Gestation by Christian M. M. Brady This is a collection of essays and sermons from October 2016 to June 2017. Nine months of sermons. In the spring of 2016 I stepped down as dean of the Schreyer Honors College at Penn State University after a decade of service. I was granted a year’s leave of absence; my first sabbatical in 19 years of life as an academic. (That is, as someone being paid for academic work as opposed to an undergraduate or graduate student who must pay for that privilege.) My intention was to compile my work on suffering a grace into a single volume entitled Beautiful and Terrible Things: A Biblical Theology of Suffering and Grace. That project is still in the works. About five months into my leave my friend and former rector, now Bishop of Tennessee, called to catch up. Two days later my friend and former curate, Canon of the Ordinary for the Bishop of Tennessee, called to catch up and to see if I would be willing to consider becoming the interim rector of a sizable parish in Nashville. And so I spent nine months with the wonderful community of St. Bartholomew’s. I grew in many ways over this gestational period. These are the sermons I preached in that time. These have not been edited in any significant way. Occasionally there is reference to listening to the audio for a better version. They can be found on St. B’s site. “May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing to you, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.” Cb ✠ I. Lamentations of Healing Proper 22 (27) (October 2, 2016) • First reading and Psalm • Lamentations 1:1-6 • Lamentations 3:19-26 • Second reading • 2 Timothy 1:1-14 • Gospel • Luke 17:5-10 Thank you all so much for such a warm and generous welcome. It has been humbling and a great blessing to me at this time and it truly seems to be God’s hand at work. Even down to our readings this morning, as we shall see. Let us pray. Lord God may the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts always be acceptable in your site. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. ✠ Babylonian siege – In 586 BCE Nebuchadnezzar and his army finally took Jerusalem and burned down the Temple. But that was only after a 2-year siege that led to famine within the city. The horrors of living through that siege are difficult to comprehend. Our brief readings from Lamentations only hints at the deep tragedy that befell those who lived in God’s holy city. Lam. 1:1 How lonely sits the city that once was full of people! How like a widow she has become, she that was great among the nations! She that was a princess among the provinces A Year Apart has become a vassal. Poetic and flowing but at times caustic and accusatory, the Book of Lamentations is a collection of five poems that recount and reflect the devastation and destruction of Jerusalem. The events were indeed so horrific that in chapter 2 the poet calls out to God and demanded he look at the destruction: Lam 2:20 Look, O LORD, and consider! To whom have you done this? Should women eat their offspring, the children they have borne? Should priest and prophet be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord? Probably not what you normally expect to hear on a Sunday morning! In fact, this is the only Sunday that any of Lamentations occurs in our three-year lectionary cycle (and an alternative reading is offered!). The portions of chapter 3 that we just sang appear on Holy Saturday, but that is usually all of Lamentations that most Christians know. Is it providential that this should be my first Sunday with you? I wonder because this is what I wrote my doctorate on and continued to study for a full 12 years, publishing articles and a book. I promise this will not be a lecture nor a scholarly discourse, but it does seem curious, doesn’t it?, that out of all three years in the lectionary, these should be our readings for today, my first Sunday. And it is curious that as St. B’s is in this time of transition, a time for many of grieving the departure of Fr. Jerry, that we should have these Scriptures about suffering and grief. Discerning God’s will and guidance can feel challenging at times. At other times it seems so obvious. So here we have five poems of lament that record the grief over the destruction of Jerusalem. Thousands of truly innocent lives destroyed in the most awful ways. Children of course, but men and women too who were not leaders, priests or royalty, and had nothing to do with the cause of this suffering. The poets of Lamentations cry out to God asking him to explain and account for the tragedies they endured. “Look, O LORD, and consider! To whom have you done this?” Such tragedies continue to happen… I wrote the forward to my book on Lamentations on the first anniversary of 9/11. Today, this day, Aleppo is a city under siege. In Sudan, Syria, and in our own cities – Suffering is all around us and so many who suffer are innocent. I mentioned my prior research because I want you to know that this is not a new subject for me. For years I studied what we call “theodicy,” questioning where God’s justice is in this world of suffering and pain. And then: Mack – New Year’s Eve 2012. The loss of our son was tragic, completely unexpected, and yet it was in no way unique. If you haven’t already felt the loss of a loved one, if you haven’t already suffered yourself in some Page 3 of 203 Christian M. M. Brady completely unjust way, at some point you will, and you may feel completely abandoned and cry out to God with Lamentations: Lam. 5:20 Why have you forgotten us completely? Why have you forsaken us these many days? We all know about such unmerited loss and suffering. And we know it even though we are faithful people. So when we read the Gospel today and hear Jesus say ‘If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, “Be uprooted and planted in the sea”, and it would obey you’ we can’t but wonder, “If I had more faith, would my child still be alive? If we had more faith, would our city be at peace? If I had more faith…!” This morning I will only briefly touch upon the causes of suffering in our lives, but to answer why suffering happens in this world we have to go farther back, beyond 586 BCE, to the creation of the world. Why is there suffering in the world? Why would God create a world in which there is so much suffering and hardship? It seems cruel. Of course, God did not. God looked at all that he had created and “he saw that it was very good.” One of those good things he did was grant us free will. The freedom to love him, which meant also the freedom to disobey him. And so… The world is broken Gen. 3:6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Think about the rest of Gen. 3 – God curses the serpent and the woman and the man. That whole “I will greatly increase your pangs in childbearing” and “yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you” was a curse. It wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. Yes, woman and man were created for each other and to be in a relationship together, but in harmony, love, mutual desire. Or when God tells man, “cursed is the ground because of you … 18 thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you” and never forget, “you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” It’s a curse. This world was supposed to yield its fruit. We live in a broken world. That is why we suffer, that is why some pregnancies never result in healthy births, children die of blood infections, and evil people manipulate the world to their own gain and the destruction of others. But why do we suffer? You heard the Gospel, if we but have faith! And we have all heard some preachers say that, if we are Christians, following Christ and loving God, we will never suffer. Rather we will flourish with health and wealth! But we do, all of us, we suffer and those around us suffer as well the faithful and the atheist alike (and so too do many prosper, faithful and atheist alike). Eccl. 9:1 Everything that confronts them 2 is vanity, since the same fate comes to all, to the righteous and the wicked, to the good and the evil, to the clean and the unclean, to those who sacrifice and those who do not sacrifice. Why do we suffer? A Year Apart Scripture teaches us that there are three reasons why we might suffer hardship and loss.