My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, and am not silent.

Suffering, for someone who does not believe in God, is a pain, but it is bearable – that’s what life is like and be grateful you’re not a mouse being swooped on by the kestrel. Death is the end so enjoy life while you can.

Suffering, for a Christian, is the biggest problem of all. For, if God is all loving, all knowing and all-powerful, why do I suffer? Why do those I love suffer? Why does God not fix it for me? Why, in the midst of suffering does God seem so powerless, so lacking in knowledge of me, so lacking in love? To suffer is bad enough, but to be rejected by the one person you thought you could trust is beyond our ability to bear.

One reason I love the Bible is that it is true. Not necessarily literally true, but far deeper than that. For the bible stories reflect in every detail what it is that we struggle with. The psalms, one of which I quoted at the beginning, are full of raw emotion; people pleading with God, blaming God, arguing with God, calling on God to curse their enemies, and then tacking on a bit of “Oh, you’re really great” praise at the end, like a teenage girl trying to get around her father when she comes home late. And throughout the bible, the writers struggle with this subject of suffering: Why suffering? Whose fault is it? How do we get out of it? The answers, when they are given, are often contradictory or found wanting.

The first attempt is right back in Genesis. Probably a compilation of very ancient stories written down when the Jews were in exile, a people again in slavery, these stories attempt to answer the unanswerable. How did we get here? Whose fault is it? How do we get out of it? And in their ancient stories they find their own story, their own experience.

The start of Genesis describes perfect prayer – people walking and talking with God, enjoying each other’s company, missing each other when they are apart; behaving like lovers. The end of Revelation describes perfect prayer, God and his people again walking and talking together. In between is the reality of a broken relationship. All is perfect in the garden and all is perfect in heaven. In between is the reality of suffering.

Read Genesis quickly and it appears certain that the broken relationship, sin, is the cause of suffering. That theme is repeated in the accounts of the Exodus and in the stories of an Israel that continuously walks away from God and suffers for it. It’s obvious: We sin; we suffer. We do good; we prosper. There is truth in this, and God calls on us to repent, to change our ways, for as we rebel against him and his laws we invite trouble into our lives. To acknowledge our own fault, our own contribution to suffering, is the first step in regaining that intimacy of prayer. I wonder what would have happened in the Genesis story if Eve had said sorry, instead of blaming the serpent, or if Adam had said sorry instead of blaming his wife? In quiet, I invite you to allow God to ask you “what is this you have done”, and to be honest and say sorry.

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.

For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight. Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice. Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity.

Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me. Amen.

But there is a lot more to this story in Genesis. For it uncovers an uncomfortable truth that the exiles lived with – the good die young, while the wicked prosper. Ah, say some of the writers, they get their come-uppance in the end. But they don’t, and that still doesn’t explain the fate of the righteous. In another of the ancient stories, the book of Job which many scholars believe to be the oldest story of all, the suffering of the righteous Job is caused by war in heaven, the actions of Satan or the devil, represented in Genesis by the serpent. I was given some interesting advice many years ago – if you don’t believe in God, try praying for yourself and see what happens; if you don’t believe in the devil, try praying for someone else. Spiritual warfare is real and we can get caught up in it. It started in Genesis and it does not end until Revelation. I’m going to ask you to pray in silence again, this time for those you know, and it may be yourself, who are caught in an evil embrace. Pray that God will bring release.

Look to my right and see; no one is concerned for me. I have no refuge; no one cares for my life. I cry to you, O Lord; I say, "You are my refuge, my portion in the land of the living." Listen to my cry, for I am in desperate need; rescue me from those who pursue me, for they are too strong for me.
Set me free from my prison that I may praise your name. Amen

And now, dig deeper into the Genesis story and be amazed. For on page 3 of my bible, the Word of God, the writer poses the ultimate question – is God to blame for suffering? God starts by making us in his own image, but two things appear to be lacking – God’s eternity, which he sustains in us but may withdraw at his choosing, and the knowledge of good and evil. The knowledge of what? Surely God, who is good, does not encompass evil? But it is the beings, made by God in the image of God who sin. The Genesis writer offers no explanation, just a book-full of stories about the utter mystery of God as we experience Him. Genesis would never have got shelf-room in a Christian bookshop if it did not come packaged with Paul’s helpful letters.

