# Does God Punish Us - Bishop Barron Sermon

An episode of [Daily Sermons With Bishop Robert Barron](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/6783446284), 18 Oct 2026, 15 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/75632905/does_god_punish_us_bishop_barron_s_sunday_sermon.mp3



## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Peace be with you. Friends, our gospel is the famous
[0:03] Speaker 1: question to Jesus, you know, how many will be saved?
[0:05] Speaker 1: I know it's everyone's favorite question. I'm not going to
[0:08] Speaker 1: preach on it. I preached on it a lot. I've
[0:10] Speaker 1: written a lot, so you can consult those. But I
[0:13] Speaker 1: want to focus on the second reading, which is from
[0:15] Speaker 1: the marvelous letter to the Hebrews we've been reading from.
[0:19] Speaker 1: And it's a topic that is also very controversial and
[0:23] Speaker 1: very important. The topic of the divine punishment. Does God
[0:29] Speaker 1: punish us? You know, when I was coming of age,
[0:34] Speaker 1: I've said this many times to you, there was such
[0:36] Speaker 1: a one-sided view of God. God is love and compassion
[0:41] Speaker 1: and kindness. We never talked about this. Oh, no, no,
[0:46] Speaker 1: God doesn't punish. That's an old-fashioned category, and it's dangerous,
[0:51] Speaker 1: and don't talk about that. God is love. Well, again,
[0:54] Speaker 1: the problem, as I mentioned last week to you, is
[0:57] Speaker 1: Love is not something namby-pamby. Love is willing the good
[1:01] Speaker 1: of the other. And if we're off kilter, then love
[1:05] Speaker 1: is going to be kind of harsh. It's Dostoevsky, right?
[1:09] Speaker 1: Love is a harsh and dreadful thing sometimes. And is
[1:13] Speaker 1: the divine punishment something that is not in the Bible?
[1:18] Speaker 1: It's just this later, you know, import from some hung-up spirituality? No.
[1:25] Speaker 1: In fact, it's impossible. to avoid the theme of the
[1:29] Speaker 1: divine punishment in the Bible. I'm going to give you
[1:31] Speaker 1: a couple of examples. Think of, you know, just a
[1:35] Speaker 1: lot of the sufferings we endure in the natural world
[1:38] Speaker 1: are read in the book of Genesis as a punishment
[1:41] Speaker 1: for sin. Think of the Tower of Babel and the
[1:44] Speaker 1: scattering of people and the variety of languages is seen
[1:49] Speaker 1: precisely as a response in punishment to sin. Think of
[1:54] Speaker 1: Noah's Ark, the destruction of the world the Bible construes
[1:57] Speaker 1: as the result of our sin. Think of Israel's enslavement
[2:01] Speaker 1: in Egypt is construed as chastisement. So is their long
[2:05] Speaker 1: wandering in the desert. When Israel loses a battle, I mean,
[2:09] Speaker 1: almost invariably, it's seen as punishment for its wickedness. Think
[2:14] Speaker 1: of Saul's defeat as a result of his disobedience to God.
[2:19] Speaker 1: Think of Eli's death. as a result of his sin
[2:23] Speaker 1: and that of his son. Think of David's punishment in
[2:28] Speaker 1: the wake of the Bathsheba incident. Think of the Babylonian
[2:32] Speaker 1: captivity and exile as construed by the prophets as a
[2:35] Speaker 1: response to Israel's sin. And I'm just giving you a
[2:39] Speaker 1: couple of examples throughout the Old Testament. Does God punish Israel? Yeah,
[2:44] Speaker 1: it seems to me pretty clearly. Can we see in
[2:48] Speaker 1: every case that If Israel's going through something bad, it's punishment? No,
[2:52] Speaker 1: not in every case. But it's certainly mentioned a lot.
