Genesis 1:26-2:4a

May 18, 2008

Mark S. Bollwinkel




Tibetan Buddhists pray at the funeral that the deceased will escape reincarnation and "go straight to Nirvana" thus avoiding re-birth into this world. The Hindu's hope at the death of a loved one is that the departed will be united with the divine source and not have to re-enter the cycle of physical life and death. Numerous religious traditions in a variety of cultures have suggested a dualism where the human body and earthly life are seen as profane obstacles to the spirit, something to be overcome on the path to spiritual purity and enlightenment; their hope is a spiritual transcendence above and beyond human need and limitation.

And then we come to the first chapter of Genesis. Human beings are created in the image and likeness of God! The order of the universe, the cycle of the seasons, the earth's capacity to sustain animal, plant and ocean life has divine origin. Rather than being profane the world and all that is in it, God says, "It is good...!" The stars, the sky, the waters of the deep, men and women as stewards of this earth and each other, "...it is all good!"

The Psalmist marvels at the beauty and wonder of God's creation and then asks, "...and what of humanity? You O God have made them little less than the gods, and crown them with glory and honor! You make them rulers over the works of your hands, and have put all things under their feet....?" (Ps. 8:3-6)

Jesus comes along and is recognized as divinity incarnate, God in human form, "....and the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth." (John 1:14)

The Judeo-Christian tradition insists that God is found in the midst of history and creation. Salvation is found not escaping this life we are given but by embracing it, loving it as abundant (John 11:10). God is not distant or removed from the human condition but can be discovered in it. And it is good!


But it doesn't feel so good when the 34 year old father of two children is found dead on the bathroom floor. Or the 23 year old woman's life is swept away from cancer. Or the storm crashes in on an impoverished nation whose tyrants won't allow help to arrive. Or when mad men in the name God fly airplanes into buildings full of innocent people.

It's easy to say "life is good" when things are going well. We North Americans except life to be good and it is compared to most earthlings...beyond imagination...in fact most of us feel entitled to a life that is good and getting better as if it was our right not a privilege.

But it's another thing entirely to look life directly in the face, with all of its capricious suffering and senseless pain, with the broken hearts that are inevitable along any of our journeys and insist that "life is good...it is all good".

Many will and have concluded that our religious tradition is misguided, mythological or irrelevant as it suggests that a good God is creator, sovereign over all that is. Many have and will dismiss our faith as fantasy when we call this God "love". In the face of the evil and suffering of this world, they conclude, this God of "love" is either impotent or no longer at home.

In The Brothers Karamazov Dostoevsky has his character Ivan blurt out, "I don't accept this world of God's, and although I know it exists, I don't accept it at all. It's not that I don't accept God, you must understand, it's the world created by Him I don't and cannot accept. (Huston Smith, The World's Religions, HarperSanFrancisco, 1991, p. 276)

There will be times in any of our lives when we'll find ourselves angry at God, bewildered at how God can allow so many bad things to happen to good people, how a loving God can let those we love hurt and die. We may even find ourselves taking a hiatus from faith as we sort out a broken heart; Moses did. (Exodus 2) Elijah did. (I Kings 19:1-f).

Even Jesus cries out, "My God, O my God, why have you forsaken me!" (Matthew 27:46)

It's an easy thing to say "life is good....it is all very good" when things are going well. It takes faith and courage to affirm that creed with tears in your eyes and broken dreams in your heart.


Harold Riddle died last month at the age of 87. He was a long time Palo Alto high school teacher and local political activist. He would have been married to Loretta for 60 years this August. During World War II, Mr. Riddle served as a US Marine. His twin brother Howard was in the same unit when they landed on Guadalcanal; where one of the bloodiest battles of the war would be fought. For two days he held his injured brother's head out of the swampy waters to keep him from drowning. Another brother James also returned home from the war injured. Harold would go on to fight in the Tarawa, Saipan and Tinian invasions and victories. He spent his professional career teaching young people and training teachers to do the same. He and his wife were dedicated to making their community better. Although he didn't speak much about his experience in the Pacific during the war, he wasn't hesitant to tell his family again and again that after surviving and saving his brother's life, "I will never have anything to complain about!" (Mary Anne Ostrom, San Jose Mercury News, 5.13.08 p. 6B)

For all that he went through, for Harold Riddle life was good.