Read Genesis and the Psalms and you may come away with the idea that God is mixed up in this mess of a world far more than we’ve been led to believe. And the writers don’t seem to care – for this is their reality, their experience. It is only those of us who have grown up with this idea of God as a remote sugar daddy who find it difficult. But read the rest of the bible and you discover that God is indeed mixed up in it all far more than we may think.

Prayer, according to Michael Ramsey, is being in God’s presence, and intercession is being in God’s presence with others on our hearts. In the Bethlehem stable, God came into our presence. On the cross, in our presence, he carried us on his heart. So, in Christ’s suffering it is God who prays to us, who walks with us and cries out to us and hears no answer, save the jeers of the crowd.

And the man, Jesus, prays as he cries out into the presence of God, My God, My God, why have you forsaken me? And the ultimate prayer, of God’s own Son, carrying the world on his heart into his Father’s presence, seems to be rejected. For, there is no answer, except wrath, darkness and death.

The words I began with are the words used by Jesus on the cross. God himself undergoes every form of suffering, especially that of losing his faith, his knowledge of God’s presence. Not just body, mind and spirit but also personal integrity, his very being, utterly broken. Darkness the only clothing for his nakedness; darkness, his only friend. The thorns of the ground crown him; the sweat of his brow waters the ground. Dust swirls around him as he is planted like a tree back in the dust from which he came. The fruit of good and evil is thrust into his parched throat. A flashing sword cuts off his last hope of access to the tree of life and a stone is rolled across the exit from the garden tomb.

The God of the bible is the God of our experience. He can come across as an enigma, the source not just of good but seemingly of evil. The one who is always there but most absent when we need him. The one who is most powerful but powerless when we call upon him. The one who judges aright but who allows the wicked to prosper and the good to be destroyed. But it is this same God who enters into the story, our story, and bears in himself all the suffering of the world, even my suffering, your suffering. This is the God to whom we respond in prayer – his prayer to our prayer and ours to his. We should, like the psalmists, pray in utter honesty. But, in truth, we pray into the darkness. We pray in confusion. Or, we fail to pray at all. But where we fail, the cross remains, the supreme reaching out of humanity to God, and of God to his people. The prayer that breaks through the darkness; that casts aside the sword and scatters the cherubim.

The God who cursed us has become the cursed for us. The cross, the tree of knowledge of good and evil, has become the tree of life, and we who have known good and evil are invited to reach out and eat its fruit, to live, walk and talk with God now and forever.

I want to finish with another reading, from Revelation 22:

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign forever and ever.

As we end, I invite you to sit in the quiet and listen to God’s prayer to you as he comes into your presence with you, or one you love, on his heart – and do not reject him but answer him with your prayer, being in his presence. And in your prayer, reach out to the tree of life, to Jesus, and ask him to give you the light to walk through the dark.

On the Suffering of Children

Genesis 22:1-19

About five years ago, I was trying to convince Struan (our then Rector – this must be really old!) that I was not cut out for the ordained ministry. My number one objection was that I could not envisage myself conducting a funeral service for a child, or comforting the bereaved parents. Struan seemed to consider that this was more a qualification than a barrier, so here I am still not knowing how to cope with the tragedy of not being able to have children, or losing a child before birth or in the Springtime of their lives, or watching a child suffer, or go off the rails or simply walk away from you.

The Old Testament does not shrink from telling us the stories of women enduring the pain of childlessness, of Jephthah who asked God to help him in a battle with the promise that he would sacrifice the first thing of his that he came across when he returned; only to discover that it was not a sheep or a goat, but his own daughter; of God inciting a man to kill his only son. In these and many others we find inexplicable despair over the life and death of children.

