Yesterday we buried Robert McLuckie, Carol
Mittwede's husband. They were married in this church only 4 months ago. I
thought I would interrupt my series on the Lord's Prayer and talk this morning
about Robert's death because I know that many of us, including me, were so
troubled by his death.
Carol asked us to read 1 Corinthians 13 at
Robert's funeral. In St. Paul's great meditation on love, he says, "Faith,
hope, and love abide, but the greatest of these is love."
I would like to talk this morning about faith,
hope, and love, and how they might help us deal with Robert's death and with
the problem of suffering in general.
First, I'd like to talk about faith.
The author of Hebrews
writes, "Now faith is the assurance of
things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Indeed, by faith our
ancestors received approval. By faith we understand that the worlds were
prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are
not visible."
Robert and Carol were married only 4 months ago.
Never in my experience has "I do"
given way to "till death do us part" quite so quickly. The
whole experience of Robert's illness and death has left some of us wondering
about our faith. What kind of "assurance of things hoped for" do we
have? Are there any "things not seen" that can help us make sense of
this tragedy?
I want you to know this: It is perfectly all right to doubt. In fact,
I would say that doubt is an essential part of faith, because faith is not the
same thing as certainty. Certainty leaves no room for faith. Faith means that
we know the destination, but it does not mean that we will be able to see every
step of the way. Faith means that we believe that God will guide our steps even
though it is sometimes so dark that we cannot see the way, and perhaps this is
one of those times.
I would like to tell you that God has a plan and
that Robert's death was part of that plan. But I don't like the word
"plan". It implies that Robert was some kind of chess piece on a
cosmic chess board.
I believe there's a sense in which it is true to
say that God has a plan. But I would
rather talk about patterns and meaning than plans.
One of the things we know about the world and
human life is that we have freedom.
A college friend of mine told me that he lost his
faith after the terrorist attacks of 9/11. I can see why he would be troubled
by those attacks but not why it would cause him to lose his faith. Actually, I
believe his faith had been eroding for a long time.
9/11 was the result of human agents. I don't know
why anyone would hold God responsible for the attacks on the towers and the
Pentagon, even though the attackers claimed to be acting on behalf of God. My
friend, Rabbi Jonathan Miller, called them "theological hoodlums."
On the other hand, I can understand why the
existence of so-called acts of God, such as hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis,
and diseases such as AIDS and cancer could shake someone's faith. Why would God
create a world in which these things could cause such suffering?
But perhaps God did not just endow human beings
with freedom. Perhaps the universe itself has a kind of freedom. Theologian and
scientist John Polkinghorne says that God made the world so that the world can
make itself. When I consider the way that evolution operates or how stars are
born, grow old, and die, I think he must be right.
So part of the pattern of the universe and of
human life is that we are free to make both good and bad choices and perhaps
even non-human creation has a degree of freedom. Perhaps an element of
randomness is built into the universe.
The arts, especially drama and music, also help
me understand how human life and the non-human universe can have both free and
pre-determined elements. When a musician plays a piece of music or when an actor
plays a part, she is expected to play the notes on the page or read the words
that the playwright has written. But she also has to make thousands of
decisions about how to do so. Should she play softly or loudly? fast or slow?
Should she pause for effect? Should she sit or stand? Walk to the front of the
stage or exit stage left?
Jazz may be an even better illustration. A jazz
saxophonist has an enormous amount of freedom within a general structure. He is
playing "Stars fell on Alabama" in the key of E flat major. But
within that structure and confined by those chords, he can go off on the most
wonderful - or the most awful - solos. And if you add an electric bass, a
piano, and drums, then you multiply the possibilities for both delight and
disaster almost infinitely.
And that is where meaning comes in. I believe
that if there is no freedom, there is no meaning, or at least there is much
less meaning. If there is no suffering, then there is also no sainthood or
heroism.
The existence of suffering makes possibility the
existence of Mother Teresa. It was her response to human suffering that
inspired people in every country and of every faith.
Political persecution and repression called forth
the heroic example of Mahatma Gandhi.
It was the existence of racial prejudice and
oppression that made possible the heroism of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., that
inspired generations to work to undo the effects of racial prejudice and the
structures that perpetuated it.
It is perfectly OK to be angry at God when bad
things happen to good people. But faith gives us the ability to see the hand of
God at work in the lives of those who give their lives to the great work of
alleviating human suffering - the Mother Teresas, the Gandhis, the Martin
Luther Kings.
Faith gives us the power to see the hand of God
at work in taking terrible, random events, things that cause great suffering
and weaving meaning into them.
Secondly, what role does hope play in our
response to suffering?
Go back for a minute to the analogy of music or
theatre. What would be the meaning of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony if we omitted
the last movement, the great "Ode to Joy"? What would be the meaning
of Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream if the spell that bewitched the
lovers was never undone? A piece of music or a play makes little or no sense if
it is interrupted in the middle.
Similarly, suffering will not make sense unless
we believe that our story, the human story, has an ending. The Christian faith
tells us that God has already written an ending to our story and it is not just
a happy ending, it is the happiest of all endings.
Alabama novelist Vicki Covington writes:
...the ultimate reason for depression and suicide is that a person
reaches a point where not only is life meaningless but also there is no mystery
about that fact; not only have we failed to be the hero of this story, but in
fact there is no story. And it is the
task of Christianity to re-establish belief that there’s a story. Not that the characters won’t have pain,
accidents, or calamity; that the story won’t be sad. Just simply that there is a story. (The Birmingham News,
1/23/94)
We read our children fairy tales that begin, “Once upon a time...” and
that end, “...and they lived happily ever after.” But between the “once upon a time” and the “happily ever after”,
anything can happen. The heroine may be
called upon to slay a dragon; she may have to cross tall mountains and ford
raging rivers; she may have to rescue the handsome but incompetent prince from
the wiles of an evil witch. She may be
injured or even die. But we know that
somehow it will come out all right in the end.
That is the Christian faith. Our
faith is not that life will be pleasant and easy; we do not hold that if you
have enough faith you will not experience pain and suffering. What the Christian faith teaches us is that
there is a story and a Storyteller. The
Christian faith proclaims that although there will be suffering and pain in
life, it has a purpose. We believe that
the God who was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, is still with us,
redeeming our pain and bringing meaning to our suffering.
Finally, what is the role of love in redeeming
and giving meaning to suffering?
I believe that each of us
has a role to play in redeeming suffering and bringing meaning out of the
apparently meaningless.
In other words, when a
terrible, apparently meaningless event such as Robert's death happens, it is
our responsibility to try to bring meaning out of the apparently meaningless,
order out of chaos.
What would that look like?
I think it would look something like this.
Part of our job as
meaning-givers is to respond constructively. We could throw up our hands, pull
the covers over our heads, or we could reach out to the hurt, wounded, and
sorrowful. We could help those who are hurt reweave the torn fabric of their
lives. It could be something as simple as a word, a touch, a phone call.
"I'm here... I care... I am with you."
It could be as simple as
preparing a meal, writing a note, making a memorial gift. These are all ways of
turning the apparently meaningless into something meaningful, perhaps even into
something beautiful.
All of us will have
moments when the meaning of our lives is disrupted, perhaps even shattered for
a time. But the one thing that helps us put our lives back together is love. So
it is a good idea for us to put love into practice before those terrible
disruptive events happen.
Several years ago
Unitarian minister Fred Small wrote a song that included these lines:
You can be anybody you
want to be,
You can love whomever you will
You can travel any country where your heart leads
And know I will love you still
You can live by yourself, you can gather friends around,
You can choose one special one
And the only measure of your words and your deeds
Will be the love you leave behind when you're gone."
You can love whomever you will
You can travel any country where your heart leads
And know I will love you still
You can live by yourself, you can gather friends around,
You can choose one special one
And the only measure of your words and your deeds
Will be the love you leave behind when you're gone."
"The only measure of
your words and your deeds
will be the love you leave
behind when you're gone."
Robert left behind a lot
of love. I hope that I do, too. I hope that we all do.
So faith, hope, and love
abide: The faith that there is meaning, that there is a pattern. The hope that
the human story, the story of the universe itself, will have a happy ending.
And the love that gives us the opportunity to participate with God in redeeming
suffering and bringing order of out of chaos.
