Suffering produces Endurance (Sermon 2/10)

Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7; Romans 5:1-11; Matthew 4:1-11

Some of you may know of the British humor series Monty Python and might have heard of their sketch “The Four Yorkshiremen.” The four men sit around reminiscing about the “good old days,” as people are wont to do, and their listeners wonder just how good those days really were. One man would say, “In those days, we were glad to have the price of a cup of tea.” And another will respond, “A cup of cold tea.” “Without milk or sugar.” “Or tea.” “In a cracked cup, and all.” “Oh, we never had a cup. We used to drink out of a rolled up newspaper.” “The best we could manage was to suck on a piece of damp cloth.” “But you know, we were happy in those days, with what we had…”

We all know people like that, who throw out their story of struggles as a flag to their neighbors. So when I was thinking this week about how to preaching about suffering producing endurance, I tried to think about a story from my own life to share with you. But my mind kept returning to the stories that I know are in this congregation. There are stories here among us with which we are all familiar because we experienced them together and stories that are unfamiliar, because we haven’t had the chance or the energy to share them.

The fact is suffering is one of those two certain experiences in life. (I would say taxes can be classified as suffering.) When we experience true suffering, the kind that results in the dark nights of the soul, our most burning question is almost always: “Why?” “Why is this happening to me? To someone I love? Why is this happening right now? Why did this have to happen this way?”

Regrettably, the answer to all the ways is almost always silence. When the clear causations are stripped away, the deep chasm echoes nothing back, but the rush of wind. And it is at the edge of that darkness that suffering produces its most rotten fruit- temptation. In our struggles, we are often presented with what seems like an easier answer, opportunity or result. We can take the shortcut and fix the problems for ourselves.
Yet, just like in traveling and household repairs, shortcuts do not always diminish the difficulties. Eve ended her annoying twinge of curiosity by listening to the tempting words of the serpent. As she learned and as we know, knowing the difference between good and evil is not all it’s cracked up to be. It does not make many decisions any easier for both good and evil seem so often to come with consequences- known and unknown. That small taste of fruit, that in our tradition points to the entrance of suffering in the world, opened our eyes to the reality that we are not God.

Yet all the advertising to which we’re exposed, the information offered to us, the things the world flashes before our eyes tell us that we can be like God, not only knowing good and evil, but also by being immortal. What we are offered will make us more powerful, more alert, able to communicate in an even greater variety of ways, our packages won’t be late, our meetings entertaining, our coffee always hot and our legacy… everlasting. We are inevitably let down- left standing outside the garden once again with snake oil on our hands and wondering how it happened so quickly.

So where is the good news in all this? What’s the message of hope? There’s a famous book by the Catholic priest, Henri Nouwen, called The Wounded Healer. Nouwen writes about how out of our brokenness, we are able to bring a message of healing to the world. When I was discussing this book once with a friend of mine in the context of some struggles we were both having, he said, “You know, this wounded healer stuff is good. But I wish it could be different. For once I’d like to be the healed wounder… cause a little trouble myself.”

The truth is it is not our brokenness that brings a message of healing to the world. That idea seeks to find something good in the actual nature of suffering that is not there. Just like we don’t need to sin extra hard so that God’s grace may abound, we don’t have to seek out additional suffering to increase our endurance. Plenty will come our way because that is the nature of life.

It is important to remember, though, that the causation of suffering is not the extent of the nature of God. We do not need to seek to redeem our suffering because a greater redemption has already happened. Our redemption from the effects of sin happened through Christ; it is Christ’s brokenness that is the healing message for the world. Suffering itself gets no redemption because it is not the end goal. Neither is pure endurance, just waiting out the suffering, but both are markers of this life and markers on the road to hope.

When we look at Christ’s struggle in the wilderness, we see that the Tempter offered him power, knowledge and the promise that he would not die. This same voice came again at the cross, saying if Jesus was truly the Son of God, he would save himself. But this is how we know he was and is the Son of God… he did not save himself, he saved us.

What Christ endured gives us hope that we have been made right with God. Whatever suffering is part of the life in this world will not only not be a part of life in the world to come, but also we will not encounter additional suffering for what we cannot do for ourselves.

The joyful sharing of this knowledge is the boasting to which Paul refers. It’s not the “I can top that” sharing of struggles, but a gentle mutual ministry of hope- reminding one another and the world that God’s power is the greatest and nothing can separate from the love of God, who has suffered so much on our behalf. God’s word gives us the tools to resist the deepest temptations, that we might achieve patient resistance in difficulty. So then we look for ways to be the angels, to minister to those who are hurting, to wait with them in the darkness, and to rejoice with them in the light.

