“Reflections on Suffering and Hope”
A sermon by Sid Burgess for Edgewood PC, Birmingham, AL
Trinity Sunday, May 30, 2010
Text: Romans 5:1-5
Tomorrow is Memorial Day—a day to remember those who gave the “last full measure of their lives” for the freedoms we enjoy as Americans. How appropriate for the lectionary to guide the Church to St. Paul’s observations on suffering: “suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope . . . .”
I can imagine the thousands of American veterans in heaven above gathering in advance of our Memorial Day celebration to take stock, to assess how we—the living—are doing with the great inheritance they have given us. I can imagine them scanning our great nation “from sea to shining sea,” taking pride in our technological advancements and our economic prosperity. However, should their eyes stop to focus on Alabama, to focus on our state where the eve of Memorial Day is also the eve of a primary election, I can imagine our heroes being quite disappointed in us. I do not think our veterans across the centuries have fought and died so that politicians could throw mud at each other and freely appeal to our deep-seated prejudices. They did not sacrifice so that big business and big labor could conceal their purchases of political influence.
Surely the honored dead would want to see us using freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of the vote for honest and open discussion of the problems and the potential of our state. How to adequately fund the functions of local and state government so that all Alabamians can benefit from the great resources we have been given. How best to educate all of our children, to help our schools achieve and maintain a level of excellence. How best to accommodate the new wave of immigrants so that as with immigrants past, they too can become vital contributing members of our society.
For the current crop of Alabama politicians, the message to us voters is quite the opposite of St. Paul’s assessment. Our would-be leaders tell us no suffering is required, and no endurance needed. No wonder we see so little character; no wonder we have so little hope for the future of our county and our state. This is all the more reason, Christian sisters and brothers, for us to take this election seriously. All the more reason to spend the time and make the effort to find the most desirable candidates in the vast pool of undesirables. We owe it to those who have unselfishly served this country. We owe it ourselves and to our children.
We can do this. We can do this because while others despair, we Christians do have hope. We do have hope because “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.” I pray that our votes will be cast out of love of one another—for all people, all of whom are precious in God’s sight.
Now I realize that this may not be the Trinity Sunday sermon you were expecting. It is surely not the Trinity Sunday sermon I had planned to preach. As most of you know, we had a death among the faithful here this week. Laura Cumbo, just 51 years old, was a talented member of our choir, a bell ringer in our handbell choir, and a faithful Angel Food volunteer. Her memorial service was held here on Friday morning, and it was all about hope. “A Witness to the Resurrection” is what we Presbyterians call a funeral or a memorial service. In the face of death we grieve, but we also proclaim our hope. It is a hope that comes from the saving death of the Lord, for in the Resurrection of Christ is the promise of our own. At Laura’s memorial service I quoted from our Presbyterian Church “Declaration of Faith:”
We are convinced the life God wills for each of us
is stronger than the death that destroys us.
The glory of that life exceeds our imagination
but we know we shall be with Christ.
So we treat death as a broken power.
Its ultimate defeat is certain.
In the face of death we grieve.
Yet in hope we celebrate life.
No life ends so tragically
that its meaning and value are destroyed.
Nothing, not even death, can separate us
from the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord.
One of the advantages of dying young is that your funeral can draw quite a crowd. The sanctuary here on Friday morning was packed with members of Laura’s loving family, her devoted friends, and her colleagues in ministry through two congregations, as well as, the “Walk to Emmaus” community. Some ministers dread having to do funerals. To be sure, I don’t like it when people I love die, but I do love doing funerals. For a brief period of time I am invited into the most intimate of family and friend relationship. Holding the pastoral office, I am entrusted with remarkable stories of love and romance, of child birth and childhood, of faith in God and the practice of faith. At Laura’s home on Wednesday evening, the stories came faster than I could record them. What was remarkable was the spirit of happiness and joy in the midst of grief! Family members passed around their favorite photos. Always at the center, always with the biggest smile, stood Laura.
As a pastor I am also trusted with the hurts, the fears, the disappointments people experience in life. “Life is difficult,” Scott Peck reminds us. And for Laura, these past few years had been extremely difficult. Her husband, Steve, had been in failing health for some time. The economic recession had put her residential cleaning service on life support. Bills were billing up all around her. She was trying to sell her home to lower her overhead expenses. Her blood pressure was dangerously high.
“Suffering produces endurance,” St. Paul reminds us today. “Endurance produces character, and character produces hope.” Notice that for St. Paul, suffering is a given. It is part of the human condition. Our bodies are susceptible to injury, illness, and the ravages of age. We are mortal and not immortal beings. We have the capacity both to love and to be loved, to hurt and to be hurt. We are dependent upon one another—we don’t live in isolation. We get lots of help along life’s way, but we also encounter our share of roadblocks and dead ends. Popular wisdom gets it right when it says, “Don’t waste the pain.” Pain comes standard in the human condition. The only real question is what shall we do with it.
Church leader Peter Steinke writes: “We ‘waste’ suffering if we gloss over, deny, avoid, or neglect its message. If, however, we can learn from pain it is not wasted but a source of life and health.”
Pain is wasted when we suffer in silence, when we keep it all bottled up inside. In this sense, emotional pain-- disappointment, hurt, distress-- is much like physical pain. Ignore the symptoms and suffer the consequences. Doctors often say their biggest regret for their patients is, “If only they had come to us sooner.” Among marriage counselors, it is common knowledge that by the time most couples finally agree to see a counselor, it is too late. The pain has been ignored too long, too much water over the damn.
When we do waste our pain, our suffering, I think it is because we lack hope. Laura Cumbo demonstrated in the final days of her life that one can find hope, even inspire hope in others, in the midst of pain and suffering. Laura had many problems but none of her worries prevented her from developing a very special friendship with one of our own youth—Sabrina Bates, Dian Bailey’s granddaughter. Sabrina was one of many young people Laura went out her way to befriend. Once a month, Laura picked up Sabrina and brought her to the church to help with our Angel Food distribution day. She and Sabrina were a team, manning the curbside, delivering boxes of food to grateful participants in our food ministry.
Sabrina rang up some terrific grades in school this year and she had just turned thirteen. Laura wanted to help her celebrate. So she planned an end-of-school party for Sabrina and some of her school buddies. The party was to have been this coming Saturday. All who knew Laura grieve her sudden death. All who know of this special friendship grieve especially for Sabrina.
But—and remember, that is the biggest word in faith. But, says St. Paul, who knows a thing or two about loss, “suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope . . . .” Paul’s kind of hope, Laura’s kind of hope is not just ‘wishful thinking.’ Hope happens because—as Paul wrote later in his letter to Rome—“we know that all things work together for good for those who love God” (Roms.8.28). God does not cause bad things to happen to good people. A just and loving God would never do such a thing, and scripture assures us that God is both just and loving. God does not cause suffering, but God can use even bad things like suffering and pain to bring about good for those who love God. “Hope does not disappoint us,” Paul writes, “because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”
Because God’s love was poured into Laura’s heart through the Holy Spirit, she could share—she could pass on--the hope she had in Christ Jesus. I pray today that you share this hope. And I pray that you will go to the polls on Tuesday and cast your vote in love and hope.
To the God of all grace,
who calls you to share God's eternal glory
in union with Christ,
be the power forever! 1 Peter 5:10,11
Amen.