The First Sunday After Pentecost: Trinity Sunday - The Rev. Colette Hammesfahr

 

Our texts today are rich with wisdom and promise about who God is and how God guides us through suffering into hope by the Spirit. In Proverbs, we learn that Wisdom was present even before creation. “The Lord created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of long ago” it says in (Proverbs 8:22). “I was beside him, like a master worker, and I was daily his delight” (Proverbs 8:30). “To you, O people, I call, and my cry is to all that live” (Proverbs 8:4). Wisdom was God’s joyful companion. This gives us a glimpse of who God is…wise, creative, and joyful and delighting in what was created.

In Romans, we heard the words of Paul, “Affliction produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame” (Romans 5:3b-5a). Paul is teaching us that God restores peace between God and humanity. God does not always remove suffering but God is transformative by walking beside us as we work through the suffering. God does not prevent pain. God repurposes it.

In John, Jesus tells his disciples, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth” (John 16:13a). God reveals to us truth…in time. God meets us where we are and walks us into deeper understanding. God enlightens us as we make our journey in life.

All of these things are exemplified in the story of Stephanie Tait. Stephanie had been experiencing excessive fatigue, pain, neurological issues, and memory problems. When she went to the doctors, they misdiagnosed her with anxiety and stress. It was years before she got a proper diagnosis of late-stage, chronic Lyme disease. Because of the delayed diagnosis, there was long-term damage that could not be fully reversed. Stephanie’s suffering was slow and grinding. It changed how she parented, it but stress on her marriage, it affected her work and strained her friendships.

 She was brought up in the church and had been taught that by being faithful she might be protected from the pain she was going through. She prayed and prayed for healing and relief from her pain every day but all she heard was silence. Today, Stephanie still lives with the chronic effects of Lyme disease. She continues to live with daily pain, neurological issues, and fatigue. Her life is not easy.

In her prayer, and hearing what she thought was silence from God, she found persistence, presence, and grace. Her chronic suffering forced her into deeper honesty with God and vulnerability. Through her pain she realized that she had to stop worshipping the idea of a God who had to heal her, and instead, worship a God who would walk beside her in her unhealed body. She came to believe that faith and suffering are not opposites. Suffering is not failure, but a sacred space God shares with us.

Coming to these realizations, changed Stephanie. Her pain made her more observant of others’ pain. It created space for her to offer empathy to people as she listened to their stories of pain, instead of interjecting her own present pain. Her suffering didn’t push her away from God. Instead, it resurrected her faith and led her to be an advocate for others.

“Affliction produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame” (Romans 5:3b-5a).

Last week I asked the Wednesday group, “Can you recall a time when suffering revealed something in you that comfort or ease never could?” The group shared how they suffered at the death of a loved one. Some have suffered in their own illness and in illnesses of someone close to them. In sharing their suffering everyone reflected on how their lives had changed because of their suffering. Through their suffering, they are now different people. Now, they realize how much we take things for granted, especially family and friends. Through loss, one person said they are now less afraid to die. Others now appreciate more, the blessings they have and realize the limitation of their days. For some, it changed their prayer life.  One person shared that in their suffering they learned humility. Humility to reach out and ask for help.

In her book Braving the Wilderness, Brene Brown writes that courage comes when we can stand alone in our truth, even when it’s painful or misunderstood. She uses the “wilderness” as a metaphor for the times when we are uncomfortable, fearful, hurting, and isolated. It’s in the wilderness that belonging and courage are tested. She writes that we always enter it through some form of emotional risk or pain – through suffering. “The wilderness is an untamed, unpredictable place of solitude and searching. It is a place as dangerous as it is breathtaking, a place as sought after as it is feared. But it turns out to be the place of true belonging, and it’s the bravest and most sacred place you will ever stand.”[1] Untamed and unpredictable, transformation is uncomfortable. There is an emotional discomfort that is essential to belonging. But the wilderness of truth and pain will lead to something deeply meaningful. Like Paul, in Romans, she believes that suffering isn’t the end, it’s where character is built and true belonging begins. It’s in the wilderness that the Spirit transforms us.

Wisdom, God’s voice, calls us to live courageously through everything we go through in life. When we answer Wisdom’s call, we begin our transformation. Suffering is not punishment from God. It’s through suffering that we have an opportunity to learn. We are not guaranteed avoidance from pain, but we are promised that God will meet us in our pain. In our pain and suffering is when transformation occurs……………in God’s time. Jesus promised the disciples, and us, more truth than we can handle right now – transformation is gradual. We don’t brave the wilderness alone. Spirit is our guide.

Stephanie Tate braved the wilderness. She stood in the truth of her suffering. She let go of belonging that required her to hide her pain. She stepped into sacred solitude that allowed her to build a deeper connection to God and to bond with others who suffered as well. Her story is not about illness. It’s about transformation. She endured suffering and produced real hope. She followed the Spirit into a truth that she could hardly bear– that her suffering might not ever end. She braved the wilderness and was transformed by it.  May we all do the same. Amen.

---

[1] Brené Brown, Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone (New York: Random House, 2017)