The Harmony of Peace

3rd Sunday after Pentecost

Romans 12:9-21

9 June 2013     

Elizabeth M. Deibert    

Back in 2005, shortly after I arrived to serve as organizing pastor for this new church, the founding members gathered at Living Lord Lutheran Church to discuss a long list of potential names.   When we settled on the name “Peace,” I am not sure we realized the power nor the challenge of that name.   None of us knew that the ancient Christian blessing, “Peace be with you” would take on layers of meaning. Many of us who had found the sharing of the peace in worship meaningless or off-putting in churches that gave a perfunctory nod to that practice, began to find it extremely meaningful because we began to appreciate how foundational that claim is to our identity.  

We did not know the notion of peace, which had been associated with the anti-war and social justice movement that grew up in the 1960’s would become a significant word in modern pop culture with broad, though not necessarily deep, overtones.   None of us considered how often the longing for peace at Christmas time would carry new meaning of those in a church named Peace.   But the biggest learning curve for me these eight years serving as pastor for Peace is the challenge of living into that name with the way we relate to Christ, one another and the world.   

To be at Peace is to know that I have peace with God through my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, whose divine-human nature has brought me close to the Spirit of God.   To be at Peace is to know that I am called/expected to live in peace with others, especially those in the family of faith.   To be at Peace is to care about how  my choices in part shape the peace of the whole world.    

Before leaving you for my annual summer continuing education and rest, I want to share with you another one of my favorite passages from Romans.   There’s Romans 5, 8, 12, three great chapters, all worth your time.   Please read them with me this week.

Romans is Paul’s most theologically thorough letter, written in the late 50’s to the church in Rome, but shaping the theology and practice of all churches throughout history.   In most of Paul’s letters, there’s a pattern.   First he tells the church the theology, the truth of the Gospel and then he says, so because of that, here’s how to live.   When we read Romans 5 two weeks ago, we were reading the truth:  “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.”   Now chapter 12 is the practice of faith.   Here’s how to live:  Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering.  Persevere in prayer.   By the way, I’m reading from the NRSV, so follow with me on the screen now.   You can read the version in the bulletin some other time for comparison.

Romans 12:9-21

NRS  Romans 12:9-21 Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; 10 love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. 11 Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. 12 Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. 13 Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers. 14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. 16 Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are. 17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. 18 If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. 19 Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord." 20 No, "if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads." 21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. (NRSV)

Live in harmony.   (town of Harmony slide) How many people really live in harmony?   According to this sign, the population living is Harmony is 18 people.   To live in harmony, musically, would mean singing a different note than the other people around you, but one that blends well with the other notes to make a lovely combination of notes.   Good harmony musically means all the notes can be heard.   One does not dominate another.

Do you want to know what it means to love your neighbor as you love yourself?  (Billboard:  That Love Thy Neighbor Thing.   I meant it.   – God)

Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan, the supposedly untrustworthy neighbor was the one who actually stopped to care while the esteemed ones walked on.   Do you want to know what it means to love your neighbor as you love yourself?   Paul spells it out clearly here in Romans 12.   It is about honor and respect and humility and forgiveness.

There are plenty of different verses in this rich text that you might gravitate toward but for me this week, these three stood out:   Live in harmony with one another.  Do not be conceited but associate with the lowly.  Never be wise in your own sight.   Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all.   If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all people.  (Romans 12:16-18 on SLIDE)

When the New Testament challenges us to get along with other Christians, it usually says, “other believers or your brothers and sisters.”   But here the challenge is to try to live peaceably with all.   

The book, “Why Did Moses, the Buddha, Mohammed, and Jesus Cross the Road” by Brian McClaren has given me an opportunity to think hard about what it means to hold on to my Christian faith while being charitable toward people of other faiths.   Too often conservatives think that to hold tightly to Christianity, we have to pit ourselves against the other world religions.  Too often liberals think that to be charitable toward other religions, we have to let go some of our beliefs and subscribe to a relativity or anything goes attitude, or as McClaren says, “making a religious tossed salad” of mixed religious beliefs.   

