John 16:12-15
Romans 5:1-5
In J.K Rowling’s book, Harry Potter
and the Order of the Phoenix,( New
York, NY : Arthur A. Levine Books, 2003.
p823) there is a
conversation between Harry and Dumbledore that follows Harry’s great loss of
his god-father. Harry is suffering, he
is struggling. The conversation follows
as such:
“I
know how you are feeling, Harry,” said Dumbledore very quietly.
“No, you don’t,” said
Harry, and his voice was suddenly loud and strong. White-hot anger leapt inside him. Dumbledore knew nothing about his feelings.
“You see, Dumbledore?”
said Phineas Nigellus slyly, “Never try to understand the students. They hate it.
They would much rather be tragically misunderstood, wallow in self-pity,
stew in their own –”
“That’ enough,
Phineas,” said Dumbledore.
Harry turned his back
on Dumbledore and stared determinedly out of the opposite window. …
“There is no shame in
what you are feeling, Harry,” said Dumbledore’s voice. “On the contrary…the fact that you can feel
pain like this is your greatest strength.”
Harry felt the
white-hot anger lick his insides, blazing in the terrible emptiness, filling
him with the desire to hurt Dumbledore for his calmness and his empty words.
“My greatest
strength, is it?” said Harry, his voice shaking as he stared out at the
Quidditch stadium, no longer seeing it. “You haven’t got a clue…You don’t
know…”
“What don’t I know?”
asked Dumbledore calmly.
It was too much. Harry turned around, shaking with rage.
“I don’t want to talk
about how I feel, all right?”
“Harry, suffering
like this proves you are still a man!
This pain is part of being human –”
“THEN – I – DON’T –
WANT – TO – BE- HUMAN!” Harry roared, and he seized one of the delicate silver
instruments form the spindle-legged table beside him and flung it across the
room. It shattered into a hundred tiny
pieces against the wall. Several of the pictures let out yells of anger and
fright and the portrait of Armando Dippet said, “Really!”
“I DON’T CARE!” Harry
yelled at them, snatching up a lunascope and throwing it into the
fireplace. “I’VE HAD ENOUGH, I’VE SEEN
ENOUGH, I WANT OUT, I WANT IT TO END, I DON’T CARE ANYMORE - ”
He seized the table
on which the silver instrument had stood and threw that too. It broke apart on the floor and the legs
rolled in different directions.
“You do care,” said
Dumbledore. He had not flinched or made
a single move to stop Harry demolishing his office. His expression was calm, almost
detached. “You care so much you feel as
though you will bleed to death with the pain of it.”
--
We all have times of suffering. It is part of the human experience. It is part of being alive. None of us want to suffer. None of us enjoy suffering. And yet, the passage I just read tells us
that suffering is our greatest strength.
That it IS what makes us the people we are. Paul said it in today’s passage as well. “suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.”
But the truth is we have choices
about how we react to the pain of suffering.
We have choices about what we will do with our suffering. Paul Pearsall in his book, The Beethoven Factor (Hampton Roads Publishing Company, 2003) says we tend to react to trauma or suffering in one of
three ways. We can become victims, or
become beaten, bitter, sorrowful because of what we have endured. We can become survivors, which means we make
it through but continue to wear the scars.
Or we can become thrivers.
Thrivers take what they have endured and create something new and beautiful
out of it. I believe that our faith can
have a great deal to do with how we respond in the face of trauma.
While I was in Ohio, I was part of
a wonderful and amazing lectionary group - a group of 12 pastors who met
together weekly to study scripture, pray together, eat together, sometimes sing
together and sometimes play together. We
were brother and sister Christians on the journey towards a deeper
understanding of Christ, of God, of the Spirit and of love. But we were/are also friends - people I know
I can call on and count on in crisis, people I do call on and count on in
crisis. We were a "house church" in the truest sense of the word, a
community offering care that is not just theoretical but practical as
well. I am so deeply grateful for every
single person in that group, deeply thankful for their thoughtfulness and faith,
their contributions to the community, their abiding friendships, the gifts they
gave simply through their weekly presence.
One week when we gathered, our group
members had much wisdom to offer on this passage from Paul in Romans 5:1-5. At one point in the conversation we were
particularly discussing verses 3-5. To
quote it once more, "And not only that, but we also boast in our
sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces
character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us,
because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that
has been given to us."
