The title of this inspirational piece might be a bit off putting or even misleading. I will try to clarify as I go forward. The title came to me as I was reading an insightful essay on love by Heidi Russell, whom I do not know personally. Russell is an Associate Professor at the Institute of Pastoral Studies at the University of Loyola in Chicago. The title of her essay is revealing: “Love leads to suffering, but we take the risk to love because we must.”
Her essay begins in this compelling fashion. "God never promised us that we would not suffer." For most of us, this sounds like bad news. If you were like me, I always hoped somehow God could step in and make things better when all else failed. A God who could not---or would not---do this is some kind of rinky God. And this is where Heidi Russell also was, theologically speaking, at the beginning of the essay. Her opening words came when Russell joined a friend at the bedside of a 27-year old woman and mother who was dying of cancer. The mother’s one-year old child was nearby. We want to think that since God is love, God will fix things.
And yet, as Russell writes, “the reality is that Christianity does not teach us that we will not suffer. The opposite is true. Love leads to suffering.” I may have been taught that, but I am sure I never really believed it. I preferred to believe that God would fix things. That was God’s nature and God’s role, right? And so things like suffering, cancer, etc. are always a challenge to this view of God. Christianity, Buddhism and other traditions tell us that love and suffering often accompany one another. Indeed, Russell suggests that “to love is to suffer.”
To explain where Russell is going to go is to remind ourselves what is at the heart of the Christian message, namely, Jesus. And the story of Jesus is one of ministry, certainly. But his ministry often was to those who suffered. And the ones he loved sometimes led him into his own suffering. Russell puts it well when she says, “God's response to our suffering is to suffer with us on the cross and to resurrect that suffering into new life.”
Even in the face of this theological reality, I appreciate the reaction of Russell. She asks, “Still, knowing all of that, I could not be anything but devastated by the untimely death of this young woman. How could I trust God in the face of such tragedy?” Suffering and death do take a toll on us---emotionally, spiritually and theologically. What can we do about it? The answer to this hard question---what can we do about it---is where I found Russell particularly helpful.
What she was experiencing began to lead to new insight. In her words we read, “I had not fully realized, prior to that point, that my idea of God was a God who fixed things, who would make things turn out all right in the end.” We need to understand the profundity of her comment. Effectively, she informs us that her particular view of God---who God is and how God works---was inadequate or, perhaps, wrong. She is very clear. Her idea of God was to understand God was a fixer. That nailed it.
That is how I used to see God, too. Without fully recognizing it, I also defined God as a fixer. God simply did things normal humans could not do. If I could not do something, then I needed God. God would arrive and fix it. Russell’s thinking helped make more progress. The tells us that the image of God as fixer “is the God of the privileged, the God of those who have not suffered.” She paraphrases C.S. Lewis to the effect that “suffering is ‘the great iconoclast’ — my idols could not hold up.”
I gasped. My God might turn out to be such an idol too. It is not that I don’t have God. It is true, however, that my idea of God is not real---it is not realistic to who God is and how God really works. She helps us see how to move forward, rather than simply give up to some vapid atheism. She borrows some theology from Karl Rahner, the great Catholic 20th century theologian. Rahner advises, “The only way to rebuild trust in the face of such absence (of God) is to let go of the image and surrender to the mystery.”
That will be a challenge: give up my idol of God as a fixer and begin to deal with God as mystery. I will finish with these paradoxically sounding words from Russell. To go with the newer image of God means that “God as love does not promise that we will not suffer. God promises us that when we do suffer, we are held in love. God does not promise to fix what is broken; God promises to be present in the midst of the brokenness.”
To live fully into this means I have to change Gods. That is different from giving up on one God to move to another. Rather, it means moving from an image of God that is quite inadequate to a more adequate understanding. That move to a new God---still the God of love---enables me to be more realistic with the world as it comes. I can maintain a God of love and appreciate that loving God will be present in the midst of brokenness.
