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Journal of Religion a nd Health, Vol. 36, No. 3, Fall 1997

Suffering Prayer andMiracles

PAUL P. PARKER

ABSTRACT: Unrelieved suffering leads many to ask, "How can I trust a miracle-working God,wh o will not help me or my loved ones?" From brief exegeses of Jesus' healing of a man bornblind (Jn 9) and of Jesus' response to Pilate's m urderous oppression (Lk 13), I argue that (1) Goduses suffering to call its witnesses to repentance and to acts of steadfast love that fulfill thecreation of humanity; (2 ) miracles are real, rare, an d ambiguous; (3) God is good a nd powerfulenough to deliver everyone decisively, but God's patient commitment to human freedom anduniversal reconciliation preclude it; (4) all suffering is sacrificial an d will become meaningful;and that ( 5) there are at least three faithful and coordinate responses to suffering.

Cancer strikes one person then another, often without explanationone intwo men, one in three women, religious and non-religious. Sometimes it islife-threatening, sometimes not. Most persons of faith respond to their diag-noses with prayer and medical treatments. Usually there is some success,remission for a time; often, there is not. Rarely, but occasionally and aston-ishingly, the cancer simply vanishes. Beyond anyone's rational hopes and indefiance of any scientific explanation, the patient is genuinely healed. Praiseand gratitude erupt immediately (and somewhat out of character for manyChristians). Though such miraculous recoveries are too infrequent, the storyis generally familiar.

Whatever a person's theological ilk or church-going habits, if a grave illness

attacks, most will pray and hope for the same grace. The brothers and sistersof Jesus Christ cry out for divine deliverance much like frightened childrencalling out for their parents' rescue. Some believers offer prayers with greaterfear of death than trust in God. Others pray in a rage, challenging God toprove himself. Still others try to take the kingdom by violence, demanding acure "in the name of Jesus Christ." No person's motives are pure. No one isrighteous. These are the heart-felt pleadings of God's creatures who cherishthe gift of life and are threatened with death. In perilous times, all of God'schildren hope for a miracle.

Difficult as it is for Christians of the scientific age to confess, the Bible,church history, and many of our contemporaries demand that we abandonou r modern hubris of knowledge and confidence in technology and affirm

Paul P. Parker, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor of Theology and Religion at Elmhurst College inElmhurst, Illinois.

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w hat numerous persons claim to have experienced in every culture an d fromth e beginning of time. Let us finally take as axiomatic that God does mira-clesreal, inexplicable, nature-rupturin g divine acts in history.

Of course God also denies prayer requests an d perhaps most often answersin ways which leave us ambivalent. In fact, the case fo r atheism is now bestargued by those who look to the inductive argument, pointing ou t that God'ssupposedly incoherent responses to human need is the coup de grace againstGod's existence or at least God's goodness. Worthy as this objection may be forsome, I believe there are explanations fo r ostensibly purposeless suffering,given God's power and goodness.

Still, those who believe that God acts in the world must answer th e com-mon objections. Why does God grant some prayers but not others? Are theprayers of the righteous petitioner answered and the unrighteous ignored?History questions James's assertion that "the prayer of the righteous is pow-erful an d effective" (Jas 5:16b). Despite biblical promises of prayer's utter

power (e.g., M t 7:7, 17:20, 18:19), we have al l known righteous persons wh ohave prayed fo r healing fo r themselves or for others without effect. Th e inef-fective prayer of the righteous is our most common experience, whether it isfor a just peace in Bosnia or the health of a loved one. Even Saint Paul finallyhad to accept hi s ailment though he asked repeatedly fo r healing. Moreover,in a strange reversal of what most persons want and expect, biblical storiesand contemporary experience show that God sometimes accedes to the peti-tions of the unrighteous and leaves the righteous to suffer (e.g., 1 Kings 17; 2Kings 5; Lk 4:25f; Jn 4, 8). While it is true that those who hunger and thirstfor righteousness will be filled, their prayers fo r health usually go unsat-isfied.

