The Psalm: Psalm 51: 7-17 (portions) The Message
Tune me in to foot-tapping songs,
set these once-broken bones to dancing.
God, make a fresh start in me,
shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life.
Don't throw me out with the trash,
or fail to breathe holiness in me.
Bring me back from gray exile,
put a fresh wind in my sails!
Give me a job teaching rebels your ways
so the lost can find their way home.
Commute my death sentence, God, my salvation God,
and I'll sing anthems to your life-giving ways.
Unbutton my lips, dear God;
I'll let loose with your praise.
Going through the motions doesn't please you,
a flawless performance is nothing to you.
I learned God-worship
when my pride was shattered.
Heart-shattered lives ready for love
don't for a moment escape God's notice.
The Gospel: Matthew 17:1-9 (The Message)
Six days later, three of them saw that glory. Jesus took Peter and the brothers, James and John, and led them up a high mountain. His appearance changed from the inside out, right before their eyes. Sunlight poured from his face. His clothes were filled with light. Then they realized that Moses and Elijah were also there in deep conversation with him. Peter broke in, "Master, this is a great moment! What would you think if I built three memorials here on the mountain—one for you, one for Moses, one for Elijah?" While he was going on like this, babbling, a light-radiant cloud enveloped them, and sounding from deep in the cloud a voice: "This is my Son, marked by my love, focus of my delight. Listen to him."
When the disciples heard it, they fell flat on their faces, scared to death. But Jesus came over and touched them. "Don't be afraid." When they opened their eyes and looked around all they saw was Jesus, only Jesus. Coming down the mountain, Jesus swore them to secrecy. "Don't breathe a word of what you've seen. After the Son of Man is raised from the dead, you are free to talk."
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God, suffering is not a word that we like—it makes us uncomfortable, it makes us uneasy, unsure of what we know. Bring us into your presence and show us your truth. Amen
This sermon is for every one of us who has ever, even for a brief period of time uttered these words: “why is this happening to me?” There’s no need for a show of hands here, I think it very unlikely that any of us have completely escaped the pain behind those words. Sometimes screamed, sometimes whispered, they are, nevertheless, a part of the DNA of humanity, and a sign that we are alive. I don’t like to preach about suffering—there are no easy answers, and for all the books written on the topic of why God lets bad things happen to good people, most of that content comes up short when it is the middle of the night and that is the only thought that fills your mind. Here is what I believe: God not only knows that we ask this question, no matter how quietly we ask it, and, God welcomes the question itself.
I hope that you will not find this sermon useless because it posits no awe-filled, mystical, finally it all makes sense, answer to the why and wherefore of suffering. Let’s be honest, if I had that answer, I would be, by now, a world-famous author—let’s make that a rich, world-famous author, who had ceased to grapple with the nitty-gritty of our everyday, sometimes wildly difficult times here on this earth. I’m not saying that the answer doesn’t exist and we all know that many have tried their hands at just such an explanation, but all seem to fall short , in the awful angst of loneliness, despair and pain. So why not just move on to a slightly more preacher and hearer-friendly topic? Well, as much as I would like to, suffering is a part of our journey on this earth and particularly of our Lenten journey.
Probably the event in contemporary North American Christianity that forced us to look long and hard at suffering was that day now known simply as 9-11. The image of those planes flying headlong into the towers are forever burnt into most of our minds, thanks to the non-stop repetition of that footage in the days just after 9-11. Tim Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City was one of thousands of pastors called upon to preach in the days immediately after that horrible day. Keller, in his sermon on the evening of September 11, while the towers were still burning, and people still trying to make their way home in the midst of the complete shutdown of transportation in an out of Manhattan, calls us to the cross. He says: “But it is on the Cross that we see the ultimate wonder. On the cross we sufferers finally see, to our shock that God now knows too what it is to lose a loved one in an unjust attack. And so you see what this means?” He goes on to quote, John Stott, an Anglican clergyperson, “I could never myself believe in God if it were not for the Cross. In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it? Do you see what this means? Yes, we don’t know the reason God allows evil and suffering to continue, but we know what the reason isn’t, what it can’t be. It can’t be that [God] doesn’t love us! It can’t be that [God] doesn’t care. God so loved us and hates suffering that [God] was willing to come down and get involved in it.”
