When I accepted a call as a pediatric hospital chaplain, I
knew that I would see suffering. I knew that I would be walking into other
people’s worst nightmares.
And, I knew that there were those who wondered how I would
manage to maintain my faith, my calling to the priesthood, in the face of
unalleviated suffering.
“She’s not going to be a Christian anymore, not when she
sees how awful it can be”
Yes, someone actually said this…
However, being the person I am, I took this not as some
inevitable truth but, as a dare. I wasn’t going to the hospital to lose my
faith—I was going to the hospital because of my faith.
And, because I was there with an underlying assumption that
of COURSE God was there…I found myself attuned to the presence of God.
This did not mean that I experienced miraculous healings or
near death experiences with tales of heavenly benediction. What this meant was
that I found God at the foot of the cross.
The foot of the cross where pain, suffering, and despair are
the powerful testimony of God’s willingness to be as one of us. As one of us…
Born in the flesh, to learn, live, love, grieve, suffer,
despair and die.
God as one of us, understands what this is. What this life
is—with all its joy and all of its sorrow.
And, because of this, my faith was not destroyed in the face
of suffering—rather, it was strengthened by the constant and enduring presence
of a God who can understand all that it means to be a human being.
Barbara Brown Taylor, in her compilation of sermons “God in
Pain”, writes, “Christianity is the only world religion that confesses a God
who suffers. It is not that popular an idea, even among Christians. We prefer a
God who prevents suffering, only that is not the God that we have got. What the
cross teaches us is that God’s power is not the power to force human choices
and end human pain. It is instead the power to pick up the shattered pieces and
make something holy out of them—not from a distance, but right close up.”
God suffers, so do we.
And, because of this, neither God, nor we, have ever or will
ever suffer alone.
The disciples gathered with their shattered lives and shattered
hopes…they had each other in the midst of their fear and despair. And, so, into
the midst of a gathered community came the peace of Christ.
The peace of a man who knew what fear was, what pain was,
and how easily we can be fractured by despair.
The peace of a God made man, whose skin would forever be a
testimony to suffering.
Today is a day when we consider the wounded God. The wounded
God who shows up to our pain and our suffering. The wounded God who shows up to
our fears and our worries.
The wounded God walks into the midst of our nightmares and stays
there.
God stays.
When everyone else has left. When fear has driven them away.
At the cradle and at the grave, God stays.
God stays when we cannot, God goes when we cannot. And, in
the wounds God wore, we find strength grounded in weakness and vulnerability.
I did not lose my faith in the face of suffering—because, it
was in the face of suffering that I found God.
Which brings me to the joy of today’s texts…where Thomas’
doubts fall away, not because Jesus is “all better”, but because the wounds are
still there.
God is still wounded.
And, by God’s wounds we are healed (Isaiah 53).
What does this healing mean?
It means, fellowship. It means unity. It means the common
good.
First the followed Jesus, now they served the Christ. And,
to serve the Christ is to serve each other in a new way of being.
As theologian Henri
Nauwen wrote, “When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means
the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice,
solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds
with a warm and tender hand.”
Today we declare a new covenant of reconciliation…shattered
pieces made holy because God has chosen to share our pain.
And, in sharing our pain, we share Christ’s body. A body
that shares one heart and one soul. A body that transcends the boundaries of
death through the communion of saints. A body that does not deny the wounds,
but rather, recognizes the wounds as part of what makes us human, the wounds as
part of what will make us whole.
Last year I attended
a conference with a colleague who was living out his ministry as a member of a L’Arche
Community. L’Arche was started as an attempt to offer to people with
intellectual disability the opportunity to live together with others as a new
kind of family--a family of diverse needs and abilities in which people with
and without disabilities learn and grow in faith together. As my colleague
shared with me, L’Arche operates with the assumption that every one of us has
gifts, abilities, and disabilities—and that in sharing all of these things,
gifts, abilities, and disabilities, the community is able to model to the world
what it is to be the fully inclusive, unified and holy, body of Christ.
L’Arche is very
deliberate in proclaiming that what the world would see as a wound, is the very
thing that gives the body it’s strength.
As the psalmist
proclaims, “how good and pleasant it is, when brethren live together in unity!”.
Shared suffering,
leading to a shared hope—and a life lived in recognition that the wounded body
is a holy one.
The founder of L’Arche,
Jean Vanier, writes
“Jesus invites each
one of us, through Thomas, to touch not only his wounds, but those wounds in
others and in ourselves, wounds that can make us hate others and ourselves and
can be a sign of separation and division.
These wounds will be
transformed into a sign of forgiveness through the love of Jesus and will bring
people together in love. These wounds reveal that we need each other. These
wounds become the place of mutual compassion, of indwelling and of
thanksgiving.
We, too, will show our wounds when we are with him in the kingdom, revealing our brokenness and the healing power of Jesus.”
We, too, will show our wounds when we are with him in the kingdom, revealing our brokenness and the healing power of Jesus.”
So yes, I went to the hospital and kept my faith.
My faith in a wounded God.
Amen.
"God walks towards the suffering"...a retired chaplain attended our service on Sunday and used this phrase in response to the sermon. I invite you to contemplate this sentence throughout the week.
Also, this...
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"God walks towards the suffering"...a retired chaplain attended our service on Sunday and used this phrase in response to the sermon. I invite you to contemplate this sentence throughout the week.
Also, this...
