Florida Catholic | Editorial

Lessons from Noah and the ark

Published: 11.02.07

“God sent a rainbow to Noah and his family after the great flood, with a promise never to rid the world of sinners with a great calamity”

As AIDS became more predominant, some people said the disease was God’s way of punishing those populations most commonly affected by HIV and AIDS. They were referring to homosexuals and intravenous drug users who shared needles. After the tsunamis in December 2004, some claimed the deadly waves were God’s way of wiping out areas in Southeast Asia known for sex trade and immoral lifestyles.

The problem with such assertions by those who purport to know the mind of God is that they don’t take into account those who might be “innocent” victims of the disease in question or the floods. What about hemophiliacs who contracted HIV through blood transfusions, or fishermen simply making a living in Indonesia who had nothing to do with child prostitution or human trafficking?

And then what about a government report issued last month that estimates more people may have died from an especially drug-resistant form of staph infection in 2005 than died from AIDS. The possibility that methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, may be becoming more lethal than acquired immune deficiency syndrome is frightening, and an indication that staph infections, once thought picked up only in hospitals and health facilities, are moving beyond those venues. Does that mean people who get ill and go to hospitals are now being struck down by God? What’s this retribution for?

According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, which published the study, as reported by Associated Press, the germs have become more resistant to medications and are spreading in prisons, gyms and locker rooms and in poor urban areas. The researchers’ estimates that the disease may be responsible for more deaths than AIDS are extrapolated from data taken from studies in specific urban areas, in which 5,287 infections in those areas would translate to 94,360 cases nationally. Among those in the study, there were 988 deaths, a rate of 6.3 per 100,000, which would translate to 18,650 deaths nationally, although the researchers acknowledge they don’t know if MRSA was the cause of death in all cases. This compares to 17,011 deaths due to AIDS in the same time span.

Let’s acknowledge that the extrapolations may be making some assumptions about the actual cause of death. Even so, medical experts know that people are not catching MRSA only in hospital settings. It’s spreading at your local gym or health club. It’s spreading in poor neighborhoods where conditions may not be as sanitary as they ought to be. And, people are dying because the staph “superbug” is resisting antibiotics that used to work.

If AIDS is God’s retribution on homosexuals and the tsunamis were God’s wrath on the dens of iniquity in Southeast Asia and Katrina was God’s smite of the sins of New Orleans’ year-round Bourbon Street atmosphere, the logic follows that this staph infection must be another message from God. So what is he saying? And the fires in California are a message. And cancer, and heart attacks, and famine in Africa. Any mass tragedy must be a message from God aimed at a sinning population, if one follows this logic.

But we cannot follow this line of thinking. God sent a rainbow to Noah and his family after the great flood, with a promise never to rid the world of sinners with a great calamity. And in the New Covenant with humankind, Jesus tells us in the Gospel of John that it is not the result of sin that brings affliction. His disciples asked him about the man blind from birth, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus’ response was “Neither … it is so the works of God might be made visible through him.” Then Jesus healed him.

Some might say, as one Californian whose home was spared by the fire did, “Someone was watching out for me,” — but does that mean God was not watching out for his neighbor whose home did burn? Yes, we know our prayers can be answered, but if we believe in the God of the New Testament, we have to believe in a God who does not punish people by burning down their house just because they didn’t pray that morning.

Bad things happen in this world; it is how we respond to tragedy that defines us. We call upon our faith to heal and strengthen us. We should assist others in the face of tragedy or illness. This is our response to God’s promise to Noah.

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