"Hope Amidst Suffering"
Sermon Presented March 23, 2008
1 Peter 1:3-9
Last week we learned of the death of an 11-year-old Wisconsin girl who died because her parents refused to take her to a doctor. Instead, they chose to pray for her through an Internet minister who founded the Web site AmericasLastDays.com. David Eells, who lives in Pensacola, FL and whose Unleavened Bread Ministries operates the Web site, asked an elder to call the parents and pray for their daughter the day she died. When the daughter died of complications from diabetes that the parents didn't even know she had, the parents called again and asked that he pray that she would be raised from the dead. The parents put their hope in their understanding of God and after much prayer, their daughter died. How do we appropriately hope in God? What is God's role in human suffering?
Our text this morning is from 1 Peter - a letter written to Gentile churches in Asia Minor, part of modern Turkey. The Christians here were being persecuted through social ostracism. Their conversion to Christianity turned them into resident aliens in their homeland - pushing them to the social, economic and political margins. The purpose of writing this epistle is to show the recipients that their current suffering has meaning because it is to be expected as a result of their salvation.
Scholars don't believe that Simon Peter wrote the letter. It's pseudonymous - meaning that the author used Peter's name to give weight to the content, a common practice during that time. This letter has a complicated Greek style and the author quotes from the Septuagint - the Greek version of the Hebrew Scriptures - not available to or readable by this Galilean fisherman. The letter was also written to a group of churches in an area where Christianity hadn't spread during Peter's lifetime. Having said this, the usefulness - the value of this letter to the church - then and now - is not disputable. (New Interpreters Bible, Vol. XII, p. 230, 234) I'm reading from 1 Peter 1:3-9. (In the original Greek, this is all one sentence.)
The suffering and trials mentioned by the letter writer are a direct result of their Christian faith. Their faith in Jesus is making life difficult, if not dangerous. They're being ostracized because of their faith, and the author wants to assure them that their faith gives them a place in heaven. How does this writing pertain to us?
As people of faith today, our hope lies in God - yet we use the resources that we believe God provides. We are rational people who wouldn't reject medical resources to save ourselves, our child, parent or spouse. If I have a diagnosis of a stage 3 cancer, I pray to God and I see a cancer specialist. If I learn that I am on the brink of bankruptcy, I seek help from my banker, other possible sources of income, an attorney, and God! If I have excruciating pain in my shoulder, knee, or hip, I turn to my medical doctor, physical therapist, pain meds, and God. I don't just sit back and wait for the inevitable if there is anything I can do. It isn't one or the other, but each in tandem with the other.
We all experience physical and mental suffering, and when this occurs, we seek help - we seek God. Sometimes our suffering is directly related to our faith, but more than likely, it's not. I do know women who were accused of being religious fanatics at a divorce hearing to justify the divorce and/or affect child custody. Suffering is a part of life and God doesn't tell us there will be no suffering; God reveals God's presence with us as we struggle. We can pray and expect God to accompany us through and in our suffering, but we can't expect God to deliver us from all suffering.
Having said this, we know from experience that some Christians grow in their faith through their suffering, while others abandon their faith. In our trials we seek God's presence and guidance to bring us safely through the experience. We utilize available resources as part of God's guidance.
The text indicates that we are receiving the salvation of our souls now, but it will be fully revealed in the last time. Personally, I doubt I would still be a Christian if didn't believe that my relationship with God in Christ improves my life here and now. The hope of an eternity with God is wonderful, but I am short-sighted and need to experience God now - "God with us" in my joys and in my suffering. We begin to live with Christ eternally when we decide to follow Jesus. Salvation - eternity with God - is present as well as future tense. We are saved; we are being saved; we will be saved!
In the most recent Christian Century magazine (April 8, 2008, p. 8), there is a brief article titled "Transforming Losses" - the story of David Fajgenbaum. When David was a freshman at Georgetown University, his mother was diagnosed with brain cancer. Before she died, he decided to honor her by forming a support group, Students of Ailing Mothers and Fathers. His peers found the group useful in dealing with their feelings of helplessness, as they supported one another, organized fund-raisers for medical research, and reached out to students in high schools. Now there are more than 20 chapters. Fajgenbaum is finishing a master's degree in public health at Oxford and plans to study oncology in hopes of finding a cure for cancer. He put feet to his prayers and is helping countless people because of how he dealt with his suffering.
The suffering experienced by these Christians in Asia Minor is social ostracism because of their faith in Jesus. Today people are ostracized for all sorts of reason: Muslims and Jews in America because of their faith, race, sexual orientation, lack of education, poverty, age, gender, mental and physical handicaps, obesity, and lack of athletic prowess. Most of us fit in one or more of these categories and know what it's like to feel ostracized.
Hope is the vibrant theme running through our text and this letter. Hope gives people then and now a sense of a different future. The author speaks of "new birth" and that this new birth happens because of the resurrection of Jesus, and indicates a clear parallel between the new birth of Christians and Christ's resurrection. Both move from death to life.
For those to whom the author writes, it is clear that the Christian faith represented a conscious and difficult decision to move away from their old lives and from the predominant culture in which they lived. For them, it was clear that being "born again" not only meant adding joy to their life, but also leaving behind relationships with neighbors and culture. This was a painful decision to make.
None of us wants to have our faith tested. Nor do I believe that God sets up trials as an obstacle course or entrance exam to the Christian faith. But we know from experience that we have no genuine faith without suffering. We know from experience that the prosperity gospel preached on television and in some of the mega churches is not biblical and does not fit our own experience. We find hope in the midst of our suffering, just as did the Christians in Asia Minor that received this letter. We find hope in God's presence with us.
How do we interpret the suffering Christians undergo as a result of their convictions? First, we find that it purifies our faith - just as fire purifies gold. We know that Christ suffered unjustly and that those who follow him will also suffer unjustly - some more than others. Persecutions can either strengthen faith or destroy it - just as life-threatening illness can lead some to God and others away from God. When trials arise, the genuineness of our faith will be shown.
Let me throw out a question that I asked at the beginning of this sermon: How do we appropriately hope in God? Let me tell you a story told by Dr. Michael Downey, Professor of Systematic Theology and Spirituality at St. John's Seminary in Los Angeles in his book The Heart of Hope. Dr. Downey tells of moving to the seminary in 1997 to begin his work, when he met his first student, Thuan Pham, one of the boat people from Vietnam. Thuan and his family had made more than a dozen attempts to leave Vietnam before succeeding, and now he was safe and secure and eager to begin his education. He had suffered greatly, but now was filled with hope.
However, it wasn't long before his thick black hair was gone. Chemotherapy drugs robbed him of his hair, just as the death-dealing brain tumor took away the hope of a healthy life. It wasn't long before his family and friends stood together grieving as his body was lowered into the earth in the land they once considered as heaven. Thuan's faith in God brought him out of Vietnam, so why did he die before he could get the necessary education to better serve God? Where did his hope land him?
Downey writes that the faith and hope that guided and sustained Thuan to the United States radiated through him throughout his illness and his dying days. His faith and hope became the faith and hope of those who ministered to him and to those who read Downey's book. Thuan suffered more that most, but God was real to him in his suffering. His trials didn't go away, they just changed! His first attempt to bring his family to America - and the 2nd, 3rd, and 12th failed. The prayers of the Church for physical healing didn't save him, and the chemotherapy treatment by the medical professionals failed to cure his brain tumor. But his new birth that began in Vietnam didn't end in the cemetery in Los Angeles. It continues in the presence of God.
Suffering is real and unavoidable. Our hope is in God - present and for eternity.
