“Redemptive Suffering” March 15, 2020 Dr. Roger Ray, pastor
Romans 5:3 And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance,4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,5 and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
Last month, the Culinary Workers’ Union in Nevada, rejected supporting Bernie Sanders’ as a presidential candidate because his “Medicare for all” would mean that their members would lose the premium health care that the union had fought for over the past several years. In fact, on the morning of the Nevada primary, the union was sending text messages to members encouraging them to vote for anyone but Sanders. However, when the Nevada primary was held, the rank and file members actually voted for Sanders in a huge majority.
Those who bucked the union leadership explained themselves in plain moral language . . . while they appreciate having really good health care coverage, they are aware that keeping a system in place that gives some people great coverage while leaving millions of others without care is morally reprehensible. They were willing to give up their enviable status if it would mean that their relatives, neighbors, and friends who were sick but who had no coverage, could at least receive basic care.
This, at least in my mind, becomes the major dividing line between the con-servative and progressive political wings of our nation, of our churches, of our economic system, and everything associated with it. There is the fear and greed based perspective of “I’ve got mine, I earned it, I deserve it, and I don’t have to care about anyone else,” I don’t make that sound very nice but you get what I mean. And, again, from my perspective, the progressive view is that our whole society is connected to one another and we all have to make personal sacrifices for the good of the whole society.
Look, they are not closing down daycare centers and elementary schools because children are at significant risk of dying from Covid-19. They are closing them down because crowded schools become incubators for a virus that the kids will share with parents and grandparents . . . especially gray bearded, overweight, pre-diabetic grandparents who are expected to die from the virus in large numbers.
If you have a double digit IQ to work with, you realize that your instinctual fear that says, “I don’t want to get sick,” has to realize that “I also don’t want my neighbors to get sick,” because we do not want to keep multiplying this virus and spreading it to more and more vulnerable people.
I’ve been guilty of this! For years I refused to get the flu vaccine because I never get the flu. I am 63 years old and I have never taken a sick day, which only means, that when I get sick, I am lucky enough not to get so very sick that I have to miss work or church, but that I also means that I have walked around shedding those germs to people who do get very sick from them. So, for the past few years, I have gotten the flu vaccine, not because I am afraid of getting the flu but because I am afraid of spreading the flu around to other people. When you are deciding whether or not to get the flu shot, people, please hear me, it isn’t always about you. You get vaccines to protect your family, your bridge partner, your employees and your neighbors. This really isn’t hard, is it?
But I remember this one episode in which the 7 stranded castaways, who had been trying to get off of the island for years, found an inflatable life raft that had washed ashore. Finally, they were going to be saved! But, alas, earlier in that episode, they had discovered gold on the island and they had all been working to mine gold. They agreed that the little life raft could not carry the seven of them and anything as heavy as gold but all of them, except for the guileless Gilligan, had secretly disguised bags of gold among their personal effects and as soon as they cast off, the boat sank.
That is, for me, a metaphor for how our economy works. If we think only of ourselves without equal regard for others, because, people, in this small world, we are all in the same boat, we will sink and drown under the weight of our fear and greed.
I admittedly don’t use Bible verses in our services very often and I won’t wander too deeply into what Paul was thinking about when he wrote this but I like the way he says it: suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us. There is suffering that just is a part of the world . . . natural disasters, aging, and plagues. There is suffering that is a result of human evil, such as war, poverty, and slavery. But there is a kind of suffering that is what we call redemptive suffering. That is, a kind of suffering that can be chosen in order to accomplish a noble cause. That is the kind of suffering that, when chosen for a greater good, that can produce endurance, and more importantly, character and hope.
This past week, we remembered the anniversary of the Bloody Sunday in 1965, when black demonstrators on a march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama to demand voting rights, were set upon by the State Police and their deputies, who turned police dogs on the crowd, beating some and shooting others.
"Friends of mine gave their lives. Do your part. Get out there and vote like you’ve never voted before."
But here is what I believe needs to be said about this: before those black southerners ventured out on the bridge, they met for days in churches, being trained, praying, signing pledges, committing themselves to allowing themselves to be beaten without fighting back. What they knew, what Alabama white officials didn’t seem to grasp, was that when America, through TV news reports, saw the police beating defenseless marchers who were not being violent, who were not fighting back, that it would change the way that white Americans felt about their cause.
