Farewell Banquet Address, Bret Kincaid. April 27, 2006. Edited by Tania Fleming.
How Can We Hope in the Suffering?
"We're living a nightmare."
These were the words Taylor University’s spokesman, Jim Garringer, told the press investigating the tragic accident that killed 5 Taylor students yesterday—at least two of whom were close friends of Jenny. My condolences and prayers go to you, Jenny, and the family and friends who loved them.
When I hear about such catastrophic evil, I can relate to what Jim Garringer also said as well, "It's just one of those things where . . . there are no words." Words sometimes get in the way, especially words that are cut from the cloth of ignorance with good intentions. Perhaps any utterance is best left to the Spirit of God.
But given the fiercely honest questions raised on Monday in the midst of this community--questions about reconciling the real presence of the kingdom of God with the presence of evil--I thought I might offer a few thoughts of my own to the community. They are not the final words; they are merely offered from the place I happen to be in my journey these days.
One of the things I love most about ASP is that we stick the noses of our students in the shit of the world and say, “Deal with it!” Over the last 15 years of teaching, I have observed that the vast majority of young people we serve in Christian higher education are ignorant about the evil in the world. Oh, they know well their own personal pain and suffering, and that of their friends and family. And there personal pain and suffering is something they have an obligation to attend to. But most of our students have had little to no experience of brute suffering, the kind of suffering we saw as we stuck our noses in Darfur. The stinch was awful, and I suspect many of us won’t forget it or can’t prevent it from letting it hence infect our thinking about the world.
That is what happen to me in the 1980s. Through most of college I was oblivious to the grave and pervasive evil in the world. At the time, I was grappling with my own demons wrought from a severely dysfunctional home. I had no idea of what kind of evil was out there, and I frankly was too ignorant to care. As a young teenage paper carrier, I even read the daily headlines about the Vietnam war, but to me, the list of Killed and Missing in Action was simply a list of depersonalized names.
But once I was in my senior year of college, I was stunned by an Oscar-nominated documentary about my country’s involvement in El Salvador, and then a few years later I found myself in El Salvador and heard the testimony of a young boy during mass in a refugee camp outside San Salvador—a story among innumerable stories of bloody brutality carried out by a military largely funded by my own government. I winced as I listened to his family’s story of being victimized, but I couldn’t walk away. I felt, and still do feel, deeply responsible.
And I hope you, too, feel responsible for evil in the world, especially evil that your government has perpetrated and evil that your government refuses to address for selfish reasons. I don’t mean you should feel “responsible” in the sense of culpable. I mean I hope the kind of love for neighbor and enemy that your Master had is the kind of love that stirs your heart and moves your hands and feet when you smell evil.
You see, “We’re living a nightmare.”
And if we live hopefully in this nightmare, we will suffer…because one cannot counter evil without suffering. The people of Darfur, Israel-Palestine, Rwanda, Iraq, Sri Lanka, Chechnya, and the like know this better than most of us do. They live steeped in evil and suffering every day.
When I’m forced to think about evil in the world where God’s reign is supposedly manifest, I ask questions with my head, my intellectual antennae go up and I ask hard questions. But too often my questions expect logical answers. Suffering seems meaningless and I want someone to help me see the meaning of it. And yet, as Debra Rienstra writes in her book, So Much More, “Logic can only take us to the bounds of comprehension and, unfortunately, abandon us there, still cold and afraid. The confusing reality of suffering challenges any explanation, philosophical or religious. “ It seems to me Rienstra is on the right track when, instead of looking for formulaic answers, she concludes, “We are left to seek answers, not so much in logic or theories of cosmic order as in the experience of suffering itself. Into that experience Christianity carries its distinctive response: the cross.”
And it is in the cross that we hear God’s cry: “I am not blind to your despair or distant from it but present within it, and I am the reason for hope.”