When you read of troubles befalling adults in the bible, the story usually provides enough information to show that this was due to their own sin or the result of another's wickedness, but the stories concerning children are often presented with no clues as to why those involved should suffer. What do you do with parts of the bible you don't understand? At the risk of doing a three point sermon, I suggest we ask why those who wrote them down did so, what they have to say to us, and why God wanted them preserved.

The Genesis story has a theme running through it. In the garden of Eden, Adam and Eve lost the blessing of God, and with it eternal life. Their descendants were to indulge in a ceaseless quest to recover the blessing and immortality. The Blessing is obtained by being in the right place with God, hence the importance of the Promised Land, and of obeying God's laws. Immortality is achieved through bearing or fathering children; through them the people would live on. The importance of this cannot be underestimated. To be without children was considered as a curse from God; not only had you lost eternal life, but the blessing as well.

The scholars say that Genesis was finally written down during the Exile some 600 years before Christ. What was it about these ancient stories that caused the editors to include them? In Babylon they were cut off from the blessing of the Promised Land and the temple. All they had left to connect them with Eden was their children. But the evils of starvation, disease, genocide, and the everyday brutality of life deprived them of that most precious gift.

These people knew their children suffered because of their misdeeds, just as they suffered for their parents' failings. But this does not obscure the fact that many who suffered did so for no reason, that many who sinned did not suffer; there is no explanation, only God. Why? The stories they told each other, stories handed down within families for hundreds of years, told them that they were not the first to suffer, that their people always triumphed over adversity, but supremely that God was always present, always in control. God was the one they could shout at, God the one who allowed the slaughter of Job's children and offered no apology, God who told Abraham to kill his son. God who made sense of the senseless.

But there is more. The story of Abraham and Isaac reveals something of God that those who wrote it down could never have guessed at. God was not only present, but would walk the same road. Abraham took his only son, Isaac, whom he loved, to sacrifice him as an offering on a mountain. God himself sent his only son, Jesus, whom he loved, to this world to sacrifice him as an offering on a mountain. Abraham and Isaac journeyed for three days. Jesus ministered for three years. The servants were left behind; the disciples deserted Jesus. Isaac carried the wood; Jesus carried the cross. Isaac was bound to the altar; Jesus was nailed to the cross. Abraham raised the knife to slay his son; God raised the sins of the world over his sinless son. A voice from heaven stopped Abraham from plunging the knife into Isaac, but the angels held their tongues as God plunged the sin of the world into His son's body. The Lord provided.

Through Abraham, because of his obedience, God promised blessing to all the nations on earth and immortality to Abraham by his children. Through Jesus, because of his obedience, God not only fulfilled the promise of restored blessing, being in a right place with God, but also the gift of eternal life. Does that make it any easier to accept what happens to our children, to those we longed for, those we grieve for? I'm not sure, but I know that my father, my God, understands what we and our children suffer, and that he longs for us all to be restored to the fullness of blessing that is ours' because: "God so loved the world, that he gave his only child"

Remembrance Sunday 2001

Returning home this week I heard that an old friend had died. Her late husband, John, had been a sailor in the war nearly sixty years ago, working on a ship supplying Malta and the troops in North Africa. One night they were torpedoed. Only John survived and he made his way to Israel where he claimed he spent the remainder of the war on a beach. But behind the humour was the pain of loss, of horror at what happened to his friends.

Each of the people we have named today would have had a story to tell. Those of you who have lived through war will have remembered during our silence your own stories and the stories of friends you left behind. An odd mixture of humour and humdrum, honour and horror.

It is a pattern you find in the bible too. There are stories of daring escapades and wars of attrition that drag on for decades, of terrorism and courageous peace-making, of compassion and genocide, of comradeship and cowardice, of bravery and bungling. The bible story tells us that God knows and understands our stories, that each one is important to him.

Let me tell you a couple of true stories, though I’ve changed some of the names.