I don’t find that a relief, so much as a consolation. To be consoled means situations are what they are, but it will be ok. God is going to be God to the end of the story, which is finally a comedy and not a tragedy.
Her essay begins in this compelling fashion. "God never promised us that we would not suffer." For most of us, this sounds like bad news. If you were like me, I always hoped somehow God could step in and make things better when all else failed. A God who could not---or would not---do this is some kind of rinky God. And this is where Heidi Russell also was, theologically speaking, at the beginning of the essay. Her opening words came when Russell joined a friend at the bedside of a 27-year old woman and mother who was dying of cancer. The mother’s one-year old child was nearby. We want to think that since God is love, God will fix things.
And yet, as Russell writes, “the reality is that Christianity does not teach us that we will not suffer. The opposite is true. Love leads to suffering.” I may have been taught that, but I am sure I never really believed it. I preferred to believe that God would fix things. That was God’s nature and God’s role, right? And so things like suffering, cancer, etc. are always a challenge to this view of God. Christianity, Buddhism and other traditions tell us that love and suffering often accompany one another. Indeed, Russell suggests that “to love is to suffer.”
To explain where Russell is going to go is to remind ourselves what is at the heart of the Christian message, namely, Jesus. And the story of Jesus is one of ministry, certainly. But his ministry often was to those who suffered. And the ones he loved sometimes led him into his own suffering. Russell puts it well when she says, “God's response to our suffering is to suffer with us on the cross and to resurrect that suffering into new life.”
Even in the face of this theological reality, I appreciate the reaction of Russell. She asks, “Still, knowing all of that, I could not be anything but devastated by the untimely death of this young woman. How could I trust God in the face of such tragedy?” Suffering and death do take a toll on us---emotionally, spiritually and theologically. What can we do about it? The answer to this hard question---what can we do about it---is where I found Russell particularly helpful.
What she was experiencing began to lead to new insight. In her words we read, “I had not fully realized, prior to that point, that my idea of God was a God who fixed things, who would make things turn out all right in the end.” We need to understand the profundity of her comment. Effectively, she informs us that her particular view of God---who God is and how God works---was inadequate or, perhaps, wrong. She is very clear. Her idea of God was to understand God was a fixer. That nailed it.
That is how I used to see God, too. Without fully recognizing it, I also defined God as a fixer. God simply did things normal humans could not do. If I could not do something, then I needed God. God would arrive and fix it. Russell’s thinking helped make more progress. The tells us that the image of God as fixer “is the God of the privileged, the God of those who have not suffered.” She paraphrases C.S. Lewis to the effect that “suffering is ‘the great iconoclast’ — my idols could not hold up.”
I gasped. My God might turn out to be such an idol too. It is not that I don’t have God. It is true, however, that my idea of God is not real---it is not realistic to who God is and how God really works. She helps us see how to move forward, rather than simply give up to some vapid atheism. She borrows some theology from Karl Rahner, the great Catholic 20th century theologian. Rahner advises, “The only way to rebuild trust in the face of such absence (of God) is to let go of the image and surrender to the mystery.”
That will be a challenge: give up my idol of God as a fixer and begin to deal with God as mystery. I will finish with these paradoxically sounding words from Russell. To go with the newer image of God means that “God as love does not promise that we will not suffer. God promises us that when we do suffer, we are held in love. God does not promise to fix what is broken; God promises to be present in the midst of the brokenness.”
To live fully into this means I have to change Gods. That is different from giving up on one God to move to another. Rather, it means moving from an image of God that is quite inadequate to a more adequate understanding. That move to a new God---still the God of love---enables me to be more realistic with the world as it comes. I can maintain a God of love and appreciate that loving God will be present in the midst of brokenness.
I don’t find that a relief, so much as a consolation. To be consoled means situations are what they are, but it will be ok. God is going to be God to the end of the story, which is finally a comedy and not a tragedy.
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