What's Up With Disasters?

#askapastor

What's Up With Disasters?
and How Can We Call God 'Loving'?

• 14th Sunday After Pentecost

with Romans 8:18-30

www.FirstChurchBville.com   @FirstUMCBville   @kerrfunk

• So the world has been watching the Olympics. And last week Huntington WV was in the news with 27 heroin overdoses on Monday afternoon.

Also Louisiana had the worst flooding since SuperstormSandy (2012) (and Sandy was second to Katrina, 2005).
Tens of thousands of homes destroyed.

Also 36,000 acres burned in CA (more square mileage than Huntington plus Barboursville plus Charleston)

Not to mention 250,000+ dead in 2004 tsunami, 220,000 in Haiti 2010…

Why are there disasters? And how can we call God loving?

• When I am in a room with Michael Phelps and Simone Bile, the average number of Olympic medals is eleven. Number they have grossly outnumbers how many I have.
Romans 8:18: the suffering we know now is grossly outweighed by the glory to come. Such is the extravagant love of God.

Consider Jesus turning water into wine, in John 2. Jesus provided 180 gallons of good wine. If you pay $25 for a bottle of good wine, that’s valued over $20,000.       
God is extravagant with people.

Consider Rom 5:8-9 God demonstrates his love for us in this: while we were still sinners (that is, while we were rebellious and of no use to God), Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! (since God desired relationship with us while we were rebellious, God will surely keep us now & in the future).
God loves people extravagantly.

• Now: What’s up with disasters? Horrible deaths of countless innocents. Destruction that takes greater toll on poor and already suffering. How can God be called loving?

• --> Does God cause disasters?
No. Natural disasters are natural, directly connected to conditions that make planet habitable. Warm and cool and change. Humidity. These cause hurricanes and tornadoes. Plate tectonics. These cause earthquakes and tsunamis. Planet without such conditions: the moon. Also uninhabitable.

See also Romans 8, all creation groans. All creation awaits the new to come.

• --> If God has power to stop disasters and does not, is not God horrible?
No. For one, God sees the big picture, knows how (&when) the story will end. And Two, Romans 8:28 God works all things together... Doesn’t cause, but works together.

Three Olympic moments to remember, instances of competitors embracing and exemplifying sportsmanship. Each one I daresay brought glory and honor to their land in the way they responded to circumstances.
American Ajee Wilson, women’s semifinals 800m (two laps). Finished second. Waited for last finisher.
Weightlifter David Katoatau, from SP island nation of Kirabati. Video of his enthusiastic post-lift dances. And he lost.
American Abbey D’Agostino, 5K. Competitor Nikki Hamblin collided with Abbey and Abbey assisted Nikki to complete race.
*After this message was composed, the news was received that Hamblin and D'Agostino each received a special Olympic award for good sportsmanship.

How do people respond to circumstances?
“The glory of God is humankind fully alive,” (Irenaeus, 2nd C).

• --> Does God design disaster? Open to debate. Maybe. Who knows?
Consider the story of the man who saw the struggle of the butterfly emerging from the cocoon, and decided to “help.” The butterfly was never able to fly.
Again, Romans 8:28.

• Recall again Rom 5:8-9 God demonstrates his love… the countless innocents that die? God loves them more than we can know. God is ultimately concerned about each and every bit of creation, and again, knows the ultimate end is good.

• Hymn 525 We’ll Understand it Better By and By

Romans 8:18-30 (CEB)                                         8/21/16

18 I believe that the present suffering is nothing compared to the coming glory that is going to be revealed to us. 19 The whole creation waits breathless with anticipation for the revelation of God’s sons and daughters. 20 Creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice—it was the choice of the one who subjected it—but in the hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from slavery to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of God’s children. 22 We know that the whole creation is groaning together and suffering labor pains up until now. 23 And it’s not only the creation. We ourselves who have the Spirit as the first crop of the harvest also groan inside as we wait to be adopted and for our bodies to be set free. 24 We were saved in hope. If we see what we hope for, that isn’t hope. Who hopes for what they already see? 25 But if we hope for what we don’t see, we wait for it with patience.

26 In the same way, the Spirit comes to help our weakness. We don’t know what we should pray, but the Spirit himself pleads our case with unexpressed groans. 27 The one who searches hearts knows how the Spirit thinks, because he pleads for the saints, consistent with God’s will. 28 We know that God works all things together for good for the ones who love God, for those who are called according to his purpose. 29 We know this because God knew them in advance, and he decided in advance that they would be conformed to the image of his Son. That way his Son would be the first of many brothers and sisters. 30 Those who God decided in advance would be conformed to his Son, he also called. Those whom he called, he also made righteous. Those whom he made righteous, he also glorified. X