[2:57] Speaker 1: And you say, well, okay, that's Old Testament stuff. Well,
[3:01] Speaker 1: think again. I mean, look at Paul and tells the
[3:05] Speaker 1: Corinthians that many of you are sick and dying because
[3:09] Speaker 1: of the way that the Eucharist, the Eucharistic gathering is
[3:13] Speaker 1: being abused. Look at Ananias and Sapphira, two figures in
[3:17] Speaker 1: the Acts of the Apostles, struck dead because of the
[3:19] Speaker 1: way they were handling money improperly. And think of in
[3:24] Speaker 1: the culminating book of the Bible, the book of Revelation,
[3:27] Speaker 1: where this terrible destruction is visited upon the earth as
[3:29] Speaker 1: a response to sin. Now look, everybody, I understand the
[3:34] Speaker 1: complexity of these biblical texts and there are different ways
[3:37] Speaker 1: to read them and so on, but I think you're
[3:39] Speaker 1: kind of hard-pressed to say that divine punishment is not
[3:44] Speaker 1: a motif in the Bible. I think that's simply not
[3:47] Speaker 1: the case. In fact, and it's not a minor motif,
[3:50] Speaker 1: it's a rather major motif. I've said before, you know,
[3:55] Speaker 1: the difference between a theology of karma and a theology
[3:58] Speaker 1: of grace, and the Bible, yes, is a book of grace,
[4:02] Speaker 1: but there is a theology of karma as well. In
[4:06] Speaker 1: other words, that bad behavior is answered in some way
[4:10] Speaker 1: by punishments. Yes, that's true in the Bible, too. Okay,
[4:17] Speaker 1: so how do we make sense of this without falling
[4:19] Speaker 1: back into a terrible view of God as a sort
[4:23] Speaker 1: of arbitrary, capricious tyrant? So, all right, I'm making my
[4:28] Speaker 1: way through life, and all right, I made a mistake,
[4:30] Speaker 1: I sinned, and so now this terrible punishment is visited
[4:32] Speaker 1: upon me. Or is God, you know, like a puppeteer,
[4:36] Speaker 1: just sort of playing with us, toying with us? How
[4:40] Speaker 1: do we make sense of this language without falling into
[4:43] Speaker 1: that understanding of God? Well, can I suggest to you,
[4:46] Speaker 1: this little passage for today from the letter to the
[4:49] Speaker 1: Hebrews gives us the interpretive key, and it's a very
[4:53] Speaker 1: helpful text. Listen up. My sons, do not disdain the
[5:02] Speaker 1: discipline of the Lord, nor lose heart when he reproves you.
[5:07] Speaker 1: For whom the Lord loves... he disciplines, he scourges every
[5:13] Speaker 1: son he receives. Okay, there's the master text. Because it's
[5:19] Speaker 1: predicated upon the master metaphor for God throughout the Bible,
[5:24] Speaker 1: culminating in Jesus' own great prayer, the Our Father, that
[5:28] Speaker 1: God is best construed not as a deist, you know,
[5:31] Speaker 1: cosmic force lying in the distance, nor as a capricious tyrant.
[5:36] Speaker 1: But God is best construed as a Father, as a parent.
[5:42] Speaker 1: So now, listen to me, especially parents. My sons, do
[5:47] Speaker 1: not disdain the discipline of the Lord. That word's interesting, disciplina.
[5:53] Speaker 1: It's from the Latin word, discire. Disciple comes from the
[5:56] Speaker 1: same word because it means to learn. Huh, discipline. No arbitrary, cruel,
[6:02] Speaker 1: you know, imposition. No, no. Discipline, properly understood. is a
[6:08] Speaker 1: learning process. In Greek, there's that lovely play, mathēn, pathēn. Mathēn,
[6:15] Speaker 1: think mathematics. Mathēn means, like, to learn. Pathēn is to suffer.
[6:21] Speaker 1: Very often, our learning comes from our suffering. Bring them together.
[6:27] Speaker 1: God disciplines those he loves. And again, love is to
[6:32] Speaker 1: will the good of the other. God wants to teach...
