Orchard Ridge United Church of Christ

Text: Romans 5:1-5; preached by the Rev Ken Pennings on August 23, 2009

(Begin with a clip from the movie Forrest Gump)
Beautiful, wasn’t it, to see Lt. Dan move from this (arm raised toward heaven in defiance) to this (arms stretched out in peaceful rest)?
This scene with Lt. Dan floating contentedly in the water is the embodiment of our Scripture text this morning.
Peace with God is possible in and through suffering.

Like Lt. Dan, we are a people who’ve had our legs blown off in the war. We’ve experienced all kinds of pain and suffering, yet we float contentedly and peacefully with hearts full of gratitude to God.
No matter how hard we tried to stay out of harm’s way, the storms of life struck, and we quaked with fear, lashed out in anger, wrung our hands in worry, and wept in sorrow.   But somehow, we weathered these storms of life and we showed here up on a Sunday morning, a testimony of God’s peace in our lives.
And this peace is more than passive restful tranquility. It is also active nonviolent protest against all that is unfair, unjust, unloving in our world.
In my early 40’s, I experienced a series of painful and devastating losses, and I became disillusioned with God. For months, I couldn’t pray, read my Bible or go to church. My partner John sat with me in silence, listened to my rantings and ravings, allowed me to cry on his shoulder, and gave me all the time I needed to process the things that were happening to me. In the cocoon of his nurture and care, I began to open up to new possibilities in my life, break out of the cocoon, spread my wings and fly once again.

He introduced me to the writings of Anthony DeMello, a Jesuit priest, who was strongly influenced by Eastern mystical traditions. DeMello challenged my fundamentalist Christian naïveté and spoke peace to my troubled soul. Here’s one of DeMello’s stories:

A girl in the fishing village became an unwed mother and after several beatings finally revealed who the father of the child was: the Zen master living on the outskirts of the village.
The villagers trooped into the master’s house, rudely disturbed his meditation, denounced him as a hypocrite, and told him to keep the baby. All the master said was, “Very well. Very well.”
He picked up the baby and made arrangements for a woman from the village to feed and clothe and look after it at his expense.
The master’s name was ruined and his disciples all abandoned him.
When this had gone on for a year, the girl who had borne the child could stand it no longer and finally confessed that she had lied. The actual father of the child was the boy next door.
The villagers were most contrite. They prostrated themselves at the feet of the master to beg his pardon and to ask for the child back. The master returned the child. And all he said was, “Very well. Very well.”

This Zen master, explained DeMello, is an example of an enlightened person.
After months of reading DeMello, when I’d start to get really upset about something, I’d think to myself, “Maybe I need to DeMello this situation.” It was DeMello who taught me how to observe myself as if from a distance and speak words of peace and assurance to Ken’s troubled soul. I’d look down at Ken from the ceiling. There he was, sitting on the couch, suffering deep anguish, suffocating with pain, and I’d speak words of love and assurance to him. I’d let him know that I’d be there for him through thick and thin, that I’d never let him down, that somehow we’d get through this ordeal together.  And eventually we did get through the ordeal.
Through the unconventional wisdom of Tony DeMello and others, I discovered a new way of thinking and being Christian. And eventually I made my way back to church – NOT to a fundamentalist church, but to a progressive liberal church, where people understand that ultimate truth cannot be contained in the pages of any one book, by any one religion – that God is much larger than any of our human constructs, ideas, notions or theologies. God cannot and will not be reduced to chapter and verse!  There I discovered that being Christian is not a matter of having all the right answers, but living trustfully in the uncertainties, ambiguities, perplexities of life.  As Tony DeMello wrote, “Faith is the fearless search for truth. So it is not lost when one questions one’s beliefs.”
And question my beliefs I did! All the while strengthening my faith.

Faith, I learned, is living in the questions, not insisting on the right answers!

We don’t know how or why things happen as they do. They just happen. Wisdom is accepting, not resisting life as it happens, and treasuring each breath, each day of work, each day of leisure, each moment with those we love…accepting all of life, good and bad, as gift!

