“The Comfort of A Trite Theology”

I think it was Paul Scherer who wrote the sentence that I found in my “Notes of Note” this morning:  “The comfort of a trite theology is cruel comfort, talking about everything being for the best, and some day we’ll understand!”  How many times have you heard words like this at the death of a loved one, or in times of trouble and despair?  “This is all happening for the best; someday you’ll understand. It was or it is God’s will.  You can’t know this truth now as you pass through this or that trial, but someday you will.”  Such words are not only the cruel comfort of a trite theology; it is malarkey.

Six million Jews suffered persecution just 80 or so years ago under Hitler’s Third Reich.  They were a people of faith and prayer.  Don’t try to tell me that their persecution all happened for the best!  They prayed for release, they asked for a miracle, they wanted to live, but didn’t get it!  Don’t you think we ought to get our theology straight?  Don’t you think we need to be honest?  From Calvary’s cross itself, we can hear suffering humanity crying out, “If it be possible let this cup pass from me… “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me.” The same voice also says: “I have told you all this so that in me you may find peace. In the world you will have trouble.”  There is no promise to take the trouble away, but there is the suggestion that we are to do the best we can with whatever trouble we may face and we will not be alone in it. 

Nearly seven thousand military personnel have died in the aftermath of 9/11 in Afghanistan and Iraq.  Don’t talk to me about everything that happens being for the best and someday we’ll understand.  Don’t tell me these young men and women died to make me free.  Don’t tell me this is God’s will.  There is no comfort in a trite theology.  It’s malarkey and it is extremely cruel.  

Get it straight,  Make it real.  A father who lost his son came close to reality when he said, “I have lost my son as God lost his son.”  God is in it—in everything—not to make it go away, not to say everything’s happening for the best, not to make a miracle out of our particular predicament, and not because it is God’s will.  God is simply with us.  The Apostle Paul prayed three times, he says, for God to remove the thorn that plagued him.  God did not remove the painful thorn,  but God bore the painful thorn with him.