[6:37] Speaker 1: He wants to love someone who's deep in sin that
[6:41] Speaker 1: will look like and feel like punishment. Again, parents, you
[6:49] Speaker 1: know what I'm talking about. Or anyone that remembers their childhood,
[6:53] Speaker 1: coming of age. Think of a little kid. Now, let's
[6:56] Speaker 1: begin with like a toddler who's having a tantrum. Tantrum
[7:00] Speaker 1: means that he's just not getting his way. His will
[7:03] Speaker 1: is just completely set against what's best for him and
[7:06] Speaker 1: for those around him. So the parent will say, it's
[7:10] Speaker 1: a timeout for you. I've watched parents do this. It's
[7:14] Speaker 1: kind of interesting to me how the kids will cooperate
[7:16] Speaker 1: with it. Timeout. And they put the kid in the
[7:18] Speaker 1: corner and you got to be there for five minutes
[7:21] Speaker 1: or whatever it is. What are they doing there? But
[7:25] Speaker 1: They're stopping the resistance of the kid's will. They're compelling
[7:30] Speaker 1: him to stop this destructive behavior, destructive to himself and
[7:34] Speaker 1: to others. They're disciplining the child. Now, parents that never
[7:42] Speaker 1: do that, oh, everything my kid does is great. I'm
[7:46] Speaker 1: never going to have a timeout. Yeah, well, welcome to
[7:51] Speaker 1: complete dysfunction, right, in that child. I think now in
[7:55] Speaker 1: the Bible, Jonah, right, is told what to do by God.
[8:01] Speaker 1: Go east by land, and Jonah went west by sea.
[8:04] Speaker 1: He was throwing a tantrum, if you want. What does
[8:07] Speaker 1: God do? The great fish swallows him up. Well, that's
[8:13] Speaker 1: a disciplining of his will. It's a kind of timeout,
[8:18] Speaker 1: saying to It's stopping Jonah in his rebellion and then
[8:22] Speaker 1: limiting his freedom so as to bring him back where
[8:24] Speaker 1: God wants him to be. Friends, can we sometimes, fellow
[8:28] Speaker 1: sinners here, listen to me, can we sometimes understand the
[8:31] Speaker 1: suffering we're going through as a kind of divine restriction
[8:35] Speaker 1: of our freedom so as to bring us back where
[8:39] Speaker 1: we need to be? Now, move from a little toddler
[8:43] Speaker 1: to an older kid. I remember when I was sixth grade.
[8:46] Speaker 1: So what are you, 11 in sixth grade? I was
[8:49] Speaker 1: a pretty cooperative kid. I usually went along with authorities.
[8:52] Speaker 1: But one time during the winter, this great snowball fight
[8:57] Speaker 1: broke out. It was the sixth grade against the seventh grade,
[9:00] Speaker 1: as I remember. And it was one of these things
[9:02] Speaker 1: where everybody got involved. It was Chicago days. There was
[9:05] Speaker 1: plenty of snow around. And we got into this big
[9:08] Speaker 1: snowball fight. And someone must have hit a little ice
[9:10] Speaker 1: or something in a snowball. And a kid got hit,
[9:12] Speaker 1: and it was bleeding. And finally, out comes the principal,
[9:17] Speaker 1: And she was a sister and she said, all right,
[9:19] Speaker 1: all right, I want all the sixth grade boys, all
[9:22] Speaker 1: the seventh grade boys in my office now. And so
[9:25] Speaker 1: I remember we lined up and, you know, kind of
[9:27] Speaker 1: afraid what's going to happen. Well, she had this paddle
[9:32] Speaker 1: and it really wasn't that painful. And we all, we
[9:35] Speaker 1: came one by one and then she gave us a whack,
[9:38] Speaker 1: you know. Now, it wasn't physically all that painful, but
[9:41] Speaker 1: it was humiliating. And the fact that I remember it
[9:44] Speaker 1: to this day, how many years later, it was humiliating.
[9:48] Speaker 1: And honestly, I never got involved in a snowball fight
[9:51] Speaker 1: like that at school. Again, she punished me in a
[9:55] Speaker 1: way that got my attention. And I realized, yeah, I,
[10:00] Speaker 1: I got, I'm not going to do that again. All right.
[10:03] Speaker 1: Let's say she had never done that. Oh no, no.
[10:05] Speaker 1: I never punished kids. Oh no, no, never, never, never.
[10:08] Speaker 1: Welcome to dysfunction. Um, you know, go a little further
[10:12] Speaker 1: in life, uh, teenagers, 16, 17. And, uh, They've been
[10:17] Speaker 1: drinking and driving in a way that's really dangerous to
[10:20] Speaker 1: themselves and to others. Would a parent take away the keys?
