New Philadelphia Sermons

"In His Steps"

1st Peter 2:21-24

On my recent sabbatical, I did my best to read the works of those who style themselves as militant atheists.  I read Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchings.  I read Bart Ehrman whom I  still think of as "a closet Christian."  Ehrman calls himself a happy agnostic.  As I read what these non-theists are saying, it occurred that the most important objection they raise against God is the problem of human suffering. 1st Peter may be the single best essay in the Bible on the subject of human suffering.   The apostle uses the word suffer and its derivative no less than 18 times. This morning I would like to reflect on the problem of human suffering through the lens of 1st Peter.

1. Much suffering is a result of man's inhumanity to man.  It such cases suffering is the direct result of human sin.

Everyone knows about the Holocaust.  The Nazi's killed 6,000,000 Jews and another 4,000,000 Gentiles.  The Japanese were even more vicious.  When they invaded China they had a policy of  "Three Alls,"  "Kill All, Loot All, burn All." The Japanese were even hard on themselves.  They beat their recruits to make them tough.  That taught them that it was better to take one's own life, than to surrender. When a newly commissioned Japanese officer completed his training, he was given a sword and told to decapitate a prisoner. A Tokyo newspaper ran stories of a contest between two Japanese junior officers, each of whom beheaded more than 100 Chinese. No one knows just how many people the Japanese killed in China before and during the 2nd World War, but best estimates hover around 30,000,000.   In April 1943 Jimmy Doolittle led a raid over Tokyo. The Japanese reported the actual damage as 50 dead, 252 wounded, and ninety buildings damaged or destroyed. Though the Japanese and their allies had been killing civilians for a decade, were they incensed that we would drop bombs on civilians. In retaliation the Japanese were told to burn all Chinese villages over an area of 20,000 square miles.  Rape and pillage became the order of the day.  Soldier chopped off so many heads that their arms grew weak.  Chinese men were machine-gunned, the women raped and skewered, and the children were thrown down wells.

The United States caused a measure of suffering, too. President Truman inaugurated nuclear war when he dropped atom bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  The firebombing of Tokyo and other cities was almost as destructive.   General Billy Mitchell, who was charged with these raids once, said that if the U.S. lost the War he would be tried as a war criminal.  Mitchell like Truman endorsed the bombing of the Japanese homeland to save lives on both sides. Not only did U.S. war planners fear that 100,000's of U.S. Troops would die in an invasion of Japan, they feared that the entire population of Japan would fight till the death, forcing their own destruction.

The 2nd World War was not the end of humankind's inhumanity to humankind.  Recently, at the age of 65, A Cambodian-American photojournalist named Dith Pran died of liver cancer. Pran worked with his friend Sydney Schanberg record the he upheaval in Cambodia after the US exit from Vietnam.  After the communist seized control of Phnom Penh in 1975, Schanberg pretended to be a French journalist and he got out.  Dith Pran was obviously not French.  He pretended to be an ignorant farmer, and he spent four years in prison camps. He worked as forced labor and endured untold tortures.  He witnessed what he called "the killing fields," in which the Khmer Rouge killed 4,000,000 Cambodians and imprisoned many more.  When Pran finally managed to escape, his friend Sydney Schanberg who had never stopped trying to find him was waiting to greet Pran.  When Schanberg won a Pulitzer Prize, he insisted on sharing it with Pran. Both men were made famous by the 1984 film,  "The Killing Fields."  They remained close, both working for the New York Times. Not surprisingly, As Pran lay dying Schanberg was by his side. From his deathbed Pran made a plea to the world to "remember the killing fields" that such atrocities might never happen again.  Of course, something like the killing fields has already happened, in the Congo, in Bosnia, and in Darfur.  I fear it will happen until the Prince of Peace takes up his power to reign. We must work to bring about the kingdom.

2. Disease causes a great deal of suffering.  For the time being let's not mention cancer, diabetes, etc. and talk about the big stuff.