But we don’t have to be argumentative or wishy-washy.   We can be authentically Christian and generous of spirit – peaceable – and it all starts with caring more about people than issues.   That’s what Jesus did.   The Pharisees cared about being right, doing right, following the rules.   Jesus cared about loving people, first and foremost.   

You know that the most entrenched conflicts are those in which people (whether they are a couple, political parties, religious groups, ethnic groups, or countries)  the most entrenched conflicts are those in which each side is absolutely convinced about being right.   But you see, as I think the men’s prayer group discussed on Tuesday morning, you cannot be right if your rightness requires you to do another wrong.   As Pope John Paul said, “You cannot have peace without justice.”   But you also cannot have justice without working toward it peaceably.   True justice comes through right relationships.   Ghandi, MLK, and Nelson Mandela understood that.  

There is much violence today and much of it is verbal violence.   People, through all forms of social media, are lashing out in a verbal warfare, fueled by arrogance, by the need to be right at all cost to relationships.   Being right is not worth that cost, my friends.   Let us not think so highly of ourselves that we will say anything.

In John Backman’s book “Why Can’t  We Talk?”  Christian Wisdom on Dialogue as a Habit of the Heart, we learn that dialogue is not debate or persuasion, in which parties try to convince another of the truth of their own position.   There’s more than enough debate, most of it disrespectful, on tv talk shows.  Dialogue is not negotiation, where two parties, where settlement is more valuable than the relationship.  Dialogue is not merely conversation, where neither party really cares where the verbal reflection goes.   Dialogue is a habit of the heart, in which we truly care about the other person more than we care about either position – ours or theirs.   Dialogue is more than a “live and let live” attitude.   Dialogue requires real curiosity and true compassion.   Dialogue means showing true honor to the other, not just civility.   It is about changing our hearts toward others, not just holding our tongue at the right moment.  

Though holding the tongue can be a crucial first step in growing toward a humility of heart that listens well to the other.  That is certainly a first and significant step.  But the second step is being genuinely interested in the other person, in understanding them, in order to love them, not to persuade or convince them of anything.

Think about it.   How did God build a right relationship with us, after that relationship was broken by our sin, our separating ourselves from God?   God identified completely with us.   God did not stand in opposition to us.   God had tried persuasion in the form of the prophets.   God had tried debate and judgment, and pleading, and in the end, what worked was oneness.   God made peace with us by being one of us in Christ.   By listening and living so thoroughly with us, so compassionately with us, Christ was united with us in life and in death.   And miracle of that is, through that identification with us, the mutuality, the communion happens.   We became also united with his person in death and in life.   The big word is atonement but what it really means is at-one-ment.   It is not Christ buying off God’s anger.   It is God’s total identification with us, short of sinning with us.   That’s love – caring enough to live in communion with the other thoroughly, to care for their well-being more than yours.

18 If possible, to the best of your ability, live in peace with all people.   That’s what Christ did.   He came to bring peace to all people.   The depth of his love was seen in his identifying with thoroughly us, being compassionate toward people who had rejected him, as well as being generous toward those whom others rejected.  Jesus Christ did in the fullest sense of the phrase:  overcome evil with good.   

Bishop Festo KiVENgere (1919–1988) was a Ugandan Anglican-Christian leader referred to by many as "the Billy Graham of Africa.  He played a huge role in a Christian revival in southwestern Uganda, but had to flee in 1973 to neighboring Kenya in fear for his life after speaking out against Idi Amin's tyrannical behavior.

In case you don’t remember, Idi Amin was like Africa’s Hitler.  He murdered hundreds of thousands of his fellow citizens.  In 1977 Archbishop Luwum of Uganda was killed by Idi Amin.   Bishop Kivengere had to escape Uganda on foot while 45,000 Ugandans gathered for the memorial service.  

