"Improving the Affliction"

Sermon preached by John C. Hall on March 8, 2009

Texts

Exodus 16:1-3

The whole congregation of the Israelites set out from Elim; and Israel came to the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had departed from the land of Egypt. 2The whole congregation of the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. 3The Israelites said to them, ‘If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.’

Mark 8:31-33

Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 33But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, ‘Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.’

Last summer we had slogan we were using, “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.” In life, dealing with adversity requires more than just adding sugar, but you get the idea.

150 years ago, Congregationalists in New England had a more highbrow phrase for the same idea: improving the affliction. The idea is: no matter what happens, there is always something to learn, some way to grow, some way to improve our perspective, some way God speaks to us when things go wrong. When we’re afflicted, it’s better to look for something good to get out of it.

Now we’re in an economic recession. Unemployment is up. The stock market is down. This doesn’t rise to the level of many other afflictions in the past or even in the present.  We’re not living in Darfur or Zimbabwe. We are still amazingly blessed. That perspective alone is a way of improving the affliction. 

Supposedly, there are two kinds of businesses that do well when unemployment is high: Nightclubs and churches. This is why we’re moving back into the sanctuary next Sunday.  We’ll need the room.

Seriously, I’ve never seen a pattern of people coming to church in greater numbers when the economy is bad.  And our endowment’s value has taken a big beating, so we’re not doing well in that respect. But in terms of the mood of our congregation, how are we doing? Actually, we’re doing very well. We’re worried about how all of this will affect the church, but we’ve got a large reserve of positive energy. And we’ve had a good stream of visitors lately.

Over the last couple of months, a number of people have initiated programs and events that didn’t require any clergy involvement at all.  That’s a good thing.  We’re going to need more of that initiative. That improves the affliction.

Our two scripture lessons describe two times in the Biblical story when it felt as if things were going really wrong. In the Exodus passage, the Israelites had just escaped from slavery, which by itself was a good thing, but then they found themselves in the middle of a dry, barren, rocky, empty, hot, unknown desert. And they said to Moses, “What were you thinking. What have you gotten us into? Back in Egypt we had food and water. We’re going to die here.” In the gospel lesson, Peter attacks Jesus when Jesus tells him that salvation requires his suffering and death.

The Bible is full of fear, complaining, moaning, lament, protest, outrage, rebellion, defection, betrayal, and every other strategy to deal with affliction. This is what makes it great literature. It’s the stuff of life. Fortunately, the Bible also has some examples of constructive ways to deal with affliction too.

We’re going through an economic affliction. It’s not the worst thing that ever happened, but it hurts many people. And it’s worrisome. The experts say it’ll get worse before it gets better. We don’t know how much worse. And we don’t know when it will get better.  I think everyone agrees that it will get better.

What is our spiritual approach to all this? How can we improve the affliction? Here’s one way.  What we considered a year ago to be a good economy was — we know now — an economy based on a lot of smoke and mirrors accounting and overblown expectations. Have you thought, or said out loud, “”Our economy is based on people buying things they don’t need and can’t afford”? Now, your prayers have been answered.  Wasteful consumption and excessive debt are being squeezed out of the economy. So that’s one way of improving the affliction. Seeing it as a necessary tonic — the price to be paid for the way people were acting.

What about at the personal level? Stocks are cheap if you have any cash to buy them. Most of us are living with less these days — eating out less, traveling less. Those are easy changes, compared with losing your job or having a life-threatening illness.

People who lose their job or have a life-threatening illness often become the experts at improving the affliction. That’s why people like Chuck Hurlburt and Jan Edson are such treasures in a church. Chuck had spina bifida, that led to a long cascade of medical problems.  Chuck died 4 years ago next month, on April 10. This year it’s on Good Friday. Jan got polio as a teenager. She was 14, and has had to deal with post-polio syndrome to this day.

If you go through something like that, you can become an expert at improving the affliction. You can also become an ornery cuss.  Some people get to be an ornery cuss over a lot less than that. Chuck and Jan developed buoyant, radiant personalities by the way they dealt with their challenges.

But let’s get back to the economy.  A bad economy puts stress on everyone. It puts stress on the church. This fast-changing culture puts stress on the church. The computer age puts stress on the church. The Vietnam War in the 60s put stress on the church.  The Great Depression put stress on the church. The inventions of the telephone and cars put stress on the church. The theory of evolution put stress on the church. The movement to abolish slavery and the civil war, the Protestant Reformation, the Renaissance — we can keep going back. All these things put stress on the church. Some churches and other institutions disappeared.  Others adapted.

Today, we have a Congregational meeting.  Sue and I won’t be in the meeting because the subject is staffing and we think everyone will be better off if we’re not in the room for that. But, the challenge here — not just in the meeting, but beyond the meeting, in the years ahead — is this.  Bad debt and over-consumption are being squeezed out of the economy. That’s painful.

But what’s happening is not an entirely bad thing.  It feels like an affliction. But given how people were acting it probably needs to happen.

We can get upset, agitated, and demoralized. We can blame others. We can blame ourselves. That won’t improve the affliction.

Here’s another option — one that’s more in keeping with the spirit of this congregation.  We can think of ourselves as part of a great experiment. We’re part of the evolution of western culture. I’m not exaggerating.  We can decide to be resilient, creative, resourceful, and even playful in our adapting.

We can’t control the economy.  We do control our own culture, right here in our church. We have some control over how we think, and based on how we think, we control how we feel. That affects how other people feel, how we act, and our ability to adapt. Adapting requires physical, emotional and spiritual power.

No individual is going to die because of pressures on the church. Our “business” is to enrich life — our own lives and other people’s lives. The world will always need that.

The world will always need people who “improve the affliction” as long as there is any kind of affliction. I don’t foresee us running out of material.