Trinity Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Sermons 

Bless his little heart,

sometimes the apostle Paul just leaves me

scratching my head and saying "Huh?"

Most of what he says makes good sense,

like the notion that we are "justified by faith,"

and how we obtain access to God’s grace through Jesus Christ,

and how God’s love has been poured into our hearts.

It’s even okay that he suggests that we ought to

"boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God" …

It’s not so much that Paul thinks that boasting is necessarily a good thing,

but it is a typically human thing,

and so, if we are going to boast anyway,

then we should at least boast about something that is true …

Namely, in something that points toward God,

and not ourselves.

But when he comes to this bit about how

"we also boast in our sufferings" …

well, frankly, that’s where he loses me, at least to begin with.

Boast in our sufferings?

Who could possibly think that that’s a good idea?

Do we enjoy being around people who seem to take pleasure in telling us

how much they are suffering?

I don’t mean when people let you know of a legitimate concern for your prayers,

I don’t mean when people give an honest response

to the question "How are you doing?"

when they know you really meant it.

I mean the long lists of woes untempered by blessings,

the recitals of everything that’s wrong

in every major organ system of the body,

the litany of insults, real and imagined,

from family and friends and everyone else who is tired of listening.

After a while, I’m usually tempted to interrupt and ask,

"Excuse me, but would you like some cheese with that whine?"

But what I really enjoy is hearing Danny paraphrase the poet William Blake,

"Martyr, martyr, burning bright."

Boast in our sufferings?

Spare us, Paul.

And Paul was, it seems,

often a boastful kind of guy.

He was all to willing to share in his letters

tales of how he had been mistreated,

how much he had suffered for the sake of preaching the gospel,

how maligned and misunderstood he often was.

But Paul’s recitation of his sufferings wasn’t really so much a whine …

he didn’t want his readers to feel sorry for him because he had suffered.

On the contrary,

his suffering somehow gave him credibility, he felt.

Sometimes, he crosses the line into a kind of

"Look how much I’ve suffered;

you’ll never be as good a Christian as I am" kind of tune.

But usually, he’s simply stating the truth.

Being a follower of Jesus Christ,

particularly in his day and time, when the gospel was new,

was a sure-fire road to suffering.

Less so, today, but …

even in our own time, when a majority around us

are at least nominally Christian,

there is a certain amount of suffering associated with following Jesus Christ,

at least, if we follow at all closely.

We talked last week about the "peace of Christ,"

and how it disturbs the peace of the world as we know it.

The truth of the matter is that,

if we aren’t ever suffering on account of our faith …

then we probably aren’t taking it very seriously.

But what about this "boasting in our sufferings" notion?

Are we really supposed to go around drawing attention to ourselves

if and when we suffer for doing what is right?

"No, I don’t think I’ll join you for golf today

because I’m fasting and I feel so weak …"

"That’s a really nice new car you have;

of course I could never afford anything like that because I tithe."

Please understand, fasting and tithing are both good things,

and they may indeed at times cause a degree of suffering.

But to boast about them?

What good is it to witness to our faith

if, in the process, we only turn people off?

But it occurred to me as a wrestled with this text,

and with Paul, who can be a difficult sort of fellow …

that he’s not really trying to offer us a prescription for behavior.

That is, he’s not saying that

any good faithful Christian person should boast about his or her sufferings.

He is not somehow suggesting that we should do so.

Rather, he is suggesting the kind of attitude that we should have

when those times come that we undergo suffering.

Because they are inevitable,

if we decide to be Christ’s people and not "worldly" people.

So it’s not that we ought to draw attention to ourselves

by bragging of how faithful we are,

but, that we should understand our suffering as coming about

not because we are wrong, but because we are right.

Suffering, according to Paul, is not a sign that we are on the wrong road,

but that we are on the right one.

It’s not cause for whining;

it is, in contrast, cause for boasting.

Now of course that can be overdone,

but let’s not get sidetracked by that today.

What would it mean for us

to boast in our sufferings?

Even if our sufferings are small in comparison

to those suffered by Paul and other early disciples?

"Boasting in our sufferings" might mean that

while we acknowledge our sufferings that can’t be helped,

we also take note of the blessings that help us cope with them:

"I do hate it that I can’t drive any more,

but I am so blessed with friends who will take me where I need to go."

"Of course I wish I didn’t have cancer,

but I have learned so much,

and met so many wonderful people."

One of the things cancer survivors often discover

is that they have a real ministry to others who are undergoing treatment.

Because they themselves have suffered,

they can say things the rest of us can’t say.

They have credibility,

because they have walked the same road.

We could see that as a form of "boasting in our sufferings."

Another possibility for boasting in our sufferings,

particularly the ones that we have freely chosen,

is to find ways to be truthful about them without being whiny.

Suppose that your friends do invite you to play golf,

and you really do feel a little peaked because you are fasting.

Can you begin just by saying that you have a prior commitment?

(You don’t have to say that it’s to yourself.)

Then if they ask, you can say,

"Friday is always my fasting day,

but I’d love to go with you tomorrow."

You’ve given information; you’ve opened the door for conversation,

but you haven’t tried to make it sound like you’re holier than they are,

or they should feel guilty for suggesting something frivolous

when you’re attending to the needs of your soul.

Or if someone is ragging on you about your old and/or small car,

you can say in a neutral tone,

"Your Lexus is lovely, and I’m sure it’s fun to drive,

but for me, it feels more important to use that money to help others."

Each of those is, in a sense, boasting.

But it’s doing so in a way that doesn’t belittle

someone who has made a different choice than you have made.

Maybe they didn’t even know they had a choice,

and you’ve taught them something new.

Finally, though, there’s a sense in which

"boasting in our sufferings" makes a powerful witness

because, truth is, when we really get in line with what Christ wants for us,

what looks like suffering doesn’t feel like suffering.

We don’t miss the time we give to serving others.

We don’t miss the money or the "stuff" we give away

to others who have less than we have.

We barely notice the people who think we’re weird

because we listen to a different voice and make "strange" choices.

Human nature seems to be to feel sorry for ourselves

when things don’t go as we’d like.

Or maybe that’s a cultural thing;

certainly, there have been peoples in different times and places than our own

who see suffering as much more the natural way of the world

than we do.

We tend to think we should avoid suffering at all costs,

and that we should be able to avoid suffering;

Paul seems to suggest that perhaps we should embrace it.

We tend to admire people who can "suffer in silence"

and not distress us with their difficulties …

Paul suggests we should suffer boldly,

and even boast in it.

Why?

"…because suffering produces endurance,

and endurance produces character,

and character produces hope,

and hope does not disappoint us."

That’s not at all a 21^st-century way of thinking,

or even 20^th-century, for that matter.

It is as foreign to us as if it were spoken in another language.

But even if you’re not ready to do the boasting thing yet … !

Know that suffering does not always mean that you are wrong;

it does not always mean that you should be doing something different;

it does not mean that you’re being punished for something in the past;

it does not mean that God has abandoned you.

It may mean that you’re doing what is right,

and your world is uncomfortable with it.

If your suffering has led to the point where it produces hope,

then you can be sure that it’s not in vain.

Hope does not disappoint us;

God does not disappoint us;

so what the hey … let’s boast in our sufferings.

Amen.

© 2007 Julie Adkins (e-mail: DrJAdkins@trinitypresdallas.org)