Often when those of faith suffer evil they respond like our Master did: “My God, my God! Why have you abandoned me?” And for those of faith who pay attention to current events beyond their personal orbit, we cry the question, “Why, God, have you abandoned the suffering people in Tel Aviv, Bali, Baghdad?” Ironically, the cross is God’s reply.
The cry, “My God, my God! Why have you abandoned me?” begins Psalm 22. But the conclusion of the Psalm is this, “For Yahweh has not despised or disdained the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help.” God is with the suffering, not far off enjoying some heavenly party. Indeed, suffering seems to be the one part of the human condition that is infused with God’s presence.
It really shouldn’t surprise us since Jesus told his disciples to pick up the cross and follow him. As my teacher in seminary once wrote, “The cross is not a detour or a hurdle on the way to the kingdom, nor is it even a way to the kingdom; it is the kingdom come.”
Sounds profound. But it isn’t intuitive. I grew up believing God’s kingdom was the equivalent of heaven, where there is no suffering. Recently, I’ve been pondering yet again how the kingdom comes to earth in suffering. The following is what I’ve concluded so far. I offer these two points for your consideration.
Suffering isn’t a good in itself. It is what happens to people in a world pocked by evil, in a context of injustice. Yet, those who suffer injustice present the face of Christ to us. That is what Jesus tells us in Matthew 25 when he says, “As you addressed those who suffer, you addressed me.” In their suffering we have—if we have the eyes to see— the opportunity to glimpse the suffering of Christ and receive the mysterious blessing of offering simple acts of mercy through them to the one whose mercy has saved us. By seeking the face of Christ in suffering people whom we serve, we place ourselves directly in the power of Christ’s healing presence.
On the other hand, when we as followers of Christ suffer as we help those who suffer, the quality of suffering will change because we will find the companionship of Jesus in it. That companionship allows our suffering to take on a new shape: the downward slope of death turns to the rising hope of new life. Because Jesus suffered death on the cross, then conquered death through resurrection, our suffering too becomes pliable to hope. By willingly entering the suffering of others, Christians become the conduit of Christ’s presence to others. Through us, through our actions or words or just our silent physical presence, Jesus is still healing and giving people hope.
One recent picture of the kingdom come appeared across the news services around the world last November. Perhaps you saw it. It emanated from a small town in the West Bank called Jenin.
On November 10, Ahmed Khatib, 12, was shot by Israeli soldiers during a military raid in Jenin.
Like so many Palestinian children across the West Bank, Ahmed was playing with a toy gun when Israeli soldiers were hunting militants. Mistaking his toy for a real gun, they shot him in the head and chest. He died.
His parents decided to donate his organs to Israeli children.
Ahmed's mother said the decision to donate her son's organs was as a tribute to his brother, who died at 24 while waiting for a liver transplant. But the desire to help others -- regardless of nationality or political beliefs -- is also directed at sustaining Ahmed's spirit.
"We made the decision to show we want peace -- even if they're Jewish," Ahmed’s mother said in Arabic. "This way I feel he is still alive."
Ahmed’s mother is probably not a Christian; she’s probably Muslim. Yet what she did in her suffering for the sake of peace is clearly consistent with God’s reign.
Christ, out Lord, did not let suffering have the last word. Ahmed Khatib’s parents didn’t let suffering have the last word. I pray you don’t let the suffering in your personal world and the world at large have the last word.
A Franciscan Blessing for You
May God bless you with a restless discomfort about easy answers, half-truths and superficial relationships, so that you may seek truth boldly and love deep within your heart.
May God bless you with holy anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may tirelessly work for justice, freedom, and peace among all people.
May God bless you with the gift of tears to shed with those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, or the loss of all that they cherish, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and transform their pain into joy.
May God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you really CAN make a difference in this world, so that you are able, with God's grace, to do what others claim cannot be done.
And the blessing of God the Supreme Majesty and our Creator, Jesus Christ the Incarnate Word who is our brother and Saviour, and the Holy Spirit, our Advocate and Guide, be with you and remain with you, this day and forevermore.
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