Did God Make Mosquitoes?

Reflections on a Sermon by Saint Augustine

There was once a hiker who was bitten by a thousand mosquitoes. Understandably, this hiker was quite flustered, and when he could no longer take the abuse, he stormed his way back down the mountain, huffing and puffing curses under his breath, and before long, he was driving back into town in a frenzy. Famished, he entered a diner, making a scene as he waited for his food, itching and scratching his arms until he was red as a cherry.

"What is the matter?" asked the waitress, finally returning with the eggs benedict the hiker had ordered.

"Ma'am, you see, I have been bitten by a thousand mosquitoes," and again, the hiker cursed the airborne terrors.

"Why do you keep cursing? Did God not make mosquitoes, just as He made you and me?"

And seeing that he found the nasty buggers to be so distasteful, he determined that they could not be God's creations. He answered, "Heavens, He did not! The Devil made them."

"And God must not have made gnats either, for though they are smaller and harmless, they are no less a nuisance than mosquitoes," the waitress prodded.

To this, the hiker made no protest.

"And neither did He make flies, for these are the same as gnats, only larger," she continued.

Again, the hiker agreed.

"Nor bees?"

"Bees aren't much different than flies," the hiker thought to himself, "Surely God did not make them either," and he nodded his head.

On and on this exchange went, and from bees the waitress moved to grasshoppers, and from grasshoppers to lizards, and from lizards to chickens, and from chickens to cows, until finally, the hiker found that even other people were just as likely to bring him frustration as mosquitoes, and he became persuaded of the absurdity that God did not even make his fellow human beings.

Saint Augustine, in a sermon reflecting on the saying in John's prologue that "all things were made through Him," tells a story very much like this one, trying to teach his audience what the passage goes on to say: "without Him, nothing was made that has been made" (John 1:3). Of course, this story is ridiculous at almost every turn, and it obviously reads more like a fable than an event we could envision happening at a local diner here in town. And the point of it all? Our troubles in life have nothing to do with God's inability to set everything in its proper place, and everything to do with our own ability to make even the things in our life that God HAS perfectly ordered for us feel miserable.

Did God make mosquitoes? I've heard this question asked many times, more as a joke than as a legitimate question. To this, however, many Christians seriously answer that things like mosquitoes, and poison ivy for that matter, must have somehow come from the Fall. That's maybe true in a way, but not in the sense that many people mean it. It's amazing how in answering this way, many 7-day-creation-affirming believers are willing to smuggle in an "8th day," where the Fall somehow introduces entirely new creations into the world to afflict us. On closer inspection, does that sound reasonable to you?

My guess is that the answer is something much more subtle, more ironic, the kind of thing that makes people say "God has a sense of humor." In reality, the answer is actually tragic and not funny at all, but there is an irony to it. Who would have ever thought that we humans, who can do mighty battle against each other (with either our tongues or our missiles, take your pick), who puff ourselves up with money and knowledge, could be so easily undone by a little insect?

Don't you think sin has a nasty way of using good things as instruments of harm? Now, don't ask me what good purpose mosquitoes might have served before there was any sin in the world. But what if something much more interesting could be learned here?

Augustine puts it this way: "When man was proud and challenged God, and, even though he was mortal, he terrified other mortals, and even though he was human, he did not acknowledge his neighbors as human, then, just when he flaunts himself, he is afflicted with fleas." If we really want to be as great as we think we deserve to be, why do we let the tiniest of things unravel us?

Mosquitoes and fleas are really the least of our worries, though, I think you'd agree. But what if we were to take a second to zoom out from silly things and focus in on those neighbors of ours? Frustrating, aren't they? At their worst, they mean to hurt us, and they are more than capable of doing so. But more often than not, the distress they cause us has nothing to do with them and everything to do with our pride.

Now pride is not the same as arrogance. Very few people truly think lofty thoughts of themselves. In reality, pride is most often connected with insecurity, a deep awareness that we are inadequate in some way (or many). We fear that we will be exposed, or we wince at the pain of comparison, and out of this anguish, we insist that we deserve better. It is this feeling of deserving better—and not so much thinking that we really are—that is the essence of pride. In our pride, we do not so much believe delusions of grandeur about ourselves as we, knowing that we are actually quite small, inflate ourselves to seem bigger than we are. Because that's how we deserve to be seen, isn't it? All our lives, we've been overlooked for this reason or that. Isn't it about time someone gives us some recognition?

And here, Augustine gets to the heart of the matter: "Why," he asks us to consider, "do you puff yourself up so, human pride? Someone was rude to you, and you swelled up in wrath...recognize who you really are." We can't stand a slick remark or a condescending tone. How could they! And we can struggle just as much when people have not even wronged us, when they honestly disagree with an opinion we hold, when they misunderstand us with the best of intentions, or when things that are important to us are not so much to them, simply because they are "wired differently."

Recognition of who we really are before God, and not of the person we want to be seen as by others, is the remedy to a wounded and swollen ego. And it just might be the very step we need to take to experience the deep intimacy with God that we so long for. With the true heart of a shepherd, Augustine tenderly reminds us, "we will become more than merely human if we acknowledge in the first place that we are in fact human, that is, so that we might rise up to that lofty height by humility; otherwise, if we think that we are something, while in fact we are nothing, not only shall we not receive what we are not, but we shall forfeit what we are."

God so badly wants us to be made into more than what we are, even more badly than we do for ourselves. But it has to be done His way. Surrender your own efforts to draw near to God, and it will be Jesus Christ the Word, who made everything, who will remake you anew.

Have any questions? Shoot me an email!

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