stopped this? If so, why didn’t he? I didn’t like either answer, and as I put on my best fake smile and sat down for our worship service, I really did not want to be there. I was troubled. I was angry. I wasn’t about to be comforted with a simple “trust God” and “He has reasons, the reasons of which we don’t know.”

The problem is, atheism isn’t an answer for me, either. I’ve explored that route, and I’m too aware I can’t shake the belief in a creator, too familiar with moments of beauty, meaning and what I can only call spiritual intervention to believe he’s not involved with our lives. The very fact that this felt unjust was rooted in a sense of justice I believe I only get from him; the idea that death feels unnatural and wrong is because I believe so much in the giver of life. So, I knew that I didn’t have the option of running from my beliefs; they’d just draw me back again. But it didn’t mean I couldn’t sit there, pissed off at God and give him the silent treatment.

I was determined to seethe through the entire service. How dare God expect us to show up and worship him when parents who trusted him will end today with empty beds and unanswered prayers? How dare I sing about his goodness and strength when he can’t seem to keep a dozen little kids from drowning in the rain?

I’m thankful our church isn’t one of those megachurches that dims the lights, cranks up the music and conducts a Jesus pep rally; I probably would have headed home within five minutes. As we read the Collect for Purity – which reminds us we come to worship God, from whom “all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hidden,” I figured it wouldn’t do good to give the silent treatment. So, we’d have it out right there in the pew¹.

Throughout our readings, I was snarky and angry, particularly as we read Psalm 66:5, which talks about the Israelites crossing the Red Sea, looking back as God “turned the sea into dry land, so that they went through the water on foot.” I couldn’t help but think about how just a few days before, dry Texas ground had turned into water, and young children – young children who worshipped this very God – were swept away. How do I worship a God who just wants me to accept that this is okay?

And yet, at the same time, I could look down at my own 9-year-old daughter, who sat next to me, and whose very existence convinces me of God’s presence. I can testify to the mornings I’ve sat in this congregation and felt God’s presence and an immense love for the people around me – and I’m not a person naturally prone to feeling love for others. I can’t deny the moments of intervention I can only attribute to his hand, the life changes that only can be explained to the supernatural.

The anger began to seep away. The confusion didn’t. And my angry railings turned to sincere questions. Where were you? Do you see? Do you care?

In the churches in which I grew up, I think we were expected to get to a point where we leaned on our doctrine and just calmly accepted that sometimes God made no sense but that we just had to accept that He’s God, we’re not. And there’s some truth to that. But I think it’s a mistake to assume that God just expects us to accept this unemotionally. It’s okay to weep – our Bible teaches He wept over death. It’s okay to ask questions – we wouldn’t have the Psalms if it wasn’t. It’s even okay to question His plans – Moses did it, Job did it, Jesus did it.

I still have too much Baptist in me to admit to hearing from God in any overt sense. But as I wrestled and prayed throughout our readings and the sermon (sorry, Father Allen), I heard a quiet voice inside say “It’s OK to be mad and not understand me. Tell me; I can take it.” And about that point, as we were getting into corporate prayer, I did tell him. I said I couldn’t understand it. I asked him to save those little girls. I told him this made no sense and that, if it’s part of his plan, it’s a part of his plan I don’t like, and if he’s okay with the death of little kids to further his plans, then that’s a part of him I don’t like. About that time, I heard our deacon praying for those girls, his voice breaking as he did.

My tenor changed again. I went from seething, rageful and depressed to feeling more akin to sitting down with my wife while we’re still cooling down from an argument. We’re still mad. There’s still healing that needs to be done. But it’s the acknowledgment that we’re still together, even though we don’t like each other much at the moment. We don’t understand why the other acts the way they do. There are certain things we might not ever like about the other person. But we’re in this together, we love each other despite the discomfort, we’re not going anywhere. This isn’t easy when it’s two flawed people; I’ll admit it’s sometimes even harder when you have to acknowledge the other person in this relationship is perfect.

I grew up being told my faith was not a religion but a relationship. I have my quibbles with that statement – as I get older, I’m learning religion doesn’t have to be the negative some portray it as. But it’s as good a definition as I think we’ll get. In relationships, we’re not always stoic. We’re not judging each other on a sheet of facts or doctrines. We bring our full selves to it, and sometimes that means our anger and confusion. Sometimes, being a Christ follower means sitting in tension and being okay without having the answers.

And that’s where I sat for the rest of the service – I wasn’t exactly happy and my concern and sadness for those young girls wasn’t replaced by some joy of knowing this happened “for a reason.” But in our confession and prayers, we acknowledged living a broken world in which death is present and we believe all things will one day be made right. We took Eucharist, a reminder of the hope we have and the grace and faith imparted to us as daily bread. We cast our problems at the cross of Christ. I sang songs of worship, not in a sense of being okay with everything but trusting that we’re seen in our tears and fears, and that if the world is broken, it’s being slowly mended. Things aren’t right. They will be. We don’t have to be okay with tragedy; I don’t think God is, either. Our world is a mess; we can rest in the one who is our hope in the midst of it.

1. Of course, the Collect also asks God to cleanse our thoughts, so it’s very likely he was giving me my own medicine as I was unleashing my anger at him.