Anyone attending our church over the past few weeks will have noticed a particular theme recurring in the remarks from this pulpit, the Lenten theme of suffering. We’ve spent quite some time contemplating Jesus’ suffering and pondering the truth that you cannot arrive at Easter except by way of Good Friday--that the joy of Palm Sunday (before Good Friday) is passing but that of Easter (after Good Friday), eternal. If you will indulge me on this spring morning, this day for enjoying the newness of the world, I’d like to continue in that vein even though we are in the Easter, not the Lenten, season.
Not unreasonably, we often think of suffering as something to be avoided as much as possible and, when unavoidably encountered, to be confronted with whatever dignity and endurance we can muster. But what I’d like explore today is that Jesus’ suffering was discretionary. He had a choice.
That, I believe, is the significance of the Garden of Gethsemane. It was within Jesus’ discretion to accept or reject the suffering that was soon upon him. Through prayer, agonized prayer, he decided, “Your will be done.” He decided that he must accept the suffering, that it was necessary. That, for me, underscores several truths about the suffering we all endure as part of the human condition. The first is that some suffering--arguably the very worst suffering--is unavoidable. We do not have a choice. When illness strikes us, when a loved one dies, when an accident occurs--we will suffer, whether we accept it or not. Ben Van Dyne, on Palm Sunday, spoke eloquently of his mother’s death and the good that can come from squarely facing, rather than avoiding, the hard unavoidable truth of death.
But this morning I want to address another kind of suffering, the day-to-day, garden-variety, mundane mental anguish we sometimes experience: the bad moods, the anxiety, the peevishness, the occasional sense of inadequacy, the worry--the small stuff of the phrase, “Don’t sweat the small stuff.” This is suffering with a lowercase, rather than a capital, “S.” But, it is suffering nonetheless and, implicit in the fact that I’m speaking about it this morning, I believe it is not always such “small stuff.” It is often significant. It is different, though, in that it is perhaps--perhaps--avoidable, at least sometimes. We all know people who, as the cliché goes, would rather curse the darkness than light a candle--who would rather curse at the traffic than get Books on Tape. Perhaps at times we are that person. I know I am sometimes. And, when I am, it’s not healthy. I think we’re all familiar with family and office martyrs who would rather suffer nobly under a real or perceived burden rather than shed what could easily be shed. It is plain to everyone--except the martyr--that this is unnecessary suffering. At least it seems so to someone on the outside looking in.
In speaking about suffering this morning, I very much want to avoid leaving the impression that I think all suffering is good for you and that I am urging you to rush out and get some, so to speak, just so you can build your character. But neither will I contend that “Don’t worry, be happy” is the right approach. The relevant question, I believe, is whether the day-to-day suffering we all encounter--the discretionary kind--is necessary or unnecessary. In fact, it seems to me that much of the suffering we endure unnecessarily results from the fact that we refuse to endure the necessary suffering. Not only is the flesh weak, as Jesus said at Gethsemane, but sometimes the spirit as well.
But, before we gather the spiritual strength needed to endure necessary suffering, we need to figure out what is necessary and what is not. Allow me to offer a few examples, ranging from the relatively trivial to the more meaningful. The first is this sermon. I fully intended to write it last weekend. I sat at my computer for some time, but somehow I just could not buckle down. When Sue Mosher asked me at the social hour last Sunday how I had been spending the weekend, I replied I had been spending it “not writing my sermon.” So, because I did not exert some self-discipline, in other words suffer a little bit, I ended up writing this sermon on Thursday, a day I had planned to take off from work, but for another purpose.
Watching what we eat and exercising are other examples of necessary suffering that few of us can escape. We can endure the discomfort of huffing and puffing and sweating and limiting how much we eat, or we can endure tight clothes, lack of energy and, in the extreme, diminished health. Of course, I wasn’t thinking about that when I encountered Hilda Amacker’s deviled eggs after Easter service. Though, in my defense, I must point out that at least two Bible stories suggest to me that self-denial is not always necessary. There’s the story of the woman at Bethany who poured a costly ointment on Jesus’ head; Jesus rebuked his disciples for rebuking her. And there’s the story of Mary and Martha; Martha missed Jesus’ teaching because of her “busy-ness” with her many tasks. According to Jesus, it was Mary, who sat at Jesus’ feet instead of working, who chose the better part.
