Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
I have good news and bad news.
The good news: I’m not going to talk about divorce this morning. You’re welcome.
The bad news: with Job and Hebrews, that really just leaves suffering.
The letter to the Hebrews tells us that “it was fitting that God, […] in bringing many children to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through suffering.” Perfect through suffering.
Now, I don’t know about you, but I have suffered a lot in this life, and I expect I’ll suffer a great deal more before it’s all said and done. And despite what my brothers may tell you about my attitude, I never feel perfect. Actually, the longer I live my life as a Christian, the more of a mess I feel: less certain, less sure-footed, more aware of my need for God. But certainly not perfect.
The issue with this verse, though, is that we often have an anti-scriptural idea of perfection. Many of us think of perfection in terms of self-sufficiency and self-control. If I am perfect, then I have all the answers; I’m beautiful and healthy; I’m totally generous and unconditionally loving. I have no problems at all, and nothing flusters me. I’ll admit, that’s often the sort of perfection I long for—a total absence of problems and need. But what room is there in such a life for God? Let alone for friends and loved ones and brothers and sisters?
The scriptural idea of perfection is really better served by the word “whole.” Listen to this verse again: “It was fitting that God, […] in bringing many children to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation whole through suffering.” The text takes on an entirely different sense, doesn’t it? God made Jesus whole, complete, unified in his being through suffering. His suffering and dying on the Cross completed Jesus’ life and gave the truth to his last words: consummatum est. It is finished, complete, consummated.
The traditional spiritual word for this state of wholeness is “sanctification,” which our translation of Hebrews uses in the very next verse: “The one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one Father.” In other words, we who are made whole in and through Jesus have the same source and return to the same Abba as Jesus. Similarly, the path of self-giving suffering and death, through which Jesus returned to his Father, is the path by which we, too, return to our Father.
A few chapters later, the letter to the Hebrews picks up this line again: “In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered; and having been made perfect (whole), he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.” (Heb 5:7-9)
The way of perfection through suffering is also, and primarily, the way of obedience. Like perfection, we modern folks generally have difficulty understanding obedience. Far from slavish and unthinking deference to another, obedience is the fruit of love. It’s also the heartbeat of Benedictine monasticism.
In Chapter 5 of his Rule, Benedict has this to say about obedience: “The first step of humility is unhesitating obedience, which comes naturally to those who love Christ above all.” He goes on, “It is love that impels [such people] to pursue everlasting life; therefore, they are eager to take the narrow road of which the Lord says: Narrow is the road that leads to life. [These people] no longer live by their own judgement.” (RB 1980, 5:1-2; 10-11)
Like Jesus, we learn the love that leads to obedience through what we suffer. I don’t mean that we need to seek out suffering. It will come to us whether we seek it or not. Rather, God calls us not to turn away from our suffering, the suffering of those around us, and that of the world itself. As Don Bisson puts it, we cannot choose whether or not we suffer; we can only choose how we suffer. We can suffer neurotically, or we can suffer consciously. Most of us probably do both. To suffer neurotically is to fall into the same sinkholes of thought and behavior over and over again, all in an effort to remain as numb as possible. To suffer consciously means to face our suffering, look it in the eyes, and allow God to draw us into and through that suffering.
Father Matta El-Meskeen, of the Monastery of St. Macarius the Great in Egypt, writes that “The experience of prayer is not all delight, nor power, nor tangible gain. To reach maturity under God’s hand, [we have] to undergo countless stages of purifying and discipline. God puts to death to bring back to life; [God] breaks to bind up, wounds to heal, smites to embrace, and banishes to restore to his bosom. To all God’s elect, there is no escaping his rod. To all those who love him, there is no alternative to the bitterness of abandonment and the gall of alienation. […] For it is impossible to share [God’s] glory without first sharing with him in his sufferings.” (Orthodox Prayer Life, 16-17).
Why should such suffering be necessary? It seems to be the only way we humans can learn to get out of the way, to accept that we are not in control, and—finally—to surrender to God’s mercy. We have to try and fail over and over again to learn that we have no power to save ourselves. Only then can we begin to see that there is no need for us to save ourselves, because God is good and God’s mercy embraces and enfolds us every minute of every day.
Perhaps the greatest suffering that comes our way is also the greatest joy that God has prepared for us: to see within ourselves the face of Christ. “He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being.” As Christ dwells within each of us, we carry that glory enthroned on our hearts. The bitterness of abandonment and the gall of alienation of which Father Matta writes is really the revelation of that glory as the substance of our inner being. This is the movement of which Paul speaks when he writes “I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.” (Gal 2:19-20)
There is no way for Christ to live within us that does not lead, eventually to the Cross. And through the Cross to wholeness—perfection—of life in God. We must give up our lives to learn that they were never really ours to begin with. Then God gives God’s own life, in Jesus, back to us as our life, our heartbeat, our breath.
In the end we will see that all is grace. The heartache and the joy, the Cross and the empty tomb, the suffering and the sanctification. All is grace, because God is good, and that is everything.
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