Romans 5:1-5 is a delightful text about accepting all of life as gift. All God’s peace, grace, glory, love, & spirit are ours right here and now. It’s the experience of “Very well, very well,” the experience of “All that I need I have in God.” And surprisingly, according to this text, suffering isn’t an obstacle to experiencing the fullness of God in our lives.
Peace with God is possible in and through suffering.

Suffering itself is a gift, or at least, a given, that builds endurance, character and hope.

Now I admit, I have trouble with receiving suffering as gift. There are plenty of times I unwrap this gift and say, “I don’t want this gift! Can I have a different one?”  When the storms strike, I still hear the messages, which were programmed into my head from early childhood about God being all about reward and punishment – “Why is this happening to me? What did I ever do to deserve this? Why is God punishing me?”
Lately, however, when things in my life go horribly wrong, and I’m on the edge of getting very upset, I’ve been playing new tapes in my head, tapes with messages about God being all about love. And I pray, “God, help me to take on this suffering voluntarily, and to receive it as gift. Help me through this suffering to tap into the vastness of your love, which is visible through all that is.”

Wendell Berry has written a beautiful poem called, A Spiritual Journey:

And the world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles,
no matter how long,
but only by a spiritual journey,
a journey of one inch,
very arduous and humbling and joyful,
by which we arrive at the ground at our feet,
and learn to be at home
(The Collected Poems of Wendell Berry, 1957-1982).

If, after the storm has struck, all I have left is the ground at my feet, I pray, “God, help me be at home here.”
If I choose to go back in my mind to those dark days eleven years ago, it is to reflect on how suffering produced endurance, character and hope in my life. It is to marvel at the insights, wisdom, strength, courage, joy and peace I’ve gained since that time. It is to empathize with others who may be weathering their own storms of destruction.

Generally, however, I try to keep my mind on the present, to pay attention to what is here and now, not cling to it, own it or control it, but simply enjoy it as long as it lasts. This means, of course, I must let go of my unrealistic expectations for what should have been or for what I hoped would be, and rejoice in what IS.
I value the wisdom of the Dali Lama, “If a misfortune has already occurred, it is best not to worry about it, so we do not add fuel to the problem. Don’t ally yourself with past events by lingering on them and exaggerating them. Let the past take care of itself, and transport yourself to the present while taking whatever measures are necessary to ensure that such a misfortune never occurs again, now or in the future” (Dalai Lama’s Little Book of Inner Peace, pg. 301).

In the storms of life, we pray, “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

Teresa of Avila was a mystic who lived in the 16th c. Late one night, as Teresa was traveling home to the convent, her horse-drawn carriage was caught in a torrential downpour. The carriage lurched in the mud, and a wheel broke off of the carriage. Teresa and everything else in the carriage were catapulted into the mud. As she struggled to get the wheel back onto the carriage and the carriage out of the mud, she raised an arm toward heaven, and shouted, “You treat your friends this way. No wonder you have so few of them!”
This same Teresa, however, taught the sisters at the convent to pray, Nada te turbe, nada te asuste. Dios no cambia. Quien cuenta con Dios nada le falta. Sólo Dios basta.

“Let nothing trouble you. Let nothing frighten you. God doesn’t change. To the one who has God, nothing is lacking. God alone is enough.”

In the storms of life, we trust. By grace, we gradually move from this (arm raised toward heaven in defiance) toward this (arms stretched out to both sides).

Theresa of Avila, Paul the Apostle, the Zen master, Tony DeMello, Wendell Berry and the Dali Lama invite us into a much more wonderful world than one where all the answers are known ahead of time. They offer a new way of living in this world where nothing ever rattles our cage, nothing ever ruffles our feathers, nothing ever pushes our buttons, even when things go horribly wrong.

What if what God is bringing about through our suffering is the formation of a people who respond to all that happens with genuine faith – a faith that is more concerned with living in the questions than coming up with the right answers?

I invite us into the holy mystery of “Very well, very well” as we sing together, Nada te turbe.

Closing words: We waited for the Lord, and God heard our complaint. Blessed are they that hope and trust in the Lord.

More closing words: Another wise teacher, Jesus of Nazareth, said “In this world you will have trouble, but be of good cheer. For I have overcome the world. My peace I leave with you, not as the world gives, give I unto you. Peace be with you.”