Making sense of suffering
Commentary
Object:
All of our lessons today address suffering -- of humans and of Jesus in his passion and death. But they do not satisfy our desire for reasons and logical systems that explain why innocents suffer. Instead, they invite us into deep encounters with the great mystery of God, the creator and redeemer of all things. In these lessons, suffering is not the end; often, it marks a new beginning we never could have known before.
Job 38:1-7 (34-41)
We are skipping quickly through this most remarkable of biblical books, from the introduction of Job and his testing by Satan two weeks ago, to Job’s complaint against God last week, to God’s response out of the whirlwind today. Next Sunday skips to the conclusion of the story. Preachers who wish to further illuminate this passage may wish to fill in the narrative a bit by telling of Job’s suffering -- the loss of his children, servants, and livestock (Job 1:13-19), followed by the curse of sores covering him from head to foot (Job 2:7). Recall that in ancient times skin diseases such as this often resulted in social isolation or even being cast out of the family and community, given fear of contagion. Job’s three friends Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar mourn with him, but also try to explain his suffering -- perhaps Job has sinned and brought this upon himself (Job 4:1-11). Or perhaps his children sinned and brought God’s punishment (Job 8:3-7). The conversation among Job and his friends continues through much of the book, as they argue that there must be some just reason or explanation for Job’s suffering, while Job continues to maintain his innocence before God and that his suffering is unjust. In the chapters leading up to today’s reading, Job presents his case in legal terms before the Lord. Today, we finally hear the divine reply to Job out of the whirlwind.
The Lord does not answer any of Job’s challenges or questions. God most emphatically does not meet Job where he is, but instead challenges Job’s limited human perspective through an extraordinary series of rhetorical questions about the cosmos and creation. “Were you there when I laid the foundation of the earth?” (Job 38:4) and on goes God’s reply in remarkable poetry and imagery for four chapters, only a portion of which we read today. Instead of receiving answers, Job receives an extraordinary mystical encounter with the creator of the cosmos that brings him out of his (quite justified!) self-righteous complaints to a place of deep humility before God. As we will hear Job say in next Sunday’s reading, “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you” (Job 42:5). This is the book of Job’s answer and the divine answer to innocent suffering -- not explanation, not necessarily even relief, but instead a profound encounter with the Holy that transcends any suffering, and indeed transcends life itself.
Hebrews 5:1-10
Faith can falter. Faltering faith appears to be occasion for the Letter to the Hebrews. Despite its title both the author and intended audience are unknown, though the hearers or recipients are likely second-generation Christians who had experienced some persecution (Hebrews 10:32-34) and were questioning whether faith in Christ was enough. The opening arguments asserting Christ’s superiority over the angels (Hebrews 1:4--2:18) and over Moses (3:1-4:13) hint that hearers may have been adding these figures to their faith and prayers, or perhaps even turning to them instead of Christ. In Hebrews 4:14--7:28, the author develops an extended argument asserting the superiority of Christ’s priesthood, which surpasses the priesthood of all others. Perhaps some in the intended audience of this letter had been reclaiming or wishing to reclaim the religious ritual of the Jerusalem Temple, destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE. Somehow, someway, Christ no longer seemed to be enough to the hearers of this letter. They wanted something more in their lives, some greater power or greater assurance of salvation. Perhaps they were fed up with waiting for the promised end times to arrive.
In today’s reading, we hear a powerful affirmation of Christ as high priest -- we need no other priest to perform rituals on our behalf. Christ has accomplished once and for all the sacrificial offering that the priests in the Temple used to perform on a regular basis for the forgiveness of sins. From his incarnate experience as a human being, Christ understands our weaknesses (Hebrews 5:2), and through his resurrection and ascension, Christ through God becomes powerful enough to offer permanent and eternal forgiveness of sins (Hebrew 5:9). There is no need for the hearers of Hebrews to do anything more; they simply (perhaps more easily said than done!) need to trust in the promises of God.
