When Seeing Isn't Enough

Introduction

When I was growing up, I lived in something of a bubble…

The truth is… my parents loved me...

...affirmed me...

...and somehow seemed to know that I was gay before I did...

They took intentional steps to raise me in an environment that protected me.

Growing up in Texas, I certainly knew teens where that wasn’t everyone’s story...

...I knew some families rejected their children...

...I knew teens forced into living on the streets because of their sexuality...

...I knew churches whose understanding of God harmed young people…

...but knowing something exists is different than encountering it up close.

In college, I dated a young man named Enrique.

...he was Latino, raised as a Jehovah’s Witness...

...and when his family learned about our relationship, everything changed.

His religious community expected his family to separate themselves from him.

While it was his parents who had to make the choice...

...Enrique ultimately found himself without a home and a support system.

Things I had always taken for granted.

All of a sudden, suffering wasn’t something I was reading about on MySpace message boards or in chat rooms…

Suffering began to have a name and a face that I cared about.

I wanted to help, but what could I possibly do?

I was a college student whose own housing, tuition, and livelihood were made possible by my parents...

Eventually, Enrique moved from Texas to New York City in search of support, and we lost touch.

Years later, I learned that Enrique had died by suicide...

Looking back, I realize that my privilege had allowed me to observe suffering from a distance...

It wasn’t until my relationship with Enrique that I was brought into proximity with suffering in ways that I had never experienced before...

This scripture reminds me of the incarnational character of God.

God goes beyond saying, “I have seen.”

The God revealed in Scripture is not a God who observes human suffering from some safe distance...

This is a God who draws near...

...a God who enters into the suffering of God’s people...

...and ultimately in Jesus Christ...

...a God who takes on flesh and makes our suffering God’s own.

There are times when the suffering of others is easier to observe from a distance.

When such occurs, Scripture points us toward a God who draws near.

So, friends, how are we called to draw near when it would be easier to remain at a distance?

Let Suffering Interrupt You

Let’s dive into the scripture where we’re invited to let suffering interrupt you.

When we meet Moses this morning, he isn’t looking for God.

He isn’t on some spiritual retreat or preparing himself to become a prophet.

He is working by caring for his father-in-law’s flock...

...when something unusual catches his attention.

A bush is on fire, but the bush isn’t burning up!

We find a curious Moses that says...

“Let me check out this amazing sight and find out why the bush isn’t burning up.”

Then the text tells us:

“When the LORD saw that he was coming to look, God called to him out of the bush, ‘Moses, Moses!’”

...the call interrupts what Moses is doing...

...and Moses allows himself to be interrupted.

Biblical scholar Terence Fretheim argues that sight plays an important role in Moses’ hearing...

There would have been no hearing if the sight had not invoked a sense of curiosity.

I wonder if sometimes we trade curiosity for efficiency...

We love a good process...

On Fridays, we can get an assembly line going and move hundreds of boxes of food.

On Sunday morning, we can get the bagels served, the coffee poured, and the tables cleared...

...and then move along to worship...

I can’t help but wonder if sometimes we are too efficient to allow for relationship building...

While efficiency matters...

...after all, people are waiting...

...funders want to see numbers and outcomes...

...we have to remember that there is a person...

...a story...

...behind every number...

...behind every outcome...

...and sometimes people just want to tell you their story...

In those moments, the person standing in front of us can feel like an interruption to the ministry we’re trying to accomplish…

But friends… what if that interruption...

...is the ministry?

What if feeding God’s people isn’t only handing someone a bagel...

...but sitting at the table long enough to know their name?

Moses could have noticed something unusual and kept moving...

Instead, he allows himself to be interrupted.

Perhaps drawing near begins here...

Let suffering interrupt you long enough for the person you see to become a neighbor.

Refuse the Safety of Distance

Scripture also invites us to draw near by refusing the safety of distance.

Listen again to what God says to Moses:

“I’ve clearly seen my people oppressed in Egypt. I’ve heard their cry of injustice because of their slave masters. I know about their pain.”

God doesn’t speak about suffering in the abstract...

God sees oppression...

...hears cries of injustice...

...knows their pain.

It’s one thing to be aware of suffering...

...it’s another to intimately know suffering...

God enters into the people's suffering and makes it God’s own.

God refuses the safety of distance.

There is something familiar about this notion for us…

We talk about Emmanuel...

God with us.

The early church theologian Athanasius insisted that redemption requires God’s active presence with humanity.

God does not remain safely removed from creation.

God draws near.

In Jesus Christ, God takes on flesh.

Jesus knows hunger...

...grief...

...rejection...

...pain and even death.

Incarnation doesn’t give us an easy explanation for suffering.