Neither is it a common experience that God grants prayers due to the right-eousness of the one in need. To o many biblical an d historical examples refutethis (e.g., Mt 9:35; Lk 4:40). Those who are miraculously healed are no more

righteous than others. And everyone knows about bad things that have hap-pened to good people without divine relief.Perhaps God has some particular, crucially important plan for the miracu-

lously healed person that requires God's special intervention. But this toostrains fo r biblical an d historical credibility. Commander Naaman of Aram,the unnamed tenth leper, the old woman with an oozing ulcer, as well as theoverwhelming majority of the other recipients of biblical miracles, are allcured without any apparent subsequent impact on history. Though some re-cipients of divine healing probably go on to accomplish great things, the ma-jority continue to live without fame or obvious social significance. It does notappear that God has something special in mind for those who are healed.

Do divine healings have any broader meaning beyond the specific act?Could it be that God's way is through random acts of kindness? Are God'sactions in the world really unintelligibly random, historically trivial, and voidof discernible justice? Christians appear to wait in vain more often than no t

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for God to liberate th e neediest, th e most faithful, an d those who are bestable to serve the kingdom. Th e Lord God of Israel revealed in Jesus ofNazareth seems not to have interfered with the reign of Thanatos in Rwanda,Burundi , Bosnia, Idi Ahmin's Uganda, Pol Pot's Cambodia, Hiroshima, Naga-saki, Nazi Germany, an d countless other colossal horrors. Th e faithful ofevery calling an d every nation are struck down without divine intervention asoften as anyone else. God rarely grants hi s children's cries fo r deliverance.

To observe that Go d does n ot miraculously rescue the faithful from dangerand death is not to deny that God is working in the world. God leads theworld "with cords of human kindness, with bands of love" (Hos ll:4a). Godgrants wisdom liberally to all who seek it, and joy, peace and patience to thesuffering. Through suffering, God may bring new self-awareness, love for thedivine, or the reconciliation of enemies. Though these gifts are immeasurablywonderful an d more than compensate for any suffering that one might en -dure, they are not like the biblical and historical examples of divine deliv-erance that interrupt the normal course of things. Granting peace to the ter-minally ill is a diffe rent type of divine act, an d much more common, than th emiraculous eradication of disease.

In light of God's real bu t seemingly inexplicable mercy (set in bas-reliefamong the horrific sufferings of war, disease, poverty, genocide, pollution,unimaginable oppression, world-wide malnutrition , and the extinction of in-numerable species), how can human beings trust God? If intellectually so -phisticated Christians must finally accept that the God who is spirit acts inthe world of matter, then it cannot be too much to ask, "What is God doing?"and, "Why?"

The Scriptures proclaim that God is working to unite all persons in one fam-ily and everyone to God. From Adam and Eve as the theological parents of allhuman beings, to God's covenant with Abraham through whom all nationsare blessed (Gen 12), to God's revelation through Moses that the Lord alone isGod of all (Ex 4:22; 19:5f; Deut 6:4f), to the prophets' visions of God's inclu-sive steadfast love (Isa 25:6-10a; 55; Jer 16:19-24; Hos 11:1-9; Mic 4:1-4;Jon), to Jesus' high-priestly prayer for unity and faith throughout the world(Jn 17), to Paul's writings about God's eternally established but newly re-vealed plan for cosmic reconciliation (Eph l:9f, 2:13-16, 3:1-11; Col l:26f; 2Co r 5:19), God's central purpose is to unite all things in love through JesusChrist so that the world may know the goodness of God.

With Israel, "Gentiles have become fellow heirs, members of the same body,and sharers in the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel" (Eph 3:6). The"dividing wall" that had separated the elect from all others has been de-stroyed by the cross (Eph 2:11-26). Moreover, though Paul's mission to the

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Gentiles is his central emphasis, it is not his sole expression of God's eternalplan for cosmic reconciliation. Recall Paul's teaching on economic parity (2Cor 8:15), on race, rank, an d gender unity (Gal 3:28 an d Phil), and on peace-ful relations as both citizens o f Rome and children of God (Rom 12-13). Paulis not guilty of enthusiastic exaggeration when he writes that it is God's "planfor th e fullness of time to gather up al l things in him, things in heaven an dthings on earth" (Eph 1:9-10).

