The question of suffering

“Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.” — Romans 5:3-5

One of the interesting things about the current Sunday School material I'm going through is that it forces us to ask the big questions. One of those is how we reconcile a loving and benevolent God with the suffering we see in the world. This, I think, is one of the toughest questions for Christians and non-Christians alike.

On Sunday, our class looked at the way the culture responds to this question. I think there's three ways.The first approach is crying out or struggling with the world. One of the places that's captured best is in the movie “No Country For Old Men,” which is based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy. If you haven’t seen it, this is a movie set in the early 1980s and it’s a story of crime gone wrong in a Texas border town. A local stumbles onto a crime scene — and a suitcase of money — and he takes it. The cartel, whose money was taken, sends a vicious hitman to collect the money. All the while a small town sheriff watches it all unfold. The person whose point of view we’re supposed to be seeing is that of sheriff Ed Tom Bell, played by Tommy Lee Jones. And what he struggles with is his belief in God and in good, and the evil he sees in the world. This is more clear in the book, where Bell’s internal monologue begins each chapter. In the film, we get this in his opening narration and in the closing of the film as he describes his dream.

I think this is really a movie about coming to grips with the question of evil. In the opening narration, you hear Bell recount a story and his confusion about how people like that could exist. Throughout the course of the story he sees another evil man, someone who is unrepentant about his actions, and it confounds Ed Tom Bell. As does the outcome of the case. He can’t reconcile what he thinks the world should be like with what he sees in the world. That leads him to quit, essentially, because he feels lost in the world. That’s what his dream is about, too. He can see his father — representing justice as he thinks it should be — carrying the torch before him and getting lost in the darkness. That’s emblematic of how he sees the world, which I think is profoundly sad.

Another example of this kind of reaction was captured perfectly in a first season episode of the sitcom “Scrubs.” In the show there are two main doctors, JD who doesn’t have any faith and Turk, who his a Christian. In the beginning of the episode Turk stands up for faith and the meaning of Christmas, while JD and Turk’s wife, Carla, give him a hard time about it. But during an overnight shift on Christmas Eve, Turk sees so much suffering that it throws him into turmoil.

When I was a junior at Biola University I was in a class call pragmatic social theories of communication. Since Biola is a Christian school — it stands for the Biblical Institute of Los Angeles — we all had to take a couple classes in our major that doubled as Bible classes, and this was one of those classes. We were given a set of books to read, divided into groups and each group had to craft a presentation for one of the books. The book our group was assigned was the book “When Bad Things Happen to Good People.” The book was written by Rabbi Harold S. Kushner following the death of his son. To be honest, I didn’t think it was that memorable a book, but what I remember was trying to decide how to present it.

This was a senior communication class that mixed people from all the majors under communications. I was a journalism major, an observer, but I was in a group with a theater major, a speech therapy major, and a comm. studies major. One in the group suggested we do a reader’s theater, which I wasn’t wild about. One suggested we do a question and answer period that really delved into the problems behind the message of the book, which I also wasn’t wild about. Then it hit me, we could start out with a film clip that related to it. Instantly — probably in part as a defense mechanism against the harrowing prospect of a grade based on my ability in reader’s theater — I suggested showing a clip from “Scrubs” and holding an honest discussion presentation. Fortunately my group agreed — there was really only one person sold on the idea of reader’s theater.

In the clip, Turk tells his wife, “I feel abandoned. All my life I believed God listens to our prayers, that he cares for us and that he watches over us. Last night there were so many people that needed to be watched over. How am I supposed to believe in someone who is willing to let innocent people suffer?” Carla, of course, has no answer.

I don’t think there really is a good answer to that question, at least not an answer that’s going to provide instant comfort to someone who is suffering. However, I do think that God offers us hope, even in the darkest of times. One of the scriptures that I think really captures that best is Romans 5:3-5, “Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.”

So the first reaction is to be confused, hurt, and lost when confronting suffering. The second reaction is to accept it without understanding. That, to me, is what “Tree of Life” is all about. There have been few films that have been as polarizing as "Tree of Life." When it showed at the Cannes Film Festival in 2011, the report is that half the crowd applauded and half booed and walked out. The film certainly draws a reaction, but it's a very mixed reaction. When the film won at Cannes, "Entertainment Weekly" offered divergent viewpoints. One critic loved the film, one hated it. One of the critics, in the year end special, named it the best film of the year. One didn't even have it on the list of the 10 best.

It is a polarizing film. People have either loved it or hated it. I guess I'm the exception. I didn't love the film — in fact, I found it somewhat frustrating to watch. But I didn't hate the film — in fact I was intrigued, somewhat, by the way Terrance Malick seemed to be working out a deeper musing on life. Those that have been negative about the film have pointed to the structure, which is a valid criticism. The film lacks a coherent narrative through line, which is usually essential to the medium. It is a collection of scenes and random musings, faux theology, and disconnected thoughts. And it is. But I would argue that is a standard aspect of a Malick film.

The film is meant to be an all encompassing musing on the foundation of the world, the ethereal reality of God, and the way that factors into the way we deal with difficult things in our lives. Hence the Big Bang, Dinosaurs, and sequences of the cosmos. Again, I'm not saying I subscribe to the theological veracity of his work, just trying to explain the ultimate goal. So that speaks to the structural element of the film, which is a major turn off for most people, including myself. But what about the content, and the way that content is explored in this film? That I find more interesting.

