Photo - Canva.comI grew up in Napier, New Zealand, a town that was hit by one of the deadliest earthquakes in New Zealand’s history. It was February 3, 1931. It registered 7.8 on the seismic scale. Officially 256 people were killed, 161 in Napier alone. People ran to the beach where they noticed that the shoreline had receded and then panicked, thinking they would be hit by a tsunami. Only later would they learn that a huge area of land around Napier had risen to the extent of almost 3 metres in one huge jolt. Where there used to an extensive lagoon before the earthquake, there is now an airport.
I recall this event in the light of today’s readings from Genesis 19:15-29 about the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and the gospel of Matthew 8:23-27. I am not sure how church people spoke about the earthquake in Napier. I do recall a much more recent earthquake that hit Christchurch in 2011 and how a church leader made the outlandish claim that God had inflicted an earthquake on Christchurch because of the people’s sins. Why these disasters occur is due to the forces of nature. The tragedy is that people are killed. In Old Testament times, when there was little understanding of the forces behind the movements that occur within the earth, it was natural to see these tragedies as the result of divine judgement. However, such claims are due to how we see God. The response to the psalm is “O Lord, your kindness is before my eyes.” This was reflected in the extraordinary response of people to the aftermath of the Napier earthquake where the sailors of a British navy ship, HMS Veronica, got news out about the earthquake, helped survivors to fight the fires and gave them medical treatment.
We live on a fragile planet whose environment has become victim to increasingly more powerful natural disasters, including floods and hurricanes, heat waves and severe storms. More often than not, we human beings are responsible for these devastating climatic changes because of our lifestyle and demand for the earth’s limited resources. Perhaps we need to call upon Jesus to be with us as we brave the storms affecting our fragile craft, our planetary boat, and, instead of making outlandish and hurtful claims about God’s judgements, be ready to reach out and respond and provide support whenever disaster strikes.
Tom Rouse
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