Mr. Smucker Speaks: On Asking God Why

Dorcas and Paul

Every human wants to know why.    Why am I sick?  Why does this food taste bad?  Why has this bad thing happened to me?  Why did my chicken die? We often ask why and usually that is a good thing.  We should ask why Sally failed the test or why Jill got 100% on the same test.  We should ask why John broke his arm or why Peter is always so reckless.  We should try to know why if it helps us solve a problem or to make something better. 

Too many times, however, we want to know why so we can figure out who to blame, which is what the disciples appeared to want to do in regard to the blind man in John chapter 9.  

1 And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth.

2 And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?

3 Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.

Jesus and his disciples had evidently seen this blind man many times.  They all knew he was born blind.  One day his disciples asked Jesus the question why.  Why was the man born blind?  Was it because of his own sin or because of his parents’ sin?  Who was to blame for his being blind from birth?  Jesus’s reply was the blindness at birth was not because of this man’s sin, nor was it because of his parents’ sin.  Neither were to blame.  In fact, there was no one to blame.  The disciples’ trying to figure out why in this case was of no value.  

Jesus explained that the man was born blind so Jesus could show forth the works of God when Jesus healed him from his blindness.  This man was born blind so that the works of God would be made manifest in him.

Jesus did not berate the disciples for asking the question why.  Instead, he reminded them that if the answer to the why question would not help solve a problem, then the why question was of little value. 

In October of 2020 I preached a funeral service for Tanner Zehr, a 16 year old former student of mine who died from injuries he suffered in an automobile accident.  Many people who were at the funeral were asking why.  So was I, but my why question was a little different from theirs.  My why question was why did Tanner die and not me.  I preached the funeral sermon while sitting on a chair on the platform because I was recovering from a fall in July.  I had fallen on to concrete which broke my skull, numerous ribs, my neck, my back, and both my wrists.  I had bad whiplash which bruised my spinal cord in the area where the nerves to my 4 limbs attach to the spinal cord.  Doctors told my wife that I should have either died or become a quadriplegic. 

Why did 16 year old Tanner die and 61 year old Paul live to preach at his funeral? Through the story of the blind man in John 9, I got my answer.  So God could receive glory.  So the works of God could be manifest in me.  So the works of God could be manifest in Tanner’s death.  So the works of God could be manifest in everyone who attended Tanners funeral.  

Horrible things happen to every human.  Some worse than my fall.  Some worse than being born blind.  I am convinced if we demand an answer to the question of whose fault it was we are missing the point.  The point from God’s perspective is not whose fault it is, the point is, will the works of God be manifest in us, the followers of God, as we go through that horrible experience? 

Because of my fall I retired from my 30 plus years of teaching Christian school.  I retired from my 25-year ministry in the Brownsville Mennonite Church.  I retired from the daily grind of the Wilton Smucker grass seed warehouse I had owned for 20 years.

During my recovery I had the opportunity to start doing PR work for a ministry called Open Hands, and that is God’s calling on my life now.

Open Hands is a mission that reaches out to people in poverty around the world, not with humanitarian aid, but by training local Christians to facilitate community groups who save money together.  People with few resources realize they have the ability to save as they begin to overcome their dependency and regain their dignity.  In 13 countries around the world, Open Hands savings groups are currently helping more than 30,645 people in poverty understand that they have God given resources they can use to survive without being dependent on another culture. 

If I had not fallen, I would have missed out on this opportunity to learn about poverty, hearing the voice of the poor, and how savings groups are changing the outlook of many poor people around the world.  The people in the savings groups learn not to ask whose fault it is that they struggle financially, but how they can manifest the works of God in the midst of their hardships.

--Paul Smucker