LEAVING AND STAYING

June 5, 2011
Easter 7 (last)
1st Peter 4:12-14 & 5:6-11
Acts 1:6-14

(prayer)

There came a time when the followers of Jesus had to go on without him. Of course, this happened most significantly when Jesus was a arrested and executed by crucifixion. But that wasn’t really the end. Jesus resurrected.

We're also told about a few times after the resurrection that the Risen Christ continued to be with the disciples (with women at the tomb; with Thomas and the others in the upper room), with Cleopas and another disciple on the road to Emmaus with Peter and others, fishing by the Sea of Galilee. But even that kind of relationship came to an end. Jesus ascended.

And yet, the people who were inspired by Jesus still felt a sense of purpose - enlivened by the Spirit – Jesus had promised them that the Spirit would not abandon them – they would continue to have a ‘helper, advocate, counsellor’ in the Spirit.

And so, in that same vein, we continue to celebrate what it is that still brings us together so long after the first disciples gathered around Jesus. We are the Community of the Risen Christ. Within this community is a passion for what Jesus was passionate about – there is mutual support and there is a hope that reaches beyond any limit we can imagine.

//

I am always struck by the faith and persistence of the members of the early church. I am amazed that the “Jesus Movement” survived beyond its first several decades. Look at the reading from the letter of First Peter! “412Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that is taking place among you.”

Life for many members of the early church included a fair amount of difficulty and suffering. The author of 1st Peter describes that this was certainly true for the community who received that letter. Members of that church were being “reviled”; they were “suffering”; they were “anxious”. The letter invited people to turn this experience around – to see these sufferings as badges of honour. We heard the strange language of rejoicing-in-suffering; of being blessed for being reviled.

It is a simple fact of their experience that being part of the early church lead to a certain amount of suffering and contempt by others from the wider community. The message of the letter is that this ‘ordeal’ may test their faith, but the hope of the author is that they will endure this time in the knowledge that God actively cares for them and that God’s grace will ultimately prevail.

The believers were encouraged to be humble, disciplined and alert. They were encouraged to resist the pressures around them that might “devour” the faith they held. Part of this encouragement was to point out that this particular church was not the only one experiencing these kinds of sufferings. It’s strange isn’t it that knowing one is not alone in difficulty can actually be comforting to a degree. The old adage “misery loves company” usually means that sometimes people can negatively get stuck in the low place because they are supported (enabled) in that situation by others. But I also believe that it is true that having company in a miserable time can be helpful. It isn’t as good as having no suffering to deal with, but it is a good response to suffering.

That is the context of today’s reading from 1st Peter: the suffering is happening and the author is responding to that fact. The response we read in this passage seems to have been intended as a theological support for these people who might have been questioning “why they were suffering”.

//

As I was thinking about this passage over the past few weeks, I re-read parts of Rabbi Harold Kushner’s 1981 book “When Bad Things Happen to Good People”. I did so, because I (ultimately) find the (implied all or nothing) thesis of the First Peter passage unconvincing – I find it hard to believe that the suffering being experienced by the people of the church was God’s choice for them, that it was a test and for the greater purpose of getting them to really appreciate the Glory of God when it is revealed in the fullness of time.

Kushner uses the story in the book of Job as an example. Job was presumed to be a very good and righteous person. He was the unfortunate guinea pig of a bet between God and (a character called) The Accuser (in Hebrew, the word for accuser is sah-tan’ – eventually, the word would become a proper name within Hebrew theology as ‘Satan’). The bet: Is Job’s righteousness tied to his prosperous and happy life? Would Job turn his back on God if life was less comfortable? The Accuser said yes; God said no. So to test the bet, Job lost everything: his land, his money, his health and even his family. After watching for a while, it appears that God won the bet, Job didn’t understand it, he even complained about to God, but he refused to ‘curse God’. The story ended with God getting his health back and replacements for all of the things he lost, including a new family.

In his book, Kushner speaks of God as being a ‘god of justice’ as opposed to simply being a ‘god of power’. The message in First Peter seems to focus on God’s power. God uses God’s power to allow the suffering for the greater purpose of teaching the people of the church a valuable lesson. And at a certain level, I think this is an attractive notion and could be language that is helpful for people who are suffering – their plight has a greater purpose and so the suffering is not all bad.

In Kushner’s book, he gives example after example of people who have experienced deep tragedy, who have trouble accepting that the reason behind the suffering was to get the lesson. When that tragedy involves the death of a young, innocent child – what sense is there to say that this child had to die for the benefit of their parent’s enlightenment? Kushner makes reference to the book “The Bereaved Parent” by Harriet Schiff and quotes what someone said to her after the death of her young son during an operation. Shiff was told by her clergyman: “ ‘I know that you will get through [this painful time] all right because God never sends us more of a burden that we can bear. God only let this happen to you because He knows you are strong enough to handle it.’ Harriet Shiff remembers her reaction to those words: ‘If only I was a weaker person, Robbie would still be alive.’ ”

It is a phrase I have heard a lot: ‘God will not burden us with more than we can bear.’ I know that it is a helpful statement of faith for many people, I don’t want to belittle that. I am simply bothered by the seemingly random nature of the burden of suffering that I seem to observe in the world. Sure, much of life is quite logically dictated by the choices we make – we reap what we sow for the most part. But it is the exceptions that make a blanket theology about the good being blessed and the bad being cursed hard to swallow: decent, giving, good people suffering; and nasty, selfishly-evil people enjoying the good life. How is that right?

