Suffering: it's all your fault

      In today's passage from a letter that Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, the topic of suffering comes up.  We all undergo suffering of some sort. The problem seems to be, who is to blame?  Very often, so called people of faith try to foist it off as the result of someone else's action, it's someone else's fault or God is punishing you.

       To most of this I say balderdash! It is so easy to play the blame game. Most of the time, especially with societal ills and sufferings I think we have to look at ourselves, either personally or collectively.

        The manner in which we live, greenhouse gasses, global warming, rampant meat eaters and the like all contribute to an environment under assault. I am sure you could think of many more 'social ills'.  Genetic engineering perhaps?  deforestation of the amazon? poising ourselves with chemicals etc., etc., etc. I haven't touched on how we respect birth but seem far less concerned about respecting all of life, cradle to grave so to speak.  Do we respect each other as people? family? neighbors? countries? as fellow animals on a magnificent orb created by God and entrusted to us?

        So where does suffering come from? Are we so naive to think that our actions have no systemic repercussions?  When we flip off someone on the road, do you think it ends there? Perhaps the recipient carries it forward to someone and not in a nice way either.

      We often fail to see how far our good actions can carry and we are oblivious to how our selfishness and lifestyle can carry through to the rest of humanity too.  We see a rock thrown in a pond and the resulting rings on the water. Do our actions have any less a reaction?

     I find it laughable, sad, ignorant and arrogant when someone says something akin to 'Hurricane Katrina struck because of  the 'gays'. I find it plain stupid when anyone feels free to blame anything on just about anybody. 

      Before we blame a group of people, immigrants, political parties even or conworkers and strangers, I think we should pause at what we ourselves may be complicit in.

1 Thessalonians 2:13-20

We also constantly give thanks to God for this, that when you received the word of God that you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word but as what it really is, God’s word, which is also at work in you believers. For you, brothers and sisters, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea, for you suffered the same things from your own compatriots as they did from the Jews, who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out; they displease God and oppose everyone by hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved. Thus they have constantly been filling up the measure of their sins; but God’s wrath has overtaken them at last.

As for us, brothers and sisters, when, for a short time, we were made orphans by being separated from you—in person, not in heart—we longed with great eagerness to see you face to face. For we wanted to come to you—certainly I, Paul, wanted to again and again—but Satan blocked our way. For what is our hope or joy or crown of boasting before our Lord Jesus at his coming? Is it not you? Yes, you are our glory and joy!