On Tuesday I will be having back surgery. Spinal Stenosis is the diagnosis, affecting L3, L4, and L5. Lumbar decompression surgery, a lamenotomy, is the cure. Basically, because of aging the passage ways in my spine have narrowed and my nerves are getting pinched off. This causes pain in my legs and a loss of functions such as muscle control and balance. I can only walk short distances. The surgery should fix that. But, there will be pain and suffering with recovery. I've been forewarned that I need to avoid getting discouraged and losing heart because of the suffering that will come. The pain will subside in time. The symptoms will not immediately abate following surgery, in part because of the swelling. But give it time, live through the suffering, and eventually a new and better reality will emerge.
"My President Sang Amazing Grace". Joan Baez recorded that song remembering the events in Charleston and Barrack Obama's message.
A young man came to a house of prayer
They did not ask what brought him there
He was not friend, he was not kin
But they opened the door and let him in
They did not ask what brought him there
He was not friend, he was not kin
But they opened the door and let him in
And for an hour the stranger stayed
He sat with them and seemed to pray
But then the young man drew a gun
And killed nine people, old and young
He sat with them and seemed to pray
But then the young man drew a gun
And killed nine people, old and young
In Charleston in the month of June
The mourners gathered in a room
The President came to speak some words
And the cameras rolled and the nation heard
The mourners gathered in a room
The President came to speak some words
And the cameras rolled and the nation heard
But no words could say what must be said
For all the living and the dead
So on that day and in that place
The President sang Amazing Grace
The President sang Amazing Grace
For all the living and the dead
So on that day and in that place
The President sang Amazing Grace
The President sang Amazing Grace
We argued where to lay the blame
On one man's hate or our nation's shame
Some sickness of the mind or soul
And how the wounds might be made whole
On one man's hate or our nation's shame
Some sickness of the mind or soul
And how the wounds might be made whole
But no words could say what must be said
For all the living and the dead
So on that day and in that place
The President sang Amazing Grace
My President sang Amazing Grace
For all the living and the dead
So on that day and in that place
The President sang Amazing Grace
My President sang Amazing Grace
Songwriters: Zoe Mulford
Why do we sing of grace at a time of suffering?
There is a truth that we do not like to acknowledge. We'd like grace to be a wonderful, happy, blessed and "amazing" experience. And yet the truth is that suffering is intimately connected to grace. Grace is a transformative power, but such change only comes in response to suffering and brings with it suffering as the status quo is shaken.
Perhaps this is the 'costly grace' of which Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote. I'd suggest there actually is no 'cheap grace'. Because grace is never experienced apart from suffering.
Whether its in the basement of a church in Charleston, or in my old neighborhood in Minneapolis, the racist powers are on display in our world. Systemic evil. We'd like to change it. And we'd like for that change to come apart from suffering. It won't.
Confession, repentance, and penance are necessary suffering. The hardest words I've ever spoke are "I am an alcoholic." And the pain our nation is experiencing is similar. "We are still racist." When Obama was elected many of us embraced the hope that racism had finally gone away. After all, we elected a black president, didn't we? But that presidency triggered the deep divide that remains part of the American soul. It rips us to the core.
Grace awaits us, but will not come without suffering. Healing happens but it comes at a cost.
"Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Jesus knew that grace came at a cost. Grace and a cross. "Take up your cross and follow me."
But don't be naive. Evil will not simply go away. One of the most distressing things about the Book of Revelation is that it speaks of the great and final battle that will be fought to destroy for all time the powers of evil. Distressing in that to the end of the age, evil will remain with us. Racism is not going away. Nor any of the other plagues that haunt the human experience and soul.
Grace is not the period that marks the end of suffering but the liberation and transformation that we experience in the midst of it, a transcendent experience of rising above it.
Our nation is reeling under the pain and suffering of racism. But in the midst of the suffering grace will abound. And where grace abounds suffering is redemptive. It is hard to say, but the suffering and death of one like Dr. Martin Luther King is at one and the same time both a great evil and a grace filled event redemptive in its scope. Grace is the power by which goodness rises to the top like cream separates from the milk.
One final thought. If we face this struggle with the conviction that we must defeat evil for all time we will be deeply disappointed and lose heart. Our challenge is to live by grace which means rising above the suffering and pain and being transformed. Goodness and grace in this way is not the lack of evil, but a response to evil. The most grace filled words Jesus ever spoke were "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing." These words spoken from the cross in the midst of great suffering are redemptive and transformative, both to Jesus as he spoke them, and to all who hear them.
