COMMENTARY: `The God of Heaven Will Care for Us’

c. 2003 Religion News Service (David P. Gushee is the Graves Professor of Moral Philosophy at Union University in Jackson, Tenn.) JACKSON, Tenn. _ The catastrophic damage caused by last weekend’s tornado and storms leaves my battered community facing a recovery process that will take years. The same situation faces other communities in the region […]

c. 2003 Religion News Service

(David P. Gushee is the Graves Professor of Moral Philosophy at Union University in Jackson, Tenn.)

JACKSON, Tenn. _ The catastrophic damage caused by last weekend’s tornado and storms leaves my battered community facing a recovery process that will take years. The same situation faces other communities in the region and in nearby states.


In Jackson, the work has already begun. Through official and unofficial leaders, through paid employees and hosts of volunteers, through locals and visitors, Jackson is already organizing itself for the long, slow work of recovery. The task ahead is unimaginably vast, but the fact is that it will get done. It is possible (just barely) to imagine the most affected areas in six months; one year; three years. It will take time, but we will rebuild.

This is what human beings do when nature or humanity turn against us.

After the storms, after the bombs, we feed the hungry. We care for the injured and the grieving. We cut up the uprooted trees, we sweep up the broken glass, we rebuild the gutted houses. Someday in the not-so-distant future there will be a citywide celebration of the rebuilding of this town, of its churches and civic buildings, its businesses and homes.

We have no other choice, do we? Our forebears carved Jackson out of the wilderness almost 185 years ago, and for 18 decades the city has grown, advanced and spread _ one street at a time, one home at a time, one church at a time, one business at a time.

It was God-given human energy, creativity and drive that built this city, and God-given human energy, creativity and just plain stubbornness will rebuild it.

I was listening to one of the “secular” radio stations in town this week. The deejay was interviewing a representative of the Salvation Army, the steadfast Christian relief organization already hard at work in our shattered city. He asked her something like this: “This kind of event really shakes people’s faith up, doesn’t it? It’s not just the physical and emotional distress, it’s the spiritual distress that also affects people, isn’t it?”

I was very pleased with the young woman’s answer. She didn’t try to provide some kind of pat theological explanation. She didn’t ascribe divine purpose to the devastating tornado, hail, wind and rain. She didn’t minimize the immense human suffering we are experiencing.

Instead, she simply acknowledged that people need to be comforted just now. They need hope, they need help, they need pastoral care as they grieve. They need to know that their suffering is forgotten by neither man nor God.


Her comments help illuminate the very important distinction between theological explanation and theological response.

When we speak the language of explanation, we attempt to discern the hidden divine motives behind tragic events. “God is teaching us something,” we sometimes say. “God is punishing us for our sins.” “God is trying to get our attention.” “God did this to bring people to faith.”

Such comments have been reported in the local paper this week. But no human being can discern the hidden purposes of God. Such talk is nothing but speculation, and it attributes to God events that should be viewed as permitted rather than intended. It also leads to very dubious conclusions about God’s character.

We do better by responding to tragedy without attempting to explain it.

Certainly we have no choice but to respond to the events that come our way. The more tragic the event, the greater the need to respond.

Sometimes we respond with symbols, like the memorial to the 1999 tornado that is, ironically, one of the few structures still in relatively good shape in downtown Jackson. We respond with acts of service, from delivering food to sweeping up broken glass to clearing tree limbs.

We also respond with words _ words of description, words of hope, words of interpretation. It is no accident that everyone in Jackson with electricity or batteries turned on the radio this week, listening to the words spoken there as much for comfort and company as anything else.

A community with the heritage of ours will inevitably turn to the Bible in search of the words fit for the moment. This week, driving down Carriage House Drive, I saw some perfect biblical words for the occasion. On the Lighting One sign was a quote from Nehemiah 2:20: “The God of heaven will care for us. We his servants will arise and build.”


This was not an explanation. But it was a response _ the kind of response that will sustain many thousands of us as, once again, we arise and build.

KRE END GUSHEE

Donate to Support Independent Journalism!

Donate Now!