It reveals a God who refuses to abandon us within it.

Mujerista theologian Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz describes discovering in her own ministry that what mattered...

...was not simply “doing for others,”

...but being “in solidarity with them.”

...and I think we’ve witnessed something of that solidarity through one of our own.

Melissa has been walking alongside a six-year-old student named Ace, who has a serious immune deficiency.

She has certainly prayed for him...

But she has also sat with him...

...visited him at home...

...walked alongside him and his family through treatments...

...organized donor-screening opportunities at public events...

...and invited an entire community to draw closer to a child whose suffering...

...most of us could otherwise observe from a distance.

None of us can explain why a six-year-old child should have to endure suffering.

Melissa couldn’t fix what was happening to Ace.

Despite all of this...

Melissa refused to let him and his family walk through it alone.

That’s solidarity...

Sometimes solidarity means saying...

...your suffering matters enough to interrupt my life...

...your struggle matters enough that I will show up...

...and I will walk alongside you as long as this road requires.

...and just a few days ago… there was some good news.

After Ace’s infection-fighting white blood cell count had been sitting at zero...

...it finally began to rise...

...one step closer to going home.

Friends, solidarity means drawing near enough that another person’s suffering can become part of our grief...

...and their joy can become part of our joy.

...because the God we encounter in Scripture is intimate…

...our God does not love suffering people from a safe distance...

God draws near...

...and invites us to draw near to our neighbors by refusing the safety of distance.

Follow Where Christ Leads

To draw near is to also follow where Christ leads.

In our Gospel lesson, Peter has just confessed Jesus as Messiah...

...and as Jesus begins telling the disciples where this road is actually going, Matthew records...

“He had to go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders, chief priests, and legal experts, and that he had to be killed and raised on the third day.”

...and Peter objects...

“God forbid, Lord! This won’t happen to you.”

Then comes a rebuking response...

“Get behind me, Satan.”

Get behind me...

That’s where disciples belong...

Peter has moved from following Jesus to trying to tell Jesus which direction Jesus ought to go.

Get behind me...

...follow where I lead...

...and Jesus continues:

“All who want to come after me must say no to themselves, take up their cross, and follow me.”

The cross was Rome’s instrument of domination and public execution.

It was meant to send a message...

This is what happens when you threaten the powers that be.

...and yet, Jesus takes this symbol meant to inspire fear...

...and transforms it into a symbol of love that refuses to be governed by fear.

So when Jesus says, “take up your cross and follow me,” he isn’t telling us to go looking for suffering...

He is telling us that we cannot allow the fear of what following might cost us to determine where we are willing to love.

Friends, I have to admit there are places where I wrestle with that as your pastor.

Methodists are known as a big-tent church...

...and sometimes that makes silence tempting...

I think particularly about our transgender neighbors...

It can be easier not to preach about what is happening to transgender people...

...because people have questions...

...because people disagree...

...because someone might be uncomfortable...

...because I know that after worship, I am still called to be the pastor of people across this theological spectrum.

But perhaps “get behind me” is a word for the preacher too...

My calling isn’t to stand in front of Jesus and determine which roads are safe enough for us to travel.

My calling is to follow where Christ leads...

...and when people’s dignity is being questioned...

...when their bodies become political battlegrounds...

...when people who already know rejection hear the church debating whether there is room for them...

...silence gives cover to the forces causing suffering.

Now, following Christ doesn’t require me to stop caring pastorally for someone who disagrees with me.

Quite the opposite...

I can preach prophetically and pastor compassionately.

I can name what is causing harm while walking alongside someone who is wrestling...

I can listen and love them…

...and trust that grace is working on all of us.

...because following Christ isn’t about choosing which people deserve our love.

It’s about following Jesus far enough that love becomes more important than our safety.

...and maybe that’s why Jesus says...

“Get behind me.”

...because disciples don’t get to choose the destination...

We follow where Christ leads.

Kerygmatic Fulfillment

Friends, here is the good news...

God has already drawn near to us.

In Jesus Christ, God enters the distance sin creates...

...between ourselves and God...

...between ourselves and one another...

...even within ourselves.

Christ comes not to satisfy some divine demand for suffering...

...but to liberate us from the powers of sin and death that diminish the image of God...

...within us and separate us from one another.

...and even the cross...

...the empire’s instrument of violence...

...cannot stop God’s reconciling love.

Resurrection has the final word.

Friends, we do not draw near to suffering because we imagine ourselves as anyone’s savior.

We draw near because Christ has already drawn near to us.

...and it’s by this grace that Christ is restoring us...

...perfecting us...

...and drawing us together into the beloved community God intended from the beginning.

In the name of our Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer. Amen.