Sheri San Chirico
April 13, 2008
Youth Sunday
Scripture: 1 Peter 2:19-25
Today’s text is all about suffering. It seems to me that there’s enough to deal with in life today just from surviving each day, dealing with our own sins and their consequences, just loving and treating each other well, not even our enemies, but just those that we love. In addition to these difficulties, there’s the suffering that no one is to blame for, at least not directly, like the tsunami, or Hurricane Katrina, sickness, or accidents. Life is hard, and living the Christian life under these circumstances, is a constant challenge.
Yet today’s text goes way beyond, to the type of suffering that happens when someone intentionally heaps on more suffering to what one already deals with. I don’t know about you, but this to me is the hardest part of the Christian life. Jesus calls us to endure wrongful suffering …and joyfully. It is so hard to know that one is being treated badly and to not retaliate. Perhaps we don’t retaliate fully, but then we become bitter toward the person. Our society today is full of stories about taking revenge on the jerk that treats one badly. Perhaps one will endure a bit of suffering, and then it’s time to get revenge, or then the jerk gets what’s coming to him. In fact, through the years, these verses, and especially the verse before this, “Slaves, be submissive to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the harsh,” has been used to justify slavery, or unjust behavior. All the more reason for not allowing this to happen anymore, for paying back the oppressor.
Why should we endure rather than taking up arms? In my daughter’s day care, when someone takes something of hers, she is taught to use her words, and to say that’s mine! She is taught not to endure wrongful suffering, but to speak up for herself and to right the wrong that is happening to her.
So why endure? Peter tells us here that we endure because Christ also endured. I don’t see this so much as encouragement to stay in a harmful relationship, or to just continue to allow abuse that shouldn’t be. Rather then telling people to stay in a bad, abusive relationship or situation, I see Peter as telling people who ARE in a bad situation, people who have no way out, how to deal with this terrible situation without becoming so bitter and angry that they destroy themselves. It is also for the benefit of others who are watching.
It’s important to take this whole letter in context. The beginning of Peter’s letter describes how joyful their lives have been, and how they pursue the faith because of how much richer they are for the faith. Chapter 2 verse 9 says, “That you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.” In discussing this lesson with our Peter our pastor, he reminded me that the Christian life is primarily a joyful life. Sometimes I need that reminder. With so much suffering? Yes, a joyful life.
So how do we get from suffering to joy? Especially when one has suffered unjustly, the bitterness takes hold and it is difficult to let it go. But I’ve set you up here, by asking how to move from suffering to joy. It’s a false dichotomy. Suffering and joy are not polar opposites. Suffering through the lens of the cross and Resurrection can be a joy—a sorrowful joy, life in a minor key, but joy nonetheless. The challenge of the Christian life is to take that suffering, take it to Christ, and allow it to be transformed. In this way we actively participate with God’s own suffering. Once we have invited God into our suffering, moment by moment, one day at a time, once we have released it to Him, we may find that suffering and joy are in fact intertwined. The challenge of the Christian life is to take all the pain, the grief, the unmet expectations, the failures, and constantly give it up to the God Who knows suffering intimately.
I think personally of the times when I have felt the most piercing pain, and how even then, and now much more looking back, they are sweet times as well because of the intimacy and dependence on God to make it through each moment of overwhelming pain. “To this you were called because Christ suffered for you…leaving you an example that you should follow in his steps.” (2:21)