Sermon preached at St Margaret’s Newlands
Isaiah 53.4-12
Psalm 91.9-16
Hebrews 5.1-10
Mark 10.35-45
It’s very good to be back with you after so long. What an extraordinary time this has been, and indeed still is. Today’s readings from Isaiah and from Hebrews are grappling with questions of suffering and the meaning of suffering. What might these readings say to us about our own experiences over the past eighteen months and more?
In Christian interpretations, Isaiah’s suffering servant is generally understood as a precursor of Christ. “He was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed.” The sufering servant songs are a reminder that already in the Old Testament there is a strand of teaching that suffering may be redemptive. Reflecting on today’s readings, John Foley SJ writes, “Suffering may well stretch and widen the human soul, making it large enough to know God.”[1] And indeed it may. I want to emphasise may, as I don’t think this is at all something to be taken for granted. And yet there are many accounts of the ways that suffering or hardship can be stretching or even essential to development. Preparing this sermon I came across the story of a visitor to an orange grove:
The irrigation pump on one farm had broken down. The season was unusually dry and some of the trees were beginning to die for lack of water. But then the man giving the tour took the visitor to his own orchard where irrigation was used sparingly. “These trees could go without rain for another two weeks,” he said. ”You see, when they were young, I frequently kept water from them. This hardship caused them to send their roots deeper into the soil in search of moisture. Now mine are the deepest-rooted trees in the area. While others are being scorched by the sun, these are finding moisture at a greater depth.”[2]
There are similar stories about people finding a butterfly or a moth emerging from the cocoon and deciding to help it emerge by cutting open the cocoon. The problem is that that the butterfly or moth develops its wings by struggling to free itself from the cocoon. “The ‘merciful’ snip,” write one author, “was, in reality, cruel. Sometimes the struggle is exactly what we need.”[3]
We may not always recognise what we have learned from painful experiences. Sometimes it takes talking to someone to help us realise how we have been deepened or changed by suffering. Bob Benson tells a story about his friend who had a heart attack. At first it didn’t seem like the man would live, but eventually he recovered, Months later, Bob asked him:
“Well, how did you like your heart attack?”
“It scared me to death, almost.”
“Would you do it again?”
“No!”
“Would you recommend it?”
“Definitely not.”
“Does your life mean more to you now than it did before?”
“Well, yes.”
“You and your wife have always had a beautiful marriage, but are you closer now than ever?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have a new compassion for people—a deeper understanding and sympathy?”
“Yes.”
“So how did you like your heart attack?”[4]
Suffering can reveal to us our true priorities, offer us new ways of thinking about things, lead us to a deeper understanding of God. Malcolm Muggeridge once reflected:
I look back on experiences that at the time seemed especially desolating and painful with particular satisfaction. Indeed, I
can say with complete truthfulness that everything I have learned in my seventy-five years in this world, everything that has truly enhanced and enlightened my existence, has been through affliction and not through happiness, whether pursued or attained.[5]
I would be cautious about being this categorical: my own experience is that I have gained important insights from being happy as well. But these are all stories which remind us of how meaning can emerge from suffering.
At the same time, I think we need also to be very cautious about offering interpretations to people in the midst of suffering. There is no question that suffering can also be debilitating; no question that it doesn’t always seem to result in redemption. People may find their faith shaken by the experience of deep suffering, or a sudden loss. Giving meaning to suffering needs to come from – be discovered by – those who are experiencing that suffering, perhaps in conversation, but it must be their experience. Meaning cannot be imposed from outside.
Trying to give meaning to suffering can come across as lack of care, or as trite platitude. Alia Joy writes of a time when her child was very ill. The doctors did not know what was wrong; they had no answers. But, she writes, “though the medical community struggled to sort it all out, my faith community seemed to have every answer.”
God would provide, one said, because God would respond to my great faith. God was setting up a miracle, another said. God works all things together for good, I was reminded. Platitude, platitude, platitude. I smiled through all of them, even nodded. Silently I wondered, Did all those words amount to anything, well-meaning though they were? Hunched over my son, all those platitudes haunting, my phone rang.
I looked at the screen, read the name. It was a pastor from a church in my hometown, and as I answered the phone, I wondered what platitude I might hear. There was a purpose in my son’s suffering? Everything has a Kingdom purpose? After an exchange of greetings, I clenched my jaw. Stiffened. Braced myself.
Through the phone, I heard only three words: “I’m so sorry.” There was a pause, and he told me to shout if I needed anything. He said he’d be praying. And that was that. It was a moment of selfless solidarity, a moment in which this man of the cloth didn’t force-feed me anaemic answers or sell me some fix-all version of a bright-and-shiny gospel.
Instead, he did the work of Christ himself; he entered into my suffering. And years later, after a long season of healing (both my son’s and my own), his words served as a reminder of the Christian response to suffering—we enter into it together, share in it together, lament with each other.[6]
I’m so sorry. So sorry. I hear your pain. Sometimes that is all we can say. All we need to say.
