A Devotion for This Present Pain

At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. He asked them, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.”

Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the gardener, ‘See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?’ He replied, ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’”

- Luke 13: 1-9 NRSV

When I walked into Ed’s room, I could feel the sadness. The heaviness that came with a chronic disease diagnosis, the loneliness that hung in the air long after the “get well” flowers wilted, the balloons deflated, and the cards stopped coming. As a hospital chaplain, it was a scene I was familiar with. Familiarity didn’t make the words easier to hear: “Pastor, why is this happening to me? Why am I not getting better? Is God punishing me? I must have done something to deserve this.” Ed’s thin body shook with tears as he spoke.

In my years serving at a major trauma center, I met many people like Ed: sick, suffering, trying to make sense of what was happening to them or to their loved ones. Often, they wondered aloud, in screams or in whispered conversations at their bedside in the dark hours that stretched between dinner and dawn – was their suffering a punishment from God? What sin could have caused this present pain?

In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus speaks to people who know pain – and in chapter 13, those listening to him remind him of two events where bad things happen to unsuspecting people. Perhaps they meant to catch Jesus in a moment of weakness and expect him to throw God under the bus – to blame the Father for somehow mismanaging the universe and the human condition.

But Jesus doesn’t do this. Instead he reminds his listeners that tragedy is not punishment. Pain rather, just is. A tragic, atrocious part of our existence, occurring to all, faultless and not.

Though I’ve lived a much less tragic life than many of the patients I saw, and than many of the survivors we help, I am not a stranger to suffering. None of us are immune to pain. We have all come close enough to know our own mortality, and to feel the fragility and preciousness of life.

In typical Jesus fashion, he tells his listeners a story to illustrate his point. The fig tree bears no fruit, but it is given more time to do so. Jesus reminds his listeners and us of the urgency of repentance, of a changed heart, spirit, and life. What will we do with this one wild and precious life?

He reminds them that domination and violence are not the answer – that these acts of power and revenge lead to death; not because God punishes sinners, but because they cause us to strike one another down. Death dwells in this broken world, and none of us will be left unscathed.

Let it not be missed, Jesus is also on his way to death in Jerusalem in this story. Soon, Jesus’ own blood will be shed. He knows that soon he will face death on the cross. After that, he and his followers will beckon others to step into the promise of his own resurrection — where sin and fear and violence no longer have the last word.

That day at the hospital, I remember looking into Ed’s eyes as he wept. “Ed,” I said gently, as I recalled the wise words a mentor had often used to bring comfort to her patients. “You are beloved by God. I know you are hurting. But trust me, in that pain, God weeps with you. God draws close not because of your brokenness, but through it. God is here to hold you, to comfort you, and to care for you.” 

Ed’s relief was palpable. Not because he has found clemency for some long-forgotten sin, but because he remembered the nature of the God he loved. He wept now, again, with joy of the God who dwelt with him in the heaviness, in the darkness, the God who did not abandon him in his pain.

We have all known the heaviness of human suffering, whether our own or others. In the stories of our clients, in the horrors of yet another mass shooting in New Zealand this week – our mortality is present and real and terrifying. We are justified in asking God “Why?”

Each year, Lent calls us to come even closer to our mortality – to hear the words “From dust you came and to dust you shall return.” There it is. Death is real and it cannot be stopped.

But, oh! What we amble toward in Lent is that God, in the life, death and resurrection, has not let death be the final word. Pain, suffering, Ed’s sickness, your tragedy and mine – that is not where we find our home. The good news is that God is, and will always be, in the business of restoration.

Like many of our survivors, it might be hard to tell the story of redemption through the heaviness of pain; at least yet. But in the meantime, we remember that our repentance arcs towards joy and wholeness. That light has come into the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

What will we do with this strange, precious life before us?

With you on the journey,

Chaplain Amy