Sermon:
March 21, 1999

Scripture:
Psalm 44:17-26
Romans 8:28, 31, 35-39

The story is told of a man who reached retirement and decided that, since he had more time to call his own, he would devote some of it to helping his wife. Specifically, he decided he would take on some of the cooking chores ... starting with the preparation of breakfast. Approaching the task with the zeal that made him such a success in the business world, he bought himself a little notebook and commenced to follow his wife around the kitchen ... making little notes on her every action. Since he and his wife both liked oatmeal, his first lesson concerned the art of its preparation.

"Be sure to measure both the water and the oats," his wife instructed. "Use the small saucepan. Stir it while it cooks to avoid lumping and sticking. Don't forget to time it. Then, when it is fully cooked, turn off the gas and let it set up before serving. Once you are ready to wash the saucepan, soak it in cold water rather than warm."

Later, when her husband had gone outside to cut the grass, the wife looked in his notebook. Where, on the page marked "Breakfast," she read the following words: "Forget about oatmeal." Somehow, the explaining had overwhelmed the experience.

I must confess to a lifelong tendency toward explaining things. Much of my early ministry was spent offering explanations of religion. I believed then ... and, to some degree, still do ... that the gospel can be rational, and (indeed) ought to be rational. Which is why I have tried ... perhaps to a fault ... to demystify the troubling issues of the faith. I have tried to explain what the Bible means ... what the gospel says ... what the church is ... what the Kingdom requires ... and what heaven promises.

But, in recent years, I have noticed a willingness to open my door to more and more mystery. When I confront a pressing problem, I am no longer a theologian with a bulldozer, but a pastor with a pick ... trying to hone down the rough edges of an issue, while realizing that, were I to hold a chisel and hammer in my hands forever, I would never get it smoothed or solved. Lewis Carroll's caterpillar says to Alice in Wonderland: "Explain yourself." To which Alice replies: "I can't explain myself ... and neither can you." The self is a mystery. As is life. As is love. And so, I suspect, is God. Which does not suggest that we give up trying. But which does suggest that we succeed best when we begin by recognizing our limits.

High on the list of things I find hard to figure out is the reality and disproportionality of human suffering ... why it strikes ... why it hurts ... and why it is not spread out more evenly. If I were God ... which, fortunately, I'm not ... I'd do something about it. I'd make sure that those who loved me best, suffered least ... assuming (that is) that the distribution curve was within my control. It's the most natural thing in the world to think that God should look out for his own. I look out for my own. You look out for your own. I know that it borders on the edge of sacrilege ... and, perhaps, even heresy ... to admit to any of this. But while feeling such things may not be noble, it is normal ... even for the truest of believers.

Let me illustrate. Two Sunday mornings ago, when I was in Charlotte watching Duke demolish Carolina ... which proves that there are times when divine justice really does smile upon the good and the godly ... you gathered here, in the snow, to praise God and hear Carl Price. And among those of you who gathered at 8:15 ... when the fattest worms are regularly distributed to the earliest birds ... were Paul and Alta Yager. Who, upon leaving the sanctuary, said: "Let's get ourselves some breakfast and then go see Letta Stevenson." Which they did, only to find that the people at Franklin Terrace had sent Letta to the hospital, hours earlier.

So Paul and Alta went to Beaumont ... found the emergency room ... found Letta's cubicle location ... and were within ten feet of Letta, herself ... when (lo and behold) Alta hit the floor. Just like that. And when the outcome was pronounced, Alta had one broken toe and one broken hip.

By the time I caught up with Letta, she couldn't have cared less about what was happening to her. All she could talk about was what had happened to Alta. Three times she said: "I have but one question. And my question has but one word. And that word is `Why'?"

Now there are a lot of ways to come at the "why" of a broken hip. An orthopedic surgeon might answer it one way. A personal injury attorney might answer it another way. But Letta had little interest in whether Alta had brittle bones (which she doesn't) or whether Beaumont had bad floors (which it doesn't). Letta wanted to know why ... in the wonderful providence of God ... saints (like Alta) on missions of mercy are not granted immunity.

And that question arose, not out of Letta's head ... I mean, she didn't expect me to answer it (and given her 94 years of reading every study book and taking every Christian education class the church had to offer, she could have voiced the traditional answers better than I could) ... no, that question did not originate in Letta's head, that question originated in Letta's heart. For it was Letta's heart that harbored Alta's pain ... which far exceeded the pain of a few inflamed diverticulum, which was the problem that brought her to the emergency room in the first place.