All of our hearts bear scars, the marks of the sufferings we’ve endured, and we look to the cross to make sense of our wounds. There we find One whose scarred hands and feet tell us we do not hope in vain. Those hands reach out to us, guide us and hold us in our darkest hours. Our eyes also behold the empty cross, which is the symbol this freeing truth: our suffering is not permanent, but God, who heals and saves us, endures forever.

Amen.



Some of you may know of the British humor series Monty Python and might have heard of their sketch “The Four Yorkshiremen.” The four men sit around reminiscing about the “good old days,” as people are wont to do, and their listeners wonder just how good those days really were. One man would say, “In those days, we were glad to have the price of a cup of tea.” And another will respond, “A cup of cold tea.” “Without milk or sugar.” “Or tea.” “In a cracked cup, and all.” “Oh, we never had a cup. We used to drink out of a rolled up newspaper.” “The best we could manage was to suck on a piece of damp cloth.” “But you know, we were happy in those days, with what we had…”

We all know people like that, who throw out their story of struggles as a flag to their neighbors. So when I was thinking this week about how to preaching about suffering producing endurance, I tried to think about a story from my own life to share with you. But my mind kept returning to the stories that I know are in this congregation. There are stories here among us with which we are all familiar because we experienced them together and stories that are unfamiliar, because we haven’t had the chance or the energy to share them.

The fact is suffering is one of those two certain experiences in life. (I would say taxes can be classified as suffering.) When we experience true suffering, the kind that results in the dark nights of the soul, our most burning question is almost always: “Why?” “Why is this happening to me? To someone I love? Why is this happening right now? Why did this have to happen this way?”

Regrettably, the answer to all the ways is almost always silence. When the clear causations are stripped away, the deep chasm echoes nothing back, but the rush of wind. And it is at the edge of that darkness that suffering produces its most rotten fruit- temptation. In our struggles, we are often presented with what seems like an easier answer, opportunity or result. We can take the shortcut and fix the problems for ourselves.
Yet, just like in traveling and household repairs, shortcuts do not always diminish the difficulties. Eve ended her annoying twinge of curiosity by listening to the tempting words of the serpent. As she learned and as we know, knowing the difference between good and evil is not all it’s cracked up to be. It does not make many decisions any easier for both good and evil seem so often to come with consequences- known and unknown. That small taste of fruit, that in our tradition points to the entrance of suffering in the world, opened our eyes to the reality that we are not God.

Yet all the advertising to which we’re exposed, the information offered to us, the things the world flashes before our eyes tell us that we can be like God, not only knowing good and evil, but also by being immortal. What we are offered will make us more powerful, more alert, able to communicate in an even greater variety of ways, our packages won’t be late, our meetings entertaining, our coffee always hot and our legacy… everlasting. We are inevitably let down- left standing outside the garden once again with snake oil on our hands and wondering how it happened so quickly.

So where is the good news in all this? What’s the message of hope? There’s a famous book by the Catholic priest, Henri Nouwen, called The Wounded Healer. Nouwen writes about how out of our brokenness, we are able to bring a message of healing to the world. When I was discussing this book once with a friend of mine in the context of some struggles we were both having, he said, “You know, this wounded healer stuff is good. But I wish it could be different. For once I’d like to be the healed wounder… cause a little trouble myself.”

The truth is it is not our brokenness that brings a message of healing to the world. That idea seeks to find something good in the actual nature of suffering that is not there. Just like we don’t need to sin extra hard so that God’s grace may abound, we don’t have to seek out additional suffering to increase our endurance. Plenty will come our way because that is the nature of life.

It is important to remember, though, that the causation of suffering is not the extent of the nature of God. We do not need to seek to redeem our suffering because a greater redemption has already happened. Our redemption from the effects of sin happened through Christ; it is Christ’s brokenness that is the healing message for the world. Suffering itself gets no redemption because it is not the end goal. Neither is pure endurance, just waiting out the suffering, but both are markers of this life and markers on the road to hope.

When we look at Christ’s struggle in the wilderness, we see that the Tempter offered him power, knowledge and the promise that he would not die. This same voice came again at the cross, saying if Jesus was truly the Son of God, he would save himself. But this is how we know he was and is the Son of God… he did not save himself, he saved us.

What Christ endured gives us hope that we have been made right with God. Whatever suffering is part of the life in this world will not only not be a part of life in the world to come, but also we will not encounter additional suffering for what we cannot do for ourselves.