[10:24] Speaker 1: I mean, you cannot drive for the next month. You're grounded.
[10:28] Speaker 1: You can't use the car. How cruel of you. How capricious. No, no, no.
[10:34] Speaker 1: It's a punishment that gets the attention, limits the freedom,
[10:39] Speaker 1: and imposes a painful penalty. that brings that child back online, right? Now,
[10:46] Speaker 1: go a little further. Go deeper into life now. Now
[10:48] Speaker 1: you're a parent of an adult child, late 20s or 30s,
[10:55] Speaker 1: stuck in an addiction. Maybe it's to booze or drugs
[10:57] Speaker 1: or whatever it is. And that addiction has become so
[11:01] Speaker 1: destructive of that person's life and the lives of those
[11:04] Speaker 1: around him. It's become one of these dreadful, dreadful spiritual
[11:08] Speaker 1: and physical crises. And a parent at that point might
[11:14] Speaker 1: have to engage in tough love. The child comes back broke, sick, hopeless.
[11:22] Speaker 1: And mom and dad, could you please take me in?
[11:25] Speaker 1: Can I? No, you can't come back in the house.
[11:31] Speaker 1: How cruel, how awful. No, you can't come back in
[11:36] Speaker 1: the house. You have got to deal with this issue.
[11:40] Speaker 1: What are they doing? Well, as the term suggests, it's
[11:43] Speaker 1: an act of love. Love is willing the good of
[11:45] Speaker 1: the other. Sometimes this terrible punishment of separation, rejection, that
[11:51] Speaker 1: terrible punishment is precisely what that addicted person needs to
[11:55] Speaker 1: get his or her life back in order. You know,
[11:58] Speaker 1: so we see all these things readily enough. Why can't
[12:02] Speaker 1: we see them in regard to God, who's not a distant,
[12:04] Speaker 1: uncaring cause or force, but God who's like a parent
[12:09] Speaker 1: to Our Father who art in heaven, we're all his children.
[12:15] Speaker 1: Can we see readily enough that God would sometimes engage,
[12:20] Speaker 1: would allow things to happen or actively impose punishment so
[12:25] Speaker 1: as to bring us back on line? Listen to this.
[12:30] Speaker 1: Endure your trials as the discipline of God who deals
[12:35] Speaker 1: with you as sons. For what son is there whom
[12:38] Speaker 1: his father does not discipline? Good question. I mean, if
[12:43] Speaker 1: you're a son of a father who never disciplines you,
[12:45] Speaker 1: you're going to be dysfunctional son, believe me, right? You
[12:49] Speaker 1: can specify it. What good father would ever refrain from
[12:53] Speaker 1: disciplining his son? And then listen to this. Again, the
[12:57] Speaker 1: psychological realism is striking to me. At the time it's administered,
[13:03] Speaker 1: all discipline seems a cause for grief. But later it
[13:07] Speaker 1: brings forth the fruit of peace and justice to those
[13:12] Speaker 1: who are trained in its school. Dead right. Dead right.
[13:17] Speaker 1: When you're enduring whatever it is, whatever darkness or difficulty
[13:21] Speaker 1: or limitation, it just seems like dumb suffering. How, how,
[13:26] Speaker 1: how could God allow this to happen? But in time
[13:30] Speaker 1: and with retrospect, can we see, okay, you know what
[13:35] Speaker 1: that was? It was a discipline, a learning, disciplina. It
[13:41] Speaker 1: was a learning that I needed and maybe could not
[13:44] Speaker 1: have gotten in any other way. Not friends that we
[13:50] Speaker 1: should read every type of suffering under this rubric. I
[13:53] Speaker 1: think that would be wrong too. Remember when they asked Jesus,
[13:56] Speaker 1: who's responsible for this blind man's blindness? His own sin
[13:59] Speaker 1: or his parents? And Jesus said, neither one. It doesn't
[14:02] Speaker 1: apply to every single case of suffering. But are there times,
[14:06] Speaker 1: are there times when, yes, our suffering is a type
[14:11] Speaker 1: of discipline, precisely what we as children of a loving
[14:15] Speaker 1: father need? And God bless you.

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