Christ the King.05   (November 20, 2005)

Today, on the Feast of Christ the King,
        our lesson says Jesus is present in the hungry,
        thirsty, and naked – in strangers and prisoners.
But then he comes in glory to judge the world.

Some theologians interpret this lesson to mean
        that the way God exercises power in this world
                is through suffering love.
God suffers at the hands of human cruelty and indifference,
        but we stand under the judgment of his suffering.

But I absolutely disagree.
It’s true, God is compassionate
        and compassion hurts.
But suffering love as a strategy to gain power
        is both masochistic and manipulative.

I say this as one who has practiced pathological suffering love
        and also been the victim of it.
The people we love most

        – spouses, children, lovers, parents, friends –
        are the people who are apt to hurt us the most.
It is actually hard not to hurt the ones who love us.

When we have been hurt,
        we may be tempted to stomp off in a huff.
That’s actually better than the so-called Christian response,
        which is to persist in suffering love.
We let people know we love them and we suffer – visibly.
We bootstrap our pain into power in the relationship.
We lasso them with guilt and hogtie them with shame.

Even if our beloved does not oblige us by feeling guilty,
         we can still feel like righteous victims.
And that’s seductive.
If I were to write a soap opera,
         I’d call it “The Innocent and the Wronged.”
So many of us get stuck in that identity.
In fact, most of us may be stuck in it
         at least up to our ankles
                 and some of us up to our necks.

I call all of this the Christian corruption of suffering.
The Passion of our Lord becomes the archetypal guilt trip.
The Cross of Christ represents innocent suffering
         endured for the sake of manipulating the world.
We have to love Jesus and do as he says
         because he died for us.

Right away it’s a relationship we are stuck in

        – not a relationship we rejoice in

        – not a relationship that comforts, consoles,
                 and strengthens the way love should.

Then to make ourselves feel a bit less guilty
        we play Jesus ourselves.
We suffer at the hands of people we love
        and manipulate them with guilt

        – and after all aren’t we supposed to be like Christ?
No wonder healthy people spurn that kind
        of guilt-based religiosity.

Suffering love for it’s own sake is masochistic.
Suffering love as a means of power is manipulative.
Christianity for all its grace and glory is prone
        to both masochism and manipulation.
There is something fundamentally wrong
        with using pain for power.

That said, what is Christ doing on the cross?
Is there a better way to understand his suffering
       and a better way to deal with our own sorrows?

Today’s lesson teaches us that the Cross means
       God identifies with the suffering.
God is so present with the hungry that his stomach cramps.
God is so present with the lonely that his throat constricts
       and cannot call out for comfort.
God is so present with the grief-stricken
       that he cannot move.

God’s suffering is compassionate, not manipulative.
God does not suffer at our hands
       to make us feel guilty.
God loves us so much, values us so much,
       treasures us so much
       that God goes with us wherever we go.

If we are in pain, God makes our pain his own

       – just to prove how completely beloved we are.
Just so, if we truly love someone and they are going to the cross,
       we go there with them.
This is exactly the opposite of using suffering for power.
But to go to the cross with someone, we need to know where
       the cross is.
We have to know what it is to suffer ourselves.
If we are hurting, we let it open our hearts
       to others who are hurting.

Who are we in this story?
Every single one of us is sometimes a stranger.
Has any of us never been lonely

       – never felt alone in the universe,
              unable to connect to anyone or anything?

Has any of us never been imprisoned by something

       – maybe a jail, maybe an addiction, maybe depression?
Haven’t we all been hungry and thirsty for something

       – food or love or consolation?

Christian love is profoundly simple
       and it happens almost spontaneously.
We just acknowledge our own pain

       – let ourselves experience our loss,
       our regret, our disappointment, our longing.
And then we acknowledge
       that we aren’t the only ones who feel this way.

We take off the blinders and dare to look at the suffering
       of others – the suffering of abject poverty in Haiti,
       the suffering of shame and remorse
                in the people right next to us.
When we take off the blinders, we see right off
       that all forms of suffering are essentially the same.
Life hurts. We all hurt.

When we see the sameness of our suffering,
       we care about each other
       as we care about ourselves,
       and we do what we can for one another.
Sometimes we can do real practical good.
But what matters is to show some real care.

What matters is to value each other
        enough to go to the cross with each other.
We all have to go to the cross.
But no one should have to go there alone.

Our lesson and this Feast Day remind us
       that we don’t go to the cross without hope.
When we care for each other, when we help each other,
       when we bleed together, that’s Communion.
And Communion is the Divine Nature.
Compassion connects us to eternity
       and the soul of eternity is beyond suffering.

The soul of eternity is peace and wisdom and serenity.
And the heart of eternity is the exuberant joy
       that created the universe and fills it
               with life and beauty.
That’s where compassion leads us.

19th Century preacher Charles Spurgeon used to say,

        “No cross. No crown.”
And that’s true, but I would add,

        “If there is no crown, who needs the cross?”

The crown God has for each of us
        is the healing our wounds,
        redeeming our lives, setting us free from every bond,
                and filling us with joy together forevermore.

                                                              Amen.