It is interesting to reflect that the early Christians and certainly Jesus had no expectation that following God would eliminate suffering in the world. The existential questions relating to the genesis of good and evil, the nature of suffering and a certain wonder that a ‘truly good and merciful God’ would allow suffering are all relatively new. Why, look at our scriptures.
Feel the joy with our Psalmist when the words fairly dance off the page: “set these once-broken bones to dancing. God, make a fresh start in me, shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life…Bring me back from gray exile, put a fresh wind in my sails!” And then, “Unbutton my lips, dear God; I'll let loose with your praise.
Going through the motions doesn't please you,…I learned God-worship when my pride was shattered. Heart-shattered lives ready for love don't for a moment escape God's notice.” And so God calls us, too—when our hearts are shattered, we are ready for love—what an amazing place to end up! And what an amazingly different way to look at suffering. Even our Gospel reading, the story of the Transfiguration—one of the truly glorious events in the New Testament, one which precedes and predicts the resurrection, contains an element of suffering. The disciples throw themselves down in fear until Jesus reaches out in compassion and calls them to see the glory.
Historians note that the Jewish people and early Christians accepted suffering as part of the journey—simply a place to get a different perspective. It was only with the dawn of the Enlightenment, that time when everything had to make sense, that suffering was begun to be viewed as grounds for skepticism, or, even more seriously, as a reason not to believe at all. Perhaps we have much to learn from our Jewish ancestors and those early Christians who viewed suffering as a part of Christian growth—what we now call Spiritual Formation. Suffering, like glorification and sanctification are part of, but necessary different stages of growth in the Christian life. It has always amazed me—the amount of energy and anger we put into discussions of the whys and ways of suffering when not once do we agonize over why God created the sky so blue, the mountain so high, or the flower so intricately beautiful. What would happen to the way we looked at suffering if we began to view suffering and glory as two sides of the same coin and that coin is Christian maturity? Is it not possible that it is in our change of perspective that suffering loses some, if not most, of the negative power that it seems to hold over our lives and hearts?
Gustavo Gutiérrez, is a Peruvian theologian and Dominican priest regarded as one of the principal founders of liberation theology in Latin America. Hear what he has to say about the many aspects of following Jesus: “there is no aspect of human life that is unrelated to the following of Jesus. The road passes through every dimension of our existence. A spirituality is not restricted to the so-called religious aspects of life: prayer and worship. It is not limited to one sector but is all-embracing, because the whole of human life, personal and communal, is involved in the journey. A spirituality is a manner of life that gives a profound unity to our prayer, thought, and action..”
By living through these whole journeys, journeys which contain joy and sorrow, ease and pain, we learn to reach for places where we can embrace not only all of our lives, but all of the lives of others—those whom we might otherwise think below us—or at least different from us. One of my most precious ministry experiences was at The Church of Gethsemane, in Park Slope, Brooklyn. A Presbyterian church plant at the time, it later became and remains a vital, thriving congregation. What makes Church of Gethsemane different? It was founded for and by formerly incarcerated persons. Rev. Constance Baugh, my once friend and mentor described the church this way: “Gethsemane provides an opportunity for the voiceless to find their voices, the breaking of silence, and solidarity instead of charity. Persons who have been disinherited and disempowered by the world have moved from the margins to the center of religious life where their life experience is valued and their stories are heard. Persons who have been engulfed in a culture of silence are breaking that silence and speaking out. Persons are in community rather than being objects of charity outside the church walls.”
What greater gift is this—to use our own suffering to enable us to provide such opportunities? The conversation regarding suffering and pain, never really over, calls us now to be kind to ourselves and venture forth to joy and peace generated in the constant care of our God who not only cares for us but took on the suffering of the world to show us the extent of that great love. And now, a blessing for the Journey into suffering:
“May the suffering that stretches your soul also render it pliable in the hand of God. May the stretch be soft, so you can endure it with unyielding patience. May your vision be clear so that, no matter the trial, you can see the wonder standing quietly nearby. And in the very thing you long to cast away, may you find a gem worth keeping.”* Amen and amen!
*From Explorefaith.org
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