One year later he authored a book, “I Love Idi Amin”  This book would feel to Ugandans somewhat like erecting a sign at Ground Zero in the year 2002 with the message, “I love Osama bin Laden.”   

"The Holy Spirit showed me," Kivengere wrote, "that I was getting hard in my spirit, and that my hardness and bitterness toward those who were persecuting us could only bring spiritual loss … So I had to ask for forgiveness from the Lord, and for grace to love President Amin more."  Kivengere stated, "On the cross, Jesus said, 'Father, forgive them, because they know not what they do.' As evil as Idi Amin is, how can I do less toward him?”   

Kivengere said:  "Peace is not automatic. It is a gift of the grace of God. It comes when hearts are exposed to the love of Christ. But this always costs something. For the love of Christ was demonstrated through suffering and those who experience that love can never put it into practice without some cost."

—Festo Kivengere (1919-1988)

Rise Up

1 Samuel 1:1-28

2, June 2013

Tricia Dillon Thomas

Opening Prayer:  Kumbaya, Come by Here, My Lord.

Well. Here we are.

It’s funny because in many ways I have spent a lot of time thinking about today… What I would say on my last day, in this, my last sermon.

To be honest, I’ve rehearsed parts of this sermon for years. In the car, in the shower, after a really good day, sometimes… after really bad ones.  I thought I had a lot to say.

Yet, at this moment, it all kind of feels surreal…because these last 6 weeks I never imagined. I thought I would have spent a lot of my days at the beach, which is only 5 minutes from my house, and prayed prayers of thanksgiving over God’s beautiful creation, making sure I memorized the shore line and paid attention to the squalls of the seagulls.

I imagined I would have filled my calendar over meals with friends I’ve met through my children’s schools and in my community.

I imagined I would have visited with each of the families whose children I have been blessed to work with. I would have had ice-cream dates with the youth.

And I would have finished that video that the youth and I started to work on and presented it to as a gift of how each of you is beautifully and wonderfully made in the image of the Creator.

In the least I would have fulfilled my role as pastor and have been present to the sick and prayed with the grieving.

But in reality, I was too sick with this pregnancy to even leave my bed most days. Home alone with three children while my husband started his job in another state…

Our roles reversed.

You helped care for my children, so I could take stay at the church and take a nap on the couch.

You came to my house and visited my family and brought us meals to feed our bellies, but also our spirits.

And you prayed for me and offered me hope as I anxiously waded through this first trimester of pregnancy.

Mid week I emailed Elizabeth. I was having a hard time. I didn’t feel good. I was stressed. I was having a hard time writing this sermon. Elizabeth emailed me back. She suggested I stop trying to write and just go to the scriptures and dwell in God’s good Word. She gave me a passage to read, but told me to also sit with the one on which I was preaching.

Instead of looking up the passages online, like I normally do, I closed my computer. Propped up in the bed, I put my computer on my nightstand and reached for the Bible I have sitting there. It’s the Bible this church gave to me in celebration of my ordination soon after I came to Peace, and the one I’ve used the most in my five years here.

You know how the pages in most Bibles are so very thin, that they’ll often fall open to places where you’ve spent some time?

As I started flipping through, the pages of my Bible fell open to the places that I’ve spent with you. There were notes in margins with good words from parts of sermons that Elizabeth and some of you have preached.

Scriptures from various retreats and conferences with the youth were highlighted.

Marked were passages that the youth and I used to deal with conflict and reconciliation.

And there were Psalms that were underlined and marked up from when one of Peace’s matriarchs, Gretchen, let me be her pastor and she mine in her dying days.

What became very clear to me, as I looked at our stories written on top of and in the margins of the Great Story in the pages of this Bible, is that like my last 6 weeks here, the journey we walk is not often the one we have imagined or would have ever chosen. And what I also began to realize is that it’s in those places where we see God at work, how we become aware that our individual lives aren’t really our own, but woven in and through and between a community of faith and a much larger story... a story that comes alive when we share it with one another.