Mark 10:35-45
Poor misguided disciples. Walking with them towards Jerusalem, Jesus tells his disciples for a third time of his coming suffering, death, and resurrection. And what response does he get? James and John come to him and ask to sit on either side of him when he comes into his glory. They, along with Peter, had accompanied Jesus up the mountain for the Transfiguration (Mark 9:2) and they are still basking in the glow of this remarkable vision and thinking of their place in it, not realizing that this was preparation for them and for Jesus of great suffering and trial to come. Once Jesus comes down from the mountain he sets his face towards Jerusalem, prepared for all that is to come. And he tries to prepare his disciples, but they are still caught up in notions of glory. James and John’s statement “We want you to do for us whatever we ask of you” (Mark 10:35) echoes the earlier rash promise of Herod to Herodias’ daughter, “Ask me for whatever you wish, and I will give it” (Mark 6:22), that resulted in the gruesome death of John the Baptist. Unwittingly but tellingly, James and John speak in the same way as a capricious and violent ruler, which connects with Jesus’ statement in 10:42 about rulers and tyrants. The call to serve and to give up one’s life for the sake of others is not something the disciples seem ready to hear. After all, they have already given up so much to follow Jesus, as we heard Peter claim in last Sunday’s reading: “Look, we have left everything and followed you” (Mark 10:28). And Jesus does promise rewards (Mark 10:29-31), but we hear next that as they walk towards Jerusalem the disciples were both amazed and afraid (Mark 10:32), for they knew that Jerusalem was a dangerous place for them all. By choice, by denial, or by lack of imagination, the disciples are blind to who Jesus truly is and what he is trying to tell them. It is telling that next Sunday’s story (Mark 10:46-52) is the healing of the blind man Bartimaeus, who though physically blind sees who Jesus truly is and joins Jesus on the way -- all the way into Jerusalem for the events of Passion week, which begin immediately afterwards in Mark 11.
Application
All of our lessons today deal in one way or another with the problem of suffering, and especially with the suffering of the righteous, of innocents. The accelerating refugee crisis in Europe draws our attention in recent days, that is, if we are not too caught up in our own personal griefs, illnesses, or struggles to keep up with the news. Though we so often seek to avoid it, suffering is a part of human life and all creation. The good news that we receive in our readings today is not that suffering will end, but that suffering is not the end. At times, as in Job, suffering strips enough away that whatever barriers separate us from God are dissolved, and we experience a profound unity with the divine. Other times, as in the Transfiguration, we are given visions or mystical experiences prior to episodes of great suffering, and these become gifts that sustain us through great trials to come.
Early in my ordained ministry, I accompanied a young man and his family through his final illness and death from cancer. Ironically, this cancer was caused by radiation treatments he had received 20 years before that had cured a different childhood cancer. He was agnostic and had little use for organized religion, but in one of our conversations he recounted an experience of great mystery that had happened one night when he was in the hospital as a child, undergoing the radiation treatments that would heal, but later kill, him. It was clear that whatever happened that long-ago night as he was alone in his hospital room -- some would call it a visitation or vision, though he did not -- brought him great comfort and assurance then and in his final days. He knew that there was more to life and death than appearances gave, and he had experienced a profound and loving presence that saw him through both physical suffering and the prospect of losing the love of his human family after death.
