Romans 5:1-5
Pentecost 2
You can find this sign above the door of a resident’s room in an assisted living community, “This is not the life I ordered.” There seems to be no end to the different ways that we have experiences we would never want. Post-traumatic Stress Syndrome altars the lives of those who endure our worst nightmares. Serious illness, either our own or a loved one’s, challenges our functioning, and even our faith. Unemployment takes more than a financial toll. Infidelity, physical and emotional abuse, drug dependency,–the things we suffer can leave us hopeless. This is what makes Paul’s letter to the Romans hard to understand.
“We boast in our sufferings,” Paul writes, “knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope.” What kind of logic is this? Are we to brag when our eyes can no longer see, and we have trouble remembering where we put the car keys? Are we to boast when the bills that have come in this month exceed the money we have in the bank? Should we sing our own praises because we have broken a bone and can’t walk, let alone drive? Should we speak with pride when we find that the person who makes our heart flutter has been involved with someone else? I don’t know about you, but my suffering produces anxiety, grief and despair. We would much rather get a raise in salary than to lose our job. We would rather take a cruise than take a beating. We would rather say, “Thank God!” than “God, why me?”
Yet Paul writes, “We boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope.” Paul says this with confidence because, he explains, “…since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand…” In other words, we are brought into right relationship with God as an undeserved gift. It doesn’t matter who we are, what we’ve done or what we haven’t done, God wants a relationship with us. God loves us. God does not desire suffering. Hear this clearly. God’s desire for us is wholeness and peace. God’s desire for us is not suffering; God’s desire for us is shalom. Sin has brought suffering into our world, and life presents us with challenges. While that is not what God wants for us, God promises not to abandon us in our suffering.
What do you do when things don’t go well? To what, or to whom, do you turn? When life is dark, where do you place your hope? From where does your hope come? Maybe you tell yourself to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. Sometimes, we think we can handle difficulties all on our own, but self-sufficiency is an illusion. Self-sufficiency, at best, stunts development of relationships, and can even shut people out. At worst, it denies God. Maybe you avoid painful issue by going shopping, or consuming alcohol or drugs. We buy lottery tickets in hopes of an escape. Maybe if someone causes us to suffer, we retaliate in hopes that they will suffer just as we do. As there are myriads of ways we suffer, there are also thousands of ways in which we try to escape it. We are searching for quick magic, when what we really need is God.
“Suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope.” How does this happen? Suffering strips us of our pretenses, and leaves us vulnerable. It reminds us that we are in need of relationship. It drives home that we cannot exist without God. We search for the presence of the God who is already with us, and open ourselves to possibilities. The only hope we have is holy hope. Our hope becomes grounded in God.
On our own, we can get stuck in despair. By ourselves, we can become paralyzed with grief. But the God who heals the sick, forgives the guilty and raises the dead will do more. The God who turns our bondage to sin into freedom from sin, the God who turns death into life, the God who turns despair into hope will do more. Good Friday is not the end. As has been said, it’s Friday, but Sunday’s coming. Through Christ, we do not remain victims, trapped in our suffering.
Therefore, Paul boldly writes, We boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. 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. Biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann points out that these are words of people who refuse to give in, and who refuse the present loss as the last truth. These are the words of people who know that God is not finished. He reminds us that “in the face of evil, disorder, social chaos, and imperial abuse: God has not quit; God will make it right, because God will yet do what God has already done.”[1]
What has God already done? Through Moses, God led God’s people out of slavery in Egypt, God brought the exiles home, and restored the temple in Jerusalem. God’s own son, Jesus Christ, nailed to a cross, suffered a violent death. God raised Jesus on the third day. God’s word does not fail. Even when suffering leads to death, death does not have the last word. Through God, victims become victorious.
This faith, this trust, empowered Dr. Martin Luther King in 1963 to speak to African-Americans exiled in their own land, and to a nation in turmoil, saying in faith and holy hope, “I have a dream today!” King dared to dream that injustice and oppression would be transformed into freedom and justice. “With this faith,” King proclaimed, “we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope…. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.” Through God, victims become victorious.
God sows seeds of compassion into hearts of stone, turns anger into forgiveness, and brings people into our lives to help and to guide us. God brings light into our darkness. More than that, God promises to be with us through all that is and all that is to come. St. Paul writes, Through the death and resurrection of God’s son, Jesus Christ, God promises that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.[2]
God’s promises are unconditional, and God’s word will not fail. Through God’s love for us, made known in Christ, God turns our bondage to sin into freedom from sin. God turns us from suffering to hope. Because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us, we stand in God’s grace. This is our sure and certain holy hope. We are no longer victims; through Christ, we are victorious.
~Pastor Cheryl Ann Griffin
[1] http://www.icjs.org/clergy/walter.html
[2] Romans 8:38