Reimagining the Good Life with Amy Julia Becker S2 Ep 106 Where is God When People Suffer?
Science, medicine, and politics can answer lots of our questions about where the coronavirus came from and what it is doing in and among humans. But another set of questions arises in times like this. Can we find any meaning or purpose in this suffering? Can we find any meaning or purpose in our lives right now? Is God present, and loving, and real? Where is God in the midst of suffering? In this episode, Amy Julia looks at what Paul writes about who Jesus Christ is as a way to understand who God is in the midst of suffering and how voluntary self-sacrifice motivated by love equips and empowers us to find meaning and experience God’s loving presence in our current moment.
Show Notes:
- Casey Cep in the New Yorker on the gift of church: https://www.newyorker.com/news/on-religion/the-gospel-in-a-time-of-social-distancing
- N.T. Wright in TIME: https://time.com/5808495/coronavirus-christianity/
- NYT on politician turned Jesuit: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/11/opinion/sunday/cyrus-habib-jesuit.html
- C.S. Lewis quote: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/221026-a-man-s-physical-hunger-does-not-prove-that-man-will
- Bloomberg Article: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-31/divorces-spike-in-china-after-coronavirus-quarantines
- Philippians 2:1-10
- Romans 5:8
- John 3:16
- From White Picket Fences:
"The privilege of whiteness and wealth can become a wall against the privilege of being human, loved not for status or performance but simply loved, and able to give love in return not because of obligation but in grateful response to an invitation. I have been given much that I do not deserve, and my very real social privilege has cut me off from others as much as it has also made my life comfortable. But social privilege is not the end of my story. The real privilege of my life has come in learning what it means to love others, that love involves suffering and sacrifice and sleepless nights and tears and heartache and great gifts.
It makes sense to talk about privilege in terms of access to private clubs and schools and bank loans and preferential treatment by authorities. It makes sense to expose the injustices of privilege and call for them to be rectified. But there is also the privilege of cleaning the wounds of people you love, of participating in healing and new life, of becoming vulnerable and needy and receiving love and care. There is another type of privilege, privilege that connects instead of divides, that shimmers t
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