Sunday, February 1, 2015
Epiphany 4
Deuteronomy 18:15-20 / Psalm 111 / 1 Corinthians 8:1-13 / Mark 1:21-28
Where There is Suffering, There is God
Today’s gospel lesson is another one of those stories
that we don’t quite know how to react to in the modern
world. Jesus casts a demon out of a man who shows up at
the synagogue. We don’t take demons very seriously in the
modern world, unless of course, you are a Hollywood
producer. There’s a lot of money to be made out of movies
about people possessed by evil spirits. We may not take
demon possession very seriously, but there is one thing in
the story I want you to take very seriously. Jesus enters into
a man’s suffering and heals him. He doesn’t offer any
explanation as to why the man is suffering. Instead, he
chooses to be present with him in his suffering and has
compassion for him.
The famous American preacher, William Sloane Coffin,
started his career as a Presbyterian minister and later
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became a minister in the United Church of Christ. He
preached one of his most outstanding sermons after the
tragic death of his young son. His son’s car plummeted into
Boston harbour.
Coffin said, “When a person dies, there are many things
that can be said, and at least one thing that should never be
said. The night after Alex died a woman came by carrying
quiches. She shook her head saying sadly, “I just don’t
understand the will of God.”
Instantly, I swarmed all over her. “I’ll say you don’t
lady! Do you think it was the will of God that Alex never
fixed that lousy windshield wiper, that he was probably
driving too fast in a storm? Do you think it is God’s will that
there are no streetlights along that stretch of road?
Nothing infuriates me as the incapacity of intelligent
people to get it through their heads that God doesn’t go
around with his finger on triggers, his fist around knives, his
hands on steering wheels. God is dead set against all
unnatural deaths. The one thing that should never be said
when someone dies a tragic death is, ‘It is the will of God.’ My
own consolation lies in knowing that it was not the will of
God that Alex die; that when the waves closed over his
sinking car, God’s heart was the first of all our hearts to
break.”
I think we mistakenly perceive God as a great micromanager in the sky. We seem to think that everything that
happens here on earth is directed by him. If that were the
case, freewill makes no sense whatsoever. God created us
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with freewill. We are free to do whatever it is humanly
possible to do. We are free to do either good or evil. We are
free to be cautious or reckless, compassionate or hateful,
generous or stingy, lazy or industrious, wise or foolish.
When things go wrong in our lives, one of the first we
blame is God. We need someone to blame, it seems, either
because we need an outlet for our anger, or it seems to make
the situation make more sense if we have someone to blame.
Yet, when unjust tragedy befalls us, it is never God’s will.
God never wishes injustice upon his children.
Jesus never answered the question of why we suffer.
That’s the first question we have, however, when suffering
strikes us: “Why? Why is this happening to me?” We have to
accept that there is no answer to that question. We can
scream against God and the universe as loudly and as long as
we want with the question “Why?” but we will never get an
answer. Maybe in heaven we will get an answer to that
question, but never here on earth.
You will recall that the disciples once asked Jesus about
the why of suffering. They asked why a tower in the town of
Siloam had fallen on innocent people and killed them. “Was
it because they were worse sinners than others?” they asked
Jesus. Jesus answered that they were not worse sinners than
anyone else, but he did not give an answer as to why they
had suffered such an injustice.
We cannot get an answer to the question why. The
question we can get an answer to, however, is where. Where
is God when suffering befalls us? He is beside us, ready to
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heal us, just as Jesus healed the man in the synagogue. Jesus
did not stop to answer the question of why the man was
suffering. He simply proceeded to heal him. God will heal us
of the pain of loss, if we are willing to depend on him.
Gradually, through prayer, through the Holy Spirit working
in other people, and through worship God heals us.
Some people, it seems, never heal of the pain of a loss.
Could it be because they really don’t want to heal? They
become so accustomed to their suffering that they don’t
know how to live any other way. Some people even like to
wear their suffering as a badge of honour. "No one has
suffered the way I have suffered," they seem to be saying to
the world.
We tend to think that the suffering of losing a loved one
is something that happens to other people, but it will never
happen to me. It will happen to every one of us sooner or
later. The only way to avoid the suffering of losing someone
you love is to never love anyone. The only way to avoid
becoming a widow is to never get married. The only way to
not worry about children being in danger is to never have
children. When we receive the blessing of loved ones in our
lives, it comes with the strong likelihood that that blessing
will one day be taken away. We can avoid suffering then
only by refusing to accept blessings into our lives. Yet, to do
so would make our lives even worse. We simply have to
accept that there is no blessing in this life that is permanent.
When we suffer from the loss of our blessings, God
suffers with us. William Sloane Coffin said of his son’s death,
“When the waves closed over the sinking car, God’s heart
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was the first of all our hearts to break.” When we lose
someone God feels the loss as deeply as we do. When the
sisters Martha and Mary lost their brother, Lazarus, what
was Jesus response? Jesus wept. Where there is suffering,
there is God. God never promised to prevent us from
suffering. He never promised to take our suffering magically
away. Yet, he did promise to be present with us in our
suffering. Where there is suffering, there is God.
Often, ministers like myself get asked for assistance on
how to approach a situation of another’s suffering. “My
friend has just lost his daughter in a tragic accident and I
don’t know what to say to him. Can you help me with what
to say?” they ask.
There is nothing anyone can say to a parent who has
lost a child that is going to relieve their suffering. It’s not so
much a question of saying something as being there. Your
presence means more than your words. By your presence
you show that you share your friend’s suffering. In a similar,
yet more profound way, God is there when we suffer. He is
there suffering with us. He offers himself to us. He desires
that we acknowledge his presence and lean on him for
strength.
God takes our suffering upon himself and mysteriously
heals us of that suffering. The prime example of this truth, of
course, is Jesus on the cross. Jesus crucified is God taking
our suffering upon himself so that we will be healed of that
suffering. God does not cause suffering. He bears it with us.
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When Jesus was on the cross he felt the pain that we
feel when we suffer. He felt the abandonment, the
loneliness, the forsakenness that we feel. “My God, my God,
why have you forsaken me?” he said from the cross. When
Jesus uttered those words he was taking our feeling of
abandonment by God upon himself. He was saying to us, “I
bear your feeling of abandonment with you.”
When you weep because of your suffering and
someone else is moved to weep with you, does it not in some
mysterious way make you feel better? Christ on the cross is
weeping with us and through his tears he heals us.
Suffering can either send us farther away from God or
bring us closer to him. When our only question is to ask,
“Why did this happen to me?” it can often result in sending
us farther away from God. For, there is no answer to this
question. Therefore, if we equate finding God with finding an
answer to this question, we are setting ourselves up for
failure. But, if we ask the question, “Where is God?” when
we suffer we can come closer to God. This is because where
suffering is, there God is.
The French philosopher Simone Weil (pronounced vay)
once wrote that if we want to really come close to God, we
will most likely do it through human misery, rather than
through spiritual or other pleasure. In fact, she taught that
all pleasure seeking, be it spiritual pleasure or other
pleasure, is the search for an artificial paradise.
What does this say about churches that design
themselves so that the main experience of worship is
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entertainment and pleasure? I think that churches that
make their worship services an entertainment experience
are in fact in search of a false paradise. For, human nature is
such that we are more likely to come close to God through
our misery than through our pleasure. The central truth of
the Christian faith is Christ suffering on the cross. Christ
suffered for us to bring us closer to God. He chose a cross as
his venue, not a stage with a four piece band.
A man entered the synagogue who was suffering.
Jesus’ immediate response was to heal him. Where there is
suffering, there God is.
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