ACTS OF GOD

a sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Tim W. Jensen
at the First Religious Society in Carlisle, Massachusetts
Sunday September 11th, 2005


On the clear, calm morning of June 7th, 1692, just a few minutes after 11 o'clock, the earth unexpectedly trembled and shook, and then without warning the ocean surged up and permanently buried beneath the waves a significant portion of the city of Port Royal, Jamaica. Over 40 ships at anchor in the harbor were also lost, along with approximately 1700 lives. With a population of nearly 6000 souls, Port Royal had been (up until that moment) the largest English speaking community in the New World. At one time a popular haven for freebooters and buccaneers, the town still retained much of that same wide-open spirit: a profligate prosperity defined by decades of rum, plunder, and piracy. When news of the catastrophe eventually reached New England (some two months later) the Reverend Cotton Mather briefly turned his attention from the Witch Trials then taking place in Salem to "behold an accident speaking to all our English America." Describing Port Royal as "a very Sodom for wickedness," Mather characterized the catastrophe as a sign of God's righteous wrath and judgment -- both a warning to the faithful, as well as just punishment for those who flaunted their licentiousness and ignored God's holy ordinances.

I mention this simply to illustrate that the practice of attributing theological significance to natural catastrophes has a long and distinguished heritage even here in New England, yet history has not always been kind to those who discern the hand of God behind the misfortunes of their opponents. And I suspect that much of what is now being said along these same lines about the devastation caused by the Hurricane Katrina will likewise quickly be discredited and forgotten. Pronouncements by Muslim Clerics that the hurricane represents the wrath of Allah against the great infidel America may carry some credibility in the Arabic-speaking world, but are generally ignored here in the homeland of the infidels themselves. The handful of fundamentalist Christian preachers who have characterized the devastation of the Big Easy as God's punishment of a community which openly promotes Gay tourism and a libertine "let the good times roll" lifestyle are likewise routinely dismissed as crackpots, except perhaps by the handful of fellow crackpots who are willing to believe almost ANYTHING they're told, so long as they're also told that "it sez so" in the Bible.

Pat Robertson once claimed to have rebuked a hurricane, and diverted it from it's path and safely out to sea, but apparently this time around he was more concerned about the assassination of foreign leaders and creating fresh vacancies on the Supreme Court than with pestering God about the weather. And even the scientific community can sometimes sound a little apocalyptic in their pronouncements. I don't know for sure whether Global Warming is the underlying cause of all this horrible weather we've been experiencing, but I do know that there are an awful lot of awfully smart people who think that it is, many of whom were initially skeptical but are now convinced by the data. I'm still waiting to hear of any honest-to-God scientist whose opinion has been changed in the opposite direction. Yet dire predictions of doom and destruction by wind and rain and flood as punishment for our profligacy regarding greenhouse gasses sometimes sound a little reminiscent of Cotton Mather, and his ultimately misguided obsession with witches and witchcraft. There has to be a better way to get the message out.

Most homeowners insurance policies typically contain explicit exclusions, or require a separate premium, for what are known in the industry as "Acts of God" -- that is to say, "events arising out of natural causes with no human intervention, which could not have been prevented by reasonable care or foresight," such as lightning, and earthquakes, and floods. The reason events like these are excluded from coverage has to do with the complex question of actuarial liability. My former wife (who was an insurance adjuster before she became an attorney) once tried to explain this to me, and as a theologian this is what I understood: if God is ultimately responsible for things like lightning bolts, but "acts in mysterious ways," how can we acccurately calculate the risk and assess the liability, much less hold actual human beings (or human negligence) accountable for the damage?

Yet our contemporary scientific worldview increasing reveals to us that there is really no such thing as a "natural" disaster. If the wind blows and the rain falls and a swamp becomes flooded, that is hardly disastrous -- it's just part of the natural order of things. It's only when people are hurt and their property destroyed that a storm becomes a catastrophe, and presents us with a slightly different set of moral and ethical choices. A disaster is a social phenomenon, which is generally either mitigated or exacerbated by decisions we make as human beings. Do we simply blame the victims and and excuse our inactivity by saying that it is all simply God's will, nature taking it's natural course? Or do we acknowledge that God sometimes also acts in the world through the actions and activities of human beings, and then respond faithfully to the call to be of service to others in their time of peril?

