"In Dependence"
July 2, 2006
by The Rev. Mrs. Laura Stellmon

The Old Testament Lesson: Micah 4: 1 - 5
The New Testament Lesson: II Corinthians 1: 3 - 14

          The apostle Paul was well acquainted with suffering.  He was at various points in his ministry imprisoned and involved in riots.  He suffered ridicule and even faced the very real threat of death.  And yet, he continued to praise God, and to give thanks to God for the opportunity to preach and teach.  Despite these many hardships, day after day, month after month, he continued to speak the good news of Jesus Christ to many people who didn’t want to hear it.  He continued to preach and teach and endure the suffering that came along with his ministry because there were always a few people who received the good news of Jesus Christ as a precious gift.

          And during all of his struggles, through all of his disappointments and pain, Paul gives THANKS to God for the opportunity to suffer for the sake of the gospel.

          Does all of this sound as backward to you as it does to me?  I mean, I know it’s the Bible and all, but REALLY, who rejoices in their own suffering?  Who gives thanks to God when they are threatened with torture and death?  Who do you know that, in the midst of their own overwhelming suffering, prays for the concerns of others?  Who do you know that thanks God because their own suffering brings about increased faith in others?

          Have you ever been called a “Jesus freak”?  Did it make you rejoice?  When you can’t afford to fix the broken air conditioner in your home because you increased your pledge to the church, is your first inclination to rejoice?  …. We are more likely to ask, “What good does this do me?” than “What good does this do for others?”

          Paul understood that he lived his life in community.  He recognized that he was never alone.  If he suffered, others suffered with him.  If he rejoiced, others rejoiced with him.  If others suffered, he shared their pain.  And if others had cause for celebration, much more so, then, did he have cause for rejoicing.  Paul understood that all of us whom God has claimed belong to one another.  As it goes for one member of the community, so it goes for all.  Christians do not live in isolation from one another.  We affirm this when we recite the Apostles’ Creed together….. “I believe in the communion of saints.”

          You will notice that in verse three, as we began reading from Second Corinthians, Paul writes, “Praise be to … the God of all consolation, who consoles US in all OUR affliction…”  Paul’s use of “we” and “us” helps his hearers to remember that they are a part of a larger community of believers.  Just as Christ suffered for the benefit of all of us, so we all share in Christ’s victory over death.

          Paul understood as well, that living in the truth of the gospel guaranteed that a person would be living contrary to the purposes of the world, whose expectations are dominated by sin.  Affliction, distress and opposition were to be expected in the life of those who are claimed by the gospel.  Jesus told those who would follow him that they would need to take up their cross, that they would need to leave behind those things and those people which had formerly been of great importance to them.  He reminded them that they would endure hardship and misunderstanding because of their relationship with him.

          And yet God promises to come to the aid of those who are afflicted, those who are down-and-out.  God meets overwhelming human suffering with overflowing comfort.  Encouragement and strength and comfort come to those who suffer on account of their faithfulness to Jesus.  God is our source of mercy and compassion.

          God’s comfort and compassion, however, are not given to any one believer as a personal possession.  Those who receive encouragement from God become the vessels through which God’s comfort is made available to others who are also suffering.  It happens this way:  You, through the mercy and grace of God, are able to endure a hardship you never thought you’d survive.  Let’s say, for example, you endure three long years of cancer treatment.  Much to your surprise, you regain your strength and are blessed with a new vitality.  What do you do with this blessing, this new life of yours?  If you understand that God’s comfort and compassion is not a personal possession, you might just find yourself  reaching out in ministry to people who are themselves now enduring the difficulties of cancer treatment. Because of your own experience, you are able to offer comfort and compassion to others who are in need.

          Most of us take pride in being able to be independent.  From the time we are very little we are encouraged to do all that we can for ourselves.  It is not at all uncommon to hear a two or three year old child say, “I do it myself!”  And our pride in self reliance only grows as the years go by.   We may enjoy operating under the grand illusion of our own independence through much of our lives, but sooner or later, for each of us, there comes a time when we must admit that we not only must rely on God to get us through, we sometimes also need to rely on other people to survive or thrive.

          I’d like to share with you a grace-filled event that happened in the church office this week.  On Tuesday afternoon I talked on the phone with a man from New Mexico who was looking for some help in getting to a new job in the Seattle area.  He was traveling with his wife, and had been referred to us by a local service agency because we sometimes help folks by providing vouchers to purchase gas.  I met him Wednesday morning.  He was profoundly grateful for the little bit of help I could offer him on behalf of all of you.  I realized that the eight gallons of gas our policy allows us to give out would not get this couple down the road very far before they would need help again.  I let him know that I wished there was more I could do to help.

          His smile was deep and content, and he looked at me and said, “That would be nice, but I think God wants give other people between here and Seattle the chance to be kind.”

          Most of us spend a great amount of time and energy seeking to live our lives independent of others.  We often feel most safe, most secure, when we are relying only on ourselves, following the plans of our own making.  We think that our future is most predictably positive when we ourselves are in control.

At the times in our lives when we realize that there is little we can do to secure the future we had planned--at those times when we feel LEAST in control of our lives, we tend to experience fear.  And in our fear, we often turn to God, asking God, begging God, to PLEASE look after us and care for us.  We feel most afraid of the future when we are out of control and we realize that we must rely fully, completely, on God.

          The irony of this is that we are indeed safest, most secure, when we are relying fully on God, and not on ourselves.  If we were wise we would understand that we ought to experience the most fear, the most apprehension about our future when we try to be in complete control of it ourselves.  The truth is that we can only live and THRIVE in this life as we acknowledge our dependence on God and other people.

          As we prepare to celebrate our independence as a nation on Tuesday, we would do well to remember that our founding fathers understood this fundamental truth:  A great nation is not built by a handful of individuals achieving great things for themselves.  A great nation is built by individuals who willingly and selflessly give of themselves to lift those around them to new levels of excellence and accomplishment.  A great independent nation  consists of a vast assortment of persons who live confidently and appropriately dependent on God, and on each other.

          As a nation, and as a church community, may God grant us the wisdom and humility to depend fully on our Lord; and may God also grant us the confidence to cast aside every fear as we follow where He leads us.  Amen.