Is God The Joker?

In the wake of last week’s Aurora shootings, we have all been inundated with the stories of horrors and miracles.  On Friday morning I scanned the news headlines and while saddened and confused by the news coming out of Denver, I have to say I read them in haste, busy with my own day.  It was not until later when I checked my phone.   The screen was full of missed calls and texts from friends back in Denver.

Petra Anderson was shot – call me
Kim’s daughter shot in the head – PRAY! 
Call me when you get this!!!

In the days since the shooting, Petra’s story has become a well-known one around the world.  For we know now, Petra was born with an unseen defect made just for Friday morning.  She had a secret passage way for a bullet to pass through her brain, leaving it intact.  Her life was spared.  The world-wide community of believers has cried out “God is good!”  And we believe it to our core.  God is Good. 

But those standing on the sidelines of faith have shouted back,

What? You must be kidding. A six year old is dead and her mother is paralyzed.  Mothers and fathers and widows are mourning, and your God is supposedly good? 

Their awe has turned to anger.

Our pastor back in Denver wrote a beautiful blog post yesterday.  While the posting was uplifting, many of the comments were challenging and raw. 

One reader named TJ challenges:

Why were all those other people who were KILLED not saved by God, including a 6-year-old girl? I guess he likes to play favorites… I guess God is the Joker.

Those last six words are so full of hurt, fear, and anger, that you can palpably feel it.  Is God the Joker?  It's a good question.  From the sidelines of faith it's easy to answer yes.  In situations like this we are faced with our limited understanding of our own world, and frankly we don’t like it very much.  We want desperately to understand.  We want to know the rules that the world spins by so hopefully we can have some sort of control.  There is a leap in the theological debate that says:

 If God is good, the world would be good, but the world is not good, so God cannot be good.

It is easy to see how the conclusion is drawn:

 God is not good, so I don’t want this God.

I hear in TJ’s painful comment that perhaps he feels that if God likes to play favorites, TJ would prefer not to play with him.  Perhaps in TJ’s life he has not felt that God has favored him.  It is a common experience.  Burden upon burden upon burden seem to fall in some people’s lives.  It is easy to see how life’s pain hardens into the belief:

God plays favorites, blessing some people, but He didn’t pick me to favor, so I won’t pick Him to follow. 

I believe this thinking comes from being followers of the American Dream and students of the American Media.  You see the American Dream has led us to believe that life should go well for us.  That we deserve to prosper financially, live happily, and die at an old age.  The American Media shows us stories of the crooked that prosper and the good that fall on hard times.  They start their programs with five minutes of horror stories and flippantly end the broadcast with a miracle.  A happy little story to leave us feeling good, where the people say, “God has been so good.” 

If you take a minute to see this from the perspective of the TJ’ s of the world,  it’s pretty easy to understand his belief system.  He and millions of other Americans have been left mistakenly thinking that the world is full of horror and wrong, but somehow God should be praised in the moments of “good luck”.

When your heart is set on the American Dream and your eyes feast on American media, it is easy to fall into the belief that God is the Joker. 

But what about when the bullet slices a different way?  When the cancer treatment doesn’t work?  When the child doesn’t come home?  What if the media ended their daily programs following Christian families with those stories?  Then TJ could see the true and deep side of faith.  The faith that still says through nashing teeth and sob choked breaths, God is Good.   Because believe me dear TJ, that is what is said by those who are followers of Jesus Christ and students of Scripture.  You see we are living under very different expectation than the American Dream. 

We are following a God who has already told us:  In this world you will have trouble.  But take heart!  I have overcome the world.

We are educated by scripture full of stories of people whose lives didn’t go well here on earth, but who put their faith in God who promises us a better life to come.  We’re living by the examples of barren women, men sold into slavery, wandering homeless old men, and death row prisoners.  In these lives we see that while this world is full of trouble, God is using it all for his glory. So that when the bullets fly in our life we can fall to our knees and know there is a much bigger picture here than a shattered American Dream.   We can trust in a better world to come after this one.

I have seen it in the life of Reagan Joy who spent just one day on earth.  I have watched it in the life of my friend Joanne Heim, whose recovery may not be complete until she reaches Heaven.  And we now all have the privilege of watching Petra continue on her path.  Through all this we say, “God is good,” and we mean it.

You see we know God is not the Joker.  He told us the truth that we would face trouble.  It is also true that He has conquered this world.    He loved us so much that He sent His Son to pave the path for us to a better life.  A path back home, out of this temporary fallen world, to a far greater one. 

Yet for the living, those waiting to reach that better world, God calls on us to be His hands and feet to those in need.  While the media may have wrapped up Petra and her mother Kim’s story with a nice little bow called A Miracle, the reality is that Petra has a long road of recovery and Kim has a difficult battle to wage against cancer. We can all be part of blessing this family with another miracle by donating to the Anderson Relief Fund to defray medical costs of Petra’s hospital stay and Kim’s treatment.  Please consider giving and please share their story through reposting this blog, Pastor Brad’s or one of the many media stories.