I went to church for the first time since the move this last Sunday. It isn't that I haven't wanted to go - it's something about moving and boxes and being entirely out of a routine that's kept me away. Every week I would think "I really need to go to church" and every week it would be Sunday at 11:00 and I would realize that the window had closed.
But what got me off my tuckus and to the church service, was the fact that one of my colleagues was speaking.
Ok - a quick side note - Can I just say how awesome it is to work at this practice?? We prayed together to open and close the staff meeting. Did you hear that??? At my JOB we prayed at a staff meeting! If that weren't enough, I met up with another of my colleagues to discuss transfer of cases and we spent probably half the meeting talking about how God is working in us and in the community. And at no time did either one of us feel the need to justify ourselves as still competent professionals or just generally non-judgmental people. Well, maybe I felt the need to (old habits die hard) but I didn't actually do any justifying and he didn't seem to care. Hallelujiah!
So back to the story...
One of my colleagues, David Smith, was speaking at the service. Now I knew through snippets that David had a interesting tale to tell; that he had walked with God through a time of being pastor for a church and had lost a child. I also knew that he was going to speak on suffering, despite (as his wife put it ) telling God he would not speak on suffering. You know its going to be good when God does something like that - He ain't foolin around. So I was NOT going to miss it.
So I was there - two Bibles in hand (my big study Bible and my little purse Bible; overkill I know - but I really didn't know what to expect). The venue was so strange - everything was different and yet familiar. I mean Canyon is huge; stadium seating, separate children's facility, 5 big screens, a full rock band, etc. This service was maybe 75 people with a projector in this room they typically used for faculty meetings. Yet we sang some familiar songs and prayed together. The church was in crisis a bit because a new baby among the church family, little Lily Frost, was sick (meningitis) and we prayed for her, her parents, the doctors, you name it. It was so warm and comfortable. I remember half-way through the service realizing that this was a little glimpse of a heaven - a room full of the faces I would see and the brothers and sisters with whom I would share eternity. You know this life is hard and being a Christian is not always easy, but moments like that - standing in a room full of basically strangers, in a new state, by myself still feeling a deep sense of connection and belonging - *sigh* there are some benefits, aren't there?
And then David begins speaking and he poses two questions: (1) Why does God allow suffering? and (2) Where is God in my suffering?.
Immediately two of my nearest and dearest come to mind. The first question brought my Leslie up. There was a pivotal moment in my relationship with Leslie where we were talking about my faith. Les often asked about my faith and listened intently. One day, she asked how I reconciled a loving God, who was active in the affairs of the world, with the suffering I see all around me - I gave some answer, I don't remember what, but I do remember her response. It was something like - "I've heard that before. And it works if we are talking about the small sufferings of my life, but it does nothing to explain the fact that God didn't stop those men in Africa from raiding homes, raping and killing families with small children over and over again." And though she didn't say it - hanging there was a question "Where was your God then?" And in a way I never saw before, I saw Leslie's heart, bleeding compassion and rage for those children and families. No shallow, American version of understanding suffering was going to work. She needed something she could bite into - something that didn't diminish the suffering of those people or paint something so atrocious using rosy, bright sided optimism.
So the Leslie from that moment lives with me. She will not let my soul settle for anything less. So listening to David speak - there she was, right next to me, listening. And though I cannot tell you whether or not the real Leslie would be satisfied with what David offered, I can tell you that I was satisfied. First, he said something like "all pain is the result of sin, sin that we all contribute to". For example, those men in Africa who did all that murdering and hating - they weren't born that angry, something made them angry. Maybe watching their parents struggle to feed their family or watching 3 of their siblings die of malaria or their fathers and uncles die in war.So it is really sin (personal sins against them, and more global sins like greed and selfishness) that causes those atrocities. Second, he said something like "and this fact means that we are living in a dead and dying world." Death and dying means = loss and tragedy = suffering. Thus, we end up with the truth that it is our poor choices that has created suffering. So why doesn't God remove our choice? The answer is that choice is what defines humanity. According to Biblical narrative, to remove our ability to choose - removes our ability to be human, to love, to anything. And God will not sacrifice our humanity no matter the cost, it was the purpose of our creation. Now perhaps you disagree with the price tag, but God does not.
What he did not say, but I will add - is what I call the good news of suffering. Specifically, that God DOES have a plan for this dead and dying world. He has not stood by inactive, allowing sin to swallow the world and pain to win. This plan honors our humanity and still allows for healing. His plan is REDEMPTION! To pay the price to be united to us; to heal the sin. The Biblical narrative does not diminish suffering, it states that God was was willing to pay any price to end it.
The second question brought my Jackie to mind. Walking along side her through the journey of grief has been challenging. It brings the reality of suffering from concept to lived experience. I have literally stood by as someone has felt abandoned by God to suffering - stood by as someone has cried out "WHERE ARE YOU?!?!" And I gotta tell you, my response has not always been good. I do not want to feel that way and as a result I do not want Jackie to feel that way. I want to make that moment about something she is doing wrong or something we can easily fix. But turns out, that is an incredibly shallow and selfish response.
And David - in the gentlest, realest way - helped me to see that. He pointed out that Christ himself felt abandoned by God and cried out to Him "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" He pointed out that God does not always show up with audible encouragement or a felt presence at the crisis moments for those who love him in the Bible. Many feel incredibly alone. So where is God in their suffering?
What you have to ask yourself is this, did God truly abandon these folks? Is the story that Joseph was abandoned in prison? Or that Job died in his misery? Was God not in Jesus sacrifice on the cross? Did he truly abandon him to suffering?
And what I figured out from those questions, is that the zenith of our suffering - though it may feel final - is only the middle of the story. Hope is coming. One more time - Hope IS coming.
Oh there was so much more my friends. Pages and pages more - where he spoke to the ways in which we as a church family can diminish each other in our pain - calling suffering "a lesson" or "a punishment" or a result of our "lack of faith". Or when he spoke to the ways that Jesus intimately knows and experienced suffering on this earth or bore the sin of the world in His body. But alas, I have gone on long enough for today and need to get back to work.
BTW - I am going to church this Sunday. No more tuckus sitting for me.
I love you all.
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