There are times when suffering comes to us unchosen, as in an illness, the death of a loved one, persecution, or war, and there are times when we choose actions or activities of our own free will that entail suffering for a greater goal or good. Here in Boston, I see this in people who train outdoors through bitter cold for the marathon run here in April -- a day that can bring snow or blazing heat, given the vagaries of New England weather. Walkathons, rideathons, ice-bucket challenges, fasts, and the like done for charity somehow seem for the participants to connect chosen suffering and endurance with relieving unchosen suffering in others in deeper ways than simply raising money for a cause. When life keeps us too well protected, many of us find ways to step outside that protection in search of something beyond our predictable, sheltered lives. I would call this something so many seek God, the divine, the holy, or the transcendent, but that’s the vocabulary I use, which is not necessarily that of secular society. In my own life, I developed a longing to hike the Appalachian Trail as a young teen, a longing that stayed with me until my mid-20s when I undertook a solo hike on the Long Trail, the oldest long-distance hiking trail in this country, which runs the length of the Green Mountain chain in Vermont, some 270 miles. I had done plenty of backpacking already, including several long-distance hikes, so I thought knew what I was in for. But I was still unprepared for the loneliness, the physical pain, and the difficult terrain I encountered over the month it took me to complete the hike. As a sophomore in college, I had blown out a knee in a bad fall while cross-country skiing and gone through two surgeries and an extensive rehabilitation in which I had to learn to walk all over again. I knew the risks of falling with my heavy pack as I climbed with hands and feet up and down over sometimes almost vertical sections of trail, slippery with wet leaves and mud. I walked through nettles and brambles, slept fitfully if at all as mosquitoes whined around my head, and by the end of the hike came to the deep belief and assurance that every step was grace. Soon after, I experienced my call to ordained ministry, and I am convinced that the stripping away I experienced on the hike prepared me for the next step in my vocation.
We don’t talk much about mystery and visions and divine revelation in our culture. If anything, they are seen as warning signs of mental illness rather than a connection with a loving and saving God. But I have found that whenever I speak of them in sermons, I start hearing stories -- some that have never been told to another living soul -- of life-changing mystical experiences. Often there is suffering connected with these experiences -- before, during, or after. But there is also a freedom that comes from these encounters, for those telling these stories know that there is more to this life than appearances, that there is a power in this universe greater and stronger than any suffering and even death itself. As Job said to God, “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you” (Job 42:5). Jesus, through his suffering, was born again in powerful, resurrected form, and his followers were transformed from bumbling followers to clear-eyed messengers of the Gospel for whom suffering became incidental to the glory they now knew and proclaimed. Time and again, through all generations, people have discovered that suffering is not the end, and this recurring discovery is what keeps the church and faith alive. Sometimes we even find that suffering becomes the birth pangs of a new creation, and that God is at work in the world and our lives far more powerfully than we had ever imagined. “Amazing Grace” and the story that accompanies this hymn is another option for preaching and worship this day.
Job 38:1-7 (34-41)
We are skipping quickly through this most remarkable of biblical books, from the introduction of Job and his testing by Satan two weeks ago, to Job’s complaint against God last week, to God’s response out of the whirlwind today. Next Sunday skips to the conclusion of the story. Preachers who wish to further illuminate this passage may wish to fill in the narrative a bit by telling of Job’s suffering -- the loss of his children, servants, and livestock (Job 1:13-19), followed by the curse of sores covering him from head to foot (Job 2:7). Recall that in ancient times skin diseases such as this often resulted in social isolation or even being cast out of the family and community, given fear of contagion. Job’s three friends Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar mourn with him, but also try to explain his suffering -- perhaps Job has sinned and brought this upon himself (Job 4:1-11). Or perhaps his children sinned and brought God’s punishment (Job 8:3-7). The conversation among Job and his friends continues through much of the book, as they argue that there must be some just reason or explanation for Job’s suffering, while Job continues to maintain his innocence before God and that his suffering is unjust. In the chapters leading up to today’s reading, Job presents his case in legal terms before the Lord. Today, we finally hear the divine reply to Job out of the whirlwind.
The Lord does not answer any of Job’s challenges or questions. God most emphatically does not meet Job where he is, but instead challenges Job’s limited human perspective through an extraordinary series of rhetorical questions about the cosmos and creation. “Were you there when I laid the foundation of the earth?” (Job 38:4) and on goes God’s reply in remarkable poetry and imagery for four chapters, only a portion of which we read today. Instead of receiving answers, Job receives an extraordinary mystical encounter with the creator of the cosmos that brings him out of his (quite justified!) self-righteous complaints to a place of deep humility before God. As we will hear Job say in next Sunday’s reading, “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you” (Job 42:5). This is the book of Job’s answer and the divine answer to innocent suffering -- not explanation, not necessarily even relief, but instead a profound encounter with the Holy that transcends any suffering, and indeed transcends life itself.