I admit I had been very quiet that
morning. It was a week of anniversaries - difficult, painful anniversaries and
I am not unaffected by these. I was
even, I found, a little concerned that I might be bringing the group down with
my sad energy. But I found it more than
a little interesting that the group was discussing how unhelpful it is when
people tell each other that they are supposed to be grateful for their
sufferings. Comments like
"everything happens for a reason" and "God never gives you more
than you can handle" are not helpful. These comments minimize the pain we
suffer, they discount our experiences in the moment. Telling people they should be grateful for
their suffering because it will produce endurance which produces character which
produces hope is not and cannot be helpful.
I agree with all of this. But
then somehow it was either said or implied that people can't really be grateful
for the deep traumas they endure. And
there I was, sitting in pain, sitting in grief, sitting in memories of the
previous two years when my family had gone through an unbelievable time of loss
and tragedy and scandal and humiliation and my life and the lives of my kids
had radically changed as I became a single parent and sole provider for my
family, for my household; a leader of a congregation without a partner to
support me, sitting in memories of hurtful attacks aimed my way, sitting in
regrets for things that should have been or could have been done differently,
sitting in loss - and from that place, from that place of pain I heard myself
saying, "I am grateful for the suffering that I have endured." Huh?
Did I just say that? "I have
deepened - in my person, in my faith, in my compassion and empathy, in my
ability to understand and forgive, in my commitment to see what really is and
what is not, mostly in my connection to God.
I have deepened and become more the person I strive to be, the person
God calls me to be, because of my struggles." Silence.
"Okay," came the response finally, "but would you
have said that two years ago when you were actually going through all of that?"
"No", I laughed.
And then, again to the surprise of myself more than anyone I added,
"and yes." During that
incredibly difficult time for my family there came a period when I thought I
might actually be broken by what was happening, when I felt that maybe I would
not be able to hold it together. The
world was nothing like I thought it was.
My marriage, my life, my ministry, my views of other human beings, my
understanding of the world - nothing was what I had thought it was. And the things I prayed for were answered by
"no" and "no" again.
Every morning I found myself just repeating the mantra, "Please,
God. Please, God!" over and over and yet things were not getting
better. Every day brought more pain and
new levels of hurt. And yet...and yet,
it was in the midst of that, in the midst of the deepest, darkest time ever in
my life, that I felt God's presence so incredibly strongly. I felt God's arms holding me, carrying me,
speaking to me of companionship and love and care. And it was not just with God directly. I connected with people whom I never would
have connected with at such deep levels, I made meaningful and enduring friendships
(including with folk from that very group) who were amazing and supportive and
wonderful and who continue to shine God's light for me. I learned who was real and true and caring
(most of the people I knew and connected with, actually!) and who could not
walk with me through the crisis, and I came to understand that those who could
not walk with me - that too was not out of meanness, but out of their own experiences
and needs at that time. People shared with me their own sufferings at a much
deeper level because they knew I would get it, and so it deepened my ministry
as well. And I developed a much, much stronger
appreciation for the beauty around me in the midst of darkness. I am more grateful now for the birds singing,
the sun shining, the breeze blowing, for little gifts and kind words, open smiles
and firm hugs, the presence of children in my life, play, dance, music. I see blessings and feel blessed where I did
not see them or know them or love them before.
Did
I want the difficult tragedies to happen?
Of course not. In my wildest,
deepest, most awful nightmares I never saw this coming and never could have
imagined the pain and suffering that I or my kids would have experienced. But it would be inaccurate to say that I am
ungrateful for it. Because God did bring
gifts, God did bring life, God brought presence in a way I had never
experienced before and it came to me THROUGH the experiences. And while I am still a person who makes
mistakes, big and little, who "sins", who hurts others, I see that I
am becoming more fully the person God calls me to be because I have deepened
through the suffering. How could I not
be grateful?
Paul starts this passage with the words, “we boast in our
sufferings”. I would not say that I
"boast" in my suffering. I
would not say that I "take pride" (different translation) in my
problems. In truth, I find that
problematic. When we become “martyrs”
for a cause we can lose sight of the real meaning – of serving and loving God
and one another. We can become too focused
on a single issue and forget to see the forest for the single tree. It becomes at some level about us and about our ability to withstand,
to have integrity, to be strong. Again,
our call is to be about love – loving God, self and each other. Boasting in our suffering is not about
loving. But while that part of the
passage does NOT speak to me in this way, I would say that God has been present
for me through all of the pain we endured, that I am different because of it, and
that, yes, I am grateful for the struggles.
I pray the same for all of you.
I don't wish pain on you, but pain will come. And so my prayer is that when it does, that
you, too, would thrive through adversity, grow through the struggles, deepen and
find gratitude in the midst of it all.
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