BAD WEATHER & BAD THEOLOGY

Like you, we were watching the TV several nights ago with broken hearts as the pictures from Moore, Oklahoma were broadcast around the world. The devastation was stunning.

My first response was to sit in stunned silence. Then, I found myself crying. Finally, I wanted to get in the car and start driving for Oklahoma (where, right now, I would just get in the way).

Someone on the network asks a weather person what an EF-4 or EF-5 tornado is like, and he answered, “Well, we call a storm like this the Finger of God.”

This morning I saw a survivor interviewed. He and his dog huddled in a closet as his house came apart. When asked how he made it, he shrugged and said, “The grace of God.”  (I immediately thought about the neighbors who didn’t make it. I guess the grace of God didn’t reach all the way across the street or down the next block, if you accept his understanding of God?)

First, a quick word about our response to the storm.

We are praying.

We will be giving. We’ll be receiving a special, second-mile offering for Tornado Relief this weekend and next. Every dollar you give to United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) goes directly to help people on the ground – not a dollar goes to administrative overhead because our church supports the One Great Hour of Sharing offering that covers all relief administrative costs. UMCOR is, by the way, already at work on the ground as reported by CNN.

We will be going. I am sure there will be those in our Jesus community who will be eager to get to Oklahoma (where you’ll find a lot of UM’s) to help in the clean up and rebuilding. Right now we need to wait for things to clear, and for relief officials there to plan a way forward. Is God calling you to help lead or participate in a mission team this Summer?

Second, a word about the understanding of God behind statements like saying an EF-4 or EF-5 tornado is the “Finger of God.” This view of God isn’t Christian. This view of God drives people away from God. Frankly, to casually lay things like this at the feet of God is blasphemous.

Jesus says God causes God’s rain to fall on the just and unjust. (Rain was a blessing in the Middle East…so God is gracious to all.) When Jesus is asked who sinned and caused a man to be born without sight, he says that isn’t how the universe works. The man’s blindness, he says, is an opportunity for God to work and to do good.

Human need, loss, and disaster aren’t a result of God’s intentional decision to punish one place/group and spare another. A God whose finger touches the world with an EF-4 or EF-5 tornado would be a monster.

Jesus shows us a God who responds to sin with love. Jesus shows us a God who responds to hunger with good. Jesus shows us a God who responds to illness with healing. Jesus shows us a God who responds to failure with grace.

The weather in the Midwest has been bad enough. We don’t need weather people serving up bad theology as way of explaining what they can’t explain.

You realize that your friends and neighbors and co-workers are exposed to this kind of simple, cruel, unthinking understanding of God, right? They hear it on the TV and read it on the internet or in the paper. They may even think that is a typical view of God for followers of Jesus. Would you let them know we see God in a different way?

God is in the wreckage. Looking, searching, find, holding, giving…

In Christ and for Christ,

Mark

P.S. Bring your checks and/or cash this weekend or next for the UMCOR tornado relief offering or mail your gifts to the church as soon as you can. Simply make your check out to FUMCB and mark UMCOR Tornadoes on the memo line of your check or on your envelope.