Hebrews 5:1-10
Faith can falter. Faltering faith appears to be occasion for the Letter to the Hebrews. Despite its title both the author and intended audience are unknown, though the hearers or recipients are likely second-generation Christians who had experienced some persecution (Hebrews 10:32-34) and were questioning whether faith in Christ was enough. The opening arguments asserting Christ’s superiority over the angels (Hebrews 1:4--2:18) and over Moses (3:1-4:13) hint that hearers may have been adding these figures to their faith and prayers, or perhaps even turning to them instead of Christ. In Hebrews 4:14--7:28, the author develops an extended argument asserting the superiority of Christ’s priesthood, which surpasses the priesthood of all others. Perhaps some in the intended audience of this letter had been reclaiming or wishing to reclaim the religious ritual of the Jerusalem Temple, destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE. Somehow, someway, Christ no longer seemed to be enough to the hearers of this letter. They wanted something more in their lives, some greater power or greater assurance of salvation. Perhaps they were fed up with waiting for the promised end times to arrive.
In today’s reading, we hear a powerful affirmation of Christ as high priest -- we need no other priest to perform rituals on our behalf. Christ has accomplished once and for all the sacrificial offering that the priests in the Temple used to perform on a regular basis for the forgiveness of sins. From his incarnate experience as a human being, Christ understands our weaknesses (Hebrews 5:2), and through his resurrection and ascension, Christ through God becomes powerful enough to offer permanent and eternal forgiveness of sins (Hebrew 5:9). There is no need for the hearers of Hebrews to do anything more; they simply (perhaps more easily said than done!) need to trust in the promises of God.
Mark 10:35-45
Poor misguided disciples. Walking with them towards Jerusalem, Jesus tells his disciples for a third time of his coming suffering, death, and resurrection. And what response does he get? James and John come to him and ask to sit on either side of him when he comes into his glory. They, along with Peter, had accompanied Jesus up the mountain for the Transfiguration (Mark 9:2) and they are still basking in the glow of this remarkable vision and thinking of their place in it, not realizing that this was preparation for them and for Jesus of great suffering and trial to come. Once Jesus comes down from the mountain he sets his face towards Jerusalem, prepared for all that is to come. And he tries to prepare his disciples, but they are still caught up in notions of glory. James and John’s statement “We want you to do for us whatever we ask of you” (Mark 10:35) echoes the earlier rash promise of Herod to Herodias’ daughter, “Ask me for whatever you wish, and I will give it” (Mark 6:22), that resulted in the gruesome death of John the Baptist. Unwittingly but tellingly, James and John speak in the same way as a capricious and violent ruler, which connects with Jesus’ statement in 10:42 about rulers and tyrants. The call to serve and to give up one’s life for the sake of others is not something the disciples seem ready to hear. After all, they have already given up so much to follow Jesus, as we heard Peter claim in last Sunday’s reading: “Look, we have left everything and followed you” (Mark 10:28). And Jesus does promise rewards (Mark 10:29-31), but we hear next that as they walk towards Jerusalem the disciples were both amazed and afraid (Mark 10:32), for they knew that Jerusalem was a dangerous place for them all. By choice, by denial, or by lack of imagination, the disciples are blind to who Jesus truly is and what he is trying to tell them. It is telling that next Sunday’s story (Mark 10:46-52) is the healing of the blind man Bartimaeus, who though physically blind sees who Jesus truly is and joins Jesus on the way -- all the way into Jerusalem for the events of Passion week, which begin immediately afterwards in Mark 11.
