As I was preparing for my sermon today, I took a 
break and stumbled on an item called “GOOD NEWS/BAD NEWS FOR PASTORS.” I thought you would enjoy them.
GOOD NEWS: The Board of Deacons voted to send you a get-well card.
BAD NEWS: The vote passed: 5-4
GOOD NEWS: Church attendance rose dramatically the past 3 weeks.
BAD NEWS: You were on vacation.
GOOD NEWS: The church council accepted your job description the
way you wrote it.
BAD NEWS: They were so inspired by it, they also formed a search committee to find somebody capable of filling the position.
After that brief interlude of merriment, I went back to my preparation. It didn’t take me too long to realize that our Scripture passages for today contain their own ‘GOOD NEWS/BAD NEWS.”
BAD NEWS: We’re going to suffer in life.
GOOD NEWS: We’re going to suffer in life.
The good news and the bad news don’t sound any different, do they?
Bottom line, it all depends on how we look at the
“BAD NEWS” in our lives.
Suffering looks different for different people. It’s important to note that the Greek word for suffering in the I Peter passages emphasizes how we experience and respond to the events in our lives and we all experience and respond in different ways.
Suffering for some can be as simple as being inconvenienced on a super market line or someone getting in their way or not having the materials possessions to which they feel entitled.
For others suffering can be their response to a grave illness, a loved one struggling with illness, having a child on drugs, losing a job, getting divorced or having a loved one die. But whatever suffering is like for us, our American culture continually tells us to remove all suffering or numb it out by whatever means available to us.
In his book entitled Fallinig Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life, a book that has had a deep and profound effect on my life, Father Richard Rohr has this to say:
“So much unnecessary suffering comes into the world because people will not accept the “legitimate suffering” that comes from being human. Ironically, this refusal of the necessary pain of being human brings to the person 10 times more suffering in the long run.”
We live with “IF” MYTHS.
– If we can’t fix the suffering, we blame others for it.
– If we believe we’re good enough, we shouldn’t expect any suffering at all.
– If I have enough money or work really hard, troubles will just skip right over me.
– If I have faith in Jesus, all my suffering will be removed.
This really sounds like good news! The Christian faith is not an insurance policy against pain and suffering. Many think this way. When suffering comes or life just doesn’t go the way they think it should, they leave the church and turn their backs on God. The Christian faith has little, if anything, to do with the removal of suffering and pain.
Don’t misunderstand me. Our desire to ease suffering is a noble one. I would never have wanted to go through any of my surgeries or even having a tooth filled without pain killers. But there are difficulties that come with being human and they cannot be avoided or denied. We don’t choose don’t choose whether or not we will experience loss and pain in life, but we do choose how we will live with it.
For us as Christians, the “HOW” of living with pain, suffering, and life’s difficulties is the way of the Cross and it is Jesus who shows us how by owning the fact that suffering is a part of life and knowing that God is in whatever we experience no matter what. God doesn’t cause it, but rather uses our experiences for our good and for the good of others.
The question is not “Why is God doing this to me?’ The question we need to be asking is “Where is God in this? What is God’s invitation to me in what is happening?”
God walks with us and holds us with a love so deep and generous and lavish that when we give up trying to control our lives and give ourselves in humility to God, we will be able to live into whatever it is that life brings our way.
Let me tell you some stories about people I have known whose stories might resonate with your own.
At her presentation at the Spiritual Renewal Center, Kathy, an oncologist who loved her work, shared with those gathered how chronic pain caused by deteriorating discs in her back forced her to leave her practice and pursue other work in the medical profession.
Other losses have occurred in her life due to her condition – things she loved to do with her husband and on her own – and activities had to be curtailed. But her sharing of how she has answered “Where is God in this?” by opening herself to God in humility rather than holding on believing she was the one in control, inspired those gathered to change the “Why did God do this to me” to “Where is God in this?” in their own lives.
And then there’s Dorsey, a tall, elegant, refined man in his late 80’s. I had just begun to serve as pastor at a church in Syracuse, NY, when he invited me to come to his home to meet his wife, Mary, whom he told me had MS. What I didn’t know was that Mary had been bedridden with the disease for several years, and Dorsey cared for her. Where was God in this? Dorsey knew!
He told me about his anger at Mary’s deteriorating condition, but he also told me how God had opened his heart to see how his anger was hurting Mary. And I saw God in the love, caring, and kindness that Dorsey had for Mary. It filled the room where he, or on occasion a caregiver, bathed her, and where he fed her meals every day.
Tom Ehrich, an Episcopal priest whose meditations I have read and appreciated over the years, says this: “Faith means seeing the small signs God shows us.”
That’s how my dear friend, Nadine, lived throughout her life. Nadine was a woman of faith who was able to see the small signs that God showed her every day in spite of her advancing Parkinson’s, in addition to other physical problems. She wrote some of the most beautiful hymns I have ever heard and shared them with everyone. She would ask, “Where are you in what is happening in my life, God?” and she would write a hymn about how she experienced the One who created her and held her especially in her difficult times. FAITH – BEING AWARE OF THE SMALL SIGNS GOD SHOWS US.
One of the greatest blessings in my 42 years of ordained ministry has been journeying with people with whom I meet for spiritual direction.
In February 2020, while serving on the staff of the Spiritual Renewal Center, Syracuse, NY, I had a first session with Colleen. She and her husband had recently retired, a life-changing event in itself. But her husband had recently been diagnosed with dementia and she wasn’t sure how she would live with what would come next. As she shared with me, three other women came to mind – Helen, Jan, and Susan – women with whom I was currently meeting in spiritual direction and whose husbands had either died from complications due to Alzheimer’s or were currently living with the illness.
And I remember thinking, these women need to know each other. Although face-to-face meetings were no longer possible because of the Covid pandemic, I invited them to meet with me and each other on a Zoom call. Each was open to doing so. We set up a date and time when the 5 of us would gather. To this day they continue to meet as a group, supporting each other through multiple changes and losses. God continues to be with them as they continue on the journey with each other, listening, supporting, and caring for each other. I stepped aside after the first meeting as I knew that my role was to get them together and I am so grateful to God for using me in this way.
These are not people I have made up. They are flesh and blood people like you and me, people who have experienced struggles, loss, and pain in various aspects of their lives as we do. But through prayer, worship, Bible study, and the support of friends, they experienced the grace that God gives in Jesus Christ and that is the good news that far surpasses all the bad news life can throw at us.
They stopped trying to be in control of the uncontrollable and they experienced God’s grace in ways that not only changed their lives, but also changed the lives of those around them.
Let me ask you. What has been happening in your life? Are you in the midst of a situation that is difficult, painful, confusing? Perhaps it’s a situation from the past that you can’t let go of.
I want to challenge you to sit with it and ask GOD, “WHERE ARE YOU IN THIS?” Don’t rush it and don’t push it. Rest with it. Breathe deeply. LET THE TEARS FLOW. Express your anger even at God. And then let the Holy Spirit carry you into the flow of “river of God,” that “river of life” we hear about in the book of Revelation. And then TRUST THE RIVER, TRUST THE ONE WHO LAVISHLY LOVES YOU.