2021 1017 29th sunday

Do we really know the right questions to ask?

Suffering can have a positive purpose.

The first reading speaks beyond simple servitude of the servant. It speaks to pain.

The Gospel Jesus speaks of Our Lords plan not our plan/desires/rewards due… We need pain to shout ! And in these moments we can then learn to listen to the whisper of the Holy Spirit in our times of calm peace a pleasure.

In his book The Problem of Pain, C. S. Lewis says, “We can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”

“We have a strange illusion that mere time cancels sin.”

He finishes by saying that “all pains and pleasures we have known on earth are early initiations in the movements of that dance… it does not exist for us, but we for it.”

“The beauty of the soul shines out when a man bears with composure one heavy mischance after another, not because he does not feel them, but because he is a man of high and heroic temper.” ― Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics

“A psychiatrist does not want you to wake up. He tells you to dream some more, to find the pond and pour more tears into it. And really, he's just another bird drinking from your misery.” ― Amy Tan, The Joy Luck Club

Assignment time: take out your bibles look up these passages read and what do these random passages about Pain in scripture tell us about the purpose of human pain?

Prophet Ezra:

Nehemiah 9:27

Therefore you gave them into the hands of their enemies, who made them suffer. Then in the time of their suffering they cried out to you and you heard them from heaven, and according to your great mercies you gave them saviors who saved them from the hands of their enemies.

Job 9:27-29

If I say, ‘I will forget my complaint; I will put off my sad countenance and be of good cheer,’ I become afraid of all my suffering, for I know you will not hold me innocent.

Job 5:11

The lowly he sets on high, and those who mourn are lifted to safety.

Wisdom 12:27

For when in their suffering they became incensed at those creatures that they had thought to be gods, being punished by means of them, they saw and recognized as the true God the one whom they had before refused to know. Therefore the utmost condemnation came upon them.

Isaiah 53:3-6

He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity; and as one from whom others hide their faces he was despised, and we held him of no account. Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. 5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed. 6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Psalm 119:50

This is my comfort in my distress,

that your promise gives me life.

Mark 8:31

Jesus Foretells His Death and Resurrection

Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.

Acts 1:3

After his suffering he presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.

James 5:7

Patience in Suffering

Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious crop from the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains.

2 Timothy 1:8

Do not be ashamed, then, of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel, relying on the power of God,

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Do we have a rights or duties.

We have a duty to protect or do others have rights that we must recognize and uphold?

Put a kitten in a sack with a rock and toss it into a pond. Do we have a duty to protect, or does the animal have a right to life?

Duties can become legalistic and as in the Gospel James and John attempt to trap Jesus into a sense of duty to grant them this place. But Jesus is clear it is a right, but not HIS right to grant.

Duties lead us to entitlement and legalism.

In formation when did I believe that I had invested so much time and self to be entitled to ordination? When did I let that go and accept God’s will? Can I earn anything that is from God? Or is it a gift? My life here is a gift. ***** TOWEL**** story *****

Rights lead us to communal awareness of the other. We enter into the community of believers. In communal worship how close can we become to the LOVE that is . The LIVING truth. The TRINITARIAN tension that gives freely of self without limit.

In his book The Problem of Pain, C. S. Lewis says, “We can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”

We need to grow out of our reactions to our physical senses. Avoid pain / seek pleasure. In our pain God shouts! In our peaceful calm and pleasure, God whispers.

How do you discern the right questions to ask of God?

When do you recall hearing God shout?

When do you recall hearing God whisper?

Did you need to hear the shouting experience first?

How do you remember to listen for the whispers?

How does this make you feel?

Hook:

This week I want you to try to start each day imagining the size of megaphone that we need God to use so we can hear Him. Ask youself how big does the megaphone need to be for me to hear right now? Then close your eyes and imagine it. Now the more challenging part. What do you hear?