Clearly Malick isn't a strong Christian, but he has a knowledge of the Bible. My best guess, watching the whole scenario play out, is that Malick is perhaps a Deist, but more likely an Agnostic. That explains the somewhat worldly approach to this spiritual search as it plays out on the screen, hence the Big Bang and dinosaurs. Malick is, in his own way, depicting a variation of that Job account with "Tree of Life." He is seriously considering these issues, but he doesn't have the answers the way we might, and he approaches the whole issue in his own way. That is fascinating. That is a window into the spiritual search of an artist.

To start this film, Malick begins with Job 38:4, 7. Those verses come from a section where God is answering Job, who questioned him. Job is a difficult, challenging, and fascinating book to read. There is a reason it is considered part of the wisdom literature. But when you consider this passage in context, you begin to understand the discourse going on here.

For several chapters, Job and his three friends have been discussing his situation, and the role of God. Job, in his anguish at his suffering, has cried out to God. Job 30:20-26 says, “I cry out to you, God, but you do not answer; I stand up, but you merely look at me. You turn on me ruthlessly; with the might of your hand you attack me. You snatch me up and drive me before the wind; you toss me about in the storm. I know you will bring me down to death, to the place appointed for all the living. Surely no one lays a hand on a broken man when he cries for help in his distress. Have I not wept for those in trouble? Has not my soul grieved for the poor? Yet when I hoped for good, evil came; when I looked for light, then came darkness.” You get the sense that Job is trying to justify himself and his actions and his worthiness of blessings.

Well, in Job 38, God responds. Job 38:1-7 says, “Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the storm. He said: “Who is this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge? Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me. “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone — while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?” A pretty powerful response. What do you think of when you hear those verses? That, obviously, is the section Malick quoted from with this film, and when you look at it in context you see that Malick understands the answer to his question, he’s just trying to work it out. When you read God’s response you get the idea that we can’t understand God’s plan because we are finite beings serving and infinite God. I think “Tree of Life” is Malick trying to rationalize his personal hurt and confusion with what he thinks it means to have faith. I think his depiction of faith — at least in this film — is suffering in silence and living in obedience, which I am not sure is accurate.

So the first response is confusion. The second response is silent obedience. I think the third response is trust and faith in God — and I think that’s what we’re called to. One movie that really captured this well was “Soul Surfer,” based on the true story of Bethany Hamilton. She is a great surfer who, as a teen living in Hawaii, had her arm taken off in a shark attack. She is also a devout Christian. When she got injured, like most of us would, she struggled to understand. So Bethany goes to see her youth pastor.

We talked last week about the idea that we can’t understand or know everything in this life. We can’t see God’s bigger plan. Paul talked about this in 1 Corinthians 13:12, which says, “For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” I like the New King James even better, as it says we see through a glass darkly. The implication is that we can only see part of the picture. We can only see some of what’s happening, but we don’t have the full picture. And we won’t have the full picture in this life. That verse, and the implications of that verse are both comforting and confounding, at least to me. And, of course, it’s really hard to turn that truth into a platitude when someone is in the midst of suffering. I think that is often where Christians go wrong. We saw with “Tree of Life” how the woman, in her good intentions, tried to comfort the boy’s mother by giving her all these platitudes and how hollow that sounded during her time of grief and despair. I like that in this movie Bethany’s youth pastor doesn’t try to do that. She doesn’t try to minimize Bethany’s pain and anguish, she grieves along with her. But she also points to hope. And that is part of faith. That’s what we get in verses like Jeremiah 29:11, which the youth minister quoted in our first clip, “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” We don’t understand all the things that happen to us as they’re unfolding, but if we have faith and trust in God to fulfill His promises, that can give us the sustaining hope to move forward.

We need patience, trust, and faith in order to have hope through the tough times. And, if we’re patient, often God will help to put out struggles into perspective for us. For Bethany, that comes as she takes a mission trip to Thailand, an area that has been ravaged by a Tsunami. She goes into the trip feeling confused and lost in her own life, but what she finds helps to put her issues into perspective.

It’s amazing how, when you are at your lowest and on the verge of giving in to despair, that something can come along and totally change your outlook. Bethany was struggling with a bit of a loss of identity as she thought her surfing career had been derailed. But when she traveled to this place where people had endured such great suffering, and were so grateful to be alive, it changed the way she looked at her life. It humbled her a bit and caused her to realize how much she had to be thankful for.

Obviously, that leads to a re-evaluation of everything for Bethany as she moves forward.

As Christians, it’s not if we will face trials, it’s when. And it’s also about how we respond. One of my favorite responses in this fashion was in the pilot episode of “Friday Night Lights.” The Dillon Panthers, the high school football team the show follows, were picked to win the state title. They are led by senior quarterback Jason Street, who is poised to win the state title and ride that momentum to Notre Dame. But in the first game of the season, after throwing an interception, Street goes to make a tackle in anger with his head down. He is injured and carried off the field. At the end of the episode, the team and his family gather at the hospital, by now realizing this is very serious and will likely end his career. It is a moment of great sadness, confusion, and despair, Coach Taylor gives a great speech.

It’s not a matter of whether or not bad things will happen in this world, it is a question of how we will respond to those times. Those that follow the series know that Coach Taylor and his team pushed on and, despite all odds, won the state title. In the face of tough times, Taylor stood firm. Our Bible points us in that direction, too. James 1:2-4 says, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”