The question of unnecessary and necessary suffering comes up again and again in the context of relationships. Perhaps we’re prone to conflict. We are annoyed with someone close to us and we behave rudely or say something hurtful. Because we will not or cannot endure the necessary suffering of refraining from immediately voicing our emotion of the moment, we suffer the pain of a conflict and the guilt of hurting someone we love. Having done that, we then have a choice of enduring the necessary suffering of admitting we’re wrong and apologizing. Except sometimes, instead, we are too proud and choose the unnecessary suffering of leaving a tear in the relationship unmended. Or, maybe we are conflict averse. Maybe we need to lovingly confront our spouse or partner or child or co-worker or friend about a difference. But, we hang back from the necessary suffering of an uncomfortable conversation and instead suffer a strained relationship. It seems to me that the unnecessary suffering in these instances is worse than the necessary suffering.
We confront the choice of necessary and unnecessary suffering not only in our day-to-day lives, but also at crossroads in our lives. We are unhappy at work or at school. Perhaps the necessary suffering we need to endure is buckling down, so to speak, exerting more effort and striving for a new perspective. Or perhaps the necessary suffering is recognizing that we are called to other work and should endure the uncertainty and potential financial hardship of embarking on a new career. Perhaps an unhappy relationship can be solved by striving for a new pattern of behavior, and all the discomfort that involves, and accepting our spouse or partner for who they are. Or, perhaps the necessary suffering is recognizing that the relationship is irretrievably broken and that we must endure the pain and loneliness of ending it or accepting that it must end.
As these examples underscore, often what is necessary and what is unnecessary is not clear to us. And if we think it is obvious, it probably isn’t. A non-Biblical parable I read some years back in the newsletter of the Unitarian Universalist Christian Fellowship nicely illustrates the difficulty of distinguishing necessary from unnecessary suffering. I’m recounting it from memory, so I hope I get it right.
There once was a scientist studying the process by which a particular species of caterpillars is transformed into butterflies. Day after day, the scientist observed the unfolding cycle of insect life in her laboratory: Eggs hatched; caterpillars emerged; they ate hungrily of the leaves she provided; they grew fat, attached themselves to tree branches in their habitat and spun their cocoons.
Then, for a time, there was nothing for the scientist to observe. But, after some more days, she noticed a twitching in the cocoons and slowly, painfully slowly, butterflies began to emerge. They struggled, hour after hour, first to gnaw exit holes in their cocoons and then, millimeter by millimeter, to drag their new bodies and enfolded wings free of the encumbering cocoon. Then, finally, they were free to do all the things butterflies do: fly around, sip nectar, settle down, lay eggs and raise some caterpillars.
The scientist had learned a lot, but, as scientists do, she decided to repeat the experiment with the new generation. She did everything exactly the same, recording everything in her lab notebook, until this new batch of insects were butterflies struggling to emerge from their cocoons. At that point, the scientist grew impatient. She just could not sit again for hours watching as the butterflies struggled, with almost imperceptible progress, to drag themselves from their cocoons. So, in a fit of compassion for her insects (I imagine the friends of the scientist in this parable urging her to get a life) the scientist took tiny steel forceps in each hand and tore holes in the cocoons so that her butterflies could emerge in a matter of minutes. The butterflies, thus, were able to unfold their wings effortlessly and flutter about the habitat.
The scientist went home for the evening, well pleased. But when she returned to the lab the next morning, she found all of her precious butterflies were lying dead on the floor of the habitat. She was devastated (at this point her friends are really urging her to get a life) but being a scientist she did not rest until she was able to solve the mystery. After many months of more lab work and analysis, she discovered that the long painful struggle the butterflies endured as they emerged from their cocoon triggered an internal chemical reaction that produced an enzyme that enabled the insects that once were caterpillars to live their new lives as butterflies.
So, the moral of the story, as they say, is that life is not all flying around sipping nectar; suffering is sometimes necessary for our growth as humans. The butterfly fable, in a way, reminds me of the story in Genesis, Jacob at the Jabbock, which I explored in a sermon last summer. Jacob was not able to return to the Holy Land and found the nation of Israel until he wrestled throughout the night with an angel, and was wounded.