The joyful sharing of this knowledge is the boasting to which Paul refers. It’s not the “I can top that” sharing of struggles, but a gentle mutual ministry of hope- reminding one another and the world that God’s power is the greatest and nothing can separate from the love of God, who has suffered so much on our behalf. God’s word gives us the tools to resist the deepest temptations, that we might achieve patient resistance in difficulty. So then we look for ways to be the angels, to minister to those who are hurting, to wait with them in the darkness, and to rejoice with them in the light.

All of our hearts bear scars, the marks of the sufferings we’ve endured, and we look to the cross to make sense of our wounds. There we find One whose scarred hands and feet tell us we do not hope in vain. Those hands reach out to us, guide us and hold us in our darkest hours. Our eyes also behold the empty cross, which is the symbol this freeing truth: our suffering is not permanent, but God, who heals and saves us, endures forever.

Amen.

God's Business Card

I've been thinking about that scene from Exodus, when God (in the burning bush) says to Moses: "I am who I am."

Why didn't God just say God's name? Yet I think about this scene as related to the first commandment, "You will have no other gods before me."

Many idols in our lives try to convince us of their goodness, their salvific properties, their awesomeness and our intense need for whatever it is that they offer. These products, people, places promise to make us relevant, cause our story to endure, cement our relationships. But this is all just wind and it eventually returns to ashes.

The only solid rock we have is the great I AM. God doesn't need to announce Godself or what God's profession is because God simply is. God meets the gap where others fall short. God's relationship with us isn't broken through God's actions. God's promises are so solid, they could be insured by Lloyd's of London.

The gods of this world prey on our fears. The God who made the world knows our fears and hears our prayers.

God told Moses the name "I am" because there was no other answer that would seem really adequate when one is watching a burning bush go unconsumed. God is the God who grants grace to us while we are still sinners. God is the God who comes to us in the elements of the Holy Supper. God is the God whose presence comforts us and whose peace heals us. God is the one true Triune God.

God is.

Who is my neighbor?

Who is my neighbor? In the gospel, those words lead into the famous story about the Samaritan who took time to stop when others didn't, couldn't or wouldn't. When we think about that phrase, we're often pointed to the downtrodden and disheartened in communities around us. That is a good place to look, to be sure, but does anyone ever look at the person sitting next to them in the pew?

What has happened to the community in the church? In a time of busyness and over-scheduling, church does not need to be just "another thing to do", but what can it be? What do you expect to receive from your faith community?

Recently I have heard many people lamenting the changed times, when it is difficult to get people to come to confirmation or weeknight Bible studies or Sunday night youth group- things that were congregational staples even ten years ago. So what happened?

I don't know that the answer to this question is one about "making time for God"; maybe it is a question about neighboring. Perhaps the church isn't the second social home for people anymore. Maybe it's not where people want to be and they get all they need from church on Sunday mornings. And yet- the whys and hows of ultimate concerns remain in the hearts of people everywhere and they look to faith communities to point to the blowing of the Spirit in the world.

People say they wish they had more time or that the church offered more things to meet their needs. Where would these things- Bible studies, support groups, alternate worship services- come from? Your pastor cannot do it all. The church council cannot do it all. The body of Christ needs limbs and God's wind does blow over dry bones. Are you open to that?

In the story of the Samaritan who stopped, there is a priest who did not. We often think it was because he didn't want to touch the impure body of the beaten man. That reaction was not borne out of squeamishness, but from the exhausted knowledge of knowing if he did touch the man (who might be dead) there were a variety of purity rituals to perform and prohibitions in effect if he touched blood or discharge or dead flesh. The priest did not stop because he knew the extra work it would create and he hoped someone else would do it.

With the knowledge of the priesthood of all believers, have we forgotten the importance of being a Samaritan?

Paul's Conversion

In the Christian calendar, today is the day we celebrate the conversion of Paul. Paul remained a Jew for all of his life, but when he was embraced by Christ- he took the message of Jesus to the world in a new way and a new light. Here's how Frederick Buechner describes the call of Saul of Tarsus:

He was still in charge of a Pharisee goon squad in those days and was hell-bent for Damascus to round up some trouble-making Christians and bring them to justice. And it happened. It was about noon when he was knocked flat by a blaze of ligt that made the sun look like a forty-watt bulb, and out of the light came a voice that called him by his Hebrew name twice. "Saul," it said, and then again, "Saul. Why are you out to get me?" and when he pulled himself together enough to ask who it was he had the honor of addressing, what he heard to his horror was, "I'm Jesus of Nazareth, the one you're out to get." We're not told how long he lay there in the dust then, but it must have seemed at least six months. If Jesus of Nazareth had what it took to burst out of the grave like a guided missile, he thought, then he could polish off one bowlegged Christian-baiter without even noticing it, and Paul waited for the axe to fall. Only it wasn't an axe that fell. "Those boys in Damascus," Jesus said. "Don't fight them, join them. I want you on my side, " and Paul never in his life forgot the sheer lunatic joy and astonishment of that moment. He was blind as a bat for three days afterwards, but he made it to Damascus anyway and was baptized on the spot. He was never the same again, and neither, in a way, was the world (Acts 9:1-6, 22:4-16, 26:9-18). (Peculiar Treasures, 146)