This is not to deny the discordant voices of Scripture. Biblical literaturerecords that God killed Pharaoh's firstborn, destroyed the disobedient childrenof Israel, drove out the inhabitants of the land o f Canaan before the Israelites,struck down Ananias and Sapphira, and will eternally punish the faithless. Butthese references do not represent the central theme of creation, Israel's election,the exodus, the incarnation, or the resurrection. Biblical stories of horrificsuffering at the hand of God have more to do with the high cost o f human sin,freedom, an d reconciliation than with divine exclusion or punishment.

Precisely because G od is "reconciling the world to himself (2 Cor 5:19), Godgrants only those prayers that work in concert with this end. Prayer offered"in the name o f Jesus" is to be part of God's plan for familial unity. (This rulesout, fo r example, prayers of fear, greed, an d malice.) Whatever the specifics,petitionary prayers must take part in God's acts of historic reconciliation.Therefore, those whom Jesus Christ has made his brothers and sisters com-mit their lives to the Father's purpose rather than their own, even as Jesusprayed in the garden"not my win but thine." Every prayer that genuinelyfollows Jesus' own is guided by God's reconciling purpose for the world"your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven."

Nevertheless, when Jesus' followers pray and work fo r reconciliation throughthe church, health care, politics, etc., God still does not grant their petitionsreliably. To say this is not to find fault with God, but simply to describe hu-man experience. Miracles are and always have been the exception, not the

rule. Religious history shows that God does not regularly grant the prayers ofthe wise, the needy, the deserving, or the righteous. There must be hundredsof millions of Christians (and equal numbers of other persons) wh o die, en-dure unspeakable oppression, live in abject deprivation, or languish in chronicillness and who have also sought God's deliverance without relief.

If God can and sometimes does deliver some folks, wh y doesn't Go d help allthe afflicted more dependably, especially since this would be clear expressionof God's cosmic reconciling purpose? Go d must have overwhelming reasonsfor no t acting more deliberately to rescue his children from suffering.

Though not a complete theodicy, Jesus' interpretations of real world sufferingoffer reasons why God seldom uses miracles to deliver humans from suffer-

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ing. Jesus understands God to have created human beings so interrelatedwith each other that any person's suffering is to stimulate all persons to re-pent. The biblical connotation of repentance does not n ecessarily me an gloomor remorse, m uch less self-flagellation. Though repentance can include deepregret, it can also alternatively be accompanied by relief o r great joy. Funda -mentally, to repent is to change. In biblical Hebrew the preferred term of theprophets, shub "to return," is understood as a change or turning away fromfaithless attitudes and actions to a new w ay of life, internally and externally,which expresses repudiation of evil (e.g., Isa 33:15; Ps 15) and loyalty to God(e.g., Isa 1:17; Jer 26:13). Thus, God uses suffering to call humanity to turnfreely and wholly from evil to good.

In contradistinction to attitudes in his own day (and among much of mod-ernity), Jesus did not accept the iron-clad Deuteronomic formula of cause andeffect: God rewards the righteous with blessings and punishes the sinful withsuffering. Thus, when some of his followers pointed out the suffering of fellowIsraelites that was the apparent consequence of their sins, Jesus took thesituation as a pedagogical opportunity.

At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileanswhose blood Pilate ha d mingled with their sacrifices. He asked them, "D o youthink that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinnersthan all other Galileans? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will a ll perishas they did. Or those eighteen wh o were killed when the tower of Siloam fell onthemdo you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living inJerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as theydid" (Lk 13:1-5).

According to first-century Jewish and Christian writings, Pilate was aruthless, paranoid, self-serving tyrant who did Rome, Israel and the churchmore harm than good. Because Galilee was known for its revolutionary agita-

tors, Pilate may have executed the Galileans as they prepared for worshipbecause he believed they were seditionists. Or perhaps Pilate's despoticslaughter of the inn ocent was intended to warn would-be Galilean revolution-aries. Maybe those who reported the incident intended to admonish Jesus tosoften his own revolutionary rhetoric about the coming kingdom. Whateverthe reporters' intention, whatever Pilate's purpose, whoever the victims, themain stream theology of early first-century Israel would have interpretedthose gruesome deaths as God's punishment of sinners.