Application
All of our lessons today deal in one way or another with the problem of suffering, and especially with the suffering of the righteous, of innocents. The accelerating refugee crisis in Europe draws our attention in recent days, that is, if we are not too caught up in our own personal griefs, illnesses, or struggles to keep up with the news. Though we so often seek to avoid it, suffering is a part of human life and all creation. The good news that we receive in our readings today is not that suffering will end, but that suffering is not the end. At times, as in Job, suffering strips enough away that whatever barriers separate us from God are dissolved, and we experience a profound unity with the divine. Other times, as in the Transfiguration, we are given visions or mystical experiences prior to episodes of great suffering, and these become gifts that sustain us through great trials to come.
Early in my ordained ministry, I accompanied a young man and his family through his final illness and death from cancer. Ironically, this cancer was caused by radiation treatments he had received 20 years before that had cured a different childhood cancer. He was agnostic and had little use for organized religion, but in one of our conversations he recounted an experience of great mystery that had happened one night when he was in the hospital as a child, undergoing the radiation treatments that would heal, but later kill, him. It was clear that whatever happened that long-ago night as he was alone in his hospital room -- some would call it a visitation or vision, though he did not -- brought him great comfort and assurance then and in his final days. He knew that there was more to life and death than appearances gave, and he had experienced a profound and loving presence that saw him through both physical suffering and the prospect of losing the love of his human family after death.
There are times when suffering comes to us unchosen, as in an illness, the death of a loved one, persecution, or war, and there are times when we choose actions or activities of our own free will that entail suffering for a greater goal or good. Here in Boston, I see this in people who train outdoors through bitter cold for the marathon run here in April -- a day that can bring snow or blazing heat, given the vagaries of New England weather. Walkathons, rideathons, ice-bucket challenges, fasts, and the like done for charity somehow seem for the participants to connect chosen suffering and endurance with relieving unchosen suffering in others in deeper ways than simply raising money for a cause. When life keeps us too well protected, many of us find ways to step outside that protection in search of something beyond our predictable, sheltered lives. I would call this something so many seek God, the divine, the holy, or the transcendent, but that’s the vocabulary I use, which is not necessarily that of secular society. In my own life, I developed a longing to hike the Appalachian Trail as a young teen, a longing that stayed with me until my mid-20s when I undertook a solo hike on the Long Trail, the oldest long-distance hiking trail in this country, which runs the length of the Green Mountain chain in Vermont, some 270 miles. I had done plenty of backpacking already, including several long-distance hikes, so I thought knew what I was in for. But I was still unprepared for the loneliness, the physical pain, and the difficult terrain I encountered over the month it took me to complete the hike. As a sophomore in college, I had blown out a knee in a bad fall while cross-country skiing and gone through two surgeries and an extensive rehabilitation in which I had to learn to walk all over again. I knew the risks of falling with my heavy pack as I climbed with hands and feet up and down over sometimes almost vertical sections of trail, slippery with wet leaves and mud. I walked through nettles and brambles, slept fitfully if at all as mosquitoes whined around my head, and by the end of the hike came to the deep belief and assurance that every step was grace. Soon after, I experienced my call to ordained ministry, and I am convinced that the stripping away I experienced on the hike prepared me for the next step in my vocation.
We don’t talk much about mystery and visions and divine revelation in our culture. If anything, they are seen as warning signs of mental illness rather than a connection with a loving and saving God. But I have found that whenever I speak of them in sermons, I start hearing stories -- some that have never been told to another living soul -- of life-changing mystical experiences. Often there is suffering connected with these experiences -- before, during, or after. But there is also a freedom that comes from these encounters, for those telling these stories know that there is more to this life than appearances, that there is a power in this universe greater and stronger than any suffering and even death itself. As Job said to God, “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you” (Job 42:5). Jesus, through his suffering, was born again in powerful, resurrected form, and his followers were transformed from bumbling followers to clear-eyed messengers of the Gospel for whom suffering became incidental to the glory they now knew and proclaimed. Time and again, through all generations, people have discovered that suffering is not the end, and this recurring discovery is what keeps the church and faith alive. Sometimes we even find that suffering becomes the birth pangs of a new creation, and that God is at work in the world and our lives far more powerfully than we had ever imagined. “Amazing Grace” and the story that accompanies this hymn is another option for preaching and worship this day.
