Romans 5:1-11 · Peace and Joy
Boast in Our Suffering
Romans 5:1-8
Sermon
by Steven E. Albertin
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The phone rings in the middle of the night. There is only one reason why someone would call you at this time of the night, and it can't be good. The deadpan voice of the police officer tells you the horrible news rather matter-of-factly. Your imagination runs wild. You were not there, but you can hear the tires screeching, the metal smashing, the glass breaking, and the sirens whining. It was not supposed to end this way. She had so much of life yet to live.

Your boss calls you into his office. Other members of the department are gathered around his desk. No one wants to look you in the eye. Something is wrong. You can feel it in the air. The silence is deafening. Finally he speaks the words that stick a knife in your heart: "Your services are no longer needed."

You accidentally discovered the lump one day in the shower. You casually mentioned it in the course of a routine exam to your doctor. You never thought you would hear this word said about you. You are too young. You have too much left on your "To Do" list. You have ... cancer.

You are not looking forward to the start of school. It will be another dreadful year of pain and loneliness and ridicule. All you want is a friend, but no one ever seems to have time for you. The social events you had hoped for over the summer never really happened. You know that it won't get any better once school starts. You are too fat, too ugly, too tall, too short, too odd for anyone to care about you.

Life can be pretty painful. Any one who says it is not filled with suffering and pain is telling a lie. There is much truth in that old hymn that refers to this life as "a veil of tears." So much suffering seems so unexpected and so undeserved.

I suspect this is why so many stop coming to church when their lives are not going well. It is difficult to think and talk about God when your life is slowly or abruptly slipping into the pits. All "the bright and shiny people" (who R.E.M. sang about and e e cummings wrote about) who come to church seem to give the impression that suffering, hurt, and pain have no place in church or in the heart of God.

We seem to avoid the "God question" when suffering is its worst. You know the classic question that seems unanswerable in the face of human suffering: How can you believe in God when there is much suffering in this world? In the face of such suffering, how can God be both all loving and all powerful? If God is love, then God can't be all powerful. For if God was all how can he be a God worthy of our trust? If God is all powerful, then with so much suffering in the world God can't possibly be a God of love. God must be a fickle monster indiscriminately dishing out suffering in a manner that makes no rhyme or reason. Worse yet, if this suffering is not random but somehow deserved, then we are truly in big trouble. Then we have a huge God-problem!

In the face of such a God problem, Paul's words in today's reading are at least amazing if not utterly unintelligible.

If there is anyone who knew all about suffering and pain, if there is anyone who had every reason in the world not to believe in God because he suffered so much, it was Paul. The way Paul talked about suffering differs significantly with the way so many talk about suffering today in our churches. I wish I could have a dollar for every time I have been at Christian gatherings and heard testimonies about someone who has overcome suffering, defeated it, and left it behind. Many come to the church looking for Jesus to make them successful. God is their great therapist in the sky. "I want Jesus to save my marriage, save my children, save my job, save my health, save my life." We love to parade celebrities who can speak of how God helped them beat all their problems and make their lives a success. We want God to fix everything.

Paul didn't talk that way. Paul's life wasn't like that. If there was a time in his life when he was successful, when he was admired by his peers, when he was in control of his life, when he was effectively leading a religious crusade, it was before his conversion. After his conversion to Christ, after that fateful day on the road to Damascus, his life began to fall apart. That was when his suffering really began. In 2 Corinthians he recounts almost with a sense of pride all the hardship that he has undergone. Five times he underwent forty lashes. Three times he was beaten by rods. Once he was stoned. Three times he was shipwrecked. And just think of all times he was run out of town by those who rejected him and his message.

Then to top it all off in today's reading from Romans, Paul actually boasts in his suffering! He is proud of it. His suffering helped him to endure. His endurance produced character. His character produced hope, a hope that could never be disappointed.

Paul certainly sounds inspirational. He sounds like Knute Rockne or Bobby Knight or Vince Lombardi or Bill Cowher or name your favorite half-time, "Rah! Rah!" athletic coach. He sounds like the ultimate cheerleader. "Hang in there! Persist. Endure. Be committed." Some say, "Be like Mike." Paul could just as easily be saying, "Be like Jesus." Nothing comes cheaply. Life is hard work and discipline. You can boast in your suffering because this suffering will build endurance which builds character which builds hope. "No pain, no gain."

It sounds like an appealing way to interpret Paul, and many have done it this way. But that is not what Paul is saying. Paul is not the drill sergeant at our spiritual boot camp. First of all, Paul is not interested in heaping more burdens on us. This is no challenge to measure up to, because none of us can ever measure up anyway. Second, not even Jesus was the perfect superstar. He, too, had cracks in his armor. He, too, wavered under the burden of his suffering. He cried out in the Garden of Gethsemane for another way. He didn't want to go through with this awful walk to the cross. When he was finally on the cross, in the dark hour of his suffering, he cries out in despair, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

Most importantly, this is simply not what Paul says. Paul is not presenting us with another twelve-step process to Christian discipleship. Paul does not say, if you hang in there, if you endure, then you grow in character. And if you grow in character, then you can have hope. And if you have hope, then you will not be disappointed. No, on the contrary, Paul reverses it all. This amazing ability to boast in his suffering is not an acquired skill but a gracious gift. Paul reminds us, "Because God's love has been poured into our hearts" (v. 5), this amazing attitude and disposition is possible.

Then Paul reminds us of the basis of his optimistic conviction about the love of God. It has nothing to do with the relative success of his life; what he reads in the daily newspaper or observes in the day's weather. It has everything to do with what God has done in Jesus Christ. What God has done in Jesus Christ is the basis of his certainty and confidence. Even though he has suffered much, even though his life seems to have been one tragedy and misfortune after another, Paul is still confident of God's love. It is that love of God manifested in Jesus Christ that enables Paul to endure, to develop character, and finally to have the hope that will not be disappointed.

In one, the clearest and most amazing statements of God's love in the entire New Testament, Paul declares, "For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly...." This is the amazing nature of God's love, a love that makes it so utterly different than any other kind of love in this world. It is so unique that the New Testament virtually needs to invent a new Greek word to describe it: agape.

Agape love is so unlike the love of this world. In this world people love things because they are worth loving. They are attractive, beautiful, handsome, and sexy. We don't love something that is not worth loving. Perhaps this has happened to you. You are considering a Christmas gift for someone when one of your family members complains that you ought not to buy a gift for that person. They point out how they are not worth it, that they have not done anything to deserve a gift. In fact, with the way they have treated you, you ought to make them suffer rather than to bless them with a gift. But you insist on giving the gift anyway. You remind them that this is a "Christmas gift," a gift that imitates God's gift for us in Christ. In Christ, God loved not only those who did not deserve it, but those who were downright ungodly and undeserving. Even though they were his enemies and deserved his anger and wrath, Christ loved them. "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do." Now you are determined to do the same.

Paul reminds us in today's reading that is exactly what God did in Christ. "Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person — though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die." But certainly not for an "ungodly" person, for someone who was your enemy and determined to destroy you. That is exactly what God did in Christ. Paul goes on to say, "But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us."

Yes, we have a huge "God problem." But the good news of the gospel is that God, out of his amazing grace and mercy, chooses to rectify the "God problem." God in Christ comes to bear our sin, to put himself in our place, to suffer everything that is wrong with this world, including the consequences of our sin and suffers his own judgment ... so that we might be free and forgiven.

This is agape love. This is the love that makes the unlovable lovable. This is the love that saves the world. Worldly love only loves the lovable. God's agape love is love that transforms the unlovable into something lovable. The beloved becomes lovable because of the love of the lover.

We see this love continually lived out in the life of Jesus. Jesus announces that the kingdom of God is breaking into this world through his life. Watch him, see what he does and we will see what God is like — and what we see is amazing. Jesus is "the friend of sinners." Jesus goes out of his way to love the unlovable. He dines with sinners and tax collectors. He tells a story about a lost and profligate son who is still loved by his father, even though he has told his father to "drop dead." Jesus welcomes the outcast and touches the untouchable. But Jesus had to die for loving like that. He paid the ultimate price for daring to love like that. God raised him on the third day because God was so determined to never let his love for the ungodly be thwarted.

No wonder Paul has such confidence. No wonder he does crazy things like boasting and rejoicing and smiling even when his life is falling apart. The grounds and basis for this changed and transformed life is not what he can or cannot do but what God has done for him in Christ.

That same confidence can be ours. Our lives, even in the midst of our suffering can be similarly transformed. Let me cite a couple of examples. In recent months, popular culture is being swept by "the Johnny Depp craze." He is one of the biggest movie stars in Hollywood and one of the most widely recognized faces in the world because of the success of his Pirates of the Caribbean films. His portrayal of Jack Sparrow in both Pirate's movies is truly memorable.

However, recently I saw him in another film from last year that was not nearly as popular but in which I think his performance was even more stunning. It was called The Libertine. In that film, Depp plays the role of John Wilmot, the Earl of Rochester, a brilliant seventeenth-century English poet who wasted his talents in a life of sexual excess. I have never seen anyone play the role of a defiant and decadent rogue like Johnny Depp in this movie.

By the young age of 33, the Earl's life was ruined and he was dying from a variety of diseases brought on by his irresponsible lifestyle. Sick and bedfast, he is visited by a pastor who comforts him by reciting the words of Isaiah 53, words that foretell the death of Christ, the suffering servant, on the cross. "Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows ... he was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities...." And to the viewer's surprise, the Earl begins to join the pastor in the recitation of these words. The Christian faith that the Earl had spent most of his life ridiculing, had now captured his heart.

At the conclusion of the film, just before his death, ravaged by his diseases and horribly disfigured by syphilis, he finally engages in an utterly heroic and selfless act. He makes an eloquent and valiant defense of his friend, King Charles II, before the British parliament. The decadent, self-serving pervert had been transformed into a selfless and patriotic hero. The decadent, self-indulgent rogue suffered deeply before he could be transformed.

The Earl had wasted his life, yet in his dying months, Christ enabled him to stand tall, to be strong, to be bold, to boast (if you will) in his suffering. Finally, he became a man of character. At last he had hope to face his final days with confidence.

Suffering has this amazing power to clear the deck and remove the clutter that confuses and distorts so much of our lives. Both for Paul and for the Earl of Rochester suffering had a way of clearing up their vision and focusing their attention on what really mattered. Deprivation has a way of getting our attention and compelling us to examine what is really important in our lives. When we suffer, God is getting our attention.

You know what that is like. You haven't had a drink for hours on a hot day. That first touch of water to your lips is amazing. You never thought that a simple taste of water could make such a difference. You haven't had food for a day. You are starved and famished. Your stomach is growling with hunger. Your taste buds are so sensitive that even a smidgen of peanut butter on a piece of stale bread seems like some chef's finest culinary creation. It is one of those desperately hot and humid summer days when even a gentle breeze takes you to a cool mountain meadow. Suffering can focus our attention like nothing else in this life. When we begin to lose what we have, then we are primed to discover what really matters, not only concerning the basics like food and drink but also on the most important thing of all, what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. Suffering primes us to appreciate the greatest gift of all: God's agape love in Christ.

Today brings to mind some experiences at the ELCA Youth Gathering held in San Antonio. It was an amazing and memorable week. One of the most memorable experiences of the entire gathering was something that, in retrospect, is an illustration of what Paul is saying in this reading: Because of God's love in Christ, we can "boast in our suffering." Our boasting, our joy and confidence, is not in ourselves but in Christ. Suffering can be a gift because suffering gets our attention and focuses our hearts and minds on what really matters.

Several times during that week in San Antonio when all 15,000 of the youth and leaders gathered in mass in the Alamo Dome, we saw a video of a poor and aged Hispanic woman who lived in a handmade shack in a garbage dump outside of Jauarez, Mexico. She had nothing. She obviously had suffered much in her life. But she said that she did not want our pity. Instead she had a gift for us. It was a song that her mother had taught her. It was a simple prayer in song. The only word I remember was a word that was repeated again and again: orando. I will never forget her face, her smile, her loving eyes, and her sweet lilting voice. She sang, and the singers on the stage began to sing with her. Soon all 15,000 youth joined her in her song. By the end of the week, we all knew the song. When we sang it, seeing her face and smile projected on the huge screen before us, there was hardly a dry eye in the place. We all knew at last what Paul was talking about.

We also boast in our sufferings, 
Knowing that suffering produces endurance,
And endurance produces character,
And character produces hope,
And hope does not disappoint us,
Because...

Because — we have strong faith? Because we are so firmly committed to Christ? Because we are such devoted disciples? Because our lives are such paragons of virtue? Because we are so able to "grin and bear it" when the going gets tough? Because we bear our suffering so well? No ... but because "God's love has been poured into our hearts ... For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly."

That's you and me. Thanks be to God! Amen.

CSS Publishing, Inc., Sermons for Sundays after Pentecost (First Third): The Good News, The Bad News, and The Only News That Matters, by Steven E. Albertin