The process of discerning necessary suffering from unnecessary suffering can be excruciatingly difficult. Matthew describes Jesus at Gethsemane as “grieved and agitated.” He tells us that Jesus threw himself on the ground and prayed--not once, not twice, but three times--before concluding, “The hour is at hand.” This process of deciding whether the suffering ahead was necessary was, in and of itself, a form of suffering. Jesus’ time at Gethsemane is often referred to as “The Agony in the Garden.” Another account that we did not hear this morning, in the Gospel of Luke, says that as Jesus prayed “his sweat became like great drops of blood falling on the ground.” Interestingly, Gethsemane means “olive press”--it was on the lower slopes of the Mount of Olives--and thus the very name of the place evokes the image of a stone vat where olives were crushed under great weight until they gave up their oil.
I find another aspect of the Gethsemane story very telling. Not all of the disciples were able to go with Jesus--only three: Peter and the sons of Zebedee, James and John. These were the elite three that had been privileged to accompany Jesus to the high mountain where the transfiguration took place and a voice from a bright cloud declared, “This is my son, the Beloved, with him I am well pleased; listen to him.” Yet, at Gethsemane, even this enlightened inner circle did not listen to him. They fell asleep. They were unable to bear witness to “the agony,” despite Jesus admonition, “Stay awake with me.” This underscores just how difficult it is for us to contemplate suffering and, perhaps, why we find ourselves so prone to repeat, again and again, the same behaviors that lead to unnecessary suffering. We don’t “stay awake” and suffer consciously the first time. We numb and distract ourselves. Thus the repetition of what was perhaps initially necessary suffering becomes suffering that would be avoidable if we could only “stay awake.”
I was reminded of this just this past Monday morning when I was dropping my daughter off at junior high school. I spotted a bumper sticker on a car owned by a teacher. It said, “Change is inevitable; growth is optional.” In other words, you need to consciously experience change and the pain that goes with it to experience the growth. This is the central theme of the 1970s self-help bestseller, The Road Less Traveled by psychiatrist M. Scott Peck. He quotes Benjamin Franklin as saying, “Those things that hurt, instruct.” Unfortunately, as Peck details in his book, we all too often procrastinate in dealing with painful problems, refuse to meet them head on and hope they will go away. He writes, “This tendency to avoid problems and the emotional suffering inherent in them is the primary basis of all human mental illness.” Or, in the words of Carl Jung, “Neurosis is always a substitute for legitimate suffering.”
So, where does that leave us? Does it leave us in a bleak “tough love” world where there is no alternative to sucking it up and manfully (or womanly) soldiering on? I think the answer is both “yes” and “no.” It is “yes” in the sense that the alternative to legitimate, or necessary, suffering is even bleaker. As Sue’s Buddhist reading suggests, discipline, a willingness to discern what is necessary suffering and then undergo it, is essential to our ability to tame the elephant and achieve a well-ordered heart. But the answer is “no” in the sense that I do not believe that discipline and will power alone are all or even most of the answer. What if, instead of considering Jesus’ words, “Stay awake with me,” as an admonition, we instead viewed them as a loving invitation from the teacher who earlier said, “I am the way, the truth and the life?” Then, Jesus’ example at Gethsemane shows us how we muster the willing spirit when the flesh is weak. We turn to the God in whom we live and move and have our being. And here is where Universalism, the faith--in John Murray’s words--of “not hell, but hope,” strikes a resounding and relevant chord. Earlier this morning, when we recited The Five Principles of 1899, otherwise known as The Declaration of Faith, we avowed a belief that no one is forever lost to the all-conquering love of God, though we did that with the full knowledge that we can and do turn away from God and suffer as a result. Thus we avowed both a belief in the “certainty of just retribution” as well as a belief in “the final harmony of all souls with God.” We know that life brings suffering. But the Easter story assures us that it is not without purpose, for after suffering comes renewed life.
Readings:
Matthew 26:36-46
A Buddhist psalm -- "Dantika and the Elephant"