Katrina Controversy

Did God send Katrina?

Some answers to that question are found in the words of Jesus in Luke 13. It has to do with two disasters that had just happened, taking lives and leaving many injured.

“Think you that they were sinners above all men because they suffered such things? I tell you, No, but except you repent [turn around] you shall all likewise perish.”

Was the devastating swirl of this hurricane season because New Orleans was the US sin-capital? Though its reputation is well known, several facts are provoked by this question, such as: many innocents suffered, as well, and it wasn’t the only place struck with destruction.

Let’s consider: Did God send Katrina?

No. You did! I did! Don’t stop reading now.

After Jesus spoke the above words, he gave the parable of the fig tree planted in a vineyard that had not yielded fruit. He related the patience of the husbandman of the vineyard and his request that the tree be given another year to prove itself. Jesus said those who suffered hadn’t sinned more, but the disaster was a signal to turn around wrong life-styles before the “perishing” hits.

We go on in our own self-destroying ways, and treat God like a member of the coast guard or security force that will come and get us out of any pit where we have fallen.

A scientific reason for Katrina¹ is the warming of earth’s waters caused by our life style. The “good life” is bringing down the (real) good life. Will the next generation rise up and call us murderers?

Katrina Ripples

Others have cited Israel’s upheavals that parallel and reflect our own. When God said He will bless or curse according to our treatment of His people, He wasn’t kidding, (Gen. 12:3).

Moshe Kempinski in Jerusalem writes on a verse in Isaiah 45:7 wherein G-d says; “I form the light, and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil; I am HaShem, that doeth all these things.” These words carry deep truth for our time. All that occurs in this world has the potential to draw us deeper into our connection to the Divine. In the midst of the challenges and traumas that we have all experienced, we need to realize that the Jewish people are now heavily in the process of being changed.

We Americans can add, “So are we”. -