For Jesus this misunderstood the nature of God. He reinterpreted the inci-dent, first by denying that the deaths were related to the depth of individuals'unrighteousness. Of course these Galileans w ere sinners; everyone is (Ps 14;Rom 3:23). But they w ere no worse than "all other Galileans" (Jesus' disciplesand his w ould-be advisers not excluded). The proper theological response tothese unjust executions was not self-righteousness ("I am not that bad "),righteous indignation ("Pilate will have to answer to God"), just retribution

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("An eye for an eye."), or even thankfulness ("Thank God it wasn't me ").Jesus advised repentance. Whether innocent or guilty, the suffering of otherswas a call to consider one's ow n life and to change.

Similarly, "those eighteen w ho were killed when the tower of Siloam fell onthem" were popu larly judg ed to have been punished by God for working incollusion w ith the occupying Gentile army. The workers were probably Isra-elites employed by Rome to reinforce Roman military po sitions located in thetowers along Jerusalem's walls. Jesus' followers apparently reasoned thatthis must h ave been why God crushed them un der the very stones with whichthey ha d committed treason against God and country. Bu t Jesus again rejectsthis theological explanation of suffering. The first theological response tothese deaths was not judgm ent of the oppressor or the sufferer, but repen-tance of the survivor.

For Jesus's first-century disciples and most moderns, this is a hard gospel.Just as all America heard about the Oklahoma City bombing and the down-ing of TWA Flight 800, al l Jerusalem would have known of the tower's cata-strophic collapse. Therefore, let all the people of Jerusalem (and America)consider their own need for repentance. Frankly, when Jesus looks back atthe present from the future eschatological fulfillment of history, it really doesnot matter whether his countrymen's deaths were caused by carelessness,sabotage, nationalistic bigotry, oppressive working conditions, or some otherparticular sin. Whether "those eighteen" were workers or innocent bystand-ers killed by some incredible accident, the enduring meaning of suffering isno t suffering per se, but that through such tragic suffering al l persons mightsense the urging of God to repent.

Jesus concludes both examples by warning those who do not repent thatthey will experience a similar fate. Jesus' cautionary words should be takenjust as seriously and literally as God's threat of death if Adam and Eve eat ofthe tree of knowledge. Sin has always been the alienating separation of hu-

man beings from God. Rather than some cosmic law of spiritual-cause-and-material-effect, however, this is the simple character of interpersonal rela-tionships. If we would have a loving relationship with God, we must turn toGod and away from evil. The focus of Jesus' reproof is not on any futurepunishment, but on turning to God.

Though it is considered by many persons as politically naive, Jesus' de-manding in terpretation of suffering has not gone unrepresented in modern-ity. Mar tin Luther King confessed that through his own suffering he had be-come convinced of "the value of unmerited suffering" for personal and socialchange.1 Prior to King, Christian liberalism's social-gospel movement was sostrongly influenced b y God's justice and goodness that it interpreted the horr-ible massive sufferi ng of the last qua rter of the nineteenth century throughWorld War I as God's call to humanity to reform the structures of society.Walter Rauschenbusch, the movement's most insightful theologian, under-stood God to have created human beings with such solidarity that social suf-

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incompetence at the blood bank, but first to tear down their ow n pantheon ofself-indulgence. When unmarried women an d their children suffer from pov-erty, rather than pointin g the finger of judgmen t, Christians are first to turnfrom their own materialism, selfishness, lust, promiscuity, adultery, parentalfailings, intra-familial feuds, disregard for aging parents, and indifference tochildhood poverty. When gangs, urban blight, and drive-by shootings are re-ported and roundly condemned, rather than joining the choir, followers ofChrist are first to weigh their own responsibility and repent. W hen the faith-ful read about the brutality of the Bosnian-Serbian war, the fratricide ofNorthern Ireland, or the inter-tribal butchery of the Tutsis and Hutus, God'schildren are not to respond first w ith God's judg ment or the self-indulgence ofmoral outrage, but are to move away from the potentially murderous conse-quences of their own family bigotry, religious intolera nce, and nationalisticloyalties. Th e tragic and seemingly endless stories about cancer, racism, pov-erty, violence, and starvation will not push Christians who know the lovingFather of Jesus Christ to atheistic despair, but to greater responsibility forthemselves and for the world. The eschatological promise of Jesus Christ o nwhich Christians depend is that those who hunger for righteousness reallywill be filled.

