Robert Barron - Does God Punish Us?
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Peace be with you. Friends, our gospel is the famous question to Jesus, «How many will be saved»? I know it’s everyone’s favorite question, I’m not going to preach on it. I’ve preached on it a lot, I’ve written a lot, so you can consult those. But I want to focus on the second reading, which is from the marvelous letter to the Hebrews we’ve been reading from, and it’s a topic that is also very controversial and very important, the topic of the divine punishment. Does God punish us?
When I was coming of age, I’ve said this many times to you, there was such a one-sided view of God. God is of love, and compassion, and kindness, that we never talked about this. Oh no, no, God doesn’t punish, that’s an old-fashioned category, and it’s dangerous, and don’t talk about that, God is love. Well again, the problem, as I mentioned last week to you, is love is not something namby-pamby, love is willing the good of the other, and if we’re off kilter, then love is going to be kind of harsh. As Dostoevsky, right? Love is a harsh and it’s dreadful things sometimes. And is the divine punishment something that is not in the Bible? It’s just this later import from some hung up spirituality? No. In fact, it’s impossible to avoid the theme of the divine punishment in the Bible.
I’m going to give you a couple of examples. Think of a lot of the sufferings we endure in the natural world are read in the Book of Genesis as a punishment for sin. Think of the Tower of Babel, and the scattering of people, and the variety of languages is seen precisely as a response in punishment to sin. Think of Noah’s Ark, the destruction of the world the Bible construes as the result of our sin. Think of Israel’s enslavement in Egypt as construed as chastisement, so is their long wandering in the desert. When Israel loses a battle, almost invariably it’s seen as punishment for its wickedness.
Think of Saul’s defeat and as a result of his disobedience to God. Think of Eli’s death as a result of his sin and that of his son. Think of David’s punishment in the wake of the Bathsheba incident. Think of the Babylonian captivity and exile as construed by the prophets as a response to Israel’s sin. And I’m just giving you a couple of examples throughout the Old Testament. Does God punish Israel? Yeah, it seems to me pretty clearly. Can we see in every case if Israel’s going through something bad as punishment? No, not in every case, but it’s certainly mentioned a lot.
And you say, «Well, okay, that’s Old Testament stuff». Well think again, I mean, look at Paul in tells to Corinthians, that many of you are sick and dying because of the way that the Eucharist, the Eucharistic gathering, is being abused. Look at Ananias and Sapphira, two figures in the Acts of the Apostles struck dead because of the way they were handling money improperly. And think of in the culminating book of the Bible, the book of Revelation, where this terrible destruction is visited upon the earth as a response to sin.
Now look, everybody, I understand the complexity of these biblical texts and there are different ways to read them and so on, but I think you’re kind of hard-pressed to say that divine punishment is not a motif in the Bible. I think that’s simply not the case. In fact, and it’s not a minor motif, it’s a rather major motif. I’ve said before, the difference between a theology of karma and a theology of grace, and the Bible, yes, is a book of grace, but there is a theology of karma as well. In other words, that bad behavior is answered in some way by punishment. Yes, that’s true in the Bible too. Okay, so how do we make sense of this without falling back into a terrible view of God as a sort of arbitrary capricious tyrant?
So all right, I’m making my way through life and all right, I made a mistake, I sinned, and so now I have this terrible punishment that’s visited upon me. Or is God like a puppeteer, just sort of playing with us, toying with us? How do we make sense of this language without falling into that understanding of God? Well, can I suggest to you this little passage for today from the letter to the Hebrews? It gives us the interpretive key and it’s a very helpful text. Listen now, «My sons do not disdain the discipline of the Lord nor lose heart when he reproves you, for whom the Lord loves, he disciplines, he scourges every son he receives».
Okay, there’s the master text, because it’s predicated upon the master metaphor for God throughout the Bible, culminating in Jesus' own great prayer, the Our Father. That God is best construed not as a deist cosmic force lying in a distance nor as a capricious tyrant, but God is best construed as a father, as a parent. So now listen to me, especially parents, «My sons do not disdain the discipline of the Lord». That word’s interesting, «Disciplina» from the Latin word, discere. Disciple comes from the same word because it means to learn. Huh, discipline, no arbitrary, cruel, imposition. No, no discipline properly understood is a learning process.
In Greek, there’s that lovely play, Mathein and Pathein. Mathein, I think mathematics, Mathein means like to learn. Pathein is to suffer. Very often, our learning comes from our suffering. Bring them together, God disciplines, those he loves, and again, love is to will the good of the other. God wants to teach, he wants to love someone who’s deep in sin that will look like and feel like punishment.