The Bubonic plague started in China in 1330.  It soon spread along the trade routes to Europe.  In five years it claimed 25,000,000 lives, one-third of the European population.  It was so deadly that one Italian author described it saying, "One often ate lunch with friends, and dinner with their ancestors in paradise."  Thankfully, though cases of plague are still reported from time to time, we have never seen anything like it since.

There have been other pandemics. In 1918 the Great War in Europe was winding down.  The Flu Pandemic was just beginning.  It killed 675,000 people in the U.S. alone, ten times the number of casualties in Europe.   World wide it killed somewhere between 20 and 40 million people.  Today authorities continue to worry about new varieties of flu, like the bird flu, that could result in another pandemic.

I will not speak in detail of the toll taken by other natural disasters.  I will not speak of hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, typhoons, and tsunamis. Such natural disasters have claimed tens of millions of lives. We can explain them to a point.  The weather watchers tell us that hurricanes in the Caribbean restore a balance to the climate. Geologists tell us that earthquakes are a result of shifting plates and have to do with the way the earth rotates, ages, etc.  We human beings can do little to control the occurrence of these natural disasters, though we can certainly do more to defend ourselves and our neighbors against them.  New Orleans, for instance, could have built better dykes and levees.

There are other facts about human life on our crowded planet that we can and must help control.  While we are meeting for worship 750 children will die of hunger, and 250 from want of clean drinking water.  Another 300 die of malaria, a disease most of us can safely ignore.  Bill and Melinda Gates are leading a fight against malaria. We could all do our part.  Leah W_________ who recently returned from a mission trip to Kenya told me that if we could just help the people of Africa filter their water, it would cut the mortality rate on that continent by 50%.  

3. Suffering is personal.

Thus far, I have been talking big numbers.  I don't want these big numbers to fool you.  Suffering is invariably personal. Behind each of the numbers I have mentioned is a human life.  When we read in the paper that ten thousand people have perished in an earthquake, we can be sure that each an every one of those ten thousand people care as much about their lives, and the lives of their husbands, wives, parents, and friends, as we care about our own lives, and the lives of our own families, and our own friends. Suffering is personal. It is even more personal when it strikes close to home. While I was preparing this sermon I received a number of sad reports. Wilda Hine continues in Forsyth Hospital very ill and unconscious.  Bentz Peak entered the Hospital with pneumonia. Thursday morning Tom C_______ called to report that Kathleen's 39 year old brother had suffered a stroke.  Thankfully the family has since learned it was a mini-stroke.  Friday Bonnie _______ called to remind us to pray for her daughter April who has been in and out of the hospital, and for April's husband. April has kidney problems and her husband is still battling cancer. That same day a woman told me that life had become so hard for the people she loved that she had lost hope for herself.  A little later a young man called me to ask prayer for his father-in-law, a man he loves and admires.  He fears his father-in-law is very ill.  Since preaching this sermon, I have learned of other misfortunes.

Suffering is personal, especially when we ourselves are suffering.

The toad beneath the harrow knows,
Each tooth point where the harrow goes,
The butterfly that sits upon the road
Preaches contentment to that toad.

We are among the fortunate of this world.  Most of the days of our lives we are butterflies basking in the sun, sitting safely out of harms way.  But butterflies are short lived. Sooner or later everyone must take a turn under the harrow.

4. We bring a great deal of suffering on ourselves.

In chapter 2 of 1st Peter, the apostle points out that some people do no wrong, and are unjustly beaten for it.  He says God notes their unjust suffering. In chapter 4 of 1st Peter the apostle exhorts Christians not to suffer as s murderers or as thieves, or as wrongdoers, or as mischief-makers.

We reap what we sow.  It is not so much that we break ourselves upon the laws of God and man, but that we break ourselves upon them. We sin and our bodies pay for that sin.

I want to remind our young people that God is gracious and forgiving.  But in the scripture forgiveness is primarily a restoration of the relationship between a person and God.  It is not always a remission of the built-in penalty that sin caries. God can only work with what we give him.  Sometimes we do not give God much to work with.

