Psalm 29

Ascribe to the Lord, O heavenly beings, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. Ascribe to the Lord the glory of his name; worship the Lord in holy splendor. The voice of the Lord is over the waters; the God of glory thunders, the Lord, over mighty waters. The voice of the Lord is powerful; the voice of the Lord is full of majesty. The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars; the Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon. He makes Lebanon skip like a calf, and Sirion like a young wild ox. The voice of the Lord flashes forth flames of fire. The voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness; the Lord shakes the wilderness of Kadesh. The voice of the Lord causes the oaks to whirl, and strips the forest bare; and in his temple all say, "Glory!" The Lord sits enthroned over the flood; the Lord sits enthroned as king forever. May the Lord give strength to his people! May the Lord bless his people with peace!

Sermon Text

Why, why, why? That's what the faithful were asking after a mighty earthquake sent deadly tsunamis crashing into their harbor and over their beaches, killing thousands, and leaving Lisbon, Portugal in utter ruin in the year 1755. Why, why, why? What did we do to deserve this? How could God permit this great horror? Some European philosophers and clerics responded that the enormous destruction and loss of life had to be seen from a wider context. It only seems tragic they said, because we don't have the big picture. If we could just see things from God's perspective, (the biggest picture of all), then we would realize that this world is, after all, the best of all possible worlds, and we would then stop complaining to our Maker.

Voltaire, the scathing satirist of France, replied to them with Candide, a ridiculously piteous tale about an innocent young man who goes from one misadventure to another, one tragedy to another, including the Lisbon earthquake, all the while maintaining that this is nevertheless the best of all possible worlds. After Candide there could be no question to any reader with a sound mind and sensitive heart that it is dead wrong to address tragedy by denying it. The question directed to God: Why, why, why? cannot be dispensed with by declaring that it isn't a valid question. It most certainly is. Tragedy is real. Very bad things do happen to good people, and sometimes, lots of good people.

The Psalm this morning speaks of an almighty God whose power is manifest in thunder and lightening and mighty winds that break the Cedars of Lebanon. "The voice of the Lord is over the waters," says the text. There was no distinction in ancient Israel between forces of nature and acts of God. When a mighty wind blew, that was God's doing. When lightening struck and set hillsides aflame, that was God's doing. When volcanoes spewed lava, burying whole cities, that was God's doing. And when oceans rose up and came crashing over the coastlands, that was God's doing. This was the ancients' view.

But must it be ours, just because we find it in writings that we deem sacred? Must we interpret natural catastrophes as divine punishments? When tragedy strikes, human beings want to make sense of their grievous losses. They want to reestablish a sense of order and dependability in their universe, even if there wasn't really good reason to expect order and dependability in the first place. In a world where there are non-theistic explanations for earthquakes, and hurricanes, and tornadoes, and volcanic eruptions, and tsunamis and so on, when we ask the question: why, why, why?, it seems to me that we are not posing the same question our forebears did. We are seeking some meaning in the tragedy in order to calm ourselves, but we are not presuming that God is behind it all, as they did.

The scope of December's tsunami catastrophe was unprecedented. Twelve nations afflicted! When hurricane Andrew struck Dade County in 1992, I drove south toward Homestead and saw roofs torn off houses from horizon to horizon, and thought I'd seen apocalypse now. Imagine such destruction and worse in twelve nations! It boggles the mind. No doubt some believers may be asking God: Why, why, why? But I doubt that many are holding God responsible. They are directing the question to God, yes, but not holding God responsible. Rather, they are asking God to help them find meaning in their grievous losses. Help us God! Help us to get oriented again. Help us to feel safe again, after our children, our soul mates, our homes and businesses are all gone. Help us to go on. Thus, the question why, why, why is not so much about the past. It is much more about the future. It's a way of beginning the query: How can we find our way from here?

So, what positive meaning can you find in the aftermath of the tsunami? Perhaps, in this appalling age of terror, when holy war has gone global, this monstrous tragedy, which has killed hundreds of thousands of people and physically or mentally wounded untold millions more, and which has mobilized the compassionate response of virtually the whole world, perhaps this tragedy can be seen as an invitation for humankind to travel in a very different direction. The story about the Muslim man rescuing the Hindu man from the flood helped me to find some meaning amidst all the terror and sadness--not just the terror and sadness caused by the tsunami, but the ambient terror and sadness in a world gone a muck from greed, power mongering, ideological hatred, and spite. As the waters roiled, enemies became friends because a great danger instantly made clear to them their fragility, and their interdependence. Can we learn from this? Might this be an answer to our question: Why, why, why? Because God wants us to realize that we are our brothers' keeper, and that all people are our brothers and sisters; that's why.