And so today, I want to share with you my favorite story. It’s been my favorite story since my junior year in college, and yet over the last twenty years, almost as a testimony to the power of the Holy Spirit, what I’ve loved about this story, how I’ve connected to this story, how God has spoken to me in this story has changed with different phases of my life, through both its joys and brokenness.

So please let us now listen for how the Spirit again moves and blows her mighty breath upon these words and in our hearts.

Elkanah lived in Ramah, a town in the hill country of Ephraim. His great-great-grandfather was Zuph, so Elkanah was a member of the Zuph clan of the Ephraim tribe. Elkanah’s father was Jeroham, his grandfather was Elihu, and his great-grandfather was Tohu.

Elkanah had two wives, Hannah and Peninnah. Although Peninnah had children, Hannah did not have any.

Once a year Elkanah traveled from his hometown to Shiloh, where he worshiped the Lord All-Powerful and offered sacrifices. Eli was the Lord’s priest there, and his two sons Hophni and Phinehas served with him as priests.

Whenever Elkanah offered a sacrifice, he gave some of the meat to Peninnah and some to each of her sons and daughters. 5 But he gave Hannah even more, because he loved Hannah very much, even though the Lord had kept her from having children of her own.

Peninnah liked to make Hannah feel miserable about not having any children, especially when the family went to the house of the Lord each year.

One day, Elkanah was there offering a sacrifice, when Hannah began crying and refused to eat.  So Elkanah asked, “Hannah, why are you crying? Why won’t you eat? Why do you feel so bad? Don’t I mean more to you than ten sons?”

When the sacrifice had been offered, and they had eaten the meal, Hannah got up and went to pray. Eli was sitting in his chair near the door to the place of worship. Hannah was brokenhearted and was crying as she prayed, “Lord All-Powerful, I am your servant, but I am so miserable! Please let me have a son. I will give him to you for as long as he lives, and his hair will never be cut.”

Hannah prayed silently to the Lord for a long time. But her lips were moving, and Eli thought she was drunk.  “How long are you going to stay drunk?” he asked. “Sober up!”

“Sir, please don’t think I’m no good!” Hannah answered. “I’m not drunk, and I haven’t been drinking. But I do feel miserable and terribly upset. I’ve been praying all this time, telling the Lord about my problems.”

Eli replied, “You may go home now and stop worrying. I’m sure the God of Israel will answer your prayer.”

“Sir, thank you for being so kind to me,” Hannah said. Then she left, and after eating something, she felt much better.

Elkanah and his family got up early the next morning and worshiped the Lord. Then they went back home to Ramah. Later the Lord blessed Elkanah and Hannah with a son. She named him Samuel because she had asked the Lord for him.

The next time Elkanah and his family went to offer their yearly sacrifice, he took along a gift that he had promised to give to the Lord.  But Hannah stayed home, because she had told Elkanah, “Samuel and I won’t go until he’s old enough for me to stop nursing him. Then I’ll give him to the Lord, and he can stay there at Shiloh for the rest of his life.”

“You know what’s best,” Elkanah said. “Stay here until it’s time to stop nursing him. I’m sure the Lord will help you do what you have promised.” Hannah did not go to Shiloh until she stopped nursing Samuel.

When it was the time of year to go to Shiloh again, Hannah and Elkanah took Samuel to the Lord’s house. They brought along a three-year-old bull, a twenty-pound sack of flour, and a clay jar full of wine. Hannah and Elkanah offered the bull as a sacrifice, then brought the little boy to Eli.

“Sir,” Hannah said, “a few years ago I stood here beside you and asked the Lord to give me a child. Here he is! The Lord gave me just what I asked for. Now I am giving him to the Lord, and he will be the Lord’s servant for as long as he lives.”

The grass withers, and the flower fades, but the Word of our Lord shall stand forever.