 I had an alcoholic in my Charlotte congregation who often told me that she had been a "drunk," her words, drunk for 15 years.  Thanks to her Higher Power, she became a Christian, she was clean and sober for 5 years.  She became sick.  Her skin took on a yellow hue. Not long after she died clean and sober and absolutely confident in her God.  She did not blame God for her early death.  She knew she had done it to herself.

Young people, before you smoke the first cigarette, or go on that first binge, do the first drugs, remember the backside. Think about the future. All our actions have consequences.  The same is true for sex.  Do you know what the U.S. Government says about sex and safety from HIV-AIDS and other STD's---not the Bible, the U.S. Government?  It says that the only way to be completely safe is to be in a monogamous relationship (i.e. marriage), and to abstain before marriage. In her book We Have AIDS, Elaine Landu reports the the stories of a number of people who have died from AIDS. The most heart-breaking story is about Karen, a young woman who moved to a new school.  Then she got a letter from a friend filled with juicy gossip.  Ken, the most popular boy at the old school had AIDS.  A cold chill ran down Karen's back.  She had slept with one boy---and it was Ken. She had not meant to. He had quickly moved own. The untinklable had happened. This sounds like an episode of Beverly Hills 9-210, but it is a true story. 

5. Suffering is just as big a problem for Christians as for non-Christians.  

God did not promise us a rose garden, but just the opposite.  The Bible teaches that Christians are likely to suffer more than non-Christians. Christians may even suffer for being Christians. In John 15:20 Jesus said, " "If they have persecuted me, they will persecute you." (John 15:20)  

In chapter 4 the apostle writes, "Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same thought."  In Chapter 5 he says that we can be sure that the fiery ordeal comes upon us, it is nothing strange, it is the same experience of suffering world.  This may not be true in America, but it is true in other nations of the world.   

Most scholars think that the epistle was written either during the reign of Nero (54-68 C.E.) or the reign of Trajan (98-117 CE).  In either case, Christians were suffering, as they are in many parts of the world today.

6. Many have asked, "What, or who is responsible for suffering?"

David Hume said that God is either loving or powerful, but the fact of human suffering reveals God could not be both.  Hume concluded there is no God.  The Bible always assumes there is a God. The Bible teaches that God is both loving and powerful, yet it recognizes the real presence of human suffering.  It tries to explain suffering in a variety of ways. 1) Some Biblical authors say that all suffering is due to human sin which infects not only human beings but the cosmos itself.  This is the answer of Genesis. 2) Some Biblical authors say that suffering is bad, but it makes us better people.  In Romans 5, the Apostle Paul says that suffering produces "endurance, and endurance character, and character hope, and hope does not disappoint us because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us".  The author of 1st Peter says that our various trials will "redound to praise, and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ."  3) Some Biblical authors say that suffering is bad, but it is also temporary. In 2nd Corinthians chapter 4, St. Paul says this life is just "a slight momentary affliction, preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison."  In chapter 5 the author of 1st Peter says that after a period of suffering God will" restore, establish, and strengthen us with an eternal glory." In chapter 1 he defines that glory when he says that "we have been born anew to a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead."  4) The Bible sometimes makes God the source of human suffering, especially those passages that talk about God's judgment. Barth Ehrman, an agnostic, has written a book about human suffering entitled, God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question---How we Suffer.  Ehrman says God even causes the suffering.  He points out that when God punishes the guilty, there is usually some "collateral damage."  The prophets called it God's judgement against the sin of the nation when the Babylonians razed Jerusalem, and hauled the people of Judah into captivity.  Ehrman's point is that innocent children died along side those who had "neglected the poor" and "plundered widow's houses." There is only one verse of scripture that speaks to the death of the innocent:  It is from Psalm 116:15, "Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints." There is more in that sentence than we can comprehend or understand.  Our hope is in its truth.  5) Some Biblical authors say that the devil is the real power behind human suffering, just as he is the real power behind human sin. In chapter 1st Peter 5 the apostle warns "the devil who prowls about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour." 6) Some biblical authors say that the worst suffering is yet to come.  It is the suffering of the impious and the wicked. St. Paul talks about God's wrath and destruction of the wicked.  Others, especially Jesus, speak of eternal punishment.  People ask me what I believe. I believe there is a heaven to be gained and a hell to be feared.  I also believe that God is wise and just, and far more gracious than we can imagine.  I believe that some people are going to be surprised by the people they see in heaven, and other people are going to be disappointed, and I had rather be among the surprised than the disappointed.  In Luke 6:38 Jesus said we are to be merciful as our heavenly father is merciful. He says that the judgment we give will be the one that we get.  He says that when we give a little mercy God gives it right back to us, pressed down, shaken together, running over, double hands full. 7) The writer of Ecclesiastes says, "Let us eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die." (Ecc. 9:7) Paul picks up that in 1st Corinthians 15.  He says that if for this life only we have hopped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. (v.19)  He says if Christ has not been rained then---let us eat, drink and be merry, tomorrow we die. (v. 32)   Of course, he also says, "But Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of them that have fallen asleep!"  (v. 20)

