God's will evident in response
to tragedy, not in the catastrophe
itself, Seminary speaker contends

See also: Fuchs-Kreimer | McClain

PHILADELPHIA (June 11, 2001)--Where is the will of God in the midst of famine or disaster?

Keynoter McCurley: "It's the devil that causes so much murder, not God."

"Probably not in the origin (of disaster) but in the response to it," said the Rev. Dr. Foster R. McCurley, Jr., "and that is good news." McCurley was lead keynoter for this year's Preaching Days experience at The Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. And his remarks were part of a sermon. McCurley, former Dean of the Faculty and St. John's Professor of Old Testament and Hebrew for the Seminary, now serves as a member of the Disaster Relief Team for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and as Theologian in Residence for Diakon, a certified ELCA Social Ministry Organization in Pennsylvania.

Dr. Foster McCurley, keynoter, with the Rev. Dr. Pamela Cooper-White, Chaplain for Preaching Days, left, and the Rev. Dr. Adele Stiles Resmer, who directs the Seminary's Academy of Preachers program.

In discussing the will of God in the sermon, McCurley noted that writers of the Psalms frequently lament what they perceive to be the absence of God in the face of troubles. But it's also possible to discern that God hears such cries and sends others in a spirit of community to respond. "You never know when the next disaster, natural or human-made is coming," he said. "And while some people will spend time trying to figure out the divine purpose behind a disaster, meanwhile God will send others to deliver the victims."

In a Preaching Days lecture which followed his sermon, McCurley said his work in disaster relief in recent years had happened quite by accident. Working with a Jewish rabbi in the Reading area, the two spiritual leaders shared a concern at not having a sufficient resource to give others in the midst of grief, so they wrote the book, "Making Sense out of Sorrows." In 1995, the Rev. Leon Phillips, directing the ELCA's Disaster Response initiative, subsequently talked McCurley into serving the team. His first assignment was consoling victims in Oklahoma City, site of the bombing tragedy which claimed 168 lives. McCurley addressed his Preaching Days audience on the day convicted perpetrator Timothy McVeigh was executed in Terre Haute, IN.

McCurley said he had a week and a half to prepare for the grief counseling in Oklahoma City. "It is one of the mysteries of God that the way you go is not always the one you would have chosen, and I was scared," he said. The senior high youngsters from Allegheny Lutheran Church near Reading, PA, sent him off with a batch of consoling messages for him to open at various times during his rescue journey. "They ministered to me and in doing so also ministered to others," McCurley said. "One of the reassuring things is that you never do this kind of work alone."

McCurley said discerning God's will in the face of disaster inevitably raises the question of "who we consider God to be. Is God's nature one of tragedy or comedy?"

Discussing the nature of God, McCurley referred to the Johnstown flood in Pennsylvania. Some, according to author/historian David McCullough, had tried to make sense of that disaster by noting the community "must have been a vile, wicked place" for God have to selected the town for tragedy. But, McCurley remarked, the structures spared by the flood "included a house of ill repute which went on to be stronger than ever" after the flood. "Does God have a bad aim?" he mused.

"If God sends disaster on that basis then it would stand to reason that the church should be the last group to intervene through aid and rescue, thereby diminishing the impact of God's judgment," McCurley said. "The problem is our point of view. We base our understanding (of disaster) on the basis of what we can see. We need a sense of vision over our sight. Faith is a conviction in things not seen. Vision is being able to see God in a different way."

McCurley said he believes God is committed to comedy over tragedy. At the end of a comedy, McCurley said, the hero is incorporated into the community of which he or she is a part. Tragedy does the opposite. In the story of the Geresene Demoniac (Mark 5: 1-20), the man who is healed returns to his community to tell others about the good news of Christ. The Prodigal Son is returned to the community he once knew. Such stories help make it clear that God wishes "to show us how he cares for our daily needs." And as Martin Luther describes in the Large Catechism in reflecting on the Commandments and the Lord's prayer it is the devil who causes so much murder. "The tempest is the work of the devil, not the work of God," McCurley said.

By sending God's people to deliver others from tragedy, God is a participant in our daily community life, McCurley said. Out of that conviction, the Lutheran Disaster Relief team works to be part of the community surrounding a tragic event and remains long-term on the scene. Setting up a worship space is one way the team attempts to quickly restore a sense of community in the midst of upheaval. And victims frequently come to value the presence of others in a recovering community as much as they may value what is said or accomplished by the visitors, McCurley said.

And how do victims of tragedy discern the will of God in their lives? McCurley said he recently asked 45 caregivers in a North Carolina disaster setting "what they had observed about the will of God in that place. Over and over they said the will of God is people helping people," he said. "Not one of them said anything about how the disaster was God's will."

Preaching Days is an annual interfaith event to provide continuing education and mutual support for preachers. The June 12 presenter was to be Nancy Fuchs-Kreimer, Director of the Jewish Identity Program of the Jewish Family and Children's Service of Greater Philadelphia. The concluding June 13 keynoter was to be the Rev. Dr. William B. McClain, Professor of Homiletics and Worship at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C. He has served as a visiting professor to LTSP this spring and also teaches in LTSP's Urban Theological Institute.