It is difficult to imagine what the Bible would be like without Paul's letters. Our understanding of grace and much of the language we use to describe God's actions toward us is straight from his pen (via translators, redactors and years). Yet could it be more appropriate that the man whose conscience was burdened with the knowledge of years of persecuted Christians (at his hands) could inspire, comfort and teach generations of believers.

It is good to remember that if God can, did and does use Paul... you too are being used for the good of the kingdom. And you've qualified for that job through Christ's resume. For your thoughts today, here are some of the most inspired words that flowed from Paul's stylus, words that he had reason and hope to believe in with his whole heart:

³²³³³⁴What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us.³⁵³⁶ Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written,
‘For your sake we are being killed all day long;
we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.’
³⁷³⁸³⁹No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 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. Romans 8:31-39

Curiosity

"Curiosity is the unknown fruit of the Spirit, the stealthy expression of God's presence." - Michael Yaconelli (Dangerous Wonder, 44)

As I was reading today, this sentence burned a whole in my mind. We do not often embrace curiosity as an element of faith, as something we should embody as people of God. Yet Jacob was curious enough about that angel to wrestle a blessing out of him. Thomas was curious enough to demand further evidence of the risen Christ. Mary was curious enough to ask the "gardener" where she could find the Jesus' body.

Curiosity implies an active faith. A faith that demands answers to questions and wrestles with mystery is a faith that is in continual renewal and relationship with God. Curiosity spurs us onward, turns us outward and pulls us forward toward the presence and the answers of God, revealed in the world.

What are you curious about? How curious are you? What can you do about it?

A Light shines in the darkness

I recently read a book by a well-known Catholic author and I was surprised at how much this writer seemed to struggle with what he could do to make himself accept God's grace, which highlighted his larger struggle of whether or not such grace is for him. He repeatedly discussed how far away he felt from God and how God wants to grace the world.

The thing is, what God wants to do, God does. God does not watch us from afar, waiting for us to say the magic words to merit forgiveness, grace or the gift of greater faith. God gives us these things because of who God is.

It is important not to confuse the mysterious side of God with the idea that God is distant. God does have a side we do not understand. Think of the seven thunders in Revelation 10:3b-4. The author is told not to write about them and this reminds us that we do not know everything about the mind of God.

However, we do know about the promises of God. In Jesus' words at the end of Matthew, he promises to be with the disciples even to the end of the earth. God who has been revealed as the Alpha and the Omega, the A and the Z, is also everything in between. God has promised to be with us, throughout all of our lives. Though we may not always be able to sense or comprehend our presence, God doesn't leave us.

There used to be an old saying, "If you don't feel God, He isn't the one who moved." God does move, though, through us, in us and for us. God is with us in the pigpen, when we search for the lost coin, when we are thirsty at the well, when we are at the bedside of a loved one, when we are in our dark night of the soul.

God's ways are not our ways and God remains a mystery, which is why God supplies our faith. But for proximity, God, who has promised to do so, remains with us always and is never further away than the hairs on our heads.

Methinks we don't protest enough

Recently a church member told me that she finds being called a "Protestant" offensive and frustrating. She doesn't feel like she's protesting anything- she's simply a Lutheran Christian.

I've been thinking about her dilemma and I agree with her in a certain sense. It is not really necessary to think of ourselves (those of us who aren't Catholic) as Protestant in the way Luther and his followers were. The old dichotomies between the Reformation rebels and the Established Church do not exist in the same way anymore and, thus, the old labels need not apply.

However, isn't the larger gospel message that we are to remain Protestants- those protesting against the ways of the world? Aren't we supposed to show Christ's love in many and various ways (how the Spirit moves) through our daily lives and our vocations? Hasn't God given us the gift of faith, so that we might believe in all that has been done for us? Believing that, we are called to protest, gently and consistently, against a world that says we earn our salvation and it's what we have that matters and determines our worth.


Our worth was decided by One who loved us enough to be born into our fallen world, live and die as one of us- for us. I protest vigorously against anything that tries to take that away from me.