Well, you might counter: "A broken hip is a mere blip on the radar screen of undeserved tragedy and pain." Until it is your hip. Or your blip.

Which it will be, sooner or later. That much is certain. Friday morning, I met Claire Beggs at the coffee pot. And, in my somewhat flippant style, I said: "How goes it, Claire, with your life and health and all things?" To which Claire answered: "I guess you could say I'm on top of the world." Ah, but the world has this funny way of rotating ... so that one day you're on top of it, and the next day it's on top of you.

Many of you commented on my cover article in this week's Steeple Notes and upon Barbara Merritt's tongue-in-cheek recollection of being unable to feel the rumblings of a California earthquake, thanks to the magnificent suspension system of the car she called "Big Red" ... a rented Cadillac Seville. Which led me to add: "I've spent a lifetime looking for a suspension system like that ... one capable of smoothing out reality, eliminating bumps and minimizing vibrations from the outside world." Then I confessed to almost entitling my sermon "Queen Mary Theology" ... which would have had nothing to do with England's monarch or Jesus' mother, but with the cruise ship of the same name. On which I never sailed. But I have booked passage on more than one of her children. And what do they promise me?

Come aboard our ship. We'll create a wonderful time for you. And we'll make a wonderful space for you. We are going to cross "The Deep." But you will neither know it, nor feel it. And for those of you who are nervous about it, we have inside cabins with no portholes. And for those who are still anxious, we offer center cabins. That way, you will never even feel the sway as we move across the formless voids and the unfathomable depths.

But I've heard of cruise ships where even the people in the center, inside cabins, get sick. Because nothing that was promised, worked. And because the seas mounted an assault that could not be stabilized.

"Not on your cruise" ... say you.

"At least not yet" ... say I.

But it will happen, you know. And when it does, it will become your riddle to solve ... or your mystery to accept. So what will you do when it is your daughter who dies ... your son who is arrested ... your home that is washed off the side of the mountain by the rains ... your marriage that is broken into Humpty-Dumpty-like pieces that defy reassembly by all of the king's horses and all of the king's men (not to mention all of the king's psychiatrists and all of the king's preachers) ... when it is your biopsy that comes back positive ... your arteries that are determined to be 90 percent occluded ... your business that is placed in Chapter 11 ... or your Pastor-Parish Relations Committee that greets you warmly, all hands around, while humming in the background: "So long, it's been good to know you." When it's that real ... and hurts that much ... what will you do?

Well, some will turn from God. And I understand them. And some will turn to God. And I understand them, too. For when people speak to me from the valley, my initial response is to be accepting of anything they say. And there are times ... if I let people be honest ... when even those who turn toward God, do not do so kindly ... in that they have a bit of an ax to grind.

Every couple of weeks, someone sends me another list of "Bulletin Bloopers" ... things that were printed in church bulletins that just sort of came out wrong ... like the potluck supper that was advertised with "prayer and medication to follow." But the misprint I would share with you this morning was one that surfaced in the newsletter of a Lutheran church, which asked (in ten-point type): "HAVE YOU COME TO GRIPES WITH JESUS CHRIST?" To which the answer from the valley sometimes is: "Yes, I have ... and with his Daddy, too!" All of which is offered in the tradition of the Psalmist, who writes: "Why dost thou hide thy face from us, heedless of our misery?" (Psalm 44:24)

There are several explanations that theology makes to such folk. And there is some truth in all of them. But there is satisfying truth in none of them. Where traditional answers are concerned, no one answer fits everybody. And sometimes the sum of the answers combined won't fit one-body ... which leaves you out in the cold, if that one-body is you.

Let me be blatantly and painstakingly clear. You may deserve some of the stuff that happens to you. But you probably don't deserve all of the stuff that happens to you. What's more, I don't think God thinks you deserve all of the stuff that happens to you, either. In fact, I think that some of the stuff that pains you, pains God ... and that some of the stuff that outrages you, outrages God ... and that there may be occasions when God's "Why" is as anguished as your "Why" ... and when the intensity of God's "O my God" rivals the intensity of your "O my God" ... except for the fact that when God says it, God has no one to say it to but himself.

Which is to suggest that God suffers too, don't you see? At least, I think He does. I mean, for me, the alternative is unthinkable. Does it sometimes hurt God to be God? Well, let me put it to you this way. Does it sometimes hurt you to be a parent?