David was a sailor, escorting ships on the Murmansk convoys, which kept Russia supplied with vital materials during the second world war. The convoys came under regular attack from planes and submarines and the loss of life was terrible. The rule was that you never stopped to pick up survivors – the risk of losing your own ship was too great and no-one survived more than a few minutes in the freezing sea. David survived not one, but two boats being sunk from underneath him. On the second occasion he was trapped in Sweden for 18 months. He was listed missing presumed dead. He arrived home as the war ended to be greeted by his wife and new-born son. David never questioned that the boy could not be his. He was his father and that was all there was to be said. His wife contracted a crippling disease and David nursed her for many years. He had a simple faith in God, he never questioned, simply prayed the prayer he learnt at school “Our Father who art in heaven………” No horror of war, no tragedy of family or of health could separate him from the love of his God.

I first met Dieter nearly a year ago. Born in Koln, Germany in 1941 he spent his early childhood in the bombed out ruins of his family house. His father never returned; lost, missing in action. After the war, as a five year old, he kept himself and his sick mother alive by stealing food and fuel. If ever a man had cause to hate that was Dieter. But Dieter devoted his life to quietly helping others, to mending the broken relationships between people and nations. He trained as an engineer and rose to a senior position in our company. I invited him to make his last speech before retirement at a training day we held for young managers. He gave one of the most profound talks I have heard, even though his subject was how to run a factory. Trouble, famine, hardship, danger, did not separate Dieter from the love of Christ, not did they prevent the love of Christ flowing from him in his daily life.

My third story is one of hope. I have been greatly struck that the observance of the two minutes silence is being led by the young. Our schools come to a halt, our universities come to a halt at 11.00 on the 11^th day of the 11^th month. My daughter tells of her class defying the instructions of their teacher to keep working. War is often senseless, young men are considered by their political leaders as sheep to be slaughtered. Atrocities are committed by all sides. The biblical stories are played out day by day around the world. But in each place there is a David, a Dieter, determined that nothing shall separate them from the love of God, and that nothing shall prevent them bringing the love of God into a broken world. And in our country we have young people who respect those who died in these wars, and who are open to the love of God. May we who remain not fail them but tell them the stories of the great things done for them – by young men, yes, but most of all by Jesus Christ. Amen

Psalm 130

The bad news is that I have three sermons ready for this morning – The good news is that this is the shortest. What struck me was this line from the psalm: “But with you there is forgiveness, therefore you are feared”.

Now, I can cope with the idea of a God who wreaks vengeance on his enemies and on those who do wrong; there’ a sort of logic to it; you know where you are, even if it’s in the pit of oblivion. I can also cope with the modern idea of God, a fluffy old hippy who wants the best for everyone and smiles benevolently no matter what we do. But what I find frightening is knowing that God keeps no record of sins, that with him there is forgiveness, that with him there is unfailing love and that with him there is full redemption.

You see, the cold-hearted God of vengeance can be controlled – you either do as you’re told or you eat drink and be merry for tomorrow you die; he doesn’t actually impact on your life. The old hippy God, whilst the complete opposite, is equally benign; useful to refer to in times of trouble but not exactly demanding.

But the God known by the psalmist is one who pours himself out for his creation, who cannot be shaken from his love, who knows our sins and yet is full of mercy. Such a God requires a response, not of duty but of love, total, self-denying love, to be so close to him it were as if we were married, to be one with him in the way we live, in the way we react to others.

Anyway, time for a story:

Two friends, one a Christian and the other an atheist, were playing golf when the atheist was struck by lightning and died. A week later the Christian was struck by lightning and he too died. Immediately he found himself on a road. He walked along it and came to a fork in the road. One path led to a shining archway, the other to a run-down farmyard.

There at the fork he was amazed to find his atheist friend sitting with his head in his hands.

“I’m doomed,” cried the atheist.

But the Christian took his hand and said, “come with me” and set off to the shining archway. There they found a man dressed in a shimmering white gown writing in a book.

“Where are we” asked the Christian.

“Heaven” the man replied.

“Can I come in?”

