A sermon given at St Matthew's Church, Oxford, 8th February 2015
Readings: Psalm 34, Peter 3:13 – 4:6,
I wonder whether you heard the interview between Stephen Fry
and the veteran Irish TV presenter Gay Byrn on RTE television’s The Meaning of
Life last Sunday. It’s created one of
those media storms with over 5 million hits on YouTube at last count[1] I thought I’d play a clip this morning but I
guess some people here might find it offensive so I won’t. Here, though, is what Stephen Fry says when asked
what he would say to God if he found himself standing at the gates of Heaven:
"I think I would say, ‘Bone cancer in children? What’s
that about? How dare you. How dare you create a world in which there is
such misery that's not our fault? It’s
not right. It's utterly, utterly evil. Why should I respect a capricious, mean
minded, stupid God who creates a world that is so full of injustice and pain?’ That’s what I’d say.”
This interview created some consternation in some Christian
quarters. Perhaps the best reaction
came from Giles Fraser who said, ‘I don’t believe in the God that Stephen Fry doesn't believe in either.’
What Stephen Fry says is of course relevant to what I will
be talking about in today’s sermon: the problem of suffering and the question
of why our loving, just and powerful God allows suffering – and in particular
allows suffering amongst his followers.
This is a question over which more ink has been probably been spilt than
any other religious question and I hesitate to suggest an answer. Peter tackles the question in his epistle
and in particular in the reading we heard just now and in the reading we will
be thinking about next week. His answer
is that Jesus suffered. I am fairly
sure that Stephen Fry wouldn't find that a satisfactory answer but I think it
is an answer that should satisfy us and in this sermon I’ll try and explain
why.
But back to Stephen Fry for a moment. Note that, in answer to the question from
Gay Byrn, Stephen Fry is able to imagine speaking to God. It’s almost that he believes in God for a moment
and speaks to him out of his desire to tell him what he thinks about the world
and in particular the suffering he sees around him, particularly unjustified
suffering such as bone cancer in children. Stephen
fry is angry with God for creating such a world - and anger with God -
particularly about suffering - is something that authors of the Psalms – also do
quite a lot.
We have, in effect, in the Book of Psalms, 156 recorded
prayers. In these prayers we can find petitions - requests
for help, healing from ill-health and disease, rescue in the face of
persecution from others, etc. There is
also quite a bit of thanking – thanking God for his help in healing, rescue,
etc. But often the Psalmist just tells
God what he or she thinks of him. There
is a lot of praising of God for who he is - his goodness, his justice and his
love - but there is also a lot of
complaining about what he is doing and in particular his allowing of suffering.
Take Psalm
44, for example. After praising God for
doing what he did to help his people in the past – reminding him that he saved
them from their foes and put to confusion those who hated them - the Psalmist –
let’s assume it’s a man - complains that now (verses 9 -12):
You have rejected us and abased us,
have not gone out with our armies. You
have made us turn back from the foe; and our enemies have taken spoil for
themselves. You have made us like sheep for slaughter, and have scattered us
among the nations. You have sold your people for a trifle, demanding no high
price for them.
The language may be more antiquated but the sentiment behind
these verses is the same as Stephen Fry’s.
The Psalmist is angry with God.
But note also, as well as the anger, the puzzlement on the
part of the author of Psalm 44 and Stephen Fry. The Psalmist is asking God why, when he went
out with our armies in the past, does he not do so now; why when they, his people, ‘have not forgotten
him’ he seems to have forgotten them.
Stephen Fry similarly wants to know from God, why he created a world
with suffering in it. People do want to
know.
But our first reading today wasn't from Psalm 44 it was from
Psalm 34. The reason why I chose Psalm
34 is that a quote from it – verses 12-16 – comes just before our reading from
1 Peter. And 1 Peter Chapter 3 verse 13
to the end of Chapter 14 can be seen as an expository sermon on Psalm 34. Peter
is, if you like, taking as his text for today, Psalm 34 and elaborating upon it,
just as I am seeking to do with his text.
So let’s take a look at Psalm 34. This psalm, unlike Psalm 44, is a rather
upbeat psalm. Let’s assume that the
psalmist is a woman this time. She
starts with the very un-angry and un-puzzled words, ‘I will bless the Lord at
all times; his praise shall be in my mouth’.
This psalmist, like the author of Psalm 44, then proceeds to remind God what
he has done for her in the past before moving back to the present. Verse 4: ‘[In the past] I sought the Lord, and he delivered
me from all my fears.’ Verse 6: ‘This
poor soul cried, and was heard by the Lord.’ And now to the present.
Verse 8: ‘O taste and see that the Lord is good; happy are those that
take refuge in him’. And verse 17, coming just after the verses Pete quotes : ‘When the righteous cry for help, the
Lord hears, and rescues them from all their troubles.
’
At this point you might be tempted to say to the Psalmist as
I am. " ‘When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears, and rescues them from
all their troubles.’ Oh come on? Is this really your experience? The Lord might listen and let’s hope he
does ‘when the righteous cry for help’ but does he always rescue them from
their troubles? Surely not?" We know that the righteous suffer as much as
the unrighteous, and sometimes even more.
Actually the author of Psalm 34 is caught in a bit of a
logical bind. She acknowledges – verse
19 – that, ‘Many are the afflictions of the righteous’ in which case God
clearly hasn't, at least yet, rescued them so when she says, ‘When the
righteous cry for help, the Lord hears, and rescues them from all their
troubles’ she must mean that Lord will, at some point in the future, rescue
them. Or at least she hopes so.
