The Fifth Sunday in Lent Year B

5th Sunday in Lent—Year B March 22, 2015 One of my favorite movies growing up was The Princess Bride, a cult classic for my generation. Many of us could quote whole portions of dialogue from the movie, and I find, even now, after not having watched it in many years, that certain lines stick with me. This week, I couldn’t help remembering an exchange between Princess Buttercup and the man in black, a mysterious stranger who has stolen her from her captors but whose motives are yet unclear. They are talking about Buttercup’s one true love, Wesley, whom she lost, and the man in black mocks her. Buttercup replies, “You mock my pain!” and the man in black responds sharply “Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.” Another well known writer, M. Scott Peck captures this in the opening lines of his book The Road Less Traveled. He writes, “Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult-once we truly understand and accept it-then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.” Both of these quotes get at the question that I hear in our readings for today. It is the question of suffering. Are these two understandings of life Christian in their understanding of the nature of suffering? Are we just supposed to grin and bear it when it comes to suffering? How do we deal with suffering as people of faith? What do we do with all of this? Our scriptures for today provide as many questions about suffering as they do answers, unfortunately. In the Jeremiah reading, we see the prophet offering words of hope and good news to a people who are experiencing great suffering. “This text is situated in a season of failure in ancient Israel. The city of Jerusalem has been conquered and burned, the temple has been destroyed, the monarchy has been terminated, and the leading citizens deported into exile. This all came about, says the poet, because Israel broke the old covenant of Mt. Sinai. Over a long period of time Israel refused the commandments of Sinai. Israel did not take justice seriously, and did not ground its life in the God of the Exodus. And so, in covenantal perspective, came the judgment of God.”i Now they are suffering greatly. The Hebrews reading talks about Jesus’s suffering, how he had to learn obedience “through what he suffered and having been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him…” I’ll just go ahead and tell you that this is theologically problematic for me. Thankfully, I read an essay on this reading that helped me engage it in a more helpful way. The writer gives a different perspective noting that “these are attempts to make sense of what otherwise could be a senseless death, not attempts to ascribe divine necessity to the crucifixion. To say that Jesus learned obedience through suffering is not to say that God willed Jesus’ suffering, nor that suffering was part of the divine plan. It is only to say that the suffering of Jesus is not utterly meaningless. God worked through it for a greater purpose.”ii It reminds me of one of my favorite parts of scripture, when in the Joseph story in the Old Testament, after Joseph is reunited with his brothers who sold him into slavery and they are afraid that he will seek retribution, he tells them basically, “What you meant for evil; God meant for good.” Finally, there is the gospel reading for today. It’s a curious story that takes place in the middle of the Passover in Jerusalem and is preceded by events such as Jesus’s raising of Lazarus, Mary’s anointing of Jesus’ feet, and the triumphal entry into Jerusalem. The crowds of people form to hear and see Jesus even as others plot to destroy him. These two Greeks show up in the midst of all this and tell Philip who then tells Andrew that they want to see Jesus. We don’t know if they ever get to actually see Jesus because Jesus answers his disciples by saying that now is the time for him to be glorified, and he goes on to speak about his own suffering. Do we worship a God that would demand suffering in order to save all of humanity? I find that incommensurate with the God whom Jesus reveals time and time again. What I think Jesus is wrestling with here, as all of humanity wrestles, is how to find meaning in suffering. And that is really the crux of the issue. There’s another way of putting these questions, a more positive, perhaps life-giving way that captures a little more of the hope to which we are called. It is the opening line of John O’Donohue’s book Anam Cara. He writes, “It’s strange to be here. The mystery never leaves you.” It hints at the truth that this life which will most definitely offer us a fair portion of pain and suffering also offers us a fair portion of beauty and meaning. Our work as humans is to not get so lost in the pain and suffering that we cannot seek and find the beauty and meaning, and that is where grace comes in. This week, I read a poem that somehow mangages to capture all of this. It is titled So? By Leonard Nathan So you aren’t Tolstoy or St. Francis or even a well-known singer of popular songs and will never read Greek or speak French fluently, will never see something no one else has seen before through a lens or with the naked eye. You’ve been given just the one life in this world that matters and upon which every other life somehow depends as long as you live, and also given the costly gifts of hunger, choice and pain with which to raise a modest shrine to meaning. Along with this poem, the Quaker writer Parker Palmer poses the following question about his own life to reflect upon “Using everything I have—including my own ‘costly gifts of hunger, choice, and pain’-what can I do today to keep raising the ‘modest shrine to meaning’ I’d like to create with my life?” Think about it this week and ask it of yourselves from time to time: “Using everything I have—including my own ‘costly gifts of hunger, choice, and pain’-what can I do today to keep raising the ‘modest shrine to meaning’ I’d like to create with my life?” In closing, here are some wise words from Brian Andreas in his story Out to Play. “No hurt survives for long without our help, she said and then she kissed me and sent me out to play again for the rest of my life.” i. Walter Bruegemann. http://www.odysseynetworks.org/on-scripture-the-bible/ferguson-forgiveness-jeremiah-3131-34/ ii. Feasting on the Word Commentary Year B Volume 2. Ed. Bartlett and BrownTaylor. Theological perspective by Martha L. Moore-Keish. P 138.