Amazing Grace and Other Such Suffering

The next few days will be critical for me.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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. 

A savior's a nuisance to live with at home

I've always liked that line from Joan Baez's song.  It speaks to me now in the context of my most common manic symptom. 

Would that I might be a savior, the suffering would be redeemed, and in the end it would all make sense. 

"While divorce is always the consequence of sin, the sin itself is not the divorce, but all those actions leading up to the breakdown of the relationship.  To the contrary, when a couple gets to the point that there is nothing "holy" about their "holy" marriage, divorce can be a gracious act of God whereby they are set free from the former sins, and are able to be born again."

I preached those two sentences in my first parish.  About six weeks later one of my parishioners shared with me that she had left her husband after 25 years of  marriage.  My immediate response was "Oh no, what happened?"  She went on to say, "Well, you preached that sermon, and talked about divorce being an act of God's grace when a marriage is no longer holy.  I realized that it has been a long time since my marriage was holy, and your sermon set me free from the guilt that I had to stay, and so I left."  Sermons can have profound consequences.

What I learned was that her marriage had been highly abusive.  As she broke free, she blossomed.  Life became joyful for her again.  Grace abounded.

"For unto you is born this day a savior. . ."

Now a preacher is trained to say "That was not me, but the Spirit working through me. . ."  Proper humility is the expectation.  The truth is it feels good to be a savior.  That's the ego speaking, and we all have one.  Not only that, we deeply yearn for some validation of the work we do.  And even if it is the work of the Spirit, there is a reward in believing that the Spirit 'worked through you'.  God's voice.

A savior.  Having experienced that, it became a vocational goal.  A lot of things factored into that.  To many to mention here.  But I embarked on the quest.  Other situations would arise.  I learned a couple of things.  First, I learned that helping abused women to break free rarely has the immediate and clear result that it did that first time.  In one case, what happened was not that the woman broke free, but that at the very least she came to realize that her husband's anger issues were his problem, not her's.  In that there was healing, and the marriage was saved.  In time I realized that this outcome was good, though I might have wished that the anger had gone entirely away.

But the second lesson I learned was that if you aspire to be a savior, you had better be prepared to be crucified.  People, in general, do not like saviors.  They are a nuisance to live with at home, and a significant problem to deal with elsewhere. 

In hindsight, I learned other lessons as well, such as if you're going to go down that path and save women, you'd better have a clear understanding about emotional transference and tread very carefully. 

Oh, and there is also this thing called mania.  "Some people with bipolar disorder become psychotic when manic or depressed -- for example, hearing things that aren't there. They may hold onto false beliefs, too. In some instances, they see themselves as having superhuman skills and powers -- even considering themselves to be god-like."

Ok, well, there is that.  I would suppose that self identifying as a 'savior' might qualify as considering oneself to be "god-like", but that kind of takes the fun out of it.

The thing that is so attractive about seeing one's self as a savior is that it provides a framework within which one can interpret one's suffering, and add a redemptive value to it.  There is even a tinge of the savior mentality that goes into writing this blog.  "If I through sharing my experience can help others, then there is great value, redemptive value, to all I have suffered." 

My savior aspirations became more varied.  Establishing "12 Step" congregations base on the spiritual principles of AA.  Utilizing senior housing as a means of church growth.  And others. 

The difficult thing about being bipolar in one's moods and thinking is that it is difficult to find that middle ground.  Its either manic, or depressed, and the healthy middle is often illusive.  The medications I am on tend to manage the moods better than they do the thought patterns.  I see the two as quite distinct. 

If I am not a savior then the suffering is just suffering.  Rejection is not seen within the context of the way the prophets have been rejected before, but rather as just deep personal failure.  Self doubt becomes paramount.  The manic side says I can be the best pastor ever, the depressed side feels a total failure. 

It's a matter of faith, I would suppose, to believe in a healthy way that while not a savior, I've made a difference in a positive way.  I say it's a matter of faith, because often this disease prevents one from confidently seeing that and affirming that.  Faith helps me to believe that neither the highs nor the lows are reality.  It's alright to not be Jesus, but that doesn't mean one is thereby Judas, either.  Maybe Mark, as in the Gospel of Mark, is someone to aspire to follow.  Tradition tells us Mark's Gospel is the record of Peter's preaching.  Perhaps.  The point being that we are witnesses, not the main character.  We tell of the work of the Savior, without becoming the savior. 

Today I will lead worship at my little congregation.  The savior mentality within me sees this as an opportunity to redevelop and grow the congregation into one that is thriving, against all odds.  The depressed side tends to envision it as merely a matter of time before the congregation will have to close.  The healthy middle ground may be something more like, "Today, I can care for these people, at this time, and they will be spiritually fed, today.  The Word will be preached, the sacrament shared.  That I can and will do, the rest is up to God."

It may just be, that in the end, God will prove to be a better savior than I.