Friends, we all have images in our memories of incredible suffering that has been inflicted upon people in our country and around the world, and we wonder, “why.” We are aware of suffering experienced due to human trafficking, ignorance, poverty, war, gender inequality, sexual expression, gun violence, and we wonder if it has to be this way. What is missing in the human will and consciousness that allows such situations to go on?  Is it apathy, greed, frustration at trying and not succeeding to solve these problems, or all of the above?

We are all faced with the question—what’s the point of it all? What’s the point of all the suffering?  Our religious tradition has tried to give answers to why people are subjected to so much pain—people ask; if God is so good, why does God allow this?

The readings for today could be considered, troublesome.  We hear of servants “being crushed” in Isaiah; Hebrews says that Jesus too “was tested” and in our Gospel, two of Jesus’ closest friends and disciples are told they must drink the cup of suffering that he does.  On face value, this is not a very consoling message.  In all of these readings one person is called to suffer for others—and our sense of justice cries out—is that fair?  But maybe, that is the wrong question.  Both the servant and Jesus have moved past that question to a greater point—they are seeking to bring good out of the suffering.

The reality my friends, is that suffering simply is a part of human existence—we all get our crosses along the way; illness, job loss, marriages that fail, children that lose their way for our best efforts to guide them, and death—it comes to us all, one day.

I would offer that rather than get caught up in “why?” the suffering, “who caused it? –or “where should I lay the blame?”—the grander point seems to be, as our brother Jesus did, in bringing some good out of the suffering.

Many in this community had the opportunity this past week to hear the story of a woman pastor, ordained in the ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church of America), Nadia Bolz-Weber as she visited our community and challenged her listeners in several presentations to basically be true to themselves and true to the message of Jesus.  She is a striking presence in her tall, lithe frame, ripped jeans, tattooed arms and colorful language, but even she says, that after five minutes, that loses its attraction.

What really stood out for me in Pastor Nadia’s presentation that I heard as she challenged a group of pastors here at the Lutheran Campus Center on Thursday afternoon was her absolute love for Jesus because of the way she has been first loved by him in all the incompleteness she finds in her life which includes alcoholism. She challenged all of us as pastors to be true to Jesus’ message as she shared that she is positively convicted by that message and that calls her to love God and find God in, as she says, “all the wrong people.”  Of course we were challenged to do the same.  She pastors House of All Sinners and Saints in Denver, CO and there, as here, at All Are One, all are welcome at the table. Her ministry, in many ways—I would say, is to bring good out of the suffering she finds in people’s lives.

The theology that wants to point to God as this avenger of evil—sacrificing the First Born Jesus, to a horrible death on the cross, to satisfy the need for reparation, is one that we should really leave behind, as I have said here, repeatedly. Jesus became one of us, not to let us know of God’s vengeance, but of God’s love.  When we love totally, completely, and without exception; we are then called to do things that some people don’t always like or appreciate.  We may have to step on toes to follow the dream of bringing justice to all, and as a result, some may want to crucify us, excommunicate us, or they may want to “set us straight.”

Being the “radical” woman in the Church that I am; I will from time to time get a letter from a well-meaning person delineating why I am wrong, some even expressing their concern for my eternal well-being, or their anger at what I am doing.  But following our brother Jesus calls us to get above the negative feedback and follow the Spirit’s lead which will always show itself in peace, when we question the way to go.

And it will be important for us to come to a different view of God than we may have grown up with.  I have mentioned to you in the past the work of Sr. Ilia Delio in her book, one of many, The Emergent Christ.  I was reading a section this week where she is writing passionately about the love that our God has for each of us.  Rather than holding our God at a distance so that this entity can remain more mysterious, as I understand was the intent of all the strange phraseology in the Mass a few years back, she says that God wants to be part of our lives.

It was for this purpose that Jesus came to be one of us—so that God could live our very lives, and have a human experience alongside of us.  And as Paul in his beautiful letter to the Philippians says so well, he “took on the image of oppressed humankind” so that we would always have someone to turn to who understands all that we go through.  Or as the psalmist said today, “May your faithful love be upon us, O God, as we place all our hope in you.”

Most of us don’t enjoy punishment, so to say that suffering, as some church people do,  is a punishment from God makes me want to say—for what purpose?–to stop the wrong-doing? We should know from watching the effects of capital punishment in this country, that it is not a deterrent to crime.  And again, coming from a God whose only purpose, according to the 23^rd psalm in the bible translation, The Message,  is to chase after us every day of our lives until we are finally home; it would seem strange that this loving God would be about punishing us by inflicting suffering.

Just this past week; we saw an example of this type of theology when the news carried a deplorable story of two people within a religious sect who beat one of their sons to death and nearly killed the second one to force them to confess their sins. Such a mindset for God that depicts an all-powerful, mysterious Being, set apart, waiting for us to fail is not the God of our brother, Jesus.

Yet, suffering, my friends, will probably always be part of our human existence—we will never totally understand why or from where it comes.  What we can do is what Jesus did—pray for the grace to withstand it with courage and strive with all our being to bring good from it, knowing that our God, rather than causing it, walks through it, with us.

We have talked a bit here today about “mindset”—how we look at God, how we look at ourselves. Today’s Gospel clearly states that greatness is about service—service to all, even those we may despise. Jesus told us before leaving this physical existence that we would carry on his work—in fact that we would do greater things than he did through the power of the Spirit.  The suffering that is a part of human life, that we can’t always change, can be made more bearable through our service and our care for each other.  Let us pray today friends for the strength to be good and faithful servants, not accepting of the evils in this world, but somehow, finding a way to accept the perpetrators of the evil, who may sometimes be ourselves.

