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Friends United Meeting |
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December 1998
I Shall Give You Hearts of Flesh
By Amy Runge Gaffney
Many of us spend a good portion of our lives believing that if we are "good" nothing "bad" will happen to us. Is this what the Bible tells us?
"They warned them that to enter the kingdom of God we must undergo many hardships." (Acts 14:22, REB) This is a rather alarming statement. Undergo many hardships? Why?! Surely there is some other way!
Possibly part of the reason for this statement is that the way of life-of growth-is often painful. It requires courage. It involves risk and change and letting go. Yet we often have a hard time letting go. We are usually reluctant to change, especially if the risks seem significant. And we're often short on courage. Once past the age of innocence, would we ever choose life if we didn't really have to? If death weren't already knocking at our door? We usually do our best to avoid difficult challenges, until their alternative is some sacrifice even we know to be too great. Until even we realize how diminished we will become if we refuse to grow.
After attending an Intensive at the Earlham School of Religion earlier this year, I felt powerfully drawn to return in the fall for what is termed a "Theological Reflection Year." Almost immediately I began to experience intense resistance to my going, both from within myself and from without. Much of me wanted to stay right where I was, seemingly secure and stable in the life and community I'd known for the preceding eleven years. I asked myself, "Why rock the boat, when so much is going well?"
In exploring the possibilities of my attending ESR, it became apparent that my husband and eleven-year-old son would not be able to accompany our seven-year-old daughter and me. I experienced recurrent bouts of anguish and anxiety over the prospect of separation, especially-as a mother-from my son.
In January, I had had a powerful experience of the Spirit moving in and among us as a group, and of that same Spirit alive and working in my own life in a new way. At times I questioned the reality of my experience. Was it something I could trust?
Some of those closest to me were adamantly opposed to my separating my family. Deeply hurtful things were said. Without a doubt, the easier route would have been to say "Forget it! It's too difficult, too risky, too painful to follow through." The problem was that every time I said "I'm not going," it wasn't long before despair set in. I wept, feeling that I was being asked to give up too much of myself; to give up some preciousness that I could not begin to articulate, some essential part of myself without which I would be greatly diminished. Perhaps it was "that of God" in me that leads us into wholeness. Perhaps it was the inward Christ who says to each of us, "Follow me."
It can be so easy to refuse. We get used to the ways of darkness. To the ways of the world. They are familiar. They are comfortable. They are what we know. Most of the time, we can deny they hurt us. We can pretend the destruction is not really happening. As long as we have the approval of our society, we can look the other way.
It takes effort not to. Effort we would rather not expend. If we are honest with ourselves, we know this from experience. "He can sympathize with those who are ignorant or who have gone astray, because he too is subject to the limitations of weakness." (Hebrews 5:2, NJer) Truth reveals the darkness in our own souls; plants the seeds of our humility in that soil.
Some suffering seems necessary to growth, but can suffering itself help us to grow?
"Pain borne in God's way brings no regrets but a change of heart leading to salvation; pain borne in the world's way brings death." (2 Corinthians 7:10, REB)
Addiction is the world's way. The way of denial and escape. Of pretending my pain does not exist. Of trying to escape my pain.
Violence is the world's way. Of trying to rid myself of my pain by displacing it onto others. Pain is a kinetic energy. It wants to move. It can move me to actions I'll live to regret.
Seduction is the world's way. The games of seduction are a mammoth distraction. Seductions-political, commercial, sexual, ideological-are always an attempt to gain, or maintain, power (wealth, status) at the expense of others. When we succeed at our seductions, we become inflated, even bloated, at worst egomaniacal, with a sense of our own power or worth. We forget, as we so wish to forget, our powerlessness before God. We forget our own deep need.
Pain borne in God's way is the pain I have allowed myself to feel. Like the child who cries immediately upon injury-who has not yet learned to stifle her cry-I know when and where I hurt. "For it is to such as these that the kingdom of Heaven belongs." (Matthew 19:14, NJer) Pain borne in God's way is the pain I accept as belonging to me. It is mine, my own cross, to bear.
But the God who asks us to carry our own pain, also promises us healing. Carrying our own pain softens our hearts. "I shall remove the heart of stone from your body and give you a heart of flesh." (Ezekiel 36:26, REB) It opens our eyes to the pain of others, and kindles our empathy. Now our pain moves us to reach out to heal, rather than to harm. "For the suffering he passed through while being put to the test enables him to help others when they are being put to the test." (Hebrews 2:18, NJer)
Now our pain moves us to reach out to God: "The burden of it was far too heavy for us to bear, so heavy that we even despaired of life. Indeed, we felt in our hearts that we had received a death sentence. This was meant to teach us to place reliance not on ourselves, but on God." (2 Corinthians 1:8-10, REB)
Thus, pain "borne in God's way" transforms our hearts and leads to the restoration, or deepening, of our relationships with others and with God. In that restoration lies the healing which is our salvation.
