Lectionary Readings (note, we are using a trial version of the lectionary in Eastertide that has an alternate first reading and Psalm)
In the name of the Risen Lord. Amen.
The hardest part of faith for a lot of us is the problem of suffering. We experience tragedies, illnesses, and misfortunes and we just want the suffering to stop. Or, if the pain doesn’t go away, we want to know why. Not that a reason for suffering necessarily relieves the pain, but it gives it a larger purpose that at least makes it tolerable. But, truth be told, all the reasons for pain and suffering that preachers sometimes give are unsatisfactory and only lead to deeper sense of woundedness.
To be upfront about this, I don’t have any answers to the question of suffering. If I did, I promise, I’d give it to you. If I could lead the right rituals or say the right words to give you relief from all that you’re dealing with, I would. But I don’t have answers, nor do I think anyone does. Even without an answer though, our faith in Jesus Christ does show us something about God’s response to suffering and we receive the comfort of Holy Spirit.
Suffering has been on my mind a lot recently because, well, it’s been on all our minds recently. Over the past two weeks, I’ve attended three different conferences. One was entitled “The Enneagram and Trauma,” another was “Wonder for the Weary,” and clergy conference up in Avon this past week, led by Bishop Jeremiah Williamson, was called “Hope in Hard Times.” I’ve also had a lot of pastoral meetings recently – you’re dealing with issues at work, fractured families, challenging life transitions, and illnesses. When I tell you that I’ll hold you in prayer, I mean it. And so lately, I’ve been holding a lot of suffering. Then there’s the wider cultural suffering that’s connected to widespread injustice, nasty partisanship, and continuing wars and rumors of war.
And if you’re not feeling suffering – think about it in terms anger, shame, and fear. These are our core negative emotions and we all have them. So even if you’re feeling great, looking great, and doing great, you’re also holding something that could be labeled as anger, shame, or fear. And when we allow ourselves to feel and experience those things, we’ll come into contact with a sense of pain.
The word of relief that Jesus Christ speaks into our suffering is that his Cross has redefined suffering. Our pains do not mean that God is absent or uncaring. Suffering does not mean that we have done something wrong and are being punished. Bad things happening does not mean that we are bad people.
No, as we heard in First Peter, “For Christ also suffered in order to bring you to God.” Your suffering, whether it be self-inflicted or bad luck, has been brought to the very heart of God where it can be received, blessed, and healed. The Cross shatters any illusions that good people deserve and get only good things. Even though Jesus named the pains and rejections that he felt when he cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” we know that just as that suffering was not the end of his story, it is not the end of ours. We are never abandoned by God. Our belovedness is never pulled.
This is the promise we heard from Jesus – “I will not leave your orphaned.” We are never alone and suffering is not God’s punishment or rejection of us. The Cross is instead the demonstration of God’s love for us. In First Peter we even heard that Jesus “went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison.” What is being referred to is what we proclaim in the Creed – “he suffered death and was buried,” or in the older translation, “he descended into hell.” Whatever hells you mind find yourself in, Jesus has been there before and his love will come to rescue you.
One of the most important passages of all Scripture is found at the pinnacle chapter 8 of Romans – St. Paul’s longest and most significant writing. It’s sixteen chapters long and right at the middle, the summit, of this letter, he writes, “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Did you catch that? No thing, no body, no situation, no pains will be able to separate any of us from the love of God for us in Jesus Christ. Suffering, failures, worldly rejections – these do not for one moment call into question that God has chosen us, loves us, and blesses us. Rather, what pain tells us is that our world is broken. Because we, both as individuals and as a people, often choose our ways over God’s ways, we end up with pains. We are all something like a tectonic plate – and our jagged edges rub up against each other and cause friction, rumbling, and sometimes disaster.
One of the things that St. Peter would have us to reflect on given the portion of his letter we heard from this morning is: what is it that we are suffering for? As I’ve just said, suffering is a part of the human condition. It’s worth considering what is behind our suffering. As an example, researchers have shown that wealth, after a certain point, doesn’t lead to happiness, but added stress and status-seeking. It’s suffering rooted in an insatiable appetite. Famously, the basketball and cultural superstar, Shaquille O’Neal, has talked candidly about the suffering of having a 76,000 square foot house, but no one to share it with because of the decisions he made which alienated him from his family. Sometimes suffering comes from struggling for the wrong thing.
