We can understand why. Suffering is bad. Plain and simple. No one wants to suffer. At the beginning of Part II "Confronting Suffering" is a quote by Kierkegaard, "Many and various are the things to which a man may feel himself drawn, but one thing there is to which no man ever felt himself drawn in any way, that is, to suffering and humiliation." How true. The problem, as he poses right at the outset of the book is this: we do suffer! We may avoid it, we may do all we can to get out of it, but in the end it happens. Maybe to varying degrees, but one need not make a hierarchy of suffering (which he in fact argues is a form of avoiding or dismissing just how bad it is, "well it could be worse").
The problem with a world that avoids suffering then is it doesn't always know what to do with it. And the same goes for the church. As I read it I couldn't help but think how easily we can get right in line with the culture that avoids it, for ourselves and others. The two key ways is moralization and minimization.
Moralization says I can get something out of suffering that will either free me from it or make it less miserable. You just have to figure out "why" you are suffering. Once you find the why, you can get out. Be it a specific sin that must be underlying the suffering or a lesson that will make you strong enough to overcome the suffering, this becomes the mode. Make meaning for your suffering. You can see how the church becomes a culprit here: find a way to get God's favor/blessing, get rid of whatever sin is behind this, it is a test of faith, believe more to get out of this. To one degree or another it boils down to name it and claim it. The church/God/faith/law [insert whatever you'd like will get you what you need to get out of this, you just have to get church/God/faith/law [insert whatever other self help] rightly or enough.
Minimization is the practice of avoiding it by various forms of dismissing what it actually is to suffer. Though both exist throughout the Church, I might say moralization is more common in evangelical circles while minimization is more common in mainline churches. We have our token sayings, quick words of sorry or "I'm praying for you" (though I'm not always sure how honest that phrase is) as if that makes it all better or settles it. What Tchividjian noted that particularly struck a blow to me and some of my tendencies was to find one ounce of "good" or "improvement" and latch onto that. Doing a little better? Great to hear! Nevermind that life still sucks, you're doing better! Our positivism or rather fear and avoidance of the negativeness of suffering can make us look for some way to bring the atmosphere and conversation out of it. I'm not saying it's bad to notice good parts of life, but that it is bad to avoid the rough parts because of the good ones. But that too often is our practice.
This is in part why: that's what I've culturally been trained and to what I am naturally inclined. Even after years of work in chaplaincy, it still is a habit. I confess it. I'm willing to ask and search for the crud and difficulty more now, but it still is not easy to remain there, to feel like the conversation is trapped there.
But it is, because we are. Instead of trying to cheer up and get over our problems, it's time to let our shit be shit. Instead of trying to avoid it, or steer away from it, let us be trapped there. We don't need to get out of it to be Christians. And sometimes we simply can't get out of it. That is the great power of the story, Jesus enters into suffering. God doesn't need to be only associated with the good moments and "blessings" but instead we can associate God with the shit. Not the way it normally happens, which is either God gives you what you need to escape the shit (moralism) or even more than that God must be causing the shit because he's mad at you. The death of Jesus assures us of that. It seals God's love, grace, and forgiveness so whenever we look for God in our shitholes we don't need to look for him as causing it, or him as absent from it, but him as coming among those who are trapped in a world of shit (which is the existential way of saying we are captive to sin and cannot free ourselves).
What about setting the captives free? The big lie is that freedom involves picking yourself up. As if once you convert, or have more faith, or unlock that great meaning to all this shit you will get out of it. Paul was free even though he suffered greatly in his ministry. He was free enough to die. Suffering still came upon him, but suffering could not separate him from the love and peace that is in Christ Jesus. There is talk about the ending of suffering, but that promise is given eschatalogically. Instead of the bible focusing on faith freeing you from suffering it seems more concerned with faith enduring during suffering. "The righteous shall live by faith" is one of my most favorite promises of scripture. It is given in Habakkuk where the prophet is asking God "Why are you silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves?" (i.e. why do you let the evil prosper and the good to suffer, at their hands no less!). The promise he gives is not that karma will catch up and right the ship, the promise is not that the suffering will go away or even be lessened, merely that the righteous will live by faith. Suffering befalls them all. Death, he says, "takes captive all the peoples", the answer is not why will some escape it, but how to live in it. And that is by faith.
This means faith is not impossible while we suffer. Nor is it about avoiding suffering. It is a gift for us who suffer. Instead of looking for how people are getting out of suffering, we need to (I need to) focus on how we can have faith during suffering. And that looks to Jesus, where we know God is revealed - and not revealed apart from suffering but in the midst of it. When we are captive to suffering, when life is just shitty, instead of needing to get out of it, what we need we have, and that is God - fully and completely.
Why does that matter? If God is not a tool to less pain why does it matter? When we've been taught to look at God with a consumerist faith that looks only to what God has to sell that is appealing and good this question pops up. And when life is going shitty and all our whole nature wants is to be free of it, why does it matter if faith can't get me out of it? Here's why it matters: first because of that promise we heard - the righteous live by faith. We don't need to escape suffering in our lives to live. Getting to the good of life is more attractive, but faith says God's strength is made perfect in weakness. God matters. If we buy into God being a way out of suffering the real problem then is in suffering which we couldn't avoid or get out of we are forced to say something must be between me and God, for he is not taking me out of suffering. To find Jesus in suffering, to find faith in it, with nothing other than life itself, even there, frees us from that conclusion. It frees us from that fear. It lets us live in reconciliation. Peace with God.
Here's the other part, because a model of avoidance of suffering leads to avoidance of the gospel. Just as we are unwilling to admit we cannot escape suffering, it is a testament to how hard it truly is to admit that we cannot escape a world of sin and shame. Total and continued dependence on God during the ongoing struggle of life is what we are talking about. But often the forgiveness of sins is just as easily a pull me up out of the difficulty of sin so I can go back about the good of my life. Same with the model that wants to be totally free of suffering. Pick me up out of suffering so I can go to the good things in my life. But the totality of the good, is the good produced by faith in Christ. It is the good of Christ. To experience this goodness, we need only Jesus. If the goodness of God depends on how good you are making your life, it is not the goodness of the gospel. The goodness is always ours in Christ, no matter how bad or sucky life becomes. It doesn't make the shit go away it simply brings something into our shit - God.
We need to let ourselves truly admit to things in our life that suck. We need to call shit "shit". The value, place, faithfulness, and holiness of our life is not determined by if I overcame depression. It's no wonder the church is markedly bad at dealing with chronic illness as I noted in a previous blog. What we need to do is be willing to proclaim Christ in the shit instead calling people out of the shit to have Christ or avoiding the shit to make it seem better than it is. We need to say we are in need of a Savior. Not to evade or avoid, but to live. Now the danger is how easily the gospel can be used to minimize the suffering. This happens if we speak these promises so as to move out of engaging the suffering itself. "Don't cry, you still have Jesus" sort of thing. No, let us not use the gospel to move the conversation out of suffering but to let us confess it more. Be with each other in our suffering more. Be stuck waist deep in shit. Christ did not minimize suffering, he faced it head on, he went all the way. And so we shall not underestimate the power and hold this has on our lives, for it cost Christ his very life.Instead, instead I hope (and I hope you hope with me), that I, we, the church, would say that if death has lost it's sting, let's be willing to be stung. If Christ is really there, then let's not be afraid to be there too. If the goodness of the gospel is never measured by the good we make of our lives, then let's hear it as ours no matter where our lives are. Usually we feel the life we need is the one found outside of suffering, but the righteous live by faith. Life is found in Christ. That means the life we need is lived by faith in Christ. Are we, the church, willing to trust in that enough to face lives filled with suffering, and live in Christ there too?
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