There are other incidents from Jesus teachings that help account for God'sperplexingly infrequent use of miracles to reconcile those who suffer to whole-ness. When Jesus and his band came upon a blind man , his disciples initiated adiscussion on a contem porary theological issue: Whose fault was it? "As [Jesus]walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, 'Rabbi,who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind?'" ( Jn 9:1-2).

Deuteronomic theology still p revailed. Everyone knew suffering was causedby sin. Th e only theological debate in this situation was over whether thecause had been the parents' sin (Ex 20:5), the b lind man 's sin of watching hisparents in sexual intercourse while still in the womb, or a singularly heinoussin that the man w ould have committed if not born blind.5 Who then sinned?

Folks are not so different today. When things sour, when a loved one's un-diagnosed cancer grows beyond the stage o f treatment though the symptomswere apparent to everyone months earlier, when the over-weight and seden-tary man is disabled by a stroke, when starvation devours hundreds of mil-lions in a world of plenty, when urban rot consumes a city's heart, whennations sacrifice their young for the prizes of war, the first response is re-crimination. Who did it? Who is responsible? Contrary to this very humanresponse,

Jesus answered [his disciples of every epoch], "Neither this man nor his parentssinned; he was born blind so that God's works might be revealed in him. We

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must work the w orks of him who sent me w hile it is day. . . ." Wh en he had saidthis, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mudon the man's eyes, saying to him, "Go, wash in the pool of Siloam. . . ." Then hewent and washed and came back able to see (Jn 9:3-7).

The disciples' theological debate (and m uch of modernity's) held no interestfor Jesus. He was typically uninterested in fault-finding. The disciples askedJesus who caused the blindness (Aristotle's "efficient" cause); he explained itspurpose (Aristotle's "final" cause, or for Jesus the eschatological meaning).The point of the man's suffering was "that God's works [God's character]might be revealed." While in no way minimizing the blind man's sufferingand without any attempt to justify it, Jesus taught that his suffering hadcosmic significance.

God has created the world with such integration that any cry of suffering isto be heard as God's beckoning fo r human beings to respond with good works

of steadfast love"God 's works." Accord ing to Marc Ellis, Jewish activist andtheologian, the world's incomprehensible suffering attains cosmic meaning by"enjoining us to acts of loving kindness."6 Even through the unspeakable suf-fering of the Holocaust, God implores humanity, "Never again."

Individuals can choose freely whether or not to respond to God with goodworks of steadfast love. Irenaeus, second-century Bishop of Lyons, finds thatwhen individuals choose to do God's work they experience transformation.

For God from the beginning made man free. ... so that he might freely fall inwith God's intentions without compulsion from God. For God does not use force... . He has equipped man with the power of choice. . . . Through obedience anddiscipline and training, man, who is contingent and created, grows into the im-age and likeness of the eternal God. . . . Man gradually advances and mountstowards perfection, . . . and this is God.7

God is good. God does not cause, ordain , or justify suffering. For the sake ofhuman freedom, God allows suffering that is caused by others and sufferingthat i s part of the natural world, and then uses it to call humanity to repen-tance, beneficence, and ultimate reconciliationvoluntarily. In this way nosuffering is meaningless. God redeems all suffering by giving it a part in thefinal cosmic reconciliation. It is the very design of the universe that all suffer-ing is sacrificial and has a part in God's purpose of utterly inclusive recon-ciliation. To ignore this fundamental structure of reality by refusing to prac-tice mercy for any in need is to tear at the fabric of creation self-destructivelyand to alienate oneself from God and humanity. God has created the worldwith such interdependence that human beings cannot help but see sufferingand experience an inner compulsion to repent while still remaining free todecline.

Augustine correctly observes that when limited to one's own abilities, with-out God, no one consistently chooses the good (though he is again right that itis theoretically possible).8 Thus, it is common to walk the city's streets in fear,

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count the change from check-out clerks, a nd retain copies of correspondencewith "difficult" persons. Because others abuse their freedom, most personsare grateful for a free press, a well-trained police force, a fair judicial system,th e Bill of Rights, and the federal government's three branches constantlycounter-balancing each other. Most persons find it uncomfortable to truststrangers and wise to trust no one with greater power than their own. Free-dom threatens everyone.