I understand the value of the message in the book of Job and in the letter of First Peter: don’t give up on God – God believes you can get through this, just be patient. I just can’t take it to the next level and say that God wants people to suffer – even if something good might result in response to that suffering.

The proverb ‘God will not burden us with more than we can bear’ is not actually from the bible. It’s close to a passage from the letter of First Corinthians (10:12): ‘No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.’

The word “testing” here refers to whether one can endure the temptation to go against their faith. There is a subtle distinction between ‘God actively burdening us with some suffering’ and ‘God aiding us as we seek to endure the suffering of life.’

That (for me) is the helpful distinction from Rabbi Kushner’s book “When Bad Things Happen to Good People”, God is a not so much a god of power, but a god of justice. If our God is a God of Justice, then God will not abandon us in times of trial and difficulty.

That is the theme of the poem by Mary Fishback, about the footprints in the sand, where the person assumes God has abandoned him during the hard times because (at those times) there was only one set of footprints > the divine voice of justice says “my precious child, during those times, it was then that I carried you.”

For all of my concerns about how the author of First Peter penned the theological explanation of suffering, I do like the phrase that we are to “cast all of our anxiety on God”.

Misery not only loves company, it needs it. When a time of suffering ends up yielding some measure of good in our lives, it is (I believe) a result of how much care and compassion we inject into those difficult times. We don’t need to redact the history and say that it was good that we suffered because we learned something valuable. But we can say “in spite of the suffering”, we moved forward in hope and promise and it was that atmosphere of care and compassion that lead to the latent good result. We always would like to relive the time and get the good lesson some other way, but ‘time moves forward not backward for us’ so discussions about what could have been, are seldom helpful because they are not possible.

//

When the disciples of Jesus realized at some point that they would not have the benefit of Jesus in their midst any longer, there was a moment of lamentation. They looked up into empty sky and were stuck in that moment of loss. The message they received was to focus on where they were now and to live this life before them in all faithfulness and devotion. And so they may have gone up on the Mount of Olives with the Risen Christ as their physical companion, but they came down alone. And...their faith was not shaken or broken or irrelevant – they returned to the room in Jerusalem, and the men and women among the group of Jesus’ followers devoted themselves to prayer. The ‘church-after-Jesus’ began.

Over the past 20 some-odd centuries, the church has prospered and struggled. And people of faith have done the same – we’ve prospered and struggled. And...we are still here. That says something.

//

I think we are here because we are drawn to a god of justice – we are drawn to what seems fair, we are drawn to what feels right.

God does not have to be seen as this supernatural, mindless algorithm that simply responds to the inputs we offer with pre-ordained responses. We don’t have to believe in a vending machine sort of God.

We can believe in a God whose essence is justice: a justice based on compassion, mercy and love. We believe in a God that is aware of this moment in time and is able to react to us and how our lives are going. That’s the basic message of the Jesus story the early church too away from the life, death and resurrection of Jesus – that God looks past the ups and downs of our lives and simply loving forgives what fell short.

I can’t say that God only gives us what we can handle – in other words, allowing more pain and suffering for the strong-willed and less for those who could be called weaker. I base this on my own eyes and ears - I have seen good, strong people pushed beyond their limits. And if I have to give God the credit for that, I can’t reconcile that with the god of justice and compassion who Jesus represented in this life.

But I will say that God is actively with us no matter what. God is dynamic and able to respond to the needs of our lives, so that no matter what we are facing, we don’t need to try and handle it alone.

In a few minutes, we will take time to recite together the United Church Creed – let those words “We Are Not Alone” become a life-anthem for you.

Over the next few weeks, we will have the opportunity to share in the experience of baptism with four families. As we do so, they and we will make promises of encouragement and support. When we do take note of the language we will us. We will respond to the invitations to take on these roles with words like, “I will, with God’s help!”

//

When the author of Luke-Acts describes the Risen Jesus leaving his disciples for the last time, at first, they are stuck in the moment, unable to look away from the empty sky. Then the message comes to them, “why are we looking up towards heaven?” There next actions tells us what there answer was – they re-focused on the world they were in, they went back to their community in Jerusalem.

Next week, we will hear another story from Acts that inspires this young community of faith. They will move beyond this moment of separation by connecting with others throughout the known world through their experience of Jesus Christ. They now looked at God in a new way and they knew that this God of Justice and Compassion was with them always.

Even as members of this early church encountered hard times, they would hold fast to that truth: We are not alone. Thanks be to God! That’s our truth as well!

Let us pray:

Help us see, O God, that you are always with us. In Jesus’ name, AMEN

**Offering**