Suffering

1 Peter 2:19-25; John 10:1-10

Fourth Sunday of Easter 

 

For it is a credit to you if, being aware of God, you endure pain while suffering unjustly, we hear this morning from 1 Peter. I conducted an informal poll of the various ways that people suffer.  Here’s what you told me:

• Working in kindergarten the last day of school before Christmas break during a full moon.
• Law school.
• Having your finger caught in a beaver trap spring and having to call the fire department to get the finger unstuck. What you should know about this is that it was written by a fireman.
• Listening to my pastors preach. (And yes, this one is from one of our parishioners.)
• Being a Phillies fan.

There were serious answers to the question of how you have experienced suffering:

• Thinking I could fix someone.
• The loss of my son still hurts, 20 years later.
• That I often think I have a better plan for my life than God.
• Watching your children suffer, and not being able to help.

But if you endure when you do right and suffer for it, you have God’s approval.  For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps….  When he was abused, he did not return abuse….

On Monday, a James City County man was arrested on charges of felony child abuse after his 3-month old daughter died at VCU.  Our reading this morning has been misinterpreted by some to justify abuse.  Abuse is never justifiable.

Statistics of abuse are jarring.  In the United States, 2.3 million children received care through Child Protective Services.  Four out of five abusers are the child’s parents.[1] Nearly 12 million men and women a year are victims of rape, physical violence or stalking. [2] Financial exploitation is the most common form of elder abuse, which is on the rise. The majority of elder abuse is committed by a family member.[3]

Avalon Center, our local organization that works to end domestic violence, states that there are warning signs that help identify an abusive relationship. Ask these questions:

Do you avoid certain topics out of fear of angering your partner?  Does your partner humiliate, criticize, or yell at you?  Does your partner act excessively jealous and possessive?  Does your partner criticize you for little things? Do you feel emotionally numb or helpless?  Does your partner threaten to harm your children, or to harm him or herself? [4]

Physical violence is never okay.

Those of us here today either suffered abuse or know someone who has been abused. Listen again to the words of 1Peter, listen with the heart of someone who has suffered.  But if you endure when you do right and suffer for it, you have God’s approval.  For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps. No wonder some people misunderstand!  Our passages are proof that we need informed Bible study!  Nowhere does this text say that God sanctions abuse. We are not being urged to suffer.

Obedience to God and the gospel is at the heart of this passage.  The circumstances of suffering referred to in this passage stem from standing firm in our faith.  Think about standing against societal pressure. When we love our neighbor, our gay neighbor, our black neighbor, and our Muslim neighbor, we are going to incur anger from some people.  When we give financially to those in need instead of buying the latest and greatest, we slide down on the societal success scale. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed for his stance on equality and non-violence.  Hold fast to love, Jesus tell us.

This is exactly what Jesus did.  Jesus came and loved poor people, sick people, and people of other ethnicities.  He was changing the system, and we killed him for it.  Let me explain.  God does not demand blood and suffering as the just punishment for sin. God does not need a payment of a debt for our sins by means of a death that satisfies divine justice. Jesus did not die because God demanded a sacrificial lamb to take our place in God’s punishment.

David Lose, president of the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Philadelphia,[5] explains Jesus’ suffering and death:

We live in a world where only some people are fed, and so Jesus feeds the hungry.  We live in a world where people are sick and die needlessly, and so Jesus heals them.  We live in a world where strength is honored over compassion, where wealth is the measure of importance rather than integrity, where power is measured by what you can destroy rather than what you can create, and so every act of grace, every sign or miracle of compassion, every act of healing, every time Jesus embraces someone the system has declared an outcast, he is calling the whole system into question….

The Gospel stories, in the end, …[are] telling us the truth that all of us participate in a system that crucified Jesus….Confessing our failure and need, and becoming dependent on God’s grace and mercy [is  dying]….Death doesn’t have the last word.  …Once we hear the first truth the cross tells us—we can hear and believe the second truth that God has love us all along and desired life for us all along.  And that’s being raised again.[6]

God came to us in flesh and blood because God loves us, all of us, regardless of whether we can understand or accept that love.  God did not send Jesus in order to make us lovable.  Because God created us, we are worthy of dignity, and love.  Some people still can’t accept and live into that much love.  Those are the ones who are thieves, and the ones who are perpetrators of abuse.  Jesus himself tells us, The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.  I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.[7]

Just before the Israelites crossed over the river Jordan into the Promised Land, God urged them, saying:

I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings, and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him, for that means life to you and length of days…[8]

Choose life!  If you were abused, you can choose not to become one who abuses others.  If you grew up with racism, you can choose to advocate for equal rights for all people. You who have been attacked can choose not to strike back.  I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly, Jesus tells us.[9]  You who are loved beyond any measure by the one who created you, choose life!

~Pastor Cheryl Ann Griffin

[1] http://www.nationalchildrensalliance.org/media-room/media-kit/national-statistics-child-abuse

[2] http://www.thehotline.org/resources/statistics/

[3] https://ncea.acl.gov/whatwedo/research/statistics.html

[4]  http://avaloncenter.org/what-is-abuse#About%20Abusers

[5] The Lutheran Seminary at Philadelphia is in the process of combining with the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg to form United Seminary.  Rev. Dr. Theresa Latini is the current president of United Seminary.

[6] Lose, David.  Making Sense of the Cross.  Minneapolis:  Augsburg Fortress, 2011. 176-177.

[7] John 10:10.

[8] Deuteronomy 30:19-20a

[9] John 10:10.