Augustine believes that freedom changes from threat to blessing only asGod elicits human benevolence through th e revelation of the divine natureand human responsibility. When human beings accept God's call, "induce-ment, or invitation," "the Spirit . . . comes to pass in us [so] that we find ourdelight in not sinningwhich means liberty." 9 What hu man s are unwilling todo, God entices us to desire through personal solicitation. While exiled on theisle of Patmos, John the Seer proclaims God's shockingly intimate invitationfor al l time: "Listen I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice

and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me"(Rev 3:29). Free human consent is necessary and now possible. Like a loverwho is overcome by the other's beauty and now wishes only to love the otherfaithfully, a believer is one who is overwhelmed by God's goodness and nowwants only to love Go d faithfully. Even though believers still break God'sheart and betray their love, their remorse and repentance demonstrate theircommitment to God. Created by grace, th e faithful live b y grace in a freedomnot their own that one day will be fulfilled. Faith in, love for, and gratitude toGod flow out in good works (Eph 2:10). Freedom is no longer the mad curse o fhuman potential abused; it is now fulfilled through acts of kindness in gra-cious communio n with G od and others.

Divine commitment to human freedom in the light of the historical cost ofsuffering is stunning and for many persons an insurmountable scandal. Thetragedies of human freedom are blistering. Yet, human reconciliation to God

without the freedom to do otherwise seems less like divine familial love thaninstitutional coercion. God will transform individuals only as they freely de-sire the new life. God could have predetermined humanity to choose nothingbut good. God can still today "bribe" humans with riches and miraculoushealings. But God wants individuals to choose him, to do "God's works," with-ou t coercion and without self-interest. Go d longs to be loved freely "for who heis," for his character, not for his power to make faith pay off. The groans ofcreation (Rom 8), the fulfillment of God's promise to Abraham (Gen 12), theincomprehensible unity for which Jesus prayed (Jn 17), and the consumma-tion of the Pauline "mystery" of cosmic eschatological reconciliation (Eph 1-3)all require free human consent made possible by God's grace.

Even though it sometimes appears that history is moving in the wrongdirection, it is crucial for the church and for individuals to grasp the biblicalconfidence that by the patient love of God "all things work together for goodfor those wh o love God and are called according to his purpose" (Rom 8:28).

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Go d is good. Go d will no t fail (Isa 52:11). Contrary to protest atheism, nosuffering is for naught. 10 The blind man's suffering, the Holocaust, all suffer-ing will be made meaningful by its part in calling human beings to do "God'sworks" in freedom an d thus to fulfill the creation of humanity. This is God'spromise. Th e Christian hope is that God can pull it off.

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Interpersonal objections to regular nature-rupturing acts o f God are formida-ble. If God were to grant every prayer for deliverance, it would b e hard toargue that humans were genuinely free to choose God or not. Would it notbecome tempting to do the works of God in order to get the gifts of God ratherthan from genuine commitment to God? Also, how could humans grow andlearn through suffering and why would they even want to? If God is going to

rescue th e suffering, let him; who could respond to suffering more quickly,effectively or mercifully than God? Moreover, if God were to grant the inter-cessory prayers of the faithful, sin would no t cease, obviously. Humans wouldjust be freed from suffering. Human beings would still lie, hate, and kill butwithout deleterious consequences, while God would clean up behind human-ity with deliverance upon deliverance. How ludicrous Still more, any una-bated suffering would have lost its value for cosmic reconciliation. If Godwere to liberate th e suffering whenever th e righteous prayed in faith, any ofthe suffering that slipped past their compassionate watch would be an un-justifiable waste. Suffering would be meaningless. Every divine deliverance,though seemingly consistent with eschatological cosmic reconciliation, wouldactually militate against God's purpose by muting God's call to humanity tochange and do good works.

Why, then, does God grant any miracles? The answer is so simple that thetemptation is to dismiss it. God answers prayers because God loves humanbeings. God is compassionate. God is good.

Is there anyone among y ou who, if your child asks fo r bread, will give a stone?Or if the child asks for a fish, will give a snake? If you then, who are evil, knowhow to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father inheaven give good things to those who ask him (Mt 7:9-11).

