WLSU: Prosperity and Adversity

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Here is your uplifting piece of Scripture for the day. It comes from the book of the prophet Jeremiah, and it goes like this: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” These beautiful words of comfort have been sold on more posters, bookmarks, and needlepoints than you can imagine – certainly more than anything else Jeremiah ever prophesied, as he is known primarily for proclaiming warning and doom. But here Jeremiah preaches exactly what we hope to hear: That God plans for us to prosper. God has a future for us. A great comfort.

My priest friend Scott Evans once reminded me that every single Israelite who was alive when Jeremiah uttered this prophecy died in exile. And it’s true. These words were written to an oppressed, exiled people whose liberation would not come for at least a generation after this prophecy. Scott is an Irishman, so he is particularly adept at finding the touch of grey in every silver lining. He’s right though: If I’m going to use Jeremiah’s words as a way of convincing myself that God’s looking out for me, I need to remember that, up to this point, every person that God has looked out for still suffered and still died - many without ever experiencing what I’d call prosperity.

Scott’s observation has shifted my understanding of how I see God’s presence and God’s promises at work.

My preference would be to see evidence of God’s presence when things are going my way, and evidence of God’s absence when things are not. And I know I am not alone in this: Many people find themselves questioning the existence (or at least the efficacy) of God specifically when they see the mess we are in as a planet. The reasoning seems to go, “What kind of a God would allow all of this?” And when things are going right? “Oh, God is blessing me.”

It's worth remembering that all of Jesus’ disciples died horrible deaths; that St. Paul was jailed repeatedly, stoned, and executed; that Job, who is most famous for his faithfulness, lost every one of his children, his home, and all his livestock in one day; that Moses died in the wilderness, never setting foot in the Promised Land. It’s also worth remembering that none of these stories are told as tragedies: Every life is described as part of a larger redemptive reality at work in the world, played out in both the prosperity and the adversity of the faithful.

The truth is that pretty much every single book of the Bible was written for, by, and about people who were in tough situations – living in exile, surviving under oppressive rule, being persecuted, their lives threatened, their religion made illegal, their lifespans brief and rife with danger, famine, and pestilence.

Sometimes – especially when I’m in my head - I see things going wrong as evidence that there is no God; or that if there is a God, maybe they’re impotent, or uncaring. Yet the words of hope that have most shaped my life come from people whose lives were objectively much worse, much more difficult than mine has ever been. Faith, it seems, may be more fertile in suffering than prosperity.

At Redeemer we recently finished a Bible study on the book of Judges. In that narrative, a pattern emerges. When the people are experiencing safety and affluence, they forget about God – they make themselves the center of their own lives. When calamity befalls them, they turn to God. God rescues them, and once they are safe and affluent they forget again. It’s a painful cycle, made all the more painful by how utterly relatable it is.

I want to take credit for all my success. And I want to blame my failure on God’s absence. The literal opposite is true.

I am sometimes tempted to look at the disarray of the world as a cause for cynicism and contempt. But every time I’ve been at my lowest, those were the times I had the least doubt that God is good. This was not a matter of principle or piety. It was experiential. Or as my friend Gordon calls it, phenomenological.

That is to say, in dark times, I experience God. More than I understand God or believe in God, I experience God. It’s like that old Mark Twain quip. Someone asked him if he believed in infant baptism, to which he responded, “Believe in it? Hell, I’ve seen it!” That is how my faith in God seems to work. When my life is mostly convenient, something going wrong makes me question God. But when something truly devastating happens, God feels very present. And I mean feels. I’m not talking here about believing the right thing or having the correct doctrine of God. Rather, it is in the depths that God somehow seems obvious, undeniable. Believe in God? Hell, I’ve seen God!

I’ve recently been reading a book called, “Faith, Hope, and Carnage.” It is not a narrative, but a longform interview with the Australian singer/songwriter Nick Cave. The conversations Cave has with his interviewer take place during and shortly after the pandemic. But more importantly, they occur a few years after the sudden accidental death of his 15-year-old son. Cave speaks at length about his son and about his unthinkable loss. He also speaks consistently about the hope, the joy, the beauty that surrounds him in his grief. This passage in particular convicted me:

“Well, the young Nick Cave could afford to hold the world in some form of disdain because he had no idea of what was coming down the line. I can see now that this disdain or contempt for the world was a kind of luxury or indulgence, even a vanity. He had no notion of the preciousness of life, the fragility. He had no idea how difficult, but essential, it is to love the world and treat the world with mercy.”

Thinking of disdain or contempt for the world as a luxury, an indulgence, a vanity is a powerful shift in mindset for me. I am really at my most judgmental towards God, towards you, towards this world when I can afford to be – when I am shocked, discomfited, or inconvenienced. But when things really fall apart? Love and mercy are all there is.

I don’t always believe in God and love and mercy. But when I don’t, it says much more about me than it does about God or love or mercy. And my disbelief is nearly always a luxury, a privilege. Vanity.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

In the end I seek to live as if I believe these words. Not because I believe that God will give me all the things I want if I’m faithful enough; not because I think there will be an end to my suffering sometime this side of the grave. But because every time I look for love in the life I’ve been given, I am able to find it. Because hope continues to be born again with every sunrise. Because you are in my life. Because God shows up. Again and again and again, God shows up whether I believe in God or not.