Max Lacado tells a story which reminds us that we should not be too quick to seek meanings. We may not always understand what we are experiencing. We cannot always judge:
Once there was an old man who lived in a village. Although he was poor, he was envied by all, for he owned a beautiful white horse. One morning he found that the horse was not in the stable. The other people in the village came to see him. “You old fool,” they scoffed, “we told you that someone would steal your horse. You are so poor. It would have been better to have sold him. Now the horse is gone, and you’ve been cursed with misfortune.”
The old man responded, “Don’t speak too quickly. Say only that the horse is not in the stable. That is all we know; the rest is judgment. If I’ve been cursed or not, how can you know? How can you judge?”
The people of the village laughed. They thought that the man was crazy.
After a while, the horse returned. He hadn’t been stolen; he had run away into the forest. Not only did he return, he brought a dozen wild horses with him. Once again the village people gathered around the woodcutter. “Old man,” they said, “you were right and we were wrong. What we thought was a curse was a blessing. Please forgive us.”
The man responded, “Once again, you go too far. Say only that the horse is back. Say that a dozen horses returned with him, but don’t judge. How do you know if this is a blessing or not? You see only a fragment. Unless you know the whole story, how can you judge?”
“Maybe the old man is right,” they said to one another. So they said little. But deep down, they knew it was a blessing. With a little work, the twelve wild horses could be trained and sold for much money.
The old man had a son. The young man began to break the wild horses. After a few days, he fell off one of the horses and broke both legs. Once again the villagers gathered around the old man.
“You were right,” they said. “The dozen horses were not a blessing. They were a curse. Your only son has broken his legs, and now you have no one to help you. You are poorer than ever.”
The old man spoke again. “You people are obsessed with judging. Say only that my son broke his legs. Who knows if it is a blessing or a curse? No one knows. We only have a fragment. Life comes in fragments.”
A few weeks later the country went to war. All the young men of the village were required to join the army. Only the son of the old man was exempt, because he was injured. Once again the people gathered around the old man, crying because their sons had been taken. There was little chance that they would return. The enemy was strong, and the war would be a losing struggle. They would never see their sons again.
“You were right, old man,” they wept. “God knows you were right. This proves it. Your son’s accident was a blessing. His legs may be broken, but at least he is with you. Our sons are gone forever.”
The old man spoke again. “You always draw conclusions. No one knows. Say only this: Your sons had to go to war, and mine did not. No one knows if it is a blessing or a curse. No one is wise enough to know. Only God knows.”[7]
This past week I was speaking at a clergy study day in the Diocese of Leeds, my first in person event since winter 2019/20. I was asked to reflect on historical understandings of pandemic, and the church’s responses to it. Afterwards, someone asked about what all that has happened to us, and how looking back on all that has happened in history tells me about God. We’d been talking quite a lot about Job, who lost his family and all his property, but somehow held on to his trust in God, and in the end was granted a new beginning. In the end, Job experienced the redemptive God, the redemptive God to whom Isaiah’s suffering servant also witnesses. The God who offers us new beginnings, even when we find ourselves at our most bleak. The God who gives us Easter Sunday after our Good Friday. The God who leads us into resurrected life. That is the promise of our faith, but we may need to be patient, and we certainly need to experience it ourselves.
Let us pray:
Loving God, in times of trial,
I offer up to you my confusion:
give me clarity.
I offer up to you my despair;
give me hope.
I offer up to you my weakness;
give me strength.
I offer up to you my pettiness;
give me generosity of spirit.
I offer up to you all my negative thoughts, so that when I am asked “Where is Your God now?” I may respond, “Right here with me, giving me grace, as a Heavenly beam of light penetrating the darkness!”[8]
Amen
[1] John Foley SJ, “Ask?” online at: https://liturgy.sluhostedsites.org/29OrdB101721/reflections_foley.html.
[2] Online at: http://www.sermonillustrations.com/a-z/s/suffering.htm.
[3] Online at: http://www.sermonillustrations.com/a-z/s/suffering.htm.
[4] Bob Benson, See You at the House (1986); online at: https://thepastorsworkshop.com/sermon-illustrations-2/sermon-illustrations-suffering/.
[5] Malcolm Muggeridge, A Twentieth Century Testimony (1978); online at: https://thepastorsworkshop.com/sermon-illustrations-2/sermon-illustrations-suffering/.
[6] Alia Joy, Glorious Weakness: Discovering God in All We Lack, Baker Books, 2019; online at: https://thepastorsworkshop.com/sermon-illustrations-2/sermon-illustrations-suffering/.
[7] Max Lucado, In the Eye of the Storm, Word Publishing, 1991, 144-147; online at http://www.sermonillustrations.com/a-z/s/suffering.htm..
[8] Amended from a prayer fund online: https://www.ourcatholicprayers.com/offering-prayers.html.
Wings of the Morning 