How can we bear it?

Text: John 16:12-15 

Today Jesus tells us a truth we cannot ignore: people have to bear things they didn’t think they’d have to, and certainly didn’t want to. And this can be confusing to us who follow Jesus. Cultural Christianity says stuff like  “God won’t give you more than you can handle” or “God won’t let bad things happen to you if you pray for them not to.” 

But this is not what God is about. God is not up there sitting on a cloud planning to dole out tragedies to unsuspecting people, betting on just how much pain someone will be able to stand, plotting out suffering. 

God is not in the tragedy-handing-out-and-testing-through-suffering business. And these sayings are not helpful, either, although I know people mean well when they utter them, often because they just don’t know what else to say in the face of tragedy. 

But often what ends up happening is that people come to think they DESERVE the bad things that happen to them, that they aren’t good enough, that they didn’t pray hard enough or pray the right way. They ask why did God let this happen to me - or even worse, why did God DO this to me? Why did God give my wife cancer, why didn’t God cure my son when I prayed every single day? Why does God let kids get shot in school? Why does God let anybody get shot? Why does God let countries bomb each other? Why does God let all this violence - this killing, this terrorizing, this spewing of hate - continue?

                                                                And maybe we begin to think that other people deserve the bad things that happen to them.

 

Some years ago Rabbi Harold Kushner wrote a book that everyone calls “Why bad things happen to good people.” That’s what everyone calls it — WHY bad things happen to good people.

But actually the title of the book, its “WHEN bad things happen to good people.” Because bad things DO happen to good people. And not because they didn’t pray the right way or because they’re not good enough or because God is in the handing-out-bad-things business. 

And this is confusing to us because we want to know why, we want there to be a reason, and sometimes there just isn’t a reason. 

When Jesus said I have many things to say to you but you cannot bear them now, it was in anticipation if his death. He was telling his followers to stick together as a community in the wake of his death. In fact, that was the most important point Jesus was trying to make - about sticking together as a community. 

We are made for community where we support each other through compassionate love, we encourage and guide each other, and we also hold each other accountable because we belong to each other. Jesus was really really clear about that. We belong to God and we belong to one another, so when one of us suffers all of us are affected and when one of us rejoices all of us are, happily, affected by that too.

And today being Trinity Sunday, it’s worth noting that church doctrine literally defines our Triune God as a community, “one being eternally existing in three co-equal and co-eternal persons,” which is literally the model for how humans should relate to one another in community. So if it’s good enough for God it should be good enough for us.

We all know folks who have disappeared for a while because something awful is going on with them and they feel that they have to hold it together, handle it all alone, not to let anyone see them while they are devastated, that it’s weak to share their pain. 

And maybe we’ve been those folks ourselves. 

But a Christian is not a rugged individualist, all about going it alone. To be a Christian is to be part of a community of followers of Jesus. And as a member of that community we bear things together, even the unbearable. We bear one another’s burdens, as St. Paul reminded the Galatians that time. 

Sharing our pain and confusion is really essential for us to be healthy individuals and a healthy community. That’s what community is FOR, to be there for each other with joy when we find happiness, when life is good. And to be there for each other when we are devastated, when life gets hard.

We Christians are called to be different, and sometimes we get confused about that because we think it means we’re not supposed to accept things that somebody on TV says Christians shouldn’t accept, (like, for instance, women clergy). 

But what it really means, this being called to be different, is that we are about love, not judgment. We are about welcome, not exclusion. We are about community, not individualism. We are about bearing one another’s burdens just as we share one another’s joys, not following the get-ahead advice that proudly proclaims every man for himself and you’d better look out for number one. 

We are called to be better than that - but be careful - we are not called to be “holier than thou."

How I wish we did not have to bear hard things. I’m sure you do too. It would be so good to understand why things turn out the way they do so that we are not so confused by life and its difficulties and hardships. 

But it is also so good to know that we are never alone. It is good that through the Spirit God is always with us, and has bound us together with bonds of love. It is good to be part of, and surrounded by, a community that can see us through anything, together.

As you all prepare to embark on a new journey with a new leader into a new day, remember what Jesus said. Stick together y’all. Stick up for each other and keep widening your circle to embrace everyone who needs someone to stick up for them.

Show the world that the people who follow Jesus show no partiality when it comes to loving our neighbor, that love and compassion and mercy are our strengths, not our weakness, that the abundant life Jesus wants for usis not like pie, with only a few pieces, but like the mighty waters that roll down without end.

 

There’s a lot of hard stuff going on right now. Show the world, beloveds - a world that is watching - in the name of our triune God, show the world what community really is.