Irena Sendler died on Monday at the age of 98. She was a social worker in Warsaw, Poland when the Nazi invaded in 1939. She and her assistants smuggled out some 2,500 Jewish children from the Warsaw Ghetto to safety, saving them from the Holocaust death camps. She was honored by Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial as a "Righteous Among Nations" for her heroism. She said in 2007 objecting to further honors by the Polish government, "Every child saved with my help and the help of all the wonderful secret messengers, who today are no longer living, is the justification of my existence on this earth, and not a title to glory." (Monika Scislowska, Associated Press, 5.13.08)

For Irena Sendler, even after witnessing the worst of humanity's inhumanity, life was good.

One doesn't risk their own life to save children or comrade or neighbor unless somewhere deep inside they know that life is good and worth the effort to make it so. If life was essentially meaningless and without purpose, we could simply play out the biological and geographical hand we were dealt like any species on the planet. Why bother with the needs of another unless it was in our self-interest?

Yet Jesus teaches us to love and forgive and serve even when it's against our self-interest; "...you have heard it said 'an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, but I say to you...love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you" (Matthew 5)

The Judeo-Christian tradition affirms 1) the material aspects of life are important in and of themselves and to God; that is why we work for justice to see that all have access to a share of creation's blessings. And 2) it affirms that nature and human community can host the Divine (note; Smith, p. 279); we are not called to escape or reject or suppress this life and our humanity as much as to discover God with us in it. We are 'the hands and feet of God' in this world and in this time. If God seems distant, powerless or indifferent, guess who let down their end of the bargain?

In his book The World Religions Huston Smith suggests that we face two major options when it comes to the problem of evil. It is "inherent in [the] fate over which we have no control" (Smith, p. 278). Or when it comes to moral evil, we are its source as the second creation poem of Genesis teaches us with the story of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden (2:4b-3:24).

God is no "master puppeteer", controlling each and every event and decision in our lives. Rather, in each and every instance we human beings are free to choose or reject right or wrong, and in that freedom lays the destiny of our own lives and that of this world.

Smith writes, "...the Jewish affirmation that the world is God-created equipped them with a constructive premise. However desperate their lot, however deep the valley of the shadow of death they found themselves in, they never despaired of life itself. Meaning was always waiting to be won; the opportunity to respond creatively was never absent. For the world had been fashioned by the God who not only meted out the heavens with a span, but whose goodness endured forever." (Smith, p. 278)


"Meaning is always waiting to be won."


Almost ten years before he died, Dr. Donald Minkler, Bonnie Bollwinkel's father, wrote a letter to his family. His diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease was confirmed and his symptoms were getting worse. Before he would lose the capacity to communicate he wanted those he loved to know his feelings.

He wrote that he would participate in the pioneering research on dementia being done at UCSF Medical Center and donate his body after his death. It gave him joy and purpose to know that his suffering might contribute to the eventual cure of this terrible disease.

And he wrote that he had lived a privileged and blessed life, traveling the world and as a physician contributing to its health and welfare. He had married the woman he adored and had four wonderful children, five beautiful grandchildren and at that time four fantastic great-grand children. He wanted us all to know that he wanted no pity, that he was more than willing to be placed in a nursing home when that time came and that in spite of this terrible disease, his life was good, it was very, very good.


If you are actively grieving, if your heart is broken, if your dreams have blown away, such words may seem like nothing more than empty platitudes. But then if life wasn't so very precious...if it weren't so good....its losses wouldn't hurt so very bad.

These are easy words when everything is going your way. It takes courage and faith during the dark times to hold on to the promise that creation is good, it is very good indeed.


Amen.


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