Genesis 18: Part Two

It's that question we are still asking: "Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked, so that righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?" (v. 24-25) People of faith have been plagued with questions of theodicy (the defense of God's goodness and omnipotence in view of the existence of evil)forever, it seems.
What does God's judgment look like? How can God be merciful and just? Is God's version of justice like ours? When something bad happens is it God's judgment? Why do bad things happen to good people? You know the questions. We've all wrestled with them in one way or another. The scriptures wrestle with the same questions, and there isn't one simple explanation that wins the day. Deuteronomy insists that a righteous life will bring blessings. The story of Job puts this into question. People of faith keep asking questions. It's important to me that we are allowed to ask, and it's fascinating to me that in this text God may still be figuring out what God is going to do.
We want God to be in charge. We want God to pull strings and protect the people we love (who may or not be the righteous; truthfully we want them protected simply because we love them). We want the world to be fair, even when it so clearly isn't. And the truth is that if it were fair, our lives might be a bit less privileged. What is fate; what is the hand of God; what is coinicidence; what is the result of decisions we have made. . . ?
In this story, God is in the questions with us. I do believe that God judges. I do not believe that God punishes. I do believe that we bear the consequences of our sins. I do see that this doesn't necessarily happen in a fair or equitable way. I hold on to all the promises of grace. I know I don't know, really, what's going on. I hope with faith that in the end all shall be well.
These questions of life and death and the nature of God are not questions we can afford to simply put on a shelf. Perhaps for ourselves we can reach some stalemate or some plausible resolution for a time, but in a world where our neighbors suffer and the church proclaims a loving and just and powerful God, we need to be willing to talk with those who would question God. We need to assure them that God is big enough to be with them in the questions. And we have to stop pretending that we have all the answers.