How does our suffering help us to rely on God?
"Wherefore, so that I should not get above myself, I was given a thorn in the flesh. About this, I have three times pleaded with the Lord that it might leave me; but he has answered me, 'My grace is enough for you: for power is at full stretch in weakness.' It is, then, about my weaknesses that I am happiest of all to boast, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me; and that is why I am glad of weaknesses, insults, constraints, persecutions and distress for Christ's sake. For it is when I am weak that I am strong." (2 Corinthians 12:7-10, NJer)
When we feel most weak in distress, we are most open to, and dependent upon, the Spirit working in our lives. The truth tends to be that the more we feel our own relative powerlessness and inadequacy, the more we realize our need of God-and cry out for God's assistance.
This may be why power corrupts. The powerful so often feel themselves sufficient that they do not feel their need of God. This is also partly why our afflictions can be blessings in disguise. God answers us when we cry out to him from our deepest need: "the Lord is near to all who call to him, to all who call to him in sincerity." (Psalm 145:18, REB) Then we come to know the reality of his Presence. There is no greater gift.
Experiencing God's presence also teaches us how to "be there," to be present, for others: "He consoles us in all our troubles, so that we in turn may be able to console others in any trouble of theirs and to share with them the consolation we ourselves receive from God." (2 Corinthians 1:4, REB)
But is suffering always constructive?
"So that you may be found worthy of the kingdom of God; it is for the sake of this that you are suffering now." (2 Thessalonians 1:5, NJer)
I have known people whose suffering seemed purely destructive. People against whom the cards seemed to have been stacked from the very beginning of their lives, and who therefore seemed never to have had a chance. I think of my brother, John, who suffered terribly from mental illness before his death by suicide. I think of the children of abuse, starvation and war. I remember the unforgettable eyes of the little girl on the cover of Time magazine, wild and glassy with the horror of what she had seen.
I do not believe this is suffering God wants for us. Often it is suffering we humans inflict upon one another. Thankfully, some are able, through God's grace, the help of others, and their own persistence, to overcome its effects. Courageous others are able to make what they have suffered serve some meaningful purpose in their lives. For "in everything, as we know, he cooperates for good with those who love God and are called according to his purpose." (Romans 8:28, REB)
Perhaps the purpose of extreme suffering is to show ourselves worthy of God's kingdom, but I doubt it. The miracle of grace is that grace is not a thing deserved. We don't receive it just because we are worthy, any more than we don't receive it because we are not. "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven, for he causes his sun to rise on the bad as well as the good, and sends down rain to fall on the upright and the wicked alike." (Matthew 5:44-45, NJer)
Yet it also seems that the faithful (whom Paul is addressing in 2 Thessalonians) must prove themselves worthy before being granted greater spiritual gifts. After all, our faith and love are of little value if couched in our ease. Being who we are, we value more deeply that for which we have suffered. We also show what we value by being willing to suffer for it. And finally, suffering can help the faithful become who we are meant to be: "consider it a great joy when trials of many kinds come upon you, for you will know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance, and perseverance must complete its work so that you will become fully developed, complete, not deficient in any way." (James 1:2-4, NJer)
Our trials, borne in God's way, in fact deepen our faith. They transform us, from creatures of little faith, to those empowered to help heal a broken world.
At root, our suffering involves facing the truth about ourselves.
"In so far as you did this to one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did it to me." (Matthew 25:40, NJer) In World War II, the Jews were among the crucified Christs of the world: those sacrificed to people's refusal to acknowledge the evil in their own hearts. The crucified Christs of the world include those who have too little when others have too much. They are the slaughtered, the despised, the hungry, the neglected-the list goes on and on. The world is full of those who suffer because of our refusal to acknowledge, or to turn away from, our own greed, self-centeredness, pride, fearfulness, hard-heartedness, lack of faith. The world is full of those who suffer because we refuse to face our own limitations, as well as our deep dependency on God.
The good news is that in suffering the truth about ourselves, we are given the impetus to change. In suffering a "change of heart," we are, by God's grace, redeemed. Through our redemption, we are given what we have so longed for: a part in the healing of this achingly beautiful, and deeply suffering, world.
Amy Gaffney and her family are members of Chico Friends Meeting in Northern California. She is presently attending the Earlham School of Religion.
Copyright (c) 1998 Friends United Meeting
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