Ten were cleansed, were they not? Where are the other nine? Luke 17:12
I call it “funeral home” theology. It is the kind of language I sometimes hear at funeral homes, in hospitals and in times of disaster when God is blamed for “letting it happen.”
Recently, I was watching a TV program about a plane crash in Alaska, where two were killed and a family of five, including a pregnant mother, miraculously survived.
The husband said in an interview, “When it happened, the first thing that came to mind was to be angry at God.”
And a doctor took credit for the fact that five survived their injuries by calling them “medical” miracles.
I understand why we have questions when disasters happen, but I often find myself wondering why is it that we are so ready to blame God when things go bad, but never seem to be able to give God the credit when things go well? Why can we not ask, when something good occurs, “Why did God allow this to happen?”
My mother died of breast cancer back in 1976. She was only 58 years old. I have always thought that there were two ways I can look at it. I could ask, “Why did God take such a wonderful mother from us at such a young age?”
On the other hand, I could ask, “Why did God allow us to have such a wonderful mother for so many years?”
Last summer, I had the chance to be mad at God because I did not get to take a fabulous trip to France to celebrate my retirement when I came down with a blood clot the week before I was to leave.
Instead of being mad at God for allowing my body to produce a blood clot, I found myself thanking God that I did not get on that plane with an unrealized blood clot that could have killed me.
Instead of being mad at God for how many people died today of heart attacks, I try to thank God for how many successful life-saving heart surgeries were performed today. Instead of questioning God for the one flight that crashed last year, I try to thank God for the one million flights that took off and landed safely.
I have instructed my family and friends if I should die suddenly, instead of blaming God for taking me so quickly, to thank God that I did not have to suffer a long and painful death or lie endlessly in some palliative care unit.
In the Gospel story of the cleansing of the 10 lepers, cited above, Jesus is mystified by the fact that even after he had healed 10, only one bothered to thank him.
Are we not often like those nine? We are blessed in so many ways every day of our lives and we hardly notice, but let something go wrong and we howl like God owes us a perfect performance every time.
Father J. Ronald Knott
To read more from Father Knott, visit his blog: FatherKnott.com.
