God's Power Is Made Perfect In Weakness

I realize the last couple posts do not make a whole lot of sense if read with the idea of a "tri-omni" God. In other words, a God who is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent. If God is all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-good, then my previous posts make no sense. But experience proves the tri-omni God a falsehood. There is simply no way that God can be all three of those. The death of one innocent child is enough to shatter that myth (I've read this is a quote attributable to Dostoevsky but can't find the source). If I have to choose the most important of the three omnis, I choose all-good. An all-loving God has been a common thread in the last couple of posts.

Scripture itself hints at the limits of God's power (although it is blatant in its asserting a tri-omni God as well): "my power is made perfect in weakness." This is a beautiful statement. Just because God isn't ALL-powerful doesn't mean God isn't powerful. God is most powerful when most weak. Jesus-on-the-cross weak.

Since I believe in the importance of experience, perhaps a case study is in order. C.S. Song has said that Christianity should not be easy after the Holocaust. I agree 100%. In fact, any theology that hasn't wrestled with the Holocaust, both in the ways that Christianity contributed to anti-Semitism as well as what the Holocaust means for theology in general, is not deserving of attention. With that in mind, I turn to a Holocaust story.

Janus Korczak was a well known pedagogue in Poland. He was from a Jewish family. When the Nazis established the Warsaw Ghetto, Korczak's orphanage was forced to move inside the ghetto walls. Korczak accompanied the children to the new orphanage and lived there with them. When the ghetto was liquidated, Korczak was offered safe passage given his prominence in Polish society. He refused and accompanied the orphans to Treblinka. From here, there is no corroborated evidence of their fate, but most likely Korczak and the children were murdered at Treblinka. I have no doubt Korczak kept them close and huddled under his wings for as long as possible.

Where was the tri-omni God in this story? Absent because that God is dead. The all-loving God, however, was present to the same extent as on Calvary. God is not omnipotent. God could not prevent the Holocaust. But God could show power in weakness by accompanying orphans, in the person of Janus Korczak, into the ghetto. And from the ghetto to the train. And from the train to death. I will take the God of Korczak over the God of kings any day.

What to Expect when You're Praying

A strange coincidence after my last post. In fact, only a couple hours after I posted. The EF5 tornado that devastated Moore, OK was not the inspiration for that last post, but offered an example of what I was referring to. If you've seen the neat video of the woman who finds her dog amidst the rubble in the middle of a TV interview, you may have seen comments such as "God answers prayers." But what about those parents praying for their children that died? Surely God didn't answer THEIR prayers?

First, let me state that I believe in prayer and I think it's an important part of discipleship. But when we pray, what can we expect from God? If there's nothing we can expect, is prayer worth it?

While I haven't delved into the deep well of the theology of prayer, from what I've read (and experienced), our prayers should be aimed towards the will of God. Jesus teaches this both at the Last Supper and at Gethsemane. So we could say that when we pray we should expect God's will to be done. Two things, though: (1) was it God's will for children to die in Moore, OK or Newtown, CT? I don't think so. (2) We are completely unable to figure God's will (cf. Garth Brooks's song "Unanswered Prayers"), so how could we expect a specific outcome from prayer if we pray that God's will be done?

So what CAN we expect? A personal story may help. At church, there is a closet which has an intake for the air handler. The door to this closet slams as hard as any weightlifter could slam it. It's scary. I had gone into the closet to get a new banner out for Pentecost. I didn't realize it but my son was following me. He went to open the door before it had closed, but the door slammed shut on his hand. Even with my back to him, when I heard him scream I knew exactly what had happened. I couldn't have prevented it from happening. I was impotent to relieve his pain at that moment. My only option was to scoop him up, cuddle him, rock him in my arms, and give him kisses. While I was calling my wife to come get him to take him to urgent care for what I was sure were broken bones, a pediatrician walked in. She checked him out and was sure there were no broken bones and he had quit crying by now. She saved me hundreds of dollars in copays!

What this story illustrates, hopefully, is that when we pray, all we can expect from God is (1) that he loves us, snuggles us close, and rocks us through our pain, and (2) that, just as I hurt while holding my son, God suffers with us through it all.