Why? - Genesis 1:27-30; 2:8-9, 15-17

Have you ever had one of those conversations?

“It’s time to get up.”

“But why?”

“You have to go to school.”

“But why?”

“Because it’s Monday.”

“But why?”

“Because yesterday was Sunday.”

“But why?”

“Because that’s the way weeks work.”

“But why?”

And it goes on and on and on.

How many times have you ever found yourself caught in one of those endless cycle of “why” questioning?

Well, as I was preparing for this week’s message, I found myself constantly going back to last Sunday’s sermon and thinking about the issue of the temptations and trials.  As I thought about it more, I realized that where I left us opened us up to “why” questions: “why would God allow these trials, “why would God allow us to be to be tempted,” “why does God allow suffering,” “why doesn’t God just make everything and everyone do what is right,” or “why doesn’t God just do something about it all.” We could come up with almost an endless set of “why” questions relating to trials, temptations, suffering, and troubles.  If you doubt my struggle, ask Ruth Ann who had to endure three changes in the Scripture, including one that happened after the bulletin had been completed.

To begin to answer these questions, we must go back to the beginning…all the way back to the beginning, as God created heaven and earth, gave life to humankind, and set us about to living in the midst of His good creation.

It seems to have all begun when “out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil...[and] The Lord took man and put him in the garden to tell it and keep it.  And the Lord God commanded the man, ‘You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.’”

Any parent could tell you that as soon as those words came out of God’s mouth, Adam was sure to have a bite of that fruit.  What do you think would happen if a parent could place a plate of freshly baked cookies on the table in the kitchen, call the kids to the kitchen, and say, “You’re welcome to the apples, pears, celery, and carrots, but if you eat any of these cookies, you’re going to have to go to bed without any supper”?  How many of you parents would even try something like that?  Most of us would keep the cookies hidden until we were ready for the kids to have one.  We figure the best temptation is no temptation, so why would God even have something in the garden that the serpent would later be able to come in and use against Eve and Adam?

It would have been easier…yes.  However, if God had left the tree of the knowledge of good and evil out of the garden, God would not have been able to give humanity the gift that makes us different from other animals and machines…the gift of free will.  Animals other than humans respond by instinct or conditioning.  They see, hear, smell, taste, or feel and respond accordingly—either at the immediate urging of their impulses or as a result of how they have been trained.  A machine responds to stimuli (input in computer language) as it has been built or programmed to respond.  Where we differ, thanks to the gift of God, is our ability to choose.  God could have simply programmed us or designed us to only do the right thing and to worship Him completely without reservation.  He could have left the tree of the knowledge of good and evil out of the garden.  God, though, didn’t want animals that would only respond on urges and instinct…He didn’t want robots that would be forced to respond by program…God wanted us to be able to freely choose Him or choose other than Him.

So why would God allow us to face temptation and trials, why wouldn’t he just take that option away?  It is because God wants us to truly be able to choose Him.  That was the choice that Adam and Eve faced when the serpent coaxed them before the tree of the knowledge of good and evil…to choose to keep God at the center of their world, and leave the tree alone, or to choose to move themselves to the center of their world and partake of the fruit.

The fact that we tend to follow in the footsteps of Adam and Eve leads to the answer of many of the other “why” questions.  Why do suffering and other trials exist? Because as we or others exercise our free will and choose to place ourselves rather than God at the center that troubles arise.  Sometimes the suffering comes as the results of our own choices and decisions…such as financial troubles that arise because rather than being satisfied with the “daily bread” that God has provided, we have over-extended ourselves and spent resources we do not have; or health-related troubles because rather than take care of the bodies that God has given us, we have abused them with overindulging in food or filled them with drugs or other substances that God did not intend for us to put in our bodies.  Could God take away our choices and eliminate our suffering?  Yes, but not without taking away our humanity and the ability to choose Him over choosing evil.

Sometimes the suffering comes as the results of others exercising their free will and the fact that we do not live on islands separated from one another—folks are laid off of jobs as company owners decide profit margins are more important than employees lives; a wife decides that a night’s pleasure with a stranger will make up for the fact that her husband chooses to work late every evening; a man gets behind the will of his car after drinking; a terrorist straps bombs to her chest…and on and on…each person exercising their free will, and others suffer.  Could God take away their free will?  Yes, but not without taking away their humanity as he created them and their ability to choose Him rather than evil.

What about the suffering and troubles that are not the result of our choices or the choices of others? 

What about disasters?  Earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes, tornadoes, storms, forest fires.  I learned years ago that forest fires often thin out the brush and old growth in a forest resulting in new life.  I’ve pointed out in the past that often hurricanes and flooding comes into a place where droughts have been as the storms replenish depleted water supplies.  I learned this week that earthquakes occur when plates shift releasing pressure built up at the earth core, something that also occurs as volcanoes erupt.  Were those things not to happen…well, picture the earth as a balloon where air is continuing forced in, at some point what happens when the pressure keeps building?  It all comes down to God designing the earth to flourish and sustain life, and not blow up destroying all life.

What about illness and disease?  We forget that with the sin of Adam and Eve, death entered the world and the tree of life was placed out of our reach.  These bodies will die, they are not forever…Paul reminds us of that when he calls them clay pots and earthly tents.  Illness and disease are just part of the way these bodies fail as we wait for that day when Christ returns and those of us who have been joined to Him will be raised with bodies that will never hurt, never suffer, and never fail…living in the New Jerusalem where there will be no pain, no sorrow, and no death.

So in the meantime, if God loves us, that leaves us with the question of why doesn’t he do something to help us through the temptations and suffering...well, he did…“So God created humankind in his image…The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden…to till it and keep it….” and in the words of Jesus, “Remember, I am with you always.”

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen