Sermons & Services

Please pray with me:

Holy spirit, we take this moment to pause, to listen for your

guidance. Be patient with us, as we find our way back to

you from the places where we got lost. Help us to slow

down, to ignore distractions, and to listen for your voice

in our hearts. And may my words this morning be a

source of light, however dim, as we seek the true light of

your divine love and truth.

Amen

Good morning. I realize that mine hasn’t been a familiar face

here at First Church for a while. Since I’ve moved to

Gloucester, my attendance has mostly been virtual,

watching the broadcast and hosting the contemplative

gathering every Monday afternoon. So I am particularly

appreciative of this opportunity to be with you in person.

Let me start by saying something I sense we are all feeling:

We are surely in a dark time. It is a time when our

deepest values, of treating one another with dignity and

respect, of adherence to democratic principles and

processes, of caring about our precious earth…… these

values are under assault.

It is a stressful, and confusing time. It’s hard to know how to

feel, or what to do.

It is not unlike the era when Jesus walked among us some

2000 plus years ago. He too found himself under an

oppressive regime. He too found his fellow human

beings were being grossly mistreated.

Which led me to ask myself — what is the spiritually mature

response to witnessing injustice and the disrespect of

what we hold to be precious?

The Hebrew gospel reading for today provides a partial

answer. The prophet Isaiah is saying that God doesn’t

want us to waste our time making ritualized sacrifices.

That won’t help.

Instead, we are told to “Wash yourselves; make yourselves

clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my

eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice,

rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the

widow.”

A tall order, to be sure, but … the suggestions make sense.

Yes?

And, from the second reading, here are the guiding words

from the gospel of Luke: Wake up. Pay attention to what

you care about. for “For where your treasure is, there

your heart will be also.”

So… We need to wake up, to pay attention to what is

happening. We need to leave aside our distractions, and

our virtue signaling sacrifices, and pay attend to what,

and who, we genuinely care about. And then do

something about it.

Okay. Got it.

And yet…. (those of you who know me knew those two

words were coming) That’s not all. There’s something

underneath this guidance. Something that needs to be

unearthed.

In my understanding, Jesus’s first response was to suffer.

His deep care necessitated a deep suffering. That is one of

the costs of empathy and love. We hurt for those, and

what, we love.

Let me put on my psychologist’s hat for a moment. As a

psychotherapist, my job is to be present in mind and

heart with the person who is suffering. To be with them

in their suffering, and to do what I can to relieve it.

Noticing their suffering, recognizing it, and then being

with it is the first step. We might call it “from witness to

with-ness.” Only in being with their suffering can we

begin to relieve it.

However, in order to be present with another’s suffering, I

need to look at what happens to me. My first impulse

might be to do something to get rid of the suffering. To

help them feel better. And, if I’m honest with myself, my

motivation might well be to relieve my own suffering by

helping my client relieve theirs.

So learning to be with my own suffering is an essential

practice. More about that a bit later.

When I turn my gaze outward, and look at what’s happening

around me – to the rain forests of the Amazon, or to the

glaciers on my beloved Mt. Hood, or to the institutions of

our government, or to the unhoused person on the street

—- I suffer. I can’t help it. When I see a dear friend in

angst and turmoil, I suffer.

Caring for the planet, or for someone we love, involves

suffering. It just does.

The alternative, as we see all too prevalently around us, is

sociopathy: A diseased mind that is incapable of feeling

empathy, unable to experience others as real, as

mattering, as a source of joy or suffering.

So, I think Jesus didn’t show us a way out of our suffering,

he showed us a way through it. That’s what an incarnational

faith is all about. Jesus became human, and suffered with

us, and for us.

Now I want to dolly back a bit, and take a more systemic look at this business of suffering. In particular, I’m going to

draw some parallels between some misguided notions of

Christianity, and some implications of consumer

capitalism.

Too often, Christians believe that their suffering is an

indication that they are somehow at fault. They didn’t

pray hard enough, or love hard enough, or give enough.

The implication being that, had they been a better

Christian, they wouldn’t be suffering.

Interestingly, Job’s quote friends unquote, said the same

thing to him — it was his fault because he had done

something wrong. But…. he hadn’t.

And this brand of distorted Christianity also offers relief

from suffering — It’s all part of God’s plan. He’s in charge.

It’s all good.

Capitalism says the same thing — that your poverty is your

own fault. After all, capitalism means that anyone can lift

themselves out of poverty by dint of their own diligence

and hard work. So, if you are poor and suffering, it’s your

own fault. And we’re going to be okay, because the

Unseen Hand will make all things well.

But… here’s the thing. As a sensible explanation for

suffering, both ideologies are wrong. Suffering is an

integral part of life. It’s not necessarily an indication that

there’s anything wrong with us. Indeed, often it means

there’s something right – it means we care, it means

what’s happening isn’t okay. It means we hurt because

people we love are hurting.

Recently, one of our guiding lights passed away: Joanna

Macy. She was truly a luminary, whose wisdom

emanated from her as a kind of incandescence. Here’s

something she wrote:

We are capable of suffering with our world, and that is the true meaning of compassion. It enables us to recognize our profound inter-connectedness with all beings. Don’t ever apologize for crying for the trees burning in the Amazon or over the waters polluted from mines in the Rockies. Don’t apologize for the sorrow, grief, and rage you feel. It is a measure of your humanity and your maturity. It is a measure of your open heart, and as your heart breaks open there will be room for the world to heal. That is what is happening as we see people honestly confronting the sorrows of our time.

I think that part of what makes this business of suffering so

challenging is that we’re not very good at it. Much of our

current cultural orientation is designed to avoid the

feeling of suffering.  Take this pill, drive this car. You’ll

feel better. Even what Trump is doing — Don’t worry

about global warming, or history, or slavery, or DEI, or

anything like that.  Everything’s okay.  It’s a very powerful

message, as most of us have little practice in suffering

without collapsing into despair, self-blame, paranoia, or

whatever seductive alternative arises.

I know, we’ve all heard the slogan “Pain is necessary,

suffering is optional”. I don’t believe that for a minute.

Pain is one thing, suffering is another. They happen in

different realms. Pain is a temporary sensation; suffering

is an on-going experience of the psyche. As I said

earlier, suffering is a necessary corollary of being a

caring person.

The Quaker and wise elder Parker Palmer put it this way:

“Violence is what happens when we don’t know what else

to do with our suffering.”

So, let’s spend some time together looking at ways to

experience our suffering in a wholesome way. Here’s my

first suggestion, one I learned from Buddhist practice:

Neither indulge nor repress.

If we indulge in your suffering and let it have it’s way with

us, it can switch to depression, or to our becoming

hyperactive. If we repress our suffering – by distraction,

or dissociation, or denial — we deny our heart, we deny

our own truth.

Instead, be with your suffering. Be curious about it. Learn

from it. What is it teaching you? How, precisely does it

touch you? What might it mean for you?

Yes, things are not as they should be. And knowing that

hurts. Knowing that brings suffering. Because we care.

Because it matters.

So, the first practice is to simply be with our suffering,

neither indulging or repressing. Simply being with. Learning

from.

Here’s a second practice: Share your experience with

others. Remember the familiar saying “Joy shared is

doubled; sorrow shared is halved.”

In my years as a psychotherapist, I’ve come to learn that

there are two aspects of suffering: the first is the damage

itself – the hurt, the betrayal, the stab in the heart. The

second is being alone in our suffering. We can’t do

anything about the former, but we can about the latter.

Reach out. Trust someone. Take a risk. See what

happens.

But… you say… what about hope? What role does hope

play in all this? Is hope the antidote to suffering? If I suffer,

does that mean I’m without hope?

Not at all.

Hope is the opposite of despair. And despair means nothing

matters anymore. It’s over. We’re toast. Hope, as I’ve

come to understand it, is the experience of things

mattering. It’s not a prediction that everything will be all

right. It’s not the naive faith that somehow things will

work out. Rather, Hope is the experience of things being

worth it. Our life is worth it. The lives of those we love

are worth it. The lives of starving Palestinians are worth

it.

For me, that’s what Jesus taught. All of this — being born,

becoming adult, living, feeling joy, suffering, dying —- it’s

all worth it. Not because we will live forever; Not

because we are saved. Not even because we are loved.

It’s worth it because that’s the experience of caring.

That’s the experience of having a heart.

Let me close with this amazing poem by the American poet,

Langston Hughes, titled, simply, “Wealth”

Amen