Some of you will be satisfied with all of these answers.

Some of you will like some of these answers better than others.

Some will not like any of them.

Barth Ehrman rejected them all---except the answer of Ecclesiastes

I have come to believe that the ultimate answer to the problem of human suffering is not intellectual, but redemptive.  

In 1st Peter chapter 2 the apostle advances the redemptive answer to the problem of human suffering.  He writes that we have been called to suffering, even unjust suffering:

"…because Christ also suffered for (us) leaving (us) an example, that (we) should follow in his steps.  22 He committed no sin; no guile was found on his lips.  23 When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten; but he trusted to him who judges justly.  24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. "

I once had dear friend who had lost his faith. He had been an Elder in the church.  Then his brother was diagnosed with cancer.  From the very first the brother's treatment was an ordeal, and his lingering death was extremely painful. As a result of witnessing his brother's struggle, my friend resigned the board of Elders at his church and then stopped attending altogether.  His family still attended, and I met him through them.  We became fast friends.  I prayed for his faith, I often asked him to return to church.  He would not come, but he came to expect my asking.    I used to kid him that someday, since he would not come to church, I would come to see him at 11:00 a.m. on a Sunday Morning. I moved to New Philadelphia in the spring of 1988 without making good on that promise. Then on Friday May 5th 1989, a violent storm struck Winston-Salem.  Many trees were felled.  Power lines were knocked down. Power to the city was cut. Elayne and I were scheduled to be away, but we decided not to go. I spent Saturday here at the church helping the men of the church and communities cut-up and haul-off a number of the magnificent oaks that had graced our property for decades.  On Sunday, Frank Venerable preached at New Philly, Elayne went to church with her mother, and I went to see my friend. I had heard that he was dying of cancer.  When I rang his bell, and he opened the door it was obvious that his time was limited.   His family was at church and he was eager for company.  At least, he was very glad to see me.  I can't remember all that we talked about, though I am willing to bet it included mutual friends, engineering projects that had challenged him, and cars, and dozens of other things that make up the fabric of our lives. Just before I left, I grew bold.  I said something like this:

"You know, sometimes I get very angry at God.  I get very angry at God when I see you suffering as you are.  As a matter of fact, at times like this, the only God I can believe in is the God of the cross."

He looked back at me, tears rolled down his cheek, as he responded, "Yes, the only God I can believe in is the God of the cross, too."

In our suffering we follow "In His Steps."  He goes before us, and he comes behind us, and he lays his hand of blessing upon us.  The God of the cross is ever near those who suffer.

Finis

Finis

Dr. Worth Green

EverydayCounselor©
New Philadelphia Moravian Church
4440 Country Club Road
Winston-Salem, N.C. 27104
April 15, 2008