Now again, parents, you know what I’m talking about, or anyone that remembers their childhood coming of age. Think of a little kid, now let’s begin with a toddler who’s having a tantrum. A tantrum means that he’s just not getting his way, his will is just completely set against what’s best for him and for those around him, so the parent will say, «It’s a timeout for you». I’ve watched parents do it, it’s kind of interesting to me how the kids will cooperate with it. Timeout, and they put the kid in the corner and you got to be there for five minutes or whatever it is. But what are they doing there? But they’re stopping the resistance of the kid’s will, they’re compelling him to stop this destructive behavior, destructive to himself and to others, they’re disciplining the child.
Now, parents that never do that, «Oh, everything my kid does is great. I’m never going to have a timeout». Yeah, well, welcome to complete dysfunction in that child. Think now in the Bible, Jonah is told what to do by God. «Go east by land,» and Jonah went west by sea, he was throwing a tantrum if you want. What does God do? The great fish swallows him up. Well, that’s a disciplining of his will. It’s a kind of timeout saying it’s stopping Jonah in his rebellion and then limiting his freedom so as to bring him back where God wants him to be.
Friends, fellow sinners here, listen to me, can we sometimes understand the suffering we’re going through as a kind of divine restriction of our freedom so as to bring us back where we need to be? Now move from a little toddler to an older kid. I remember when I was sixth grade, so what are you, 11 in sixth grade? I was a pretty cooperative kid, I usually went along with authorities, but one time during the winter, this great snowball fight broke out, it was the sixth grade against the seventh grade as I remember, and it was one of these things where everybody got involved.
In Chicago days, there was plenty of snow around, and we got into this big snowball fight and someone must have hid a little ice or something in a snowball and a kid got hit and he was bleeding. And finally out comes the principal and she was a sister, and she said, «All right, all right, I want all the sixth grade boys, all the seventh grade boys in my office now». And so I remember we lined up and kind of afraid what was going to happen. Well, she had this paddle, and it really wasn’t that painful, and we came one by one and then she gave us a whack.
Now, it wasn’t physically all that painful, but it was humiliating, and the fact that I remember it to this day how many years later, it was humiliating, and honestly, I never got involved in a snowball fight like that at school. Again, she punished me in a way that got my attention and I realized, «Yeah, I’m not going to do that again». All right, let’s say she had never done that, «Oh, no, no, I never punish kids, oh, no, no, never, never, never». Welcome to dysfunction. Go a little further in life, teenagers, 16, 17, and they’ve been drinking and driving in a way that’s really dangerous to themselves and to others.
Would a parent take away the keys? You cannot drive for the next month, you’re grounded, you can’t use the car. How cruel of you, how capricious? No, no, it’s a punishment that gets the attention, limits the freedom, and imposes a painful penalty that brings that child back online. Now go a little further, go deeper into life now. Now you’re a parent of an adult child, late twenties or thirties, stuck in an addiction, maybe it’s taboos or drugs or whatever it is, and that addiction has become so destructive of that person’s life and the lives of those around him. It’s become one of these dreadful, dreadful, spiritual and physical crises. And a parent at that point might have to engage in tough love.
The child comes back broke, sick, hopeless, and, «Mom and dad, could you please take me in? Can I…» No, you can’t come back in the house. How cruel, how awful. «No, you can’t come back in the house, you have got to deal with this issue». What are they doing? Well, as the term suggests, it’s an act of love. Love is willing the good of the other. Sometimes this terrible punishment of separation, rejection, that terrible punishment is precisely what that addicted person needs to get his or her life back in order.
So we see all these things readily enough, why can’t we see them in regard to God, who’s not a distant uncaring cause or force, but God who’s like a parent. Our father who art in heaven, we’re all his children. Can we see readily enough that God would sometimes engage, would allow things to happen or actively impose punishment so as to bring us back online? Listen to this. «Endure your trials as the discipline of God who deals with you as sons, for what Son is there whom his father does not discipline»?
Good question. If you’re a son of a father who never disciplines you, you’re going to be dysfunctional son, believe me, right? He could specify it. What good father would ever refrain from disciplining his son? And then listen to this, again the psychological realism is striking to me. «At the time it’s administered, all discipline seems a cause for grief, but later it brings forth the fruit of peace and justice to those who are trained and at school».
Dead right, dead right. When you’re enduring whatever it is, whatever darkness or difficulty or limitation, or it just seems like dumb suffering. How, how, how could God allow this to happen? But in time and with retrospect, can we see, okay, you know what that was? It was a discipline, a learning, disciplina, it was a learning that I needed and maybe could not have gotten in any other way. Not, friends, that we should read every type of suffering under this rubric, I think that would be wrong too.
Remember when they asked Jesus, «Who’s responsible for this blind man’s blindness, his own sin or his parents»? And Jesus said, «Neither one». It doesn’t apply to every single case of suffering, but other times, other times when, yes, our suffering is a type of discipline, precisely what we as children of a loving father need. And God bless you.