Of course the God and Father of Jesus Christ grants his children's prayersEven when we complain most bitterly about divine absence, God is still lovingand sustaining us. God reminds the faithful of this through Hosea: "WhenIsrael was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. ... It was Iwho taught Ephraim to walk, I took them up in my arms; but they did notknow that I healed them (Hos 11:1-3).

Go d loves human beings and therefore miraculously grants prayers, butvery rarely and ambiguously, and in unfathomable ways that safeguards hu-

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man freedom while working for cosmic reconciliation. As much as individualsmight be comforted to think that God directly intervenes in today's manyinexplicable deliverances, God does not. Even in the biblical world of ostensi-bly common miracles, everyone was amazed, for "never since the world beganhas it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind" (Jn9:32; see also Mt 12:23; 15:30f; Mk 2:12; 5:20, 42, 7:37; Lk 9:43). Now as thenmiracles are highly unusual.

The rarity of miracles is matche d by their ambiguity. God's infrequent mir-acles are sufficiently well hidden (see Isa 45) so as not to undercut humanfreedom or God's plan for reconciliation. The irregular and miraculous inter-vention of God can always be interpreted otherwise. Scripture records thatmany persons witnessed Jesus' miracles and resurrection without believingthat they were of God (Mt 11:25; 16:1-4; 28:17; Jn ll:45f).

When my younger sister was three years old, she walked accidentally intothe sword-shaped leaf of a Spanish bayonet yucca plant and punctured one of

her eyes. It deflated like a beach ball. The attending physician pronouncedher blind and offered what treatment he could. My parents prayed and askedthe church to pray. In several weeks, my sister could see again. The churchand my family praised God for a miracle. The physician sheepishly objectedthat he had misdiagnosed the injury and the eye had healed quite naturally.

If we become convinced that God intervenes in the normal course of natureto rescue the faithful, would not healthy self- interes t compel us to chooseGod? Love for God, then, would be based on what God could do for us. Lovefor God would be just one more instance of self-love. This so-called love wouldexpress one's desire for health and prosperity, for example, more than faithfullove of the holy God of the universe. Who would be genuinely free to love Godor not to love God, if faith paid off in the everyday world?

God does not lack the power to deliver the suffering clearly and regularly.God is the beneficent Sovereign, Creator and Redeemer of the cosmos. God

created the least significant particle of matter and every one of the estimated3.75 quadrillion solar systems in the universe. Neither the human mind northe farthest planet is a mystery to God. God is able to liberate convincingly.

The problem for God is to act in the world and not so overwhelm finitehumanity that real freedom to choose God is obliterated. God will act in nomore self-revelatory ways than he has in Jesus Christ because to do so wouldimperil human freedom to fall in love with God. Human beings are free toaccept God only if they are also free to reject God. If God's acts were morehistorically convincing, what mere mortal could refuse the powerfully wooingaffections of the almighty Lord God of the universe? God wants human beingsto love him on the basis of his character (Lk 4:43; 11:27-32; Jn 6:14-15 30-35) without the fear of punishment (1 Jn 4:18) or the lure of prosperity (Mk8:34f; 10:17-22). God seeks human love and faith in freedom and thereforeworks miraculously only in rare and ambiguous circumstances.

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Faithful human beings will respond to God in the presence of suffering in atleast three different and coordinated ways. First, they will pray for the libera-tion of those who suffer. It is the case that God works miraculously, albeitinfrequently. If in this whole great world, Go d delivers some individuals fromsickness or danger, contrary to the normal course of things, let the personsinvolved praise God with all their heart, mind , and soul, and proclaim thedeliverance to all who will listen. Be bold; it will encourage the faithful. Butno one today should expect masses to hear and praise God as well. Mostpersons will think that an individual who was healed was just lucky, mis-diagnosed, overly optimistic, or a "mental case" from the start. Miracles re-main ambiguous to spectators even when they are clear to the healed.

