Are You Superstitious?
Standing on the goal line, waiting for the ball to be kicked, I whispered a prayer: “God, please allow me to return this kick for a touchdown. If you do, I promise to give you all the glory.” The ball soared high in the air and I caught it just behind the goal line. I ran straight ahead, trying to find a block or two. I thought I saw an opening and cut to my right. Mistake. A couple of Texas A & M Aggies slammed me to the ground just a few yards beyond the twenty-yard line. So much for prayer, I thought to myself.
How many of us have prayed similar Hail Mary prayers? Maybe not to return a kick for a touchdown, but perhaps we asked God to help us ace a test, when we actually hadn’t studied very hard. Or maybe we prayed to God that our boss would give us a raise, when our work performance had been less than stellar. I had a roommate in college who was a terrific athlete but refused to wear his contact lenses because he was convinced God would heal his astigmatism. God didn’t and his athletic career, once so promising, flamed out.
Prayers like these are sincere but are derived more from superstition than reverence for God. Even thoughtful and well-intentioned people can be vulnerable to the beguiling temptations of superstition, trying to cajole God into doing our bidding. We may view our relationship with God as quid pro quo—we do something for God and God will do something for us. Unfortunately, this kind of superstitious belief has colored and shaped faith for millennia in both Old and New Testaments and even among people of faith today.
God’s ways are often subtle and mysterious, sometimes appearing ordinary and routine—God speaks to Elijah in a still, small voice, not with trumpets sounding and angelic choruses singing Hallelujahs (I Kings 19). I find it fascinating that the phrase “still, small voice” literally means, “in the sound of nothing.” God was not present in the startling natural wonders—the earthquake or fire. Divine Presence whispered to Elijah in the quietness of his heart. (Isaiah 30:15).
A baby born in a manger reveals how God seldom makes dramatic entrances into our world. If people imagined that when God’s presence became flesh he would do so in some spectacular or sensational way, they probably were disappointed when the tiny baby was born in a stable and wrapped in cloth diapers, hungry for his mother’s milk, just like any ordinary child. His common appearance may have been a stumbling block for those looking for a grander divine entrance.
Many of us struggle with such a shy and unassuming God. We crave for more grandiose spiritual experiences. We seek “worship” sensations that stimulate our senses, excite our feelings, and provide some sense of control in an otherwise unpredictable world. We seek evidence, certainty, and clarity in our religious faith. We can easily become swayed by superstitious beliefs that offer visible, touchy-feely signs of the supernatural. Reliance on superstition may offer us something more concrete that gives us an instantaneous spiritual high, without having to patiently wait for the God who is not on our time table.
King Saul fell victim to the superstitious when he consulted the witch of Endor to call up the deceased Samuel, even though he had prohibited the practice of magic in his kingdom. He wanted quick answers to his nagging questions. Of course, witches are the creations of credulous minds that are easily duped into believing that strange or weird people, people who don’t fit into society, have conspired with satanic forces and are supernaturally empowered with unnatural abilities. Once these rumors get started mass hysteria does the rest, as history is replete with stories of the murder of innocent women and girls who were condemned as witches based on nothing more than superstition.
In the New Testament superstition was also part of religious belief. The story of the lame man who waited beside the pool of Bethesda is one example of superstitious belief (Jn. 5:2). There was an old wives’ tale that from time to time an angel stirred the waters and the first one to enter the pool would be cured of his affliction. Another superstition is cited in John’s Gospel when Jesus healed a blind man (Jn. 9). Suffering was thought in the ancient world to be God’s punishment for sin, as it sometimes is today. The disciples, influenced by that superstitious belief, asked Jesus who had sinned, the blind man or his parents. They, too, were bewitched by superstition.
Superstition can rob us of having to think for ourselves in order to develop a more thoughtful understanding of faith. When our faith turns to superstition, we more readily settle for simplistic answers to faith’s complex questions, instead of continuing to engage and grapple with Scripture and trust faith when there are no answers.
A reoccurring superstitious belief that deeply troubles me is when people of faith attribute evil happenings to God. I have frequently listened to a grieving husband or wife who had lost their mate say to me, “Why did God take her/him?” These people blamed God for the loss of their loved one. A number of years ago a young mother’s baby unexpectedly died and she confessed to me her rage, “I’m so angry at God for taking my baby.” Did she really believe that God had willed the death of her infant?
I understand that people in pain try to make sense out of tragedy, but to blame God for the bad things that happen in our world is misdirected. Sometimes bad things just happen, with no rhyme or reason. Does God really micromanage our lives, causing good or bad things to happen based on some divine plan? To believe that our story has already been written by divine providence creates far more problems than it solves.
The world we inhabit is not a perfect world. Natural disasters happen that kill thousands of people, not because God wills disaster, but because that’s the way the laws of nature operate. Babies and children die prematurely, not because God wills their deaths, but because our world is not heaven. People die tragic deaths and suffer from life’s inequities, not because that was God’s plan, but because we live in a less than perfect world.
Yes, God deeply cares for us but that does not mean that he steers the course of events in our individual lives, willing some to live, some to suffer, and others to die. God desires every human being to live long, productive and meaningful lives, but in this world God’s will is not always done. Remember when Jesus prays, “Thou will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” God’s will is always done in heaven, right? But on earth, according to Jesus, that is not always the case. Otherwise, why would Jesus have made this request to God for God’s will to be done on earth?
Jesus fervently asked God for his will to be done on earth—where little children live long and healthy lives, and people live free of disease, and death itself becomes obsolete—because God’s will is not always done on earth as it is always done in heaven.
When tragedy strikes, we desperately want answers that explain “Why?” If only we can find some reason why the terrible thing has happened, then we can feel more in control, less at the mercy of an unpredictable world. But life entails risk. There is no certainty in this world. This day, this very day is God’s gift, but we do not know what tomorrow will bring. So today we embrace our loved ones, friends, and thank God for the gift of life. There is much unpredictability in this world, but our faith provides peace, the peace of God, that passes all understanding. Like the subtle ways of God—a soft whisper or a baby clinging to his mother’s breast—faith may not seem like very much, but it is the only path to God.