The man checked his book. “Of course.”

“Can I book in my friend?”

“What do you think this is, a BA executive lounge? No you cannot book him in as you so quaintly put it.”

So the Christian turned to his friend and said, “Come on, we’ll go to the other place.”

There they found a scruffily dressed man feeding the pigs.

“Can I come in?” asked the Christian.

“Of course.”

“Can I book in my friend?”

“Of course you can.”

At supper that night the scruffily dressed man sat next to them.
The friends were astonished to find that he was Jesus.

“Where are we?” asked the Christian.

“Heaven” Jesus replied.

“But, if this is heaven, what was the other place?”

“That was hell.”

“Hell? But they called it heaven. Doesn’t it get you cross that they do that?”

“Not really”, said Jesus, “it saves Peter a job. You see, they screen out the people who are so set on their own salvation that they leave their friends behind.”

1 Peter 2:2-10

This letter of Peter was written from Rome to Christians living in what is now Turkey. The passage we have read is the corner stone of the letter for it joins two different but essential aspects of the Christian faith. The Christians who first heard this in their huddled evening meeting lived in a world hostile to their faith and lifestyle. Peter's initial purpose is to declare that their salvation is secure, it is part of God's plan. The hostile State cannot harm their eternal destiny. His second aim is to show that this salvation comes with a price tag. Suffering is inevitable, necessary and helpful. And a people so favoured by God are to live such that they give no excuse for reviling the name of Christ.

In chapter 1, Peter lays out the basis of faith and the allied call to holiness. The word Peter uses for Holy implies being separated and different from the world. It's a tall order. So, after the 'cornerstone' passage, Peter gives some detailed instructions for the Christian life in Graeco-Roman society. Submission, suffering, sobriety, self-control (not exactly foremost in our preaching today).

They are to give their neighbours, their employers, their rulers no opportunity to accuse them for what they do, only for whom they believe. Peter's letter is thus like two walls - the one made of substantial stones, dressed by the Master Craftsman himself; the other of countless small stones, each one perfect and in the right place. The walls sit at right angles, giving strength that neither would have on its own. A Christian life built solely on God's promises without an accompanying response is like a single wall, weak and easily toppled. But so also is a life of moral good works if it is not buttressed by faith in the Son of God and the indwelling of His Holy Spirit.

And joining these two walls - the cornerstone. The stone which connects and supports the interlocking walls of faith and works. And who is this cornerstone? Jesus Christ. We can participate in his death and resurrection, becoming like him, becoming part of his body, the church. Living stones, built into God's house. The solitary Christian is like a brick lying in a field - an unsightly nuisance to the farmer - still a brick, I don't deny that, but useless.

We are called into a community, and what a community! A royal priesthood, serving God, offering spiritual sacrifices. A holy nation, a people belonging to God, members not of a social club but the leading family in earth and heaven. As such, we are called to declare the greatness of our God - the God who took a pile of useless bricks and built them into a beautiful house.

We are called by name, and we will never be put to shame. This is the heart of the gospel. Those who call on the name of the Lord will be saved - not might, but will. That is the certainty that we have been called to. But this is not a popular message. A cornerstone without walls is stupid, simply an obstruction, and the gospel is, if we declare it correctly, either stupid or offensive. To the intellectual, the idea that the slaughter of a man in Palestine can have any impact on our lives today is preposterous, and as for the resurrection, come off it. To the religious the idea of resurrection is no problem, but the cross is offensive. The cross says that all my good works, all my worship, all my religion, count for nothing. Jesus has done it all. All he asks is my life - which means that anyone can be saved, whatever their past.

And this rejected stone has become everything to us - our cornerstone and our capstone - the one who both holds all things together and protects his people from everything that earth and hell can throw at them. As Jesus said - I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. He is the secure Way to heaven, to the Father. He is the truth in whom we find God's purpose for our lives, and he is the Life - the one who can transform our sin stained lives into his resurrection life, enabling us to live a life worthy of our calling. There is no other way.

Amen.

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