Homily for Sunday, May 25, 2014 Buck Mountain Church and Graves Chapel
Lessons:
Acts 17:22-31
Psalm 66:7-18
1 Peter 3:13-22
John 14:15-21
The
collect for today--and what it says about God's love for us--is one of my very
favorite collects of the entire church year. In fact, it's worth repeating: O God,
you have prepared for those who love you such good things as surpass our
understanding: Pour into our hearts such love towards you, that we, loving you
in all things and above all things, may obtain your promises, which exceed all
that we can desire. Paired
with today's gospel lesson, in which Jesus promises to love us and be with us
always in the form of the Holy Spirit, there are no clearer words to be found
about the nature of God's relationship with his people. God loves us lavishly.
In
the epistle, Peter writes about God's love as well, but from a surprising
perspective. Peter writes about the way God suffers because of His love
for us. God suffers when we stray from the paths we know we should follow, when
we do things that cause pain for ourselves or for others. Even when we feel God
punishes us for our errors, anything we suffer is matched by the suffering God
feels on our behalf.
If
I were really smart, I would stick with the love theme and avoid touching on suffering,
even with a ten-foot pole, as the saying goes. No one wants to talk about why God allows bad things to
happen in the world, especially when he suffers with us--that is just too hard
to understand.
In
theological terms there is actually a special name for the branch of philosophy
that concerns itself with trying to explain why a God we consider all-loving
and all-powerful permits bad things to happen. The term, dating back to 1710,
is theodicy, but some of the arguments around the issue date to the
early centuries of Christianity. Theologians as well as everyday Christians
have always pondered this question.
I've known some people who have lost their faith in God when something
bad has happened to them or someone they love. So, please consider these words my disclaimer and bear with
me as I take the dangerous plunge into theodicy.
First,
I want to reassert my belief that God does not cause bad things to
happen in the world. Everything
from wars to typhoons, from accidents to illnesses happen because the world is
a complicated and messy place. If anything, rather than causing the bad things,
God does everything in His power to mitigate the injury and destruction. Remember, he suffers when we suffer, so
turning the bad into something good is more in God's line of work. The question
then becomes--what is the difference between causing something bad or
simply allowing it to happen?
When
I read the epistle from Peter--and how many times have I read this passage
before?--I begin to have a glimpse of an answer to this question. Isn't that
the way with scripture and the reason to keep revisiting it? God's words seem to open themselves to
us as we have need of them.
The
most important, and surely the most obvious, thing Peter says about suffering
is that Christ suffered on our behalf--"the righteous for the
unrighteous"--when he died on the cross. What else but God's great love
for us motivated Him to send His Son into the world to die an excruciating
death for us? Before he was arrested and sent to the cross, Jesus prayed these
words in the Garden: "Father, if you are willing, remove this cup
from me; yet, not my will but yours be done." God, made manifest in the
human form of his son Jesus Christ, is willing to suffer the worst kind of pain
and death because he loves human creatures and chooses to suffer with them. The
fact that God himself had to suffer on the cross illustrates something about
suffering--that it is inevitable and unavoidable. When we pray for comfort in times
of sorrow or for healing when we feel pain, we can be assured that we pray to a
God who fully comprehends how we are feeling. God has been there--and has been
there suffering with each of us from the beginning of time.
Peter
also says, "...if you do suffer for doing what is right, you are blessed...for
it is better to suffer for doing good, if suffering should be God's will, than
to suffer for doing evil."
Why on earth does Peter say our suffering is a blessing?
I
believe the answer to this riddle is illustrated in the crucifixion and in
Christ's words in the Garden. Love itself is God's greatest gift to us--and our
greatest blessing. Yet love is at the
root of all our suffering just as it was love that brought Christ to the cross.
Why
do I say that love is at the root of suffering? Please consider with me. How do we feel when we hear news of a tornado a thousand
miles away that has ripped a school apart and extinguished the lives of young
children?....Why do tears come to our eyes when we read of the heroic deeds of
a soldier who gave up his own life to save his comrades?...How do we feel when
a loved one--a child or spouse or parent--is ill and we are not able to do
anything to relieve the pain?...How do we feel when we are separated, by either
physical or emotional distance, from someone we love deeply? Love has immense power, doesn't
it?
I've
often thought that one good reason for children to have pets is so they learn a
little about the pain of losing a loved one when they experience the death of a
beloved pet. That kind of
suffering is also very difficult, however. I still get sad when I think of losing my cat Frisky, who
came into my life when I was seven years old.
Whether
we've considered it or not, our love of ourselves is also deeply connected to
our suffering. If we did not love
ourselves and the life we've been given, why would we worry about our own
illnesses or the pain we feel over the suffering of a loved one? If we didn't
love ourselves, why would we have any concern about our personal
integrity--about doing the right thing?
Whether we want to admit it or not, on some level, don't we do good
things not just so we can appear to be righteous in the eyes of God and our
neighbor, but also so we can feel good about ourselves?
The
hopeful news, ultimately, is that as we grow older and grow in faith, both love
and goodness become habits for us--often in spite of suffering.
In
today's gospel lesson, Jesus says to his disciples, "If you love me you
will keep my commandments."
He might also have said, "If you love as I love, you will
keep my commandments." Doesn't the idea that it is because we are capable
of love that we are also capable of suffering shed a new light on what Jesus
called the two great commandments?
"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all
your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment.
And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself." [Matthew 22:37-40] Love begins and flows lavishly from
God, and it is an empathetic love, suffering when we suffer and rejoicing when
we rejoice. It should be easy for us to respond in kind, to love God with all
our heart. Right? That's the expectation, at least. From there, can we find a
balance between loving others and ourselves? As today's collect states, in this way we "obtain"
God's "promises." Loving
others as ourselves involves both empathy for the other and also a healthy love
for self.
Accepting
love--and the price of love--is nothing but God's grace. Believing that, we can
say with Julian of Norwich, "All shall be well, and all shall be well, and
all manner of thing shall be well." AMEN.