So now to 1 Peter and Peter’s exposition of Psalm 34. It might be a favourite psalm of his as he
quotes it elsewhere in his epistle. Now
it is clear that Peter is writing to Christians who are suffering in some way –
so much of it is devoted to the subject for a start. I don’t know whether Steve covered this in
his introduction to 1 Peter – a few Sundays back - but commentators think that
this suffering wasn't state-sanctioned persecution of Christians such as under
the Emperor Nero in AD60 – under which Peter himself died - but lower level
physical and verbal abuse from hostile neighbours. Nevertheless this was bad enough for Peter
to have to write to them about it – possibly in answer to the question of why
God was allowing it to happen.
Reminding them of Psalm 34 is perhaps a good way to
start. After that, and in the same vein
as the Psalmist, Peter asks his readers a question: ‘Now who will harm you, if
you are eager to do what is good?’ That’s Chapter 3 verse 13. It’s a rhetorical question. Pete’s assuming the answer 'no-one', No-one
will harm you if you are eager to do what is good. By ‘harm you’, he clearly doesn't mean
physical harm – he knows that they cannot avoid physical harm. Indeed Peter acknowledges that the recipients
of his letter may well suffer physical harm in the next verse when he says, ‘But
even if you do suffer for doing right, you are blessed’.
When he asks rhetorically, ‘Now who will harm you ?‘ he must mean that
they will avoid some spiritual harm – such as loss of faith in a God that will ultimately
rescue them from physical harm – an amazing claim if you think about in that
way. And when he says, ‘If you do
suffer, you are blessed’, he obviously doesn't mean physically blessed but
rather spiritually blessed: in the way Jesus means when he says, in the Sermon
on the Mount: ‘Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake for
theirs is the kingdom of heaven’.
All this might sound over-simplistic – even just pious
rhetoric - on Peter’s part – but he goes
on to urge his readers to reflect on and stick with their situation. Verse 14: ‘Do not fear what they [your
persecutors] fear and do not be intimidated’.
That is, acknowledge that your suffering
at the hands of those around you is often a result of their fear of you – a
needless fear – and this understanding might help you a bit to feel less
intimated and bear the suffering more easily.
Fair enough. He also gives them
some further advice – here and later in the epistle - about how to cope with
their suffering.
But just as you might question the apparently naïve optimism
of Psalm 34, you might well say, as I am sure his readers also said, ‘But why
do we need to suffer in the first place?’
I think we can all see what Stephen Fry is getting at when
he questions why an all-powerful, creator God, who is supposed to be all loving
and just, allows unjustified suffering. Stephen
Fry particularly questions the suffering of innocent children, but others such
as Job - to whose suffering a whole book in the Bible has been devoted - have
questioned the suffering of good people.
In the case of Job, Job himself.
I personally think that the apparent problem with this
question comes in our thinking of God as omnipotent – all powerful. As I have said before I do not think God is
omnipotent in the sense that Greek philosophers thought God was – a thinking
that seems to me to have been imported into Christianity and is unnecessary.
My main reason for thinking that God is powerful but not
omnipotent, in that way, is this. Paul
in his letter to the Philippians tells us that Jesus ‘emptied himself, taking
the form of a slave, being born in human form.’ That is, that God, in Jesus, made himself
voluntarily powerless – like a slave. And
this for me helps explain – not only God’s saving work through suffering on the
cross – but also his - God’ the Father’s - creative work at the beginning of
time- and remember that Jesus was there too.
Only through God making himself voluntarily less than all-powerful could
creation begin to happen. And creation,
we learn from science, seems necessarily to involve physical pain and indeed
physical death.
But back to suffering.
Peter supplies the reason for why his readers are suffering at verse 18 when
he says, ‘You suffer for Christ also suffered’ and then goes on to explain why
Jesus suffered, that is: ‘for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous,
in order to bring you to God’. And this for me is the key verse in this passage from 1 Peter.
Now I am
not going to talk about how Christ’s suffering achieved what it achieved – a
huge subject in itself. The important
thing I think to note, today, is the fact of Jesus’ suffering and that his
suffering wasn't meaningless: it was for
something.
One part of the amazing good news that Jesus brings is that
God himself suffers. He is not a remote
and distant God who created the world with all the suffering it contains and
left it at that – as Stephen Fry seems to be assuming that he – the God he
doesn't believe in – does. Our God is a
God who suffers – once on the cross – and now in response to our suffering. And through that suffering makes our
suffering meaningful.
Peter goes on to say – Chapter 4 verse 1 – ‘Since therefore
Christ suffered in the flesh for us, arm yourself also with the same
intention….so as to live for the rest of your earthly life no longer by human
desires but by the will of God.’ So
just as Christ’s suffering had a purpose, an intention, so too does our
suffering and we should view it in that way.
It is of course difficult for us to fathom the meaning of
our own suffering and even harder to discern the meaning of the suffering of
others. In fact it is hazardous – and
can be offensive to do so. As I said, the
Book of Job is a long exposition on the meaning of one man’s suffering and you
are left at the end not really knowing what it was all for. God’s answer to Job towards the end of the book
is to reassure him that he, God, is indeed God. ‘Where
were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?’ he asks Job. He
does not explain what has happened to Job.
But nevertheless we can be assured – as Job and indeed the
Psalmists could not be - because they had yet to encounter Jesus - that that our
suffering isn't pointless because God has suffered for us and now suffers with
us. Suffering can only make sense, if
instead of argument and reason, we gaze on the suffering of Jesus.
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