Genesis 12:10-13:4
James 1:1-10
Matthew 6:19-26
“We
Americans have to unlearn some of the ways of individualism that we absorb without
thinking, and must relearn the craft of community living.” Rod Dreher
Suffering is a real and
unavoidable part of living; and although Peter
uses the word “suffer” more prominently than does James, James better
conveys the essential meaning more appropriately when he encourages his
audience to “let endurance have its full effect”. For what reason? “So you may be mature and complete, lacking
in nothing” (James 1:4).
It is like physical exercise as a means to
a specific end: we exercise to get stronger, to increase our ability to endure
physical exertion for a longer period of time. If we quit, we will not only not get any
stronger; we will, in fact, become weaker over time.
It is the same with Scripture study and
the faithful use of the other means of grace.
We can become stronger in The Word though not without substantial
effort; and we can depend on our faith to serve as a means to a much greater
end. We can learn to let the world take
its own course without our being dragged into the muck.
In more common language, however, we
understand suffering as misery, something to be avoided at all
cost. A very popular and compelling
component of the so-called “prosperity gospel” insists that suffering is inconsistent with Divine
Promise and is incompatible with Christian living; the idea being that if we
are somehow suffering, we must not be living faithfully.
It is nonsense, of course. When we “suffer” something, we are miserable
only if we think we are somehow entitled to perpetual happiness or that nothing
bad should ever happen to us. When we suffer faithfully, however, we are “enduring
a particular reality”. It may not be the
reality we would choose for ourselves or our loved ones but when we are
confronted with it, it becomes a reality we are forced to deal with. It is no less the reality our children must
face as they grow and mature, enduring some things we would much rather protect
them from.
Yet we should know the only way our
children will be ever be able to stand on their own two feet when the time comes (not if) – knowing we will not always
be there to guide and protect them - is to let them learn to work through and
endure life’s many discomforts. Working
through these moments, these challenges, however, must be learned from within a
particular context: that of the Holy Scripture within the community of faith. For the popular maxim cannot be denied: if we do not teach our children to live in
Christ, the world will teach them not to.
So as we and our children learn to respond
to the challenges we will certainly face, we must choose how we will respond, helping our children and one another respond
not according to how a godless world would teach or expect us to respond, but
how children of the Most High God must respond according to the Holy Covenant. What would The Lord ask of us? To fight?
To flee? Or to fold?
Those are actually false choices. Though psychology teaches that we are all
equipped with either “fight or flight” modes, the Bible teaches and encourages us
to rise about our own base human nature even as we must deal with the nature of
others who choose not to rise. So when
we are faced with an inescapable reality, we are biblically and spiritually compelled
to ask not ‘how we can get out of
this’ but, rather, ‘what we can get out of this’.
Make no mistake. The question is not one encouraging us to always
consider and strive for personal gain as in “What’s in it for me”. As a Covenant people living with The Lord within
The Lord’s community, we must learn how to ask this question according to what
it will take to build up and strengthen the people of The Lord, the Body of
Christ … the Church. Not to only
increase in numbers but to increase in strength, in faithfulness, and in the
strongest sense of what it means to be a community in Christ. This goes far beyond merely “liking” each
other and choosing our favorites. This
is actually what tears at the fabric of a community.
Especially within a culture of
hyper-sensitivity and hyper-individualism, we must learn to be unafraid to speak
the truth in love – and to do so within the greater community; that unpopular
and very unpleasant truth being that it isn’t about “you” … or “me”. It is always, first and foremost, about The
Lord. Then it is about the “neighbor” entrusted
to our care, the neighbor we are compelled to love, to care for as surely and
as faithfully as we love ourselves. We
as individuals are a distant third.
Challenging ourselves and one another to
consider “what we can get out of” whatever it is we must face, and face together,
we must first learn to appreciate what James
is saying to his congregation: “the testing of your faith produces
endurance …” (vs 3). Peter says
pretty much the same thing: “Do not be surprised at the fiery trial when
it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were
happening to you” (1 Peter 4:12).