Our basic human powerlessness in the face of powerful natural forces like a hurricane teaches us the important spiritual lesson of Humility. There are lots of things in this world that are beyond our immediate control, and when we realize this and accept it we gain an important insight into our true place in the universe. But this isn't the only spiritual lesson we learn at times of natural disaster: it is only the first. Our natural human empathy for the plight of those whose lives have been afflicted by the storm also teaches us Compassion, and from this we learn in turn the restorative power of our own Generosity. The word "generosity" comes from a Latin root which means "to give birth" or to create, as in Genesis. Through Generosity, we give birth to the power of our own creativity, and generate good things in the world. And then finally, we learn as well the spiritual lesson of Gratitude, as we discover through experience our mutual interdependence, and the necessity of our helping one another and receiving help from others in order to survive and transcend the many challenges that life itself holds for each of us.

The wind and the rain of Hurricane Katrina have long since passed over the Gulf Coast, but we are just now beginning to appreciate the full extent of the catastrophe. Fortunately, it now appears that the number of people killed outright by the storm, or who perished in the days immediately following, may be far less than many had initially feared. The cost of repairing the extensive property damage can only be guessed at, but could easily approach 60 billion dollars, while the overall cost to the economy might well exceed 200 billion. And then there is the disruption to our social fabric, which is difficult to measure in any currency. A million people displaced from their homes, many of whom may never return to the same neighborhoods and communities where they used to live. Ugly racial and class divisions brought to the surface, and exposed for all the world to see. And then the failure which makes this disaster truly tragic: the apparent inability (or perhaps unwillingness) of the richest and most powerful nation in the history of the world to provide assistance in a timely fashion to its most helpless and vulnerable members. I don't really blame anyone in particular; I agree with the President, that there will be plenty of time later to figure out what went right, and what went wrong, and what might have been done better. But I do feel a little ashamed that so little seemed to go right when it mattered most, and I'm not really sure what to do about my shame, and my anger, and my trepidation about what will happen next.

Most homeowners insurance policies also typically carry an exclusion against damages that arise from an Act of War, which is to say a deliberate and intentional act of malice intended to do harm. Four years ago today our country was viciously attacked by a small group of religious fanatics who believed that the cold-blooded murder of 2973 human beings somehow reflected the will of their God. And as is true, I suspect, for many of you, it doesn't take much for me to recall to mind where I was and how I felt when I first learned of the attacks against the World Trade Center on 9/11, or how I felt in the days and weeks afterwards: sadness at the loss of life, and depression over the corresponding loss of innocence and sense of security; pride in the courage of the first responders who risked (and in many cases lost) their own lives while rushing to the aid of the victims; anger toward those who had attacked us, and eventually dismay as I saw that anger manipulated and exploited in order to lead our nation into a war I felt at the time and still feel was misguided and unnecessary. In the past four years I've watched our country answer the violent and intolerant religious fanaticism of the terrorists with an often violent and intolerant religious fanaticism of our own: a crusade against the jihadists, in which both our traditional political civility and our precious and hard-won civil liberties often seem forgotten relics of a bygone era.

I understand the logic of "an eye for and eye." I understand how difficult it is to struggle against an opponent who respects no limits of violence or brutality -- who deliberately attacks civilians and other soft targets in order to strike at the most vulnerable and the most cherished members of a society. I understand that terrorism, as a tactic, is designed to evoke precisely that sort of a response in kind: to goad the victim into become an aggressor, thereby matching the brutality of the terrorists. But I also realize that there is an alternative, which we know from the Gospels as the commandment to turn the other cheek, and to love our enemies, to return good for evil, and do unto others as we would have others do unto us. I'm not saying that it's easy, or even that it's logical, but it's an ethical principle commonly held in some form or another by all of the world's great religions, including, of course, the religion of Islam.

And I also know how easy it is, when you are feeling powerless and in danger, and your home and your family and everything else you value is threatened by forces beyond your control, and maybe you're hungry, and you're scared, and you can't even be certain what's going to happen next... how easy it is to become angry and bitter and to blame those who are powerful and in control and have the ability to help and protect you for their failure to come to your rescue. And maybe that's justified, maybe it's not; yet I also realize that there is another way: The way that begins with Humility, and grows through Compassion to cultivate both a spirit of Generosity and that essential Gratitude which recognizes the fundamental interdependence of us all: rich and poor, black and white, even (dare I say it) Democrat and Republican, and brings us together in a spirit of mutual respect and cooperation as we work together to face and solve the problems that confront us as a Nation, as a Society, and as a Community of Human Beings.

And this is why I am so proud, and so gratified by what happened here on the Common Friday night. A handful of people saw a need and had an idea, they shared their vision, brought people together, and created in a very short time a very Good Time for a very good cause. And all I can say is "Laissez le Bon Temp Rouler!" -- "Let the Good Times Roll!" and roll, and roll; and feel the Spirit of God rolling through you into the world.