Immediately following this passage is Hannah’s Prayer. It’s one of the famous prayers—like Miriam’s Song in Exodus or Mary’s Prayer in Luke—and its placement marks the transition of Samuel under her care, to Samuel being handed over to Eli as an instrument of God.

Sometimes when I’ve read that prayer my heart breaks for Hannah. I hear her sorrow because she’s giving the child she prayed so fervently for, over to another to raise. But most of the time, I read that prayer as a prayer of gratefulness, of joy for the gift God’s given to her, for the blessing of new life, for and the promise of more to come, and her trust in God that it will.

The name Hannah in Hebrew is translated as “to be gracious, merciful, compassionate.” No matter the interpretation of Hannah’s prayer, as her name suggests, in her graciousness, she gives back to God the thing she wanted the most, the thing she loves the most, her precious child.

It’s hard to imagine a love that would take such risks. Could you ever do what Hannah did? Could you ever risk a love that strong?

And yet when Jesus was asked what is the greatest commandment in the Gospel of Matthew, he responds, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Matt 22: 37). I think Hannah exemplifies what loving God with your entire self looks like. She literally gave her first fruits to God. And I pray that I can be so bold. That you can be so bold. That the church can be so bold.  That, like Hannah, we would be willing enough and trusting enough to give God our first fruits, instead of what we had left. The time we hadn’t already filled up, the patience that wasn’t already expended on our secular tasks. The first check of the month instead of what is left at the end.

The second part of the commandment that Jesus gives says this, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt 22:39).

My favorite part of this story comes in that first scene in Shiloh. Peninnah torments and mocks Hannah for her barrenness, and Elkanah, though a loving husband, discounts her suffering by assuring her he is all she needs. Hannah, who has silently suffered all these years, finally has enough.

The scripture reads, “Hannah rose up.”

There is such strength in those words: Hannah Rose.

She has had enough. She gets up. She takes a stand. She rises up.

What Hannah did was against protocol. It was bold.  

For me Hannah’s rising up isn’t just about standing up for herself against the hate and bullying she endures, but it represents that second command that is equal to the first: To love your neighbor as yourself.

Do we like Hannah, not only risk loving God with every fiber of our being, but also risk loving our neighbor?

There’s nothing that makes me “eye roll” more than when I hear Christians say, “The church shouldn’t be involved in politics.” To that statement, I want to say two things.

FIRST) I want to shout, “Have you read the Bible?!” The Egyptians were fleeing from—Pharaoh!  

The Israelites were exiled when their kings encouraged the worship of other gods and the people stopped taking care of the widowed and the orphaned.

Jesus flipped the tables over in the temple when he saw the face of the Caesar on the coins of the money exchangers.  

Jesus was crucified when he became a threat to the legalistic religion Judaism had become.

SECOND) I want to say this. The definition of politics “is the total complex of relations between people living in society.” If we are called to care for and love one another, “To love your neighbor as yourself,” then we are called to care for the complex of relations between people living in a society.  

But our rising is always based in love of other. We are called to RISE UP and profess Jesus’ radical gospel of redemptive love and reconciliation in the face of all that is contrary to that.

There’s a story that has stuck with me for years and illustrates what this looks like.

My first year here in Florida, I was attending some kind of function at First Presbyterian in Sarasota. I don’t remember who the speaker was or what the program was about. But after most people had cleared out I was talking to the The Rev. George Chorba, a retired minister in this Presbytery, and he shared this with me.

“A number of years ago in Ethiopia, two warring tribes had spilled far too much blood to continue their decades old feud on into the future. Elders of the tribes met to declare a truce and to design a pact for peace as neighbors. While all the factors behind the truce are not known, what is on record is the decision the tribes made to seal this pact for a future of peace.