Every four or five weeks, we say the Apostle's Creed. And what does the creed say about God? It says that God is "Maker" and "Father." And what does the creed say about the one God fathers? It says that he "suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried." Which had to hurt both Father and Son. And don't gloss over the hurt by saying, "Oh, but it was essential to our redemption" ... or: "It was a mere pothole in the glorious road to Easter." Passion Sunday ... which few churches want to deal with anymore ... says that it hurt like hell. Or, as the little girl in my Confirmation class once said (in response to her first-ever reading of the crucifixion): "God, that's awful." And that's okay. Let it be what it is. Don't be in such a great big hurry to clean it up. For while the cross isn't pretty, it's far from the only thing that isn't pretty.

If I am not reaching you, let me give it one last try by telling you a story. Actually, it's not my story. Peter deVries is the one who tells it. It appears under the title "The Blood of the Lamb." Some say it is fiction. But there are others who claim it is autobiographical. It is a story about a little girl named Carol. What a lovely ... gracious ... Christmasy name for a little girl. Carol is the only daughter of Don Wanderhope, which is quite a name in itself. For Don is something of a spiritual schizophrenic ... wandering between faith and unfaith ... between hope and despair. At issue for Don is Carol's health ... which is not very good ... and which is on the way to getting much worse. For Carol is battling leukemia, and has reached the point where the disease, rather than the doctors, is expected to win.

But, like I said, this is not so much Carol's story as it is her daddy's. All of his inner conflicts meet, head on, on the day that he approaches Carol's hospital room with the birthday cake that he has had lovingly prepared by a local baker. But this is not to be Carol's birthday. This is to be Carol's death day. "She was taken," deVries writes, "from us dull watchers, on a wave that broke and crashed beyond our sight." Meanwhile, we are told that her father "drew forth his handkerchief and, after honking like a goose, pocketed his tears."

After signing all the necessary papers ... and completing all the necessary notifications ... Carol's father adjourned to a nearby bar, where (after a few drinks) he remembered the cake. It was large and beautiful, completed just that very morning. There was a field of white frosting with Carol's name squeezed from the pastry bag in blue icing ... each letter carefully formed in flawless Palmer Method script. He had forgotten the cake in the church, leaving it on the back pew of Old St. Catherine's. Each morning he stopped in the church to pray before going to Carol's room. Returning to the church ... and finding the cake still in the same pew ... he gathered it up in its wobbly box and began to leave. But let him tell it:

Outside on the sidewalk, one foot on the bottom step, I turned and looked up at the figure hanging over the central doorway ... its arms outspread among the sooted stones and cooing doves. I took the cake out of the box and balanced it on the palm of my hand. Then, as if disturbed by something they saw in my eyes, the birds hurried into motion and flapped their way to safety across the street. Whereupon my arm drew back and let fly with all the strength within me. It was miracle enough that the cake should reach its target at all ... given its height from the sidewalk. And it was all the more miracle that it should land squarely below the crown of thorns.

Now I suppose that a birthday cake smeared on the face of Jesus is something of a spiritual obscenity. But, on another level, it's a symbol of our complaint with a God who cannot save the Carols of our lives from the things that consume them, corrupt them ... and ultimately kill them. But the blue and white icing was far from the first thing to mar the face of Jesus. For a closer look at the statue revealed earlier signs of pain and suffering that had been there forever. Finally, Carol's father, dazed by his explosion of anger, looked again at the besmirched face of the Savior.

I seemed to see the hands free themselves of the nails and move slowly toward the soiled face. Very slowly ... very deliberately ... and with infinite patience ... the icing was wiped from the eyes and flung away. I could see it falling in clumps to the cathedral steps. Then the cheeks were wiped down with the same sense of grave and gentle ritual, with the kind sobriety of one whose voice could be heard, saying: "Suffer the little children to come unto me ... for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven."

The Christian's answer to pain, don't you see, is really no answer at all ... but, instead, a magnificent gesture. Browne Barr suggests that the gesture is simply this ... "that with grand and scandalous bravado, God leaves glory behind ... grandeur behind ... holiness behind ... heavens behind ... mountains behind ... to walk in the valleys with the likes of us."

I may be saved by the fact that Jesus came to suffer for me. But I am moved ... sometimes to the point of tears ... that Jesus came to suffer with me.