At clergy conference I was talking to a colleague struggling to have a hard conversation with church members. We talked about the fairly easy to calculate costs for having a hard conversation – the person gets mad, stops giving money, bad mouths you, and leaves the church. No one wants to pay that cost, so we ignore issues and let them fester. But there’s also a cost to inaction. There is suffering caused when we let bullies go unchecked, when we “go along to get along,” when we choose the unknown costs over the known ones, even if the unknown cost of suffering ends up being higher.
It’s not just clergy – a lot of us are asking questions right now about what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ given the state of our world, nation, and community. The word “suffering” is, in this sense, synonymous with “cost.” It’s what St. Peter is getting at when he wrote, “For it is better to suffer for doing good than to suffer for doing evil.” What are we willing to suffer for the sake of doing good? What cost can we pay?
Last Sunday we had a Baptism and as we proclaimed the Baptismal Covenant, I was left thinking about the phrases “Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?” and “Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?” And I’m wondering, “Robert, at what cost will you seek and serve Christ in all persons? What will you suffer for the sake of justice and peace? What will it cost me to respect the dignity of every human being?” And, by the same token, what sufferings do I inflict on myself, on the community my children live in, on this parish, by choosing the lesser of two evils instead of the good that God has set before me?
The prayer for the Tuesday in Holy Week asks God to “Grant us so to glory in the cross of Christ, that we may gladly suffer shame and loss for the sake of our Savior Jesus Christ.” Again, there is a cost to saying something, as well as a cost to saying nothing; a cost to showing up, and a cost to hoarding; suffering that comes from giving, as well as from not. I’m praying that God will grant me the wisdom and courage to suffer for doing good instead of suffering for lesser goods. I wonder if you’ll join me in that prayer?
Either way though, thanks be to God that Jesus is with us in our suffering, regardless of the cause. As we heard in the Psalm, the LORD is our help and our shield. In John, Jesus said that he would send us an Advocate, or sometimes it’s translated as a “Comforter;” he’s referring to the Holy Spirit, which we’ll talk more about a few weeks from now on Pentecost. But when it comes to the relief of the Gospel, to the ways in which God comforts us in our suffering, what is being offered is more than a mind-shift or a new way of thinking about things. I don’t want to sound like that’s the response I’m offering in whatever you are suffering.
This isn’t “Don’t worry, even though nothing is tangibly different, just put on a happy face and know that God is with you.” No, not at all. St. Peter, in addressing a community that was suffering divisions and persecutions, reminds them about the story of Noah. Remember Noah? There was a lot of rain on the way, and so God told Noah to build a ship, an ark, to save himself, his family, and all the animals, except for the unicorns and dragons, from the flood. He writes, “Eight persons were saved through water. And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you.”
Notice that they were saved through the waters, not from the waters. When Noah looked out from the ark, he was in midst of the flood, not on an idyllic Caribbean cruise. And St. Peter tells us who are suffering – it’s like that for us. Yes, God is leading us towards the safety of dry ground, but we’ve got to go through the chaos to get there. And he’s with us in every moment along the way; he’s given us the ark as refuge and Jesus is captaining the boat.
Perhaps you’ve been bored by a sermon before and looked up as a plea to God, “How much longer, O Lord?” Well, if you’d done that, you’ve maybe noticed that this church is shaped like the ark. It’s why the section of the church that you’re sitting in right now is called the “nave,” related to the word for “navy.” We’re in an upside-down boat with Christ at the helm.
So, for one, in our suffering, we have refuge in this ark. Our reredos reminds us, it is God’s intention to give peace in this place. Sometimes that peace comes as we rehearse and reenact that ancient story of how God has always been with us and for us. Sometimes that peace comes as we receive tokens of Jesus’ Body and Blood, given through suffering as a demonstration of God’s love. Sometimes that peace comes in seeing worn and patinaed pews that have been shared with generations past who have come here to find solace in their sufferings. Sometimes that peace comes through seeing that Cross at the focal point of this space, an emblem that shows us that suffering does not mean rejection. Sometimes, and often, that peace comes from those who travel in this ark with us – the fellow pilgrims to your left and right, in front of you and behind you. As I heard recently, “hope is a team sport,” and God has given us one another.
What saves us from suffering is not our ability to come up with the right answer or solution, it’s not from our strength or persistence, it’s not from idols and pleasures that distract us from the pain, and it’s not from choosing the path of least resistance. No, what saves us is that through the gift of Jesus’ very self, through the waters of Baptism, we are brought into this ark of faith, this ark that unites us, that gives us refuge from the storms of life, and that is bringing us to the ultimate destination that God intends for us: the place where all shall be well. Amen.