Friends, some news items of this past week:

• The Synod on the Family is meeting now in Rome and through most of the month of October. This synod is comprised of lots of celibate men— bishops, apparently “experts” on the family, representatives from religious orders, and 17 married couples.  The outlook so far isn’t too good for change, seems to be the opinion of Phyllis Zagano, writer for the National Catholic Reporter, as none of the lay people has a vote at the proceedings.
• The major Republican candidates for president basically agreed with Jeb Bush who responded to the latest mass shooting at a community college with, “Stuff happens!” There has been another mass shooting since this writing! Hillary Clinton has a comprehensive plan to make our country safer from gun violence.
• Women are continuing their fight for equality in our Church against the odds.
• A young man born without arms lives his life as normal because no one ever told him he couldn’t do whatever he tried to do—he makes due with the body parts he has.
• Gavin Quimby, 5 year-old Winonan who lost his battle with a rare form of brain cancer in September has become the poster-child in the fight for early detection in infants of this form of cancer.

Friends, all of the above, in one way or another are examples of how God’s word, as the writer of Hebrews says today, is “living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword,” and divides even soul and spirit, basically cutting to the bone.

The Gospel calls each of us to walk in our brother, Jesus’ footsteps, both when it is easy and when it is not so easy, and chances are; there will be more times when it won’t be so easy.

If we look at the news items I have lifted up for this week, a random sampling; we get a sense of this:

• The Synod on the Family, in preparation for two years, gathering the thinking of the Church Faithful, yet in the power structure, the voices of the faithful have no voice, no vote, no power.
• With regard to those running for office—the connections must be made to the real concerns in people’s lives whether it gets you elected or not—kowtowing to big money falls short of the Gospel message.
• Taking on the Church hierarchy in the fight for equality for women may not be the politically correct thing to do, but it is definitely in line with the message of Jesus.
• The young man with no arms, who rides a bike, drives a car and operates his computer, working as a vehicle engineer for the NASCAR Racing Team at Hendrick Performance does it all with his feet! We might ask on any given day, how will I get through this day?—this is literally a whole different question for Richie Parker. From the beginning, his parents said, “We’re going to make this work!”  Less strong people wouldn’t have been able to give their son what he needed to negotiate his life so well. It all seems to come back to love and doing what seems impossible, but for love, where nothing really is.  This story said nothing about this couple’s faith, but one has to believe that there was strength beyond them.
• To lose a child as the Quimbys did this fall is something none of us can know the pain of without that experience. To allow their child to live on through advocacy for other children is what life and love calls forth from each of us.

Living the Gospel message is always going to call us to a bigger world view than the meeting of our own needs or as Thomas Aquinas said, “The things we love tell us who we are!”

The first reading from Wisdom literature today asks us to decide what is most important in our lives.  My friends, sometimes, as in this reading, the choice is between good and good, not good and evil.  The choice is more difficult then, but we must never lose sight of Jesus’ message that we remember and care for those in our midst who can’t care for themselves.

For all the proclaimed Catholics and Christians who populate the seats of our U.S. Congress; you wouldn’t think this is the case as we watch the budget being cut around social programs that give aid to the disadvantaged as the military budget continues to grow.

The Wisdom writer seems to suggest that when our view is bigger than our own personal needs, we receive “all good things”—almost as if the giving, the moving out beyond ourselves has its own reward, which we know to be true.

Wisdom also calls us to apply the law of love, always, even if it conflicts with Church and State laws.  So, we might ask why our Church would ever tell us not to question—that certain doors are closed! Our human walk draws us always to God—that is the part in our human lives that feels unsettled—we will always be restless until we rest in God, as St. Augustine wisely said.

I mentioned last week that I was reading the story of a woman who left the Mormons in her search for God. Faith should lead us to love and love, ultimately, to God. Our faith must always move us outward to God as it did Martha Beck—outward to what we can name as life and love.

The present national discussion around gun violence that is beginning to get steam is a case in point.  When we consider that 1.45 million deaths have been caused since 1970 from fire arms and this includes mass shootings, suicides and accidents to people trying to “protect” themselves as compared to 1.4 million deaths in all the wars since 1776; we have a national disaster that has moved well beyond the 2^nd Amendment to bear arms!

And if all this is not enough my friends; Jesus challenges us around the difficulty of the rich entering into the kin-dom of heaven. Again, this is an issue of focus, of balance in our lives.  The Wisdom writer in encouraging choices that reflect the needs of others, above and beyond our own, and the Hebrews’ writer who states that such choices are like a two-edged sword, cutting to the bone, know the difficulty of living a life of balance.

With regard to the material goods of this world, Jesus’ caution is that we don’t get lost in the acquiring of these goods—it can be an addiction like anything else, wherein we lose sight of what is most important. Many a love song,  past and present, speak of the times before the wealth that were the happiest—when the two depended more on each rather than the luxuries of life.  Balance.

This is the sorrow that our brother Jesus feels for the rich, young man when he looks on him with love—he knows how difficult a choice he has to make–choosing between a good in life, for a much greater good.  My friends, lots of challenges and choices—let us pray for each other that we can be strong and choose wisely.