Second, the faithful will pray for all persons, themselves included, to be-come more sensitive to those who suffer. They will pray that those who see

suffering will hear in it God's gentle pleadings, change and do the works ofGod. As individuals respond to God, they will join with each other in surpris-ing ways to work with God in the ministry of reconciliationhealing the sick,freeing the oppressed, proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ. Wars, dis-ease, poverty, starvation, and social disintegration have often been reduced ifno t eliminated by persons who heard the call o f ro d through the suffering ofothers. Organizations like the American Friends Service Committee, Breadfor the World, World Relief, and Christian Peacemaker Teams come imme-diately to mind. Every denomination and nearly every church has a benevo-lence committee or social-ministries organization that sees Christ in "theleast of these" and responds with the works of God. Secular efforts, too, likeincreased funding for medical research, national health insurance, urban-re-newal programs, the World Court, the United Nations, and internationaltreaties are examples of human fidelity to God in response to suffering.

Thirdly, because human petitions for divine help are met with infrequentand obscure miracles, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego's response to theking of Babylon is an enduring paradigm of faith confronting disaster:

O Nebuchadnezzar , we have no need to present a defense to you in this matter. Ifour God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire andout of your hand, O king, let him deliver us. But if not, be it known to you, Oking, that we will not serve your gods and we will not worship the golden statuethat you have set up (Dan 3:16-18).

These three young Jewish exiles demonstrate that God's faithful ones neednot be anxious about divine liberation from disease, poverty, malnutrition,violence, or repressive structures. Whether God heals or not, God is good. Godreigns. Serve no other. Trust God. Therefore, in good times and bad the Apos-

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tie Paul (who was no stranger to success or failure) urges Christians to "re-joice always, pray w ithout ceasing, give thank s in all circumstances; for thisis the will of God in Christ Jesus for you" (1 Thess 5:16-18).

Etty Hillesum, a vibrant, deeply reflective, twenty-nine-year-old scholarand victim of the world's largest and most systematic destruction of Jewry,refused to accept evil or to resist it by its own standards. H er diaries recordthat, like the three yo ung Israelites, she bore witness to God in the midst ofsuffering, but was then killed. This ha s been ou r dilemmabut it was nothers. Fully aware of the d aily horrors that consum ed others an d stalked her,yet refusing opportunities to escape, she asked in an affirming rhetoric,"Ought we not, from time to time, open ourselves up to cosmic sadness? . . .And if you have given sorrow the space its gentle origin demands, then youmay truly say: life is beautiful and so rich. So beautiful and so rich that itmakes yo u want to believe in God."11 Later, just several weeks before herdeath, confined by the barbed wire of Auschwitz, her joy in God became ec-static:

You have made me so rich, oh God; please let me share Your beauty with openhands. My life ha s become an uninterrupted dialogue with You, oh God, onegreat dialogue. Somethings when I stand in some corner of the camp, my feetplanted on Your earth, my eyes raised towards Your heaven, tears sometimesrun down my face, tears of deep emotion an d gratitude. A t night, too, when I liein my bed and rest in You, oh God, tears of gratitude run down my face, and thatis my prayer. ... I always end up with just one single word: God. That sayseverything an d there is no need for anything more.12

Make no mistake, sacrificial and reconciling suffering is no recipe fo r piousquietism. More than once, the three Jewish youths opposed their tyrannicalking's orders. The Apostle Paul echos Jesus' teaching to the faithful to "Blessthose who persecute yo u. ... If your enemies a re hungry, feed them. ... Do

not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good" (Rom. 12: 14a, 20a, 21).Hillesum, too, embodies this alternative ethic by refusing to escape when shecould have in order to provide comfort for those who could no t flee. ThroughNazi brutality, God called her to "be all the more merciful."13 Rather thanself-righteous inaction, suffering calls for faithful action that builds upon andis an expression of the fundamental truths of human freedom and the incom-prehensible goodness and patience of God.

Even the sciences affirm in their own way God's cosmic patience to unite allthings in Jesus Christ to himself. The best estimates are that the universe isabout 12 billion years old and the earth about five billion. Life first appearedon earth three to four billion years ago. Hominids have been around for onlyabout three million years, from which homo sapiens branched off quite re-cently, about 200,000 years ago. Israel rose to its zenith nearly 3000 yearsago. Jesus of Nazareth was born in B ethlehem about 2000 years ago. He livedand taught in Palestine until he was about thirty when he was killed, buried,

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