At 17 I asked myself whether God had spared my church and my home when the 4/3/74 tornado did damage all around both. Had I done something right to be rewarded? Had others suffered God’s wrathful punishment? Should I thank God for sparing “me and my house” who serve the Lord our way, while punishing those outside my “tribe”? Is it just to pray, “Thank you God for sparing me and destroying them”?
When I read Matthew 5, I see that God gives the sun’s warmth and the rain’s nourishment to the just and the unjust, the nice and the nasty alike. God doesn’t play favorites and neither should I by only loving the lovable.
As a teacher of “Becoming a Love and Logic Parent” I learned that allowing consequences to befall behavior is more effective than rewards and punishments. I came to believe that God’s ways are not transactional – the art of the deal. God’s ways are relational – compassionately suffering with us as we learn and mature through the consequences of our choices.
I am thankful that I have the right to pray anywhere, anytime. I am thankful I have the right not to be preyed upon by those who force their prayers on me. I seek to use my right to pray to pray right. When I request something from God, I talk to God about how it might affect others.
A rabbi’s deep wisdom asked me a question, “If you are heading home, and you see smoke coming from your neighborhood, is it ethical to pray, ‘O God, don’t let it be my house.’”
How do you answer the rabbi’s question? Where do you see God portrayed as punishing us BY our sin (consequences) instead of FOR our sin (retribution)? Which God are you drawn to?
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Thanks for this, Wally. I’ve always struggled with the arbitrary nature of God’s “blessings.” This helps!
It’s times like these that I turn to Job and to one of my favorite books, “When Bad Things Happen to Good People” by Rabbi Kushner. We have, in my opinion, an obligation to help those in need. Yet we wouldn’t be human if we didn’t also say “please Gd, not me.” So it’s a combination of both.
Wonderful Carol! I love Rabbi Kushner’s book and read it around 1980 when he helped me so much. I love that often people ask “Why bad things happen….” but Rabbi Harold Kushner changes the question “When bad things happen…” when they do, respond. do something. show love. I love the both human response AND what might we say about God – both/and. thank you