If the marchers had crossed that bridge and had an open conflict with the police, it would have frightened white America of 1965. It would have looked like lawlessness, like the beginning of a race war that white Americans had feared since the beginning of slavery in America . . . or don’t you know that the real reason for the 2nd amendment to the constitution was the fear of white slave holders that they would be outnumbered and killed by their slaves. But what John Lewis knew, what Martin Luther King, Jr. knew, was that if they were seen to be peacefully protesting but being treated with unjust violence, that they were literally suffering for the redemption of their people.
David Ketchum and I were recently participating in a demonstration favoring the impeachment of Donald Trump that took place at Springfield’s most busy intersection. Trump supporters would roll down their windows and shout obscenities at the gathered demonstrators. And the people around us would shout obscenities back at them.
We kept moving around, trying to find a place where we could oppose Donald Trump without being associated with people who were acting like Donald Trump. What good does it do to object to a lack of character if we are going to become just like that dearth of character we opposed?
We have talked about David doing a series of sermons or classes specifically aimed at teaching us all how to participate non-violently in protest movements. You may wonder why I don’t teach that class, but I assume that if you are wondering that, you have not been paying much attention to who I am. . . but that is another issue.
He was arrested and imprisoned in 1962 for his anti-government work and he was sent to prison for 27 years, 18 of which was spent on that rock in the sea, Robben Island. Prisoners worked in the blinding sun in temperatures over 100 degrees. He was provided with a bucket in his cell for a latrine. He was rarely allowed a visitor and the prisoners had no access to news or mail.
He could have been released at any time had he been willing to publicly swear off violent means of overthrowing apartheid. He didn’t know if anyone noticed his suffering, he could only hope that by choosing to suffer under the heavy hand of the racist government that he was drawing worldwide attention to plight of black South Africans. He only knew from whispers that there was a “free Mandela” movement.
27 years. Forgive me for making this comparison, but when Mandela was freed in 1990, I made the observation to my congregation that the church speaks voluminously about the crucifixion of Jesus, an admittedly torturous death but, and maybe it is wrong for me to say it, but his suffering was over within a single day. Mandela spent 27 years in a cell, doing hard labor in blistering heat, to the point that he was nearly blinded from the sunlight by the time he was released, pooping in a bucket and wondering if it would ever end. . . 27 years of suffering to redeem the plight of his people.
I don’t think that I could have done it for a month, or a week. But he came out of that cell to accept the Nobel Peace Prize and to become, not only the first black president of South Africa, but the first president to be democratically elected by the whole of the population. He served one term and then devoted the rest of his life to working to eradicate poverty and HIV from Africa. South Africa still has serious problems but the fact that Apartheid was ended without a bloody civil war is due, in large part, to the fact that Mandela was willing to suffer for his people and in the end, to work with their white oppressors to turn the nation over to the majority population in a democratic government.
Look folks, when those demonstrators gathered in Selma to pray and be trained in how to peacefully demonstrate for their rights, those days of preparation, that was all about conquering fear. They knew that there would be police dogs. They knew that there would be horse-backed state policeman breaking their skulls with their Billy clubs. They chose to take the risk, to suffer the blows, the humiliation and their possible death in order to claim their human rights.
Nelson Mandela spent years protesting, being arrested, writing articles, and testifying for his people until the day came when he had to face prison and he would have had every right to act out of fear, to want to spend his adult life with his wife and children, but he managed to have principles greater than the fear that we would have all felt.
Every day, he perfected his character, dare I say, his sainthood, in the sweltering heat, with the stench of his own sewage in a bucket in his cell . . . suffering for the redemption of his people.
Now, something is going to happen. If the coming spring weather does not dispose of Covid 19 the way that we might hope, it will spread. Estimates are that between half and 70% will get it. Most people will feel ill for a week or two and they will be fine. Some people, especially those of us who are older and who have underlying health conditions, will be in danger of dying. If it does not go away with spring weather, there is a likelihood that our little city could experience 3000 to 4000 deaths from among our senior population.
How are we going to act in a worse case scenario . . . if our hospitals are full, and most of our healthcare workers are infected and not able to work. How are we going to act if we are left to quarantine at home and just look after one another?
