Warren Sentinel Weekly Pulpit
Snow. Snow. And MORE Snow. How many of you are with me in saying “Enough already!”? My back aches and my hands are blistered. I finally broke down and paid someone to plow out my driveway after the snow drifts had covered my previous day's work.
In the midst of all my shoveling I've had to pause to be thankful for how fortunate I have been over the last few weeks. Except for a few momentary outages our electricity stayed on. Many people around our area were without electricity for days on end. And when I got too tired or too cold I could go back inside to warm up.
And even though Walmart's stock of milk was all but depleted, I was still able to buy the expensive organic milk, and powdered milk was still an option. And we never lacked food. About the worst thing we experienced was a bout of cabin fever and the frustration of losing our satellite signal for a while.
So many times when I was starting to gripe about the snow, I found myself reflecting on the folks in Haiti who were buried, not by snow but by the debris of their own homes, workplaces, and churches. It struck me as I channel surfed that no one was talking about Haiti anymore. The media had moved on to “Snowmagedon” or whatever else they were dubbing it. Yet hundreds of thousands in Haiti (and millions, if not billions, of people around the world) are still far worse off than most of us.
Shortly after the Haitian earthquake, a well known televangelist declared that the earthquake was a punishment from God. I wonder if he'll make a similar declaration about this “Snowmagedon?” While I do believe that God can use natural disasters to punish people, I find such declarations to be unhelpful, at best, and downright unloving, at worst.
We live in an imperfect world where disasters and disease take their toll on both the “good and the bad.” In fact, Jesus said the following, “You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.”
I don't believe that God punished us by covering us with snow. And I don't believe God used an earthquake to punish Haiti. But I do believe that in the midst of experiencing devastation and hardship that we can either curse God or we can turn to God and recognize our dependence on God and need for one another.
There was a beautiful piece on NPR a while back describing people gathering in the streets of Haiti to pray and sing to God. In the midst of what we are experiencing can we pause to pray and sing to God? Can we pause to be thankful for what we have, even in the midst of our frustration and snow shovel induced backaches and blisters? And can we, demonstrate our love for one another by helping each other shovel out and to get through these difficult days?