The Lord even tested His beloved Abraham with
Isaac (Genesis 22:1). All this wrapped up neatly in the Proverbs: “Do not regard lightly the
discipline of The Lord, or lose heart when you are punished (or tested) by Him;
for The Lord disciplines those whom He loves, and chastises every child whom He
accepts” (Proverbs 3:11-12, Hebrews 12: 5-6).
So we are being less than biblically
honest with ourselves and with one another when we convince ourselves The Lord
already knows what is within us by that one-time profession of faith. His faithful have always been tested – by The
Lord Himself AND by the world. Tested by
The Lord to determine the depth of our faith and to prepare us for what we will certainly face sooner or
later. Tested by the world to determine whom
or what we are most loyal to. And if we
fight, flee, or fold, our witness becomes void and our faith will be found
non-existent.
This is why we are tested. This is why we are disciplined; so that our
lives are so ordered in such a way that we become a “holy people”; not a bunch of self-righteous persons. And I say that to
say this: “holy” means complete, perfected.
This means we cannot expect to be holy or perfected or even complete
apart from the greater Body of Christ. As
it is written in Deuteronomy (7:6
& 14:2) and 1 Peter 2:9, we are a
“people” united in The Covenant; branches connected to one Vine (John 15).
What we may reasonably expect to gain as a people when we
are confronted with less-than-holy realities is the greater strength of the
community contributed to and made even stronger by the trials we often endure
alone. I sometimes wonder, though, if we
face these trials alone, more often than not, because we have forgotten how to
live in community.
That is, we face these trials alone
because we have distanced ourselves from the community, from one another, and
are therefore weakened by our refusal
to be made “whole” or “holy”; that biblical reality which has long been lost in
the concept of “rugged individualism” or the New Age “spiritual but not
religious” – within both by which we declare ourselves our own “gods” with no
need for a Savior or a Shepherd to show us “the more excellent way”.
So this is the biblical reality we face:
trials and tribulations in some measure, great or small, we will not
escape. Jesus is not a “magic pill” that
makes all the unpleasantness of the world dissipate. He is THE Teacher; and He teaches that we
will have our trials, and we will have our errors. These are inescapable. What we will have during and after these
trials and errors, however, will be measured by what we gain from these trials as a people.
So what can we gain from our tribulations,
sufferings that have the capacity to weaken or hobble us as individuals? Well, if we will swallow our foolish pride
and allow it, what we can actually gain that is useful for the whole Body, the
whole community, is the sure knowledge that we are not alone. We are made for one another. We as individuals are the arms OR the hands
OR the legs OR the feet, individual members of the whole and Holy Body of
Christ; but we are created to be with and to need one another, to work in
conjunction with one another. We are called forth as a “holy people”, a
whole Body.
So our prayer must never be that The Lord
would spare us our sufferings. Rather,
we must learn to be thankful for the trials we face; for what we get out of
these tribulations is simply this: we are reminded that we can stand taller and
longer WITH one another in communion with Christ Jesus for the sake of His
Church. For as St. Paul wrote to the Colossians: “I am now rejoicing in my
sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am completing what is lacking in
Christ’s afflictions for the sake of His Body, that is, the Church (1:24).
So the reality is we are not suffering
simply because life is treating us unfairly.
We suffer, we endure because our Holy Father is preparing us, teaching
us, leading us, strengthening us for what is surely to come. Our parents spanked or grounded us to teach
us and correct us because they love us.
Surely we can come to appreciate the depth of the Holy Father’s love
when we get no less from Him. And
learning to put The Lord first by how we deal with our neighbors and with one
another, we will surely find immeasurable joy, yes, for ourselves. “For it is your Father’s good pleasure to
give you the Kingdom” (Luke 12:32). Amen.
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