Sermon by Reverend Dr. John W. Mann | November 19, 2023

Various Texts

A thought that has come to mind in recent days is – it doesn’t get any easier. With some things, we can say that practice makes perfect. Not so with death. In those times when we are facing the impossible, the how do we get through this reality, we do so by facing this moment, this minute, this hour. The hours become days and we make the journey through them as best we can.

One Sunday after worship seven-year-old Kyle said to me, “I’ve decided I don’t believe in God. How can you believe in a God that you can’t see?” Kyle was a smart kid. He would often sit with his grandmother in the worship service. He was listening.  

He asked a good question. It’s not just that we don’t see God as a physical entity, but how can we see God in the pain and suffering of life, in our own lives?

I said, “I don’t want to insult you with an easy answer. Try talking to God and see what happens.”

He then said, “What should I talk about?”

I said, “That’s up to you; even if you don’t believe in God because you can’t see God, try just talking to God about something that’s important to you.”

He said he would try that. I know how he feels. We ponder many questions about life and if we label certain questions as off limits then we’re not fooling a seven-year-old. We ask “Why?” Why did this happen? “Why does a loving God allow suffering?”

Recently in the Mille Lacs Messenger newspaper there was a series of articles in the Koinonia column written by a pastor who focused on the theme of suffering. I read these with some interest, and much disagreement. My basic thought is, anyone who thinks that suffering is good, and that God brings suffering into our lives for some good purpose, has themselves never really suffered. Or if they have and they still think suffering is a good thing, then they have a profoundly warped view of God and life. If that’s what I thought being a follower of Jesus was about, then I would be with young Kyle, in not believing in a God I cannot see.

Underneath “Why?” is a deeper question and that is “So what?” For every dogma, creed and statement of faith that we put out there, unless we can at least begin to recognize the question, “So what?” we should go back to the drawing board and ponder in silence.

The poet of Ecclesiastes described those times when we come face to face with the stark reality of life –

¹¹Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favour to the skilful; but time and chance happen to them all. ¹²For no one can anticipate the time of disaster. Like fish taken in a cruel net, and like birds caught in a snare, so mortals are snared at a time of calamity, when it suddenly falls upon them. (Ecclesiastes 9:11-12)

People around the church where I grew up would say that God will teach us lessons. That we are like the vines that God prunes and that though painful, it’s for our own good. So that when something bad happens there is a reason for it. I was like Kyle, I never believed it. I did not want to believe in a God I had to be afraid of.

The call came in – there’s been an accident at the grain elevator – a member of your church, the husband of one of your elders got killed at work. I went to the house – family and friends were gathering – it was a warm summer day and the air was very still. As I got out of my car and walked up to the house, the only sound to be heard was that of a five-year-old girl wailing at the loss of her daddy. That is the sound of suffering.

That is the reaction of when we seem like fish caught in a net – the time of calamity that suddenly falls regardless of how one might think about God. There is no why. There is only now that this has happened. When we face those times when words seem so inadequate, then the less said the better. Someone picked up the crying girl to give her a shoulder to cry on.

One story told about Jesus concerned a man who had a rash on his hand. Leprosy, which in their view included every sort of skin ailment. The guy could have been allergic to strawberries, but a physical condition like that would have made him an outcast. He might have been the village scapegoat. People thinking that Simon with the bad hand got dealt the bad hand by God and the rest of us must be alright.

One day he saw Jesus passing by and he said to him, “If you choose to, you can make me clean.” He didn’t say, “Fix my hand,” though that’s what he meant and what he meant was in fixing his hand Jesus would remove the implied curse.

Jesus was moved by pity and he said, “I do choose,” and the rash went away, and the man was clean. The man went away praising God.

Yet, imagine Jesus walking through a busy marketplace. Over there is a man blind in one eye. There’s a boy begging because he can’t walk. In that house over there is a dying child. Down that alley is where a leper sits. Jesus walks by. He had to walk by, otherwise his story would be of healing every single illness and malady in the land. At points along his journey he had to act, at least within his own thinking, “I choose not to.”

How did he choose whom to heal or not to heal?

If there is a choice, it belongs to us. It belongs to us because along the way he said, “It is your faith that has done this.” And along his way, every person that Jesus healed eventually died. Just as does every person who ever lives. Underneath the question of whether or not we are healed, is the reality that in our living and in our dying, we belong to God.

For me the reality of human suffering does not call into question the existence of God. For me the question becomes – How do we connect with God in the midst of suffering? And for me usually, it is with the less said the better. Like picking up the young girl and giving her a shoulder to cry on. We do best when we avoid applying our meaning to other people’s pain. We do best when we hold each other up and cry on each other’s shoulders. It is enough that we lean down and listen to an honest question.

A few weeks after Kyle asked me about God, he came up to me again.

He said, “I decided that God is real after all and now I believe in God.”

I asked him “What happened?”

He said that he talked to God and God answered him.

I asked him, “What did you talk about?”

He said, “There was a boy in my school that I wanted to be friends with. I asked God to make him my friend. He’s my friend now. So God must be real.”

Amidst the din of the conversation in the fellowship hall it was almost as if I could hear the whisper of the Spirit saying, “It is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs.”

I said to Kyle, “Thanks for telling me that.”

³⁸For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, ³⁹nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38)

But my oh my, how these things do try. As much as life tries to convince us that we are accidents of the universe, floating on this rock in deluded self-awareness, the Spirit of God is reaching out in love, saying “I know you – I love you.”

For some faith is to say, “Yes! I am convinced of that!” For others, and I tend to find myself among them often, faith is more like saying, “I want to be convinced. Please God, show me the way.” Amen.