TRANSCRIPT

NB. Yes, Rowan, you, like me, as a pastor, have come face to face with human tragedy and suffering and you have been with people in times of severe personal crisis. And people of people have prayed for healing, if not for themselves, then they have prayed for healing for their child, for a loved one and that loved one has died, and and yet somebody else’s child has survived. These are ugly realities of life. And sometimes the prayer is not answered. Their faith their hopes are dashed. And again I bring you back to the fact that you described God as loving. Now, how does why does God you know. . . I’m hearing you say that actually sometimes we have a part to play in answering prayer. There are some things outside of our gift – and wrong. Why doesn’t God answer prayer when it’s not on the global scale of tsunamis but it’s on the personal? And this will happen tonight in the hospital somewhere in the world: a parent will be pleading the heart out to the Lord to save their child, and by the morning their child will have died.

RW. Yes. The difficulty that arises, if we if we press that too hard is you do end up with asking God (or expecting God), so to speak, to make choices and say, “Well, I’ll heal that one and I won’t heal that one.” And I’m not sure that that’s very consistent with the God of love we’re talking abou.t I don’t know why some prayers are followed by healing and some are not. But the only clue I have is in the Gospels Jesus goes to his hometown and has a very difficult time there; they don’t accept him; they threaten him and he leaves and the Gospels tell us he couldn’t do many miracles there because of their lack of faith. Now that’s a very odd phrase, isn’t it, because you’d think, “Oh, Jesus can do what he likes.” but it’s as if they were being reminded. Exactly how much can change in any given set of circumstances. we don’t know. We don’t know how large the window of opportunity is for the loving action of God to come through. All I know for certain is that in such a circumstance I must do the best I can to be one of those channels for the loving action of God in my actual behavior – what I do – and in my prayer. Whether that is enough to change the whole circumstance, I don’t know. I never know how much difference is made, but I know I have to do it.

NB. I understand and many Christians would feel the same, that sometimes we don’t know what we can do but we know we can pray, and we believe that prayer is somehow, not magically disappearing in this problem, not necessarily resulting in that magic or that miracle, but it is a sign that God’s presence is there, whatever the outcome.

RW. And I think, very often what people will, to some extent understand, under circumstances, is, if your own willingness to be alongside them becomes a sign for them that God is alongside them, that they’re not forgotten, they’re not alone, then it’s not everything, but it’s not nothing.

NB. No, not indeed. But, if my child isn’t healed and I’m a believer and my non-believer neighbor who he or she would never darken the doors, maybe they take the name of the Lord in vain, and their child is healed, -doesn’t God just come across as a bit capricious, as a bit as a bit choosy? I know you say you don’t want to make him make choices, but if, in my deepest sorrow, our deepest hour of need, God does not appear to answer my prayer, (a) what’s the point of praying and (b) what’s the point of God?

RW. God isn’t there as a problem-solver and that’s a hard thing to say, and I wouldn’t say it in those terms in the kind of pastoral situation you’re talking about. It’s the last thing I’d say. but God is there as the reality which undergirds everything, as the lover, the father who lets go of nothing and no one, the one whom death does not defeat – death happens – but it doesn’t defeat or exclude the act of God. And all of that, which, I think is for me, summed up in the belief in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ – all of that – helps me just a little bit to sit alongside the desperate, bereaved person and simply say, with as much conviction as I can muster, you really are not forgotten. If God is there, God is not forgetting. God is not turning away. God is not saying “No.” It may feel like that don’t. And don’t be afraid of saying so. Don’t be afraid of expressing the bewilderment, the anger, the wretchedness, the sense of betrayal. Don’t be afraid of saying it. God can cope. But beyond that, just try to hang on to the notion that God does not let go.

REFLECT

Dr. Williams is asking us to consider both the power of God and our own power with respect to what is happening in us and in our world (and the universe) today. There are many factors and possibilities interacting and producing what is happening in the current situations. Some of these are:

• The forces of nature. Did God set everything in motion in the beginning with everything’s individual potential to carry on and evolve and interact with other elements and entities.
• The past and present choices made by individuals with God-given free will.
• The outcomes created by the choices made.
• God’s ability to act at any time and in any place.

Do I think or expect God to be continually managing this evolution of the universe and of our situations or that God set everything in motion and is allowing creation, including humanity to use our God-given capabilities, including our free wills, to manage and move things in the present and into the future we are creating?

What parts do we, humans, play in the evolution of the world?

What parts could we play in it?

What part did and does God play in this?

Do we tend to want God to be our “problem solver”?

Is part of the problem that I know that God has the power to “fix” my current dilemma and what seems to be one solution to the dilemma is for God to intervene so I want God to do that?  What other solutions are there?  What is the “price”, the cost to me, humanity, the universal good of each possible solution?  Which solution(s) do I prefer? Which am I averse to choose?  If I believe I need to change my point of view, how should I go about it?