At the appointed time, the warring tribesmen met to create a symbolic barricade of saplings and spears, which were driven into the soil. When it was completed, women and children of the two tribes came from opposite directions to stand across from each other for the first time. After the truce was read, mothers with nursing infants passed their child across the barricade to the arms of another nursing mother, where each child was fed. The spears marking their past and saplings their future, and trusting their infants to each other across the barricade, was a memorable symbol of the life these tribes chose for their children’s future.”

They chose to RISE UP and RISE OUT of decades of fighting and take a stand for peace. They risked trusting one another, and put in the arms of their enemy that which was precious and most vulnerable. Their babies, their future.  

Today I’m not ready to say good-bye. I’m not ready to say goodbye to youth and children who have become like my very own, to families that have welcomed me into their folds, to a staff who are more than colleagues, but have become my best friends. Because the journey hasn’t been what I’ve imagined, I’m not ready to say goodbye to the people of Peace, who have not only taught me how to be a better pastor, but how to be a better friend, a better pray-er, a better listener, a better Christian. I think this unimaginable journey in these last six weeks was a blessing. I have been reminded of how much I love you. How much I love this Church. How well you have loved my family and me.

I have always, if not immediately, been able to look back at the journey this young church has been on and seen VERY CLEARLY, the hand of God at work here. I have always been able to see how you live out Jesus’ greatest commandment to love God and one another. And so my prayer for you is that you continue to be God’s faithful people. That you continue to love God with all you are and show others how to love God, too. May you continue to RISE UP out of love and be the voice of peace in this community.

May it all be so and more.

Amen.

 

Hope in the Trinity

Trinity Sunday

Romans 5:1-5 

26 May 2013                                                                    

Elizabeth M. Deibert                                                        

This is one of a few passages in the Bible which name all three persons of the Trinity.   That’s why Romans 5:1-5 is the epistle lesson for today, but it is our sermon text because it happens to be one of my favorites.  In fact, I was shocked to discover that I have never in seven years here, preached from this text.   I am sure I have quoted it in sermons, that we’ve read in Word-Share-Prayer devotionals at Ministry Team meetings.  It has been especially meaningful to me, as I went to a memorial service of a close friend in Alabama, and saw his wife, struggling with Alzheimer’s.   It has been meaningful to me this week, as we have experienced some exhaustion, thinking that the process of securing this potential new property for Peace might take as long as the last one did to figure out.   I have had the privilege of meditating on this short passage all week, and because I assume you haven’t done that and because I believe you need these verses in your souls as much as I need them in my soul, I am going to lead you through a little exercise to help you get this scripture in your head.   You can reinforce this scripture in your soul by putting the insert of your bulletin on your mirror or in your car this week.   If you want to hear the Spirit more accurately, then it is imperative to build into your psyche some of the significant words of scripture – ones like these.

Romans 5:1-5

Therefore, since we are justified by faith,

 we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,

² through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand;

and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God.

³ And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings,

 knowing that suffering produces endurance,

⁴ and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,

⁵ 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.

(NRSV)

And now, pray with me as I sing a hymn, remembering those who are suffering greatly this week in the greater Oklahoma City area and in Manatee County and around the world: 

Through cloud and out of chaos
Your people call Your Name
In darkness, God will hold us,
In Christ, the storms are tamed.

Toward hope our hearts are drawn
Your healing Life abounding,
Your Love, our steadfast song.

Let’s think about Romans 5 from the perspective of grief.   The tragic loss of a child in a collapsed building is devastating, but losing all your possessions is another kind of grief.   Suffering of this depth is something few of us have experienced.   Most of us can only think of smaller losses, and then use our imagination to consider the expanse of grief in such a circumstance.    Suffering produces endurance because suffering is hard work.   Suffering takes every ounce of emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual energy we can muster.   Suffering can produce collapse or resignation.   Suffering can produce bitterness and envy, but it can also produce endurance in those who keep doing the hard work of grief and for those, friends, family members, pastors and priests, Stephen Ministers, who do the hard work with them with compassion.   Those who support help with the endurance.

It is clear in a race that the one who quits running is not building endurance.   No, it is the one who keeps going, perhaps pausing, but never stopping.   It is the one who sticks with the new walking regimen, the new morning or evening devotions, that endures, that builds character.   Those who are caught in profound grief just need to keep getting out of bed every day and whatever.   It is the very practice of enduring suffering that builds character.

Character building is something that we all value, but we’d rather be characters instead of build character.   We’d rather have the character without enduring the suffering.   Like thinking you can get an A on a hard test without studying.   Like thinking you can lose weight without experiencing hunger pangs.   No, the suffering for a while (endurance) is what builds character.   It’s funny that sometimes parents try so hard to protect their children from suffering, that they go rushing to the school to complain when their child suffers a hardship.   I’m not saying we should not protect our children from abuse – sexual, physical, emotional – but they do need some suffering along the way to build character.    So let’s not always rush to their defense, especially if they might have made the bed they are in.

Some sufferings seem trivial, like the adjustment of a three year old to a new baby brother or sister, or the challenge of being patient with situations and people who irritate you.  But I say that tiny problems can build character when endured, rather than avoided.   Sufferings, large and small, are opportunities for either endurance or bitterness or resignation.  

If you learn in all the small ways (being patient with bad drivers on the road, being patient with family members who bothering you, being generous-spirited toward all who irritate) then you are enduring the little stuff and growing the character to handle the larger events of life.

Don’t you see that the ultimate outcome is hope?   We all want to be filled with hope.   But hope comes to those who have built character by enduring hardship.    Later in chapter eight, Paul says, “hope that is seen is not hope.”   Hope is a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen.   Why is hope able to sustain us?   Because of the peace that is ours in Christ Jesus, because of the love that God gives us through the Spirit.   Because this Triune God of ours, is coming at us, moving through us, transforming our lives in the dance that is grace.   This grace-filled dance we have with the three persons of the Trinity, gives us ample opportunity to be filled with peace and love.   But we sometimes think that avoidance of suffering is the key to happiness.   No, Paul says, we are content, even glad for our sufferings because we know what an opportunity for growth they provide.   We understand that our sharing in Christ’s glory also means we share in Christ’s suffering.  They go together.

I would never say to a grieving person, “Now you should be thankful for all the ways you can grow in character and build hope by enduring this sadness.”   I would not announce that God sent a tornado to build character in Moore, Oklahoma.   I would not claim that it is God’s will for a child to die buried in rubble, or for a poor teenaged girl to get raped in public in Brazil, or for a British soldier to get hacked to death in broad daylight by those who are against the war in which he fought or for a good teacher to lose her job because of poor district management.   No, but in that circumstance, it is God’s will for that suffering to turn to hope.

I reckon God knows we need character more than miraculous protection sometimes   I believe God wants us to suffer with those who suffer, as did Christ, such that we grow together in love and peace, such that we cannot be completely content when we know others are hurting.   So my response to the suffering of others is not to offer platitudes, answers, reasons, but to be a caring nurturing presence, like the Holy Spirit.   

That’s the heart of Stephen Ministry is learning to listen and asking good questions, not offering shallow comments, which pretend to sound like hope, but are not hope because they arise without the suffering endurance and the character-building stuff from which true hope is born.   You cannot provide hope for someone.  You can only provide loving care, which helps them to endure the trial and grow in character toward hope.

The internet and our continuous stream of news can be helpful in letting us know people are suffering, but because it is operating on the principle of keeping you glued, rather than building your character, you might get so much detail on the suffering that you become bitter or defeated, rather than enduring pain with others and growing toward hope.   Watching suffering like a voyeur without providing care for someone does often lead to despair.

But the God who is with us as one and as three, who live and died for us in Jesus Christ, whose presence is always with us in the Holy Spirit, is pouring out love, filling us with peace, and challenging us to endure suffering in a way that builds character and hope.   When that happens, then and only then do we begin to be the people God calls us to be – people glorified with Christ, even as we suffer with him.