Fires 

Over the past few weeks, terrible wildfires have devastated the city of Los Angeles. As I write this, experts are forecasting more of the same Santa Ana winds that have fed and spread the destructive blazes. The fires so far have burned an area more than twice the size of the island of Manhattan, consuming countless homes and causing the deaths of over two dozen people. Amid the many expressions of horror and concern for those affected, one does hear the occasional musing that this is an expression of God’s judgment against the place at the center of the entertainment industry, typically associated with licentiousness and moral corruption. While it’s true that there are instances in Sacred Scripture where people suffer calamities because of rampant immorality, most dramatically the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, in those cases the reason for their destruction was divinely revealed in the scripture itself. In the ordinary experiences of life, however, we don’t have access to the mind of God in this regard, and so we must be careful with such speculations. 

Jesus says so Himself in the Gospel of Luke (13:1-5), when people with Him mention a recent event in which a number of people were killed in dramatic fashion. In response, Our Lord says: “Do you think that [these] were worse sinners than all the others because they suffered thus? I tell you, no. But unless you repent you will all likewise perish. Or those 18 upon whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse offenders than all others who dwelled in Jerusalem? I tell you, no. But unless you repent you will all likewise perish.” 

While judgments of behavior are unavoidable and necessary for us humans as moral actors created with the spiritual faculties of reason and free will, determining whether some event is an act of divine retribution is above our pay grade. You and I can see only a sliver of reality at once and thus cannot stand in judgment of someone’s soul or declare that the entire population of a region is suffering divine punishment. In fact, this way of thinking quickly drains us of compassion. We might just as easily conclude that God is displeased with anyone who suffers illness, poverty, famine, or war. This is not to say, however, that widespread commission of evil does not have consequences for a society and cannot lead to its downfall. But in this fallen world, we also know that good people can suffer, and evil people can thrive. It is for this reason that Christ’s response to the evil events of His day was to call those around Him to personal repentance and conversion. After all, the greatest evil anyone ever suffered was Our Lord’s crucifixion, and the sins of me and you and everyone else put Him on that cross.  And we will perish, He says, unless we repent. 

If anything, the wildfires in Los Angeles are a sobering reminder of our smallness and our fragility, and how technology gives us less control over the powers of the natural world than we might think. May it be an occasion for growth in humility, as we make sure our response to what we see there is truly compassionate, with sincere prayers and the provision of needed assistance.  

posted 1/18/25