Monday, 07 July 2008 01:00 | and posted in Faith
Two guys are sitting in a coffee shop chatting about the week's news events, swapping opinions about everything from the footie results on the back page to the latest news on the front page. Soon they start talking about the stories that have particularly impacted them recently: the violence in Zimbabwe, the death of the first female British soldier in Iraq and the rising global cost of rice that is increasing the number in poverty.
The heaviness of the conversation causes it to peter out and a reflective silence comes over the two. After a minute or so, one of the guys speaks up, "Why on earth does God allow all this suffering and war and poverty to exist in the world? Why doesn't he do something about it?"
The second guy looks up. Noticing the sincere expression on his friend's face, he sees an answer is the wrong thing to offer. "Well, why don't you ask him?" he asks instead.
The first guy shakes his head and smiles at his friend in a nervous kind of way. "Oh no... I'm scared of asking God that one!"
"Why are you scared? You can ask God anything..."
The first guy looks his friend in the eye and after a brief pause replies, "I'm scared, because what if God asks me the same question?"*
Jesus shares a parable in Matthew 25 about how when the Son of Man returns in his glory he will sit on his throne in heaven, gather the nations before him and he will then separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.
Let's read what the King says to the sheep (verses 34-36)...
"Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me."
The righteous ask when did they do this and the King tells them that, "whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me," (v. 40). (Wow! Do you and I see Jesus in the eyes of the poor...?)
Then, against popular Christian evangelical belief, the King sends to hell and eternal punishment all of those who did not directly feed and clothe the poor, who allowed people to go thirsty and who didn't welcome strangers or visit the sick and those in prison.
Maybe we can perhaps phrase the gist of Jesus' message here with a question and an answer...
Q: Is God allowing poverty?
A: Only because we are...
Shane Claiborne, in his book The Irresistible Revolution, says at one point, ‘Over and over, when I ask God why all these injustices are allowed to exist in the world, I can feel the Spirit whisper to me, "You tell me why we allow this to happen. You are my body, my hands, my feet."'**
What if
we
believed
this?
FOOTNOTES:
* Adapted from The Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne
** Page 65