Is such a correlation justifiable? For example, the former deputy prime minister claimed that the 2018 quake and tsunami in Indonesia’s Sulawesi Island was God’s retribution against LGBT. What about those who were innocent?
The connexion between sin and tragedy is not directly causal in the sense that bad things will happen to bad people as a result of sin. As scripture says, “God makes His rain to fall on the just and unjust”. In fact, physical evil (earthquakes, broken dams, poor health) or moral evil (murder, theft, corruption) affects those who are good or innocent. In the case of famine, natural disaster or war, those who suffer most are innocent children.[1]
Sin does have a deadly effect but when tragedies strike the innocent, we cannot assume that the cause for their misfortunes is sin. Whilst sin does have an effect on us all, the point is, it does not matter how, where or when one dies. It only matters that we will die. Notwithstanding any all-out attempt to prolong our life, the day will come for us to draw our last breath.
The inevitability of death highlights this Sunday’s theme of sin, grace and repentance, thus, giving us food for thought on how we ought to respond to God’s grace.
Firstly, the Burning Bush unfolds how grace comes to us in the form of a covenant. God made a promise to be with Abraham and His descendants forever. The implication of this covenant is cosmic. God’s choice to enter into relationship with Israel does not end with the Jews. Through Jesus, that covenant is extended to those who are baptised and through the Church, it is to embrace the world. The responsibility is truly heavy to be witnesses of this invitation. However, in the second reading, the outcome of not choosing God is not His punishment or retribution. It is not like if you refuse to be baptised, you are therefore a kafir. Rather the result of wilfully refusing to choose[2] God is to cut oneself from eternal life.
Secondly, God revealed Himself as “I Am who I Am”. This “I Am” is the proper name of God. As in John’s Gospel, the Jews who approached Jesus to apprehend Him fell backward when He answered, “I Am” because they recognised that “I Am” is the proper name of God. In other words, this encounter not only affirmed the divinity of Jesus Christ but also showed how God’s covenant with Abraham remains in play.
If we dwell on God’s proper name, we can draw some implications for the life of grace that He has invited us to.
“I Am” means that God is existence. We are not. Yes, we exist but we are not existence. A particular thing is something because it has the characteristics that makes it what it is. For example, a bird is a bird because it has all the attributes of what makes it a bird—wings, beak, feathers. Hence, essence defines being (or existence). Think of essence as a mould and existence is a flattened piece of dough. What essence does is it cuts out a piece of existence. All created reality is both essence and existence. You can never point to pure existence and say “This is existence”. You can only point to an entity which exists. However, for God both His essence and existence are the same. As St Thomas Aquinas pointed out, God’s essence is to exist.
When we recite the Nicene Creed later, “… Creator of all things visible and invisible…”, it means that a reality, visible or invisible, is able to exist only because God exists and He shares His existence with it. Imagine holding up an object on the palm of your hand and quickly withdrawing your hand, the object will fall onto the ground. The hand is another symbol of existence. Everything exists because God’s hand is holding it up. But, if God chooses to withdraw it, a being ceases to exist.
Is this important?
Yes, it is. How can we not have time and space for the Creator whose chooses to share His existence with us? Visualise this. A criminal who is committing a crime now. Put aside the outrage we feel for his actions, considering that one deplorable ranking that we live in one of the 10 most dangerous cities in the Asia.[3] That criminal, whilst in the process of committing his crime, still breathes because God has not withdrawn His existence from him. We breathe not because we are alive but because God has not revoked our share in His existence. In fact, even as you breathe, God is closer to you than you are to your breath. His proximity reveals the depth of His patience in dealing with us even if we were criminals.
His covenantal faithfulness is reflected in both the Responsorial Psalms and the Gospel. The Psalms’ compassionate love is mirrored in the parable of the fig tree. “For three years now, I have been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and finding none”. The parable does suggest a limited time-frame for the bearing of fruits but in reality, God’s kindness is immeasurable. He does not “punish” because He is God. Instead, He gives us enough time, and again, despite our failures to make amends. “Unless you repent, you will all perish” is not a threat of punishment but rather the consequence of our wilful choice of remaining in our sins.
The God who makes His rain fall on the just and unjust is remarkable in His forbearance when dealing with sinners. It is not as if God does not want to do anything about “bad” people, like the criminal who hurt his victims. For example, in my head, I am fantasising about a snatch thief who drags his victim clutching to her handbag. It would be nice that he crashes his motorbike into a tree. He does not die but breaks his neck and is paralysed neck down—a quadriplegic is just about the right retribution for such a low-life cretin, no? He deserves to die whereas we, not as despicable as he is, deserves better. The questions to ask are, “How come we are not holier? How come the Church is not pulsating with warm welcome? Why are there many who are lukewarm in living their faith? How come we are not that attractive to others?” The answer is pretty clear. Our personal history is a tapestry of failures and broken promises to God. We ourselves are pretty hard-headed and our conversion takes a long time—longer than we have patience for and quite frustrating too. For, one can come out of confession and immediately commits the same sin. If we who deserve better are that slow in conversion, how much more difficult for a despised criminal?
In summary, God gives us time to turn back to Him. Our challenge is forgetfulness. We need reminders that time is not under our control for we can never predict when our time is up for the Lord is truly mysterious in His allocation of time. According to St Paul, “where sin abounds, grace abounds more” for repentance. Do not delay. God waits to take up residence in our hearts but if we tarry, we might just miss the chance of a lifetime for Him to save us.
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[1] It remains a mystery why bad things happen to good people. The heart of the conundrum is really shrouded in the mystery of our redemption and that only God has the answers we long for. Our faith will not shield us from unanswered questions but it does help us to hold on, with hope, that in the fullness of time, the answer that makes sense will come, if not in this world, then in the afterlife.
[2] Here the choice has to be wilful. We are not addressing invincible ignorance, that is, people who, through no fault of theirs are unable to accept God’s invitation.
[3] According to this same ranking, Malaysia hosts 4 of these cities, JB 10th, Klang 5th, PJ 3rd and KL 2nd placing. A humiliation indication of Malaysia Boleh!
