Now This Has Happened, and No One Knows Why

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AFTER DEATH

It’s been a sad couple of weeks for Susan and I – especially Susan. The 25 year- old son of her best friend killed himself, without warning or explanation.

This young man seemed to have everything going for him. He was outwardly very successful and he had a good group of friends.

Now this has happened, and no one knows why.

There is shock and bewilderment, confusion and pain. There are no shortcuts to the work of grief – no glib answers – no fancy words to provide a fix.

But a question that inevitably comes to us is to ask where our faith comes in at times like this?

Where is God in such a tragedy? In fact, where is God at any time of death?

This is Derek Jacobi who starred in Cadfael, as a medieval monk in the TV series of Ellis Peter’s books. As well as being a pharmacist, he is also a bit of a detective. In the stories there is always some mystery waiting to be solved.

In one episode*, a young girl called Eleanor approaches Cadfael to ask him to hear her confession. As Cadfael is not officially authorized to do this, he sends her to Father Ailnoth, the new (and hardline) Parish Priest.

Soon afterwards her body is found drowned in the millstream behind the church, and an angry mob forces Ailnoth to reveal that he refused her confession because she was pregnant to an unknown father. Ailnoth branded her as a whore and told her to leave the church. It seemed as if in response to this rejection, Eleanor had committed suicide.

Cadfael is both shocked at the discovery and consumed with guilt that he rejected the girl at her time of need. Suicide was long regarded as a mortal sin by the church. Those who were successful in their “escape from the world” were buried in unconsecrated ground and believed to have forfeited their salvation. Cadfael held on to the hope that by discovering she had been murdered, he could then ensure she would have a Christian burial after all.

At one point during his investigation he discovers a small wooden cross belonging to Eleanor which had fallen near the scene of her death.

He wonders whether the cross had been discarded as the result of a struggle, but the dead woman’s sister points out that the string holding the cross is still unbroken.

“Why would she then cast it off herself ?” Cadfael wonders aloud.

Only to hear a curt reply by the sister.

“Perhaps, at the end, she treated the church as it had treated her.”

At the conclusion of the story, it is discovered that this young woman had indeed committed suicide and so she is laid in an unmarked grave outside the church grounds.

In the very last scene, Cadfael goes out alone to that graveside and (after checking carefully that he is not being watched), bends down to the fresh earth and plants into the ground beside Eleanor a little wooden cross – the one which she had used to wear.

The religious people had their rules, but compassion was stronger.

In that last moment, Cadfael did not show great respect to the church law, but he did demonstrate the loving, compassionate Spirit of Jesus.

Why did people ever think that to commit suicide was an unpardonable sin?

Because it was taught to them.

The logic was: killing yourself = killing, and the Bible says don’t kill!

And it was believed if a person dies doing something wrong then they have no chance to repent.

Thankfully the world (and the church), has moved on greatly in an understanding of suicide – no longer do we think of people who commit suicide primarily as sinners, anxious to deliberately cut themselves off from God’s love. We realise now that anyone who deliberately commits suicide is a person that is ill – as no healthy person would choose that option, and we know that only someone who suffered greatly could seriously contemplate such an action.

We know also that a person driven to suicide is anxious to escape (not from God), but from what seems to them to be their intolerable situation or distress.

So now we have a new sympathy and a new approach. We see that the last thing needed for victims of suicide and their families is more condemnation.

This movement in understanding comes about because as Christians we believe in a God who still speaks, who still reveals God’s nature, and who still communicates to us truths that we need to act upon.

That is why we can look on a church belief and practice that was once commonplace, and change it in the light of new insight.

We’ve moved on from these dark days. God keeps guiding us into better understandings of what it means to be human and compassionate.

We all learn things from being taught.

Sometimes our teachers are literally that – paid professionals, sometimes they are our parents, our religious tradition, our friends or some expert on a particular subject. We are taught things by the culture we live in – by the mass media, we learn from books and the Internet.

What we learn is vitally important. It can help us find work, it can help us make wise decisions, it can even on occasions save our lives.

There are some things in life that come instinctively to human beings – the need for food, shelter and companionship for example. But everything else we are taught.

We aren’t born believing in Santa Claus.

We aren’t born with the ability to read or write.

We aren’t born knowing that fire can burn us.

We aren’t born knowing about Jesus.

We aren’t born knowing that Argentina is in South America.

We have a million things to learn. And it’s good that we do.

But sometimes the things that we learn aren’t actually true.

Sometimes the things we are taught are just plain wrong.

For just one example, take racism.

No one is born a racist. A person who believes that blacks are inferior to whites (for example) has been told or taught that by someone else, and has chosen to believe it.

Now this idea that some of things we are taught might be wrong pervades every part of life. And that includes religious faith and religious traditions.

One of the striking things about Christianity is that it is a living faith – because God is still speaking and guiding us into deeper knowledge.

Christianity has an ability to keep thinking, moving forward and listening out for what God is saying.

We continue to learn more and more about what it is to follow Christ, what it is to be human, what it is to love our neighbour and live our lives as compassionate people.

And sometimes the new understanding means we have to jettison what we thought we knew before.

Think of being ill and going to see your doctor. This person will hopefully give you the benefit of the most up to date research and learning on health. If he (or she) was to treat you by consulting a mediaeval doctors manual you would probably start to be very worried. It might have been the best thing around in 1314, but in 2014 we’re hoping for something even better, because more has been learned.

In the same way, our faith has moved on as we have come to learn more of Jesus and listened more to Gods Spirit, and some of these changes mean that what we once thought is superseded.

You see this change happening within the pages of the Bible itself, and today’s reading about Peter’s vision is one classic example.

Why did Peter believe that God’s concern was only for the Jewish people?

Was he born thinking this? Of course not.

Peter believed that God’s love was limited to the Jews because this is what he was taught. And it turned out its an example of something that needed to be discarded.

Peter is taking something that is written in the Bible and God is saying: “That’s not right!”

Why do some Christians believe that anyone who does not share their belief in Christ and dies will be rejected by God and sent to eternal punishment in hell?

Because that’s what they were told.

This is what they heard at their church.

Believe me - this is a view that needs to go.

There is no doubt that we human beings are sinners.

In other words, we fail, we make mistakes, we think and do bad stuff, we screw up. And we need forgiveness - and that includes asking God for forgiveness.

I’m still as aware as ever in my own life of the things that aren’t right,

the things that aren’t as they should be - my mistakes and failures.

It’s a burden I’m aware of and I know that I still need forgiveness and always will.

This is not unimportant. But is it really the central truth about us?

And is the central most important truth about Jesus that he came into the world to strike a deal with God? That he would die a horrible death to keep God happy and (if we believe in him) save us from being punished by God?

And is it true that God’s plan for all the people who are not signed up Christians is that they shall be sent to a place of torture called Hell and remain there forevermore?

And we are supposed to keep calling this the good news?!!!

When Jesus came into the world he opened up a radical understanding of God.

And much of this was new stuff.

Its one of the things that help us make sense of difficult Old Testament scriptures. People in that time didn’t have Jesus’ message and understanding.

So when we read of folk like Joshua reckoning that a massacre of another tribe would bring glory to God, we need to remember that he was from a different age and didn’t have the teaching of Jesus to give him a better perspective.

And one of the things that Jesus did was update scripture to bring it closer to God.

An example was when he said “You have heard it was said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” (Ex 21:24, Lev14:20)

“But now I tell you do not take revenge. You have heard it said, Love your friends, hate your enemies, but now I tell you love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be the children of your Father in heaven.”

(Matt 5:38-39, 43-45a)

Now I use that particular example because even the older and more primitive notion (eye for eye) is based on a sense of fairness and proportionality.

And this makes a nonsense of the idea that God would choose to impose an disproportionate punishment on anyone.

As parents sometimes we may have to punish our children in some way.

We might end up sending them to their room.

But no parent sends a child to their room forever!

The central truth for Christianity is what Jesus came to bring.

The most important thing about Jesus is not his death but his life.

Jesus came to show us what life is, how it should be lived and how we can live close to God.

He has presented us with a blueprint for living that we can follow.

He is the Way.

And despite the importance of the Bible, and despite the way in which some Christians describe the Bible – Jesus is the Word of God.

The Word made flesh…..the Bible itself tells us this.

And the picture Jesus painted of God was of a God that loves us beyond our imagining, beyond our deserving, beyond our wildest dreams.

God is on our side, willing our best,

encouraging us when we fall,

helping us back on our feet and inspiring and challenging us

to make an impact on the world around us.

On the other hand, a love that stops loving us because we make a mistake,

or because we are not part of the right group,

or a love that stops loving us as soon as we die - is not much of a love.

A love that suddenly turns into hate and eternal punishment when we die is not a real love in any sense.

Jesus’ death has all kinds of symbolic meanings, but being a transaction to try and placate a God of wrath isn’t one of them.

In fact, the central meaning of Jesus’ death is the opposite of that.

The central meaning of Jesus’ death is to show that nothing can ever stop God’s love for us.

That this love will never end or fade or change. Nothing we can do will make God love us any less.

In the words of Rob Bell: Love Wins.

So we think of people today we know who are not with us anymore.

We miss them. We still love them.

But do we love them more than God?

Just to ask the question is to realise the answer.

No one loves more than God. No one loves the people we love more than God.

No love is greater than God’s love.

And so, whenever we face death for ourselves or our loved ones, we know we are going to be with God, and we know that God is on our side.

Now that really is good news!

* “The Raven in the Foregate